NARUTO: Kakashi’s Story

by Masashi Kishimoto

  Kakashi looked closely at the gondola bathed in the morning light, casting a black shadow on the green grasses.

  “For instance, suppose that beautiful woman just now was seriously chasing after you to marry her. No matter how beautiful she might be, a man’s going to flinch at that.”

  “Mm-hmm.” But Tazuna’s voice was for the most part not reaching Kakashi’s ears. “You don’t say.”

  “When a woman’s too aggressive, a man just pulls back. And this is exactly why when I was young, I went chasing round after tail like a starving dog—”

  “Tazuna,” Kakashi interrupted the other man. His eyes were firmly fixed on a suspicious man jumping down from the tail of the ship. “I might have just gotten called to work.”

  Leaving behind Tazuna, and the question mark floating over his head, Kakashi raced toward the Tobishachimaru.

  The woman, who had just run up onto the gangplank, appeared to be the last passenger. The workers began releasing the ropes that affixed the ship to the earth. The sky-blue machine groaned quietly as it made its preparations to leave the ground.

  “Hey!” Kakashi called from behind, and the man in the black, hooded cloak jumped and stood still. It was the man who had snuck down from the tail of the Tobishachimaru while he was talking with Tazuna. “You’re not an invited guest, huh?”

  The man started running.

  “Stop!”

  Kakashi took off in pursuit, only to receive a sharp kick that came flying out from under the hem of the man’s cloak. Opening his stance, he dodged the enemy attack and threw out a number of his own attacks in succession.

  One blow, two, three, the pair attacked each other. Kakashi could tell his opponent was quite masterful. He made no wasted movement.

  But while they exchanged a fourth and fifth blow, he came to see through his enemy’s tactics. No sooner had he thought that a kick would come at the same time as a thrust, his opponent launched that very attack. He read the show of tripping as actually moving in for a series of blows to his torso, and his enemy moved exactly as he anticipated; it was almost fun to watch.

  Kakashi knew this attack pattern only too well. On top of that, he felt absolutely no bloodlust here, nor the minutest sense of any ninjutsu being activated. As if to confirm his suspicions, that back might have been covered in a black cloak, but—

  Lowering his head and dodging a kick, Kakashi charged at his enemy.

  He deftly handled the succession of lunges and dropped his hips to kick his enemy’s feet out from under him as he shot out a rapid-fire five-blow combo using his fists and elbows.

  Crack!

  Whmp!

  “Aaaaah!” Sent flying, the enemy fell to the ground, legs and arms spasming.

  “My, my.” Kakashi approached his opponent and pulled back the hood hiding his face. “The fact that you’re here means that Guy’s come too, hm?”

  Below the hood was the face of an unconscious Rock Lee.

  ∞

  Slipping through the crowd of onlookers and picture takers, Kakashi jumped up onto the last rope tying the Tobishachimaru to the ground.

  He molded his chakra and swiftly climbed up with the power of his arms alone. Kicking with his legs to raise his body up, Kakashi took advantage of the centrifugal force and flew onto the body of the ship in a single leap.

  He caught a glimpse of the passengers inside in their finery through the window of the gondola. Not one of them had noticed Kakashi passing by outside.

  He lay facedown on the envelope—the side of the air bladder—then stood and ran up diagonally, heading for the tail as the crosswind pushed at him.

  But, he thought. That’s some job with that body, avoiding the eyes of the jonin set up all over the ceremony grounds and sneaking onto the Tobishachimaru. Or maybe he bought off a jonin?

  Below the slowly ascending ship, the spectators gradually grew smaller and smaller.

  Kakashi, having arrived at the tail of the ship, hung by one hand from the cover of the drive area. Inside were the propellers, about five meters each in diameter.

  He probably got in through here. I have to get in there too before the propellers get going. He had this thought at almost the same time as the third propeller from the right started rotating.

  Whk whk whk. With a low rumble, the propeller gradually picked up speed. The Tobishachimaru started to turn gently toward the right.

