NARUTO: Kakashi’s Story

by Masashi Kishimoto

  “Do not panic!” Rahyo shouted. “There are enough parachutes for everyone!”

  Strange, Kakashi’s sixth sense called to him. That Rahyo would release his hostages so simply as this. But he could sense no evil intent from Kahyo gallantly assisting the passengers. She seemed to be sincerely apologetic toward them.

  “Good, everyone has their parachute on, yes?” Rahyo said. “Once you jump, pull the cord on your vest. That will cause the parachute to open.”

  Kahyo waved one arm, and the ice blocking the hole in the ship melted away in the blink of an eye.

  Wind and snow blew in from outside. There was a commotion among the passengers as they crouched down on the floor and reached out for something to hold on to. And then, with a hand from the attackers, they jumped out of the ship one at a time.

  Kakashi didn’t take his eyes off Rahyo, who was asking his underlings about the wind speed and the landing points of the passengers.

  Why… Why would he let the hostages go now? Sending his eyes over to the window, Kakashi could see nothing but the gray rain clouds. And why would Rahyo be so concerned about the passengers’ landing points?

  I-it can’t be! In a flash of insight, a fire began to spread within Kakashi. When they had carried the parachutes out of the storehouse, the attackers had carelessly dropped the wooden box. Their panicked countenances when they did came back to life before his eyes. It can’t be. Rahyo’s—

  “No!” Before he could think, his body was moving. “You can’t put on those vests!”

  “Hatake Kakashi!” Rahyo’s eyes grew wide as he watched Kakashi leap out from behind the piano. “Hnngh! How on earth did you—”

  “The vests are filled with blue fire powder!” Kakashi yelled. “They’ll explode when you hit the ground!”

  Kahyo stared at Kakashi with saucerlike eyes, and then looked back at Rahyo before bringing her gaze back to rest on Kakashi.

  “I-I can’t get it off!” The passengers began to break down. “I can’t get the vest off!”

  “Ah ha ha ha!” Rahyo’s laughing voice rang out. “You’re too late! Do it!”

  The ninja grabbed on to passengers running about trying to escape and threw them one after another out of the ship.

  Listening to the screams as they fell and disappeared from view, Rahyo glared at Kakashi. “If you and your people had just released Lord Garyo right away, I wouldn’t have had to do something like this. All of this is Konoha’s fault!”

  A fierce rage erupted inside Kakashi, and before he knew it, he was flying at his opponent.

  “Ice Style! Ice Smashing Hammer!” Rahyo’s instantly hardened fists swung out to welcome Kakashi.

  Darting quickly from side to side, Kakashi thrust kunai at his opponent, but given that he couldn’t currently mold his chakra, the speed of the kunai didn’t amount to much.

  Carefully watching the tips of those kunai, Rahyo opened his body and launched iron fists at Kakashi’s stomach.

  “Hngah!” All the air was knocked from Kakashi’s body. And Rahyo’s kick sent him flying to the other side of the lounge.

  He immediately got himself back on his feet and commenced his next attack. “Violet Bolt!” Heedless of the fact that his body would freeze up, he activated the jutsu.

  “What!” Rahyo faltered.

  The thunder became a sword and raced along the floor. Instantly, he dispersed his chakra throughout his body to push back the mist that had already reached his waist.

  Rahyo leapt back.

  But Kakashi’s target wasn’t Rahyo.

  The bolt of purple lightning hit the passengers and ripped open the parachute vests attached to their bodies.

  It was a serious gamble for Kakashi. If his aim had been even the slightest bit off, the blue fire powder might have exploded.

  But the fasteners on the vests bounced off and away, sending sparks fluttering in every direction. The passengers frantically pulled the vests off and threw them away, before falling all over themselves trying to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the hole.

  Watching this out of the corner of his eye, Kakashi dropped to one knee, panting. Just molding his chakra the tiniest amount had completely exhausted him. Even if he decided to risk his life, one more blast of Violet Bolt was probably the limit.

  “Seems that’s all you’ve got?” Rahyo sneered, brandishing his fists at Kakashi. “It ends here!”

