"Begin the assessment!"From outside the barrier, Sarutobi Nagakawa shouted the announcement loud enough for everyone to hear.
He didn't exactly know why this particular test was being handled so differently for Rikuya Hayashi, but orders from above weren't something he could defy.
Whoosh!Kakashi leaned forward and launched himself like an arrow.
He fully understood what this mission order meant.But no matter how unreasonable it was, he'd carry it out—he couldn't let the Hatake clan's name be dragged through the mud again. He refused to repeat that man's mistake.
Seeing Kakashi rush straight toward him, Rikuya cursed inwardly.
Damn it!He really wanted to cry.
Wasn't this supposed to be a world where talking things out worked—where "talk-no-jutsu" could change everything? So why wasn't it working on him?
It seemed that "talk-no-jutsu" only worked if you had a protagonist's plot armor. For a side character like him… yeah, best not to think too much about it.
Still, he didn't have time to dwell on it.
Even if his opponent was Kakashi—this "fifty-fifty" prodigy—he wasn't about to just stand there and wait to die.
He jumped back, forming hand seals as he moved.
Sure, his speed at weaving seals wasn't anywhere near that of a certain famous Uchiha who could do one-handed seals at eight per second, but he could manage several per second.
Boar—Dog—Bird…The last seals came together quickly.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
With a sharp shout, Rikuya slammed his right palm onto the ground.
Whether or not he could survive against a not-yet-prime Kakashi depended entirely on this.
The technique drained nearly all of his chakra in one shot.
Thankfully, the summoning contract was designed so the other party bore most of the chakra cost—otherwise, with his current reserves, he couldn't have pulled it off at all.
Even a fully qualified genin would get drained to empty by a single C-rank jutsu on average.
That's why, on a real battlefield, genin usually stuck to shuriken and kunai instead of big ninjutsu—half the time, they'd run out of chakra before they could even cast a second jutsu.
Boom!A burst of white smoke exploded outward.
Kakashi, who was charging straight in, instinctively halted and stepped back, muttering under his breath:
Wasn't he supposed to be dead last…?
Before this mission, he had checked the intel: Rikuya Hayashi, an Uchiha, was ranked bottom of the class. Yet here he was, hiding his real strength this whole time.
The smoke cleared quickly.
Standing between them was a massive crow, nearly as tall as a man.
Its feathers shimmered in interwoven gold and black, with five golden quills standing upright like a crown atop its head. Unlike a normal crow, it had an extra talon on each foot.
It looked strange—but no one could mistake it for an ordinary bird.
"A ninja crow?"Uchiha Fugaku, watching from the branches at the edge of the training field, murmured to himself.
As the young head of the Uchiha clan, he'd only come today to observe—he hadn't expected to see something like this.
One thing he was sure of: this crow definitely wasn't trained by the Uchiha clan.
Their main contract animals were the ninja cats. The clan's crow program was small-scale and nowhere near this level of power.
After revealing his trump card, Rikuya did something nobody expected.
He turned toward Sarutobi Nagakawa—standing outside the barrier—and shouted loudly:"I surrender!"
Yes, he gave up.
The summoning wasn't for a fight to the death—it was to buy time for a surrender.
Unfortunately…Rikuya realized his teacher only looked at him in confusion. He wasn't making any move to stop the fight.
For all his sly personality, Nagakawa wouldn't normally watch a student walk into certain death without stepping in.
That meant there was only one explanation.
The barrier!
It wasn't just blocking stray attacks from escaping—it also blocked sound. There was no way for his surrender to be heard outside.
Damn it!Rikuya's anger boiled over. That old bastard Danzo is clearly trying to get me killed!
But no amount of anger would help him now. First, he