  The air high up in the sky was much colder than he expected. The wind grew stronger as they gained altitude. Kakashi focused the chakra in his limbs and crawled along to the opposite side of the engine area so he wouldn’t get buffeted by the wind.

  When the ship stopped in the air for a moment, as if it had finally determined its route, the third propeller from the left appeared to be about to start spinning.

  By the time Kakashi dove into the drive area, fighting the wind, the propeller had begun to spin slowly. After firmly planting his feet, he jumped headfirst through a gap in the rotating propeller. Fortunately, given that it wasn’t rotating at top speed yet, he managed to make it through without his body bursting like an overripe tomato against the enormous blades.

  But before he could even heave a sigh of relief, the propeller had picked up speed to rotate with a great deal of force and threatened to suck him in.

  “Ngh!”

  Even using the chakra of his whole body and clinging to the interior of the drive area, the wind speed threatened to peel his body away and back into the propeller. Still, he inched forward and somehow managed to escape the engine area.

  He looked around.

  The route directly ahead of him was blocked by the buoyant air bladder, but there was a ladder that led to the engine area, and he used this to make his way down toward what seemed to be the engine room.

  His ears picked up a strange sound. Shooting his gaze around the area, he spotted a person in a wheelchair, wearing the exact same black hood as Lee, racing along the scaffolding suspended above the engine room.

  “You’re not getting away from me!”

  Kakashi leapt over the railing to drop down to the scaffolding. Even farther down seemed to be the ship’s hold, and he could see several large wooden boxes piled up there.

  The man in the wheelchair kept advancing, staggering somewhat, on the scaffolding running parallel to the beam upon which Kakashi stood.

  Kakashi kicked off the scaffolding and leapt across the room to the other scaffold. “What are you up to, Guy!”

  The wheelchair came to an abrupt stop.

  “Lee spilled everything.” Kakashi sighed and shook his head. “Honestly… You went so far as to tell him that if he didn’t get you on the Tobishachimaru, you’d sever the apprentice-master bond?”

  In the fight with Madara, Guy had shattered the bones in his right leg and been forced to use a wheelchair ever since. The doctor told him he’d never walk again.

  But in a surprising turn, not only had he tirelessly bounced back from this adversity, but he had even recovered to the point of being able to stand and walk when he put forth the Full Power of Youth.

  “Even without Lee, I can do whatever I want when I want to,” Guy said. “With this body, I’m proof a person can live just fine without one or both legs.”

  “Now, look,” Kakashi glanced at Guy’s cast-covered right leg. “You went to the trouble of sneaking into the Tobishachimaru just for that?”

  “Get it, Kakashi? I’m not done as a shinobi quite yet. One, two thousand pistol squats with just my left leg are nothing. I might be in a wheelchair, but when I feel like it, getting into a boat like this is a piece of cake. Mwa ha ha ha!”

  Kakashi simply stared with cool, half-closed eyes at the boundless optimism of the man before him.

  “And I’ll tell you right now, I didn’t particularly want to get on this ship,” Guy argued. “I had absolutely no interest
in humanity’s first flying ship or what have you. The scenery from five thousand meters up in the air? What good is looking at that going to do you? I don’t even care how it’s possible exactly for a boat that’s two hundred twenty-three meters long and weighs over two hundred tons to fly anyway!”

  Ah, come on, Kakashi thought. You just really wanted to get on this thing.

  “W-what? What’s with that look?”

  “You know, you used to get terrible motion sickness.”

  “Unh!”

  “What’s wrong?” Kakashi couldn’t suppress a sigh. “Let me tell you now. Don’t go blaming me if you start throwing up or something.”

  “W-what?! Ridiculous! It might be a boat, but this one flies, doesn’t it?”

  “But a flying boat’s still a boat.”

  “Quit with the condescension! As if I, Might Guy, would get sick on such a trifle as this!” But no sooner were the words out of his mouth than his face went pale, and he was struggling to hold down whatever was coming up from his stomach.