  “Ngh!” Kakashi had no strength left in his legs with which to brace himself. He crossed his arms above his head and readied himself to meet his enemy’s fists.

  But there was no explosion of Rahyo’s iron punch. His fist crackled as it was repelled by fangs of ice.

  Kakashi was surprised, but his enemy seemed equally so.

  “What are you doing, Kahyo?!” Rahyo roared with anger. “Why are you getting in my way?!”

  “Is what he said true, brother?” Kahyo took in Rahyo with a gaze as cold as ice. “Those vests… Did you put blue fire powder in them?”

  “C-calm down, Kahyo.” Flustered, Rahyo became increasingly unsettled. “I-I’m sorry for not telling you. But it was to save Lord Garyo.”

  A lone tear spilled out of Kahyo’s eye and trickled down her face.

  Silence fell over the lounge, as if all sound had been sealed away within that single tear.

  Kahyo’s tear, spilling over and falling, froze in midair, hit the floor, and shattered like glass. Almost like seeds planted in the ground sprouting up, ice fangs grew up from the floor with a roar and assaulted Kakashi.

  Kakashi immediately threw himself to one side and the sharp icicles brushed past him.

  Kahyo cast the jutsu over and over in rapid succession. Ice fangs writhed and wriggled like snakes, tirelessly chasing him. When Kakashi kicked at a wall to push himself aside, the icicles smashed that wall. When he leapt up into the air, the icicles pierced the ceiling.

  Concentrating his remaining chakra in his right hand, Kakashi sprang at Kahyo. “Violet Bolt!”

  He realized something wasn’t quite right when he went to hit Kahyo with Violet Bolt: His body was not frozen. As he realized this, he noticed that Kahyo had closed her eyes.

  Two centimeters in front of Kahyo’s face, the fight drained out of Kakashi’s right hand, still discharging electricity.

  “Why don’t you hit me?”

  “Why did you release your jutsu? You had to have attacked me on purpose.” He paused. “Did you want me to kill you?”

  As she slowly opened her eyes, he saw on Kahyo’s face nothing of the severity of a shinobi, just the completely bewildered sadness from when he first met her, when she had pretended to trip and cast the jutsu on Kakashi.

  “I’ve been thinking all this time…about what you said.” He couldn’t see her eyes hiding behind that long, curly hair, but her voice was trembling. “ ‘When two rights clash, the most important thing is to risk your life and put yourself in your opponent’s position.’ What I was seeking was simply that. If, at that time, the people of the Land of Waves had been able to put themselves in the position of people like us for even a moment, perhaps my son wouldn’t have had to die.”

  Kakashi said nothing.

  “But, now, I-I’m doing the same thing as the people I hate the most. I—” But she did not get to tell this story to the end.

  A random bout of turbulence caused the body of the Tobishachimaru to cant deeply to one side—which snapped the final wire, and the chandelier on the ceiling came crashing down on top of the box full of parachute vests.

  Ka-boom!

  The deafening roar of the explosion thundered around them, and the lounge was instantly engulfed in flames.

  A large hole reaching from the bottom of the ship up its side spewed fire, and several of the attackers were thrown outside.

  “Aaaaaaah!” It was no longer clear who
was screaming.

  And not only that.

  The boundary between the air bladder and the passenger gondola splintered and ripped with an ominous sound, and just when he thought the floor was sinking, the dining lounge tilted and the ceiling broke open in a gaping hole.

  “Everyone! To the stern!” Kakashi shouted. “This place isn’t going to hold much longer!”

  The passengers tumbled and fell on the inclined floor.

  “Ice Style! Earth Chain Ice!”

  Icicles stretched out and prevented them from being flung out through the burning hole.

  The whistling wind fanned the flames. Those flames quickly became a pillar of fire, reaching up to the bottom of the air bladder. The spread of the crimson inferno was held in check by Kahyo’s Earth Chain Ice. Cracking as it raced along, the ice covered the air bladder and did not allow the flames to eat into it.