  “Just what are you planning to do?” Honestly. This is ridiculous. “The shinobi concealed on this boat reported in advance to the Land of Waves. We didn’t make any such report, and if we’re found here like this, it’ll damage the trust they have in Konoha. They might misunderstand our presence here and think we’re trying to steal information about the Tobishachimaru.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “Huh?”

  “This scenic flight is a secret from all the nations.” Guy grinned. “Officially, the Tobishachimaru doesn’t exist. You and I can’t sneak into a boat that doesn’t exist.”

  “Oh, I get it.”

  “I’ve accounted for everything! Mwa ha ha—Urp! Anyway, how’s my favorite student?”

  “If you’re talking about Lee, I sent him to Hozuki Castle.”

  “You did? Well, Lee will be fine! With the Full Power of Youth I’ve ceded him, he’ll watch carefully over the prisoners.” Then he lowered his voice. “At any rate, I’m here with this body. I can’t do anything like supervise prisoners. So it’s not a problem in the least for him to slip off for a little while.”

  “You… This is the total opposite of what you were saying before, isn’t it?”

  “What? We’re not going to get caught! Anyway, to discuss things—Urp! Aah, I feel terrible… We’re in here now, so how about you push my wheelchair and we take a spin around the place together?”

  Here, Guy clamped his mouth shut and peered down towards the bottom of the ship’s hold, his facial expression suddenly grim.

  Kakashi had noticed it too.

  “Ninja.”

  “Yeah.” Kakashi nodded at Guy’s statement. “There shouldn’t be any ninja on this boat other than the ones above us.”

  The pair of men who had come into the ship’s hold did not look like regular passengers. The way they moved without a sound, the sharp bloodlust turned outward, the gait that did not lose its balance even in the middle of this swaying ship; any one of these marked them as shinobi.

  Kakashi and Guy tamped down their auras and watched the movements of the men below them. From above, they couldn’t make out their faces. And their clothing was the same style as that of any other passenger.

  The men didn’t noticed Kakashi and Guy above them. They crouched down in a corner with wooden boxes piled high and did something before hurriedly leaving the area.

  Kakashi and Guy exchanged looks.

  Once the men were gone, Kakashi jumped down from the scaffolding and examined the area around the boxes. He soon found what he was looking for.

  “Hey, Kakashi!” Guy called out, quietly.

  “Did you find something?”

  “Yeah,” he replied, almost a groan. “Looks like things are about to get annoying.”

  It was a kunai with an explosive tag.

  Immediately, there was a scream from the dining lounge.

  “Come on! Can’t you go any faster?! Aah, come on already. If my legs weren’t out of action, I’d have already caught them by now and pounded all we needed to know out of them. Hurry up, Kakashi! The enemy’s not going to stand around waiting for us, you know!”

  “Seriously, you…” Kakashi pushed Guy’s wheelchair and raced along the high scaffolding, cutting through the storehouse. The entire time, Guy had not been quiet for even a second.

  “What’s the matter, Kakashi? You’re slowing down! Are you really a Konoha shinobi?!”

  “You’re really making me feel great here.”

  “And you! Get that hot blood of yours boiling! Then you naturally rescue others and can even save yourself. That’s what’ll make you feel great in the end, you know!”

  This Might Guy doesn’t understand sarcasm at all.

  They abandoned the wheelchair in the galley, and after first pushing Guy up into the air duct, Kakashi jumped into the duct himself. They crawled along with Guy in the lead, pulling himself forward quickly with the strength of his arms alone.

  Now that I’m thinking about it, this guy didn’t just do left leg squats, he did push-ups like a maniac all day long, Kakashi thought, watching the man in front of him. Honestly, your ridiculous stubbornness makes me feel better, Guy.

  When they came to the other side of the dining lounge ceiling, Guy stopped abruptly. And Kakashi slammed his face into Guy’s butt.

  “Don’t stop so sudden—”

  “Shh!” Guy beckoned Kakashi with a finger.

  They looked down on the lounge through a vent cover set into the ceiling. Immediately to one side of the vent hung a large chandelier. In a corner of the lounge he could see a white grand piano, along with a neat arrangement of sofas and tables. There was even a bar serving alcohol by the windows.

  “What are they doing?”

  “Well,” Kakashi replied, “it doesn’t look like anything fun, does it?”

  At that moment, several ninja were in the process of overpowering the passengers. They thrust kunai at them and showered them in jeers while they pushed and prodded the passengers all together in one place.

  The baffled men and women, both young and old, were driven like sheep together into the center of the lounge. Small children clung to their mothers’ waists and sobbed loudly. A man who complained was struck down by a shinobi.

  “How many?” Kakashi asked, sharply.

  “From where I sit, six—no, maybe seven?”

  “Are the two from before there too?”

  “Dunno.” Now it was Guy doing the asking. “How many Konoha jonin are concealed aboard?”

  “Three.”

  Before his voice had the chance to fade away, those jonin made their move.

  One disguised as a passenger leapt away from the crowd and launched kunai at the enemy ninja with both hands. Two of the enemy collapsed to the floor.

  Kakashi sent his eyes racing in the direction of a shriek to find another jonin crossing swords with the enemy directly under the luxurious chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

  Perhaps they hadn’t foreseen rebellion from the passengers; the enemy became overexcited. Several passengers fell because of some poorly aimed shuriken thrown by the enemy. An attacker’s kick sent a jonin flying and crashing into some passengers, who tumbled to the floor.

  “What are you doing?!” An enormous man in the center of the lounge howled. “What is Kahyo doing?!” He appeared to be the leader of the gang and wore chain mail over a navy ninja costume, beard covering the lower half of his face.

  And then, Kahyo.

  So that was the name of the woman who owned Kakashi’s heart.

  The third jonin jumped from the grand piano, clutching kunai in both hands, and sprang at this leader. The enemy drew a longsword he had hidden beneath his cloak to meet her challenge.

  The fact that neither side carelessly activated any ninjutsu was l
ikely because they were five thousand meters up in the air. If anyone made a wrong move and damaged the ship itself, it would be an invitation to catastrophe.

  The kunai of the Konoha ninja and the leader of the attackers slammed against each other, sparks flying. The other two jonin were also facing off with enemies of their own.

  “We gotta get in there and help, Kakashi!”

  “With that body, what do you intend—Never mind. Just hold on a minute.”

  An unpleasant apprehension overwhelmed the urge he had to run in and support his fellow ninja. He soon understood why.

  Kahyo.

  Just as Konoha had slipped their own in amongst the passengers, the enemy apparently still had a trump card to be played.

  This premonition of his was correct.

  The first sign of it appeared around Guy’s mouth. The voice urging Kakashi on expelled white mist. His breath was white. At the same time as Kakashi noticed this, he felt the precipitous drop in the cabin temperature. Returning his eyes to the battle in the lounge, he saw the movements of his ninja allies had stopped.

  At first, he had no idea what was going on.

  The three jonin also didn’t seem to understand what was happening. They twisted their upper bodies desperately, but their lower halves didn’t move an inch, almost as if they had been frozen solid.

  Kakashi soon realized this was no metaphor. His compatriots were really frozen!

  The thin ice snapped and crackled as it crawled upward on their bodies like a living creature. It quickly reached the tops of their heads, sealing the jonin in ice.

  “W-what the…” Guy flapped his mouth open and closed, and the breath that came out was no longer white. “What’s going on?”

  “An enemy’s mixed in with the passengers too.” Kakashi felt the temperature rising on his skin. “And it looks like they’re an Ice Style master.”

  “You got any ideas who it is?”

  “That time two months ago when Naruto captured Garyo—” Looking down on his frozen allies, Kakashi clenched his teeth tightly. “He said he faced an Ice Style master.”