  “Just run straight this way!” Glancing back at Kahyo frantically weaving signs, Kakashi guided one passenger after another to the kitchen. “When you get past the kitchen, keep going to the stern!”

  “It’s too late!” The pilots came running and tumbling from the pilothouse. “The gondola’s going to drop off!”

  “This way!” Kakashi yanked on their hands, hit their backs, and shoved them toward the kitchen. “Hurry!”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rahyo running toward him. But the floor sank down deeply, entangling Rahyo’s feet. Beside him, the grand piano broke free and flew out of the ship, taking one of the attackers along with it.

  “Come on, Rahyo!” Kakashi threw himself onto the floor and stretched out a desperate hand. “Grab my hand!”

  Rahyo blinked in surprise.

  “Hurry!” he yelled. “This is no time for hesitation!”

  Rahyo grabbed onto Kakashi’s hand at the same time as the floor turned itself inside out. Rahyo’s enormous body flew up into the air.

  “Hng!” An intense pain ran through the hand clutching Rahyo, and Kakashi remembered rather belatedly that his fingers were broken.

  He couldn’t hold on.

  Still, he gritted his teeth and held Rahyo fast.

  “W-why…” Rahyo. “Why me, your enemy…”

  “I-I understand how you all feel.” Kakashi put everything he had into his arm. “But it’s nonsense to think you can do anything and everything if your goal is a just one. If you’re going to change the world, no matter what happens, no matter how hard it is, the only thing to do is keep being a just person yourself.”

  Rahyo opened his eyes wide in surprise.

  “Brother!” Kahyo had somehow managed to put the fire out and was running up the now slanted floor.

  But it was already too late.

  When she flung her body forward and tried to grab on to her brother’s arm, the bottom of the ship dropped out, accompanied by a collision like the ship was being shoved upward.

  The incredible force ripped Rahyo from Kakashi’s hand. As he was launched into the air, the look on Rahyo’s face seemed to be asking how exactly they had gotten to this place.

  “Brother!”

  “Rahyo!”

  There was nothing they could do. The force of gravity pulled everything down to the surface of the earth with its large hand.

  “Hatake Kakashi.” As he fell, the expression on Rahyo’s face abruptly softened. “So there are shinobi like you in this world too.”

  Holding the sobbing Kahyo to his chest, Kakashi just barely managed to leap into the kitchen.

  A second later, the gondola, torn in two, pulled away from the Tobishachimaru and fell to the ground.

  The flames enveloping the exploding Tobishachimaru lit up the sky over the courtyard of Hozuki Castle.

  “Hey, we got trouble here!” Pointing at the sky, the prisoners shouted in unison. “That thing’s gonna come right down on us?!”

  Shikamaru had also quite clearly seen several parachutes abruptly opening up in the sky over Hozuki Castle a few minutes before that. Judging that Kakashi had successfully helped the passengers escape and that the falling people would need rescue, Shikamaru assigned Lee and Sai to the roof of the castle tower and ran out into the courtyard, with Sakura and Choji in tow, where the prisoners were milling about in confusion.

  About the time Shikamaru had counted twenty-one parachutes, the Tobishachimaru was wrapped in a flash of light; the fire appeared to have been put out. But some of the parachutes of the people falling from the ship after the flash weren’t opening up. And there was no mistaking the fact that the Tobishachimaru was out of control and deflating by the second.

  Taking into consideration the direction of the wind high up, Shikamaru did the calculations. The possibility of the Tobishachimaru crashing into Hozuki Castle was exceedingly small. But—

  “Seriously bad…”

  Even as he sensed Choji’s gaze on him, Shikamaru didn’t take his eyes off of Tobishachimaru. “The gondola’s fallen off. Right now, it’s like the ship’s lost its ballast. It’s going to just keep going up.”

  Choji gulped hard. “What do you mean, Shikamaru?”

  “At about nineteen thousand meters, the temperature at which blood boils is the same as the human body,” Shikamaru said. “Anyone left on what remains of the ship will die.”

  “What!”

  “What should we do…” Sakura’s face lost its color. “Master Kakashi is still in there?!”

  “It’s already that high up, even Sai can’t do anything now,” Shikamaru said, as though it hurt him to have to put the thought into words. “At any rate, we’ll do what we can.”

  “The parachutes are coming down!” Tenten shouted from the watchtower. “Toward the tower!”

  With the weak sunlight breaking through the rain clouds hitting the top of it, the first of the parachutes drifted and wobbled toward the castle tower. When Shikamaru looked up, Lee was nodding up on the castle tower.

  A side wind blew in, and the parachute drifted away. The cords connecting the parachute and the person—the suspension lines—got tangled, causing the person’s body to swing far to one side and then back again like a pendulum. The parachuter slipped out of the hands of Lee and the others waiting at the top of the tower and fell down toward the cell block.

  “Kiba and Shino are on standby there—”

  The landing point flashed white hot, and an explosion swallowed the rest of Shikamaru’s words.

  Boooooom!

  The cell block was enveloped in white smoke, and flames were soon flickering upward.

  “W-what?!”

  “Shikamaru!” Ino’s shrill cry hit Shikamaru’s ears as he stood rooted to the spot. “The parachute vests contain blue fire powder!”

  “Ah?”

  “There was a message from Master Kakashi!” Pushing her face out of a window in the castle tower, Ino mustered up all the voice she had. “There’s going to be an enemy assault!”

  “Seriously…?”

  The second parachute landed immediately outside the castle gates in a deafening explosion; the blast sent the castle gate flying. The prisoners looked at each other. They didn’t know what was happening, but when the next explosion took down a wall, they cheered as if they had awoken from a dream and started running.

  “Yahoooo! I can finally say sayonara to this filthy hole!”

  “Keep ’em coming, parachutes! Smash this place to dust!”

  The chaos didn’t stop there.

  “Lord Garyo!” Shinobi clad in black ninja uniforms surged into the castle, shouting loudly. “Where are you, Lord Garyo!”

  “Tch. This just turned into a real hassle.” In the eye of the raging storm, Shikamaru took aim at the shadow of a parachute falling to earth and launched his jutsu.

  “Suffocating Darkness!”

  Shikamaru’s shadow hand stretched out, not to attack,
but to save, and its dark fingers hooked on to the shadow of the parachute. With this as a support, he stopped the body attached to the parachute in midair.

  “Tenten! Break the fasteners without damaging the vest!”

  Leaping out from the watchtower, Tenten shot his ninja tools into the air. Once the fasteners were broken, the man suspended in midair slipped smoothly from the parachute and plunged to the ground.

  “Aaaah!”

  “Hngh!” Choji grabbed the falling man to stop him. “Hup!”

  With the now-empty vest still attached, the parachute blew away on the wind.

  Shikamaru didn’t even have the chance to take a breath. The human bombs came falling out of the sky one after another.

  “Shadow Pull!”

  The shadow of Shikamaru’s real-world body immediately developed countless tentacles and shot up to pin ten people in the air all at once. Normally, he used this technique to pull in physical objects, but he couldn’t have these physical objects—namely, the parachutes—anywhere near him.

  The sound of an explosion echoed from the direction of the castle tower.

  “Garyo’s getting away!” Tenten called, while breaking the fasteners on the vests. “What should we do, Shikamaru?!”

  What should we do… With his jutsu activated, Shikamaru couldn’t move. All he could do was watch out of the corner of his eye as Garyo escaped guarded by the ninjas in black. Just what exactly are we supposed to do here?!

  Sai’s large bird snatched up the people falling through the air, while Shino’s Parasitic Insects became a black cloud and gathered up the parachutes. Some people fell after the insects chewed through the fasteners on their vests, and Lee jumped out to catch them in midair.

  Kiba and Choji, along with members of the Anbu, went after the fleeing prisoners. At the same time, they launched Fang Over Fang and Human Juggernaut to mow down prisoners.

  In this vortex of confusion, Shikamaru looked up at the sky. Four parachutes remained.

  “Shino!” Shikamaru shouted. “Can I leave the parachutes to you?!”

  “Yeah!” Shino nodded, as she maneuvered the insects. “You go after Garyo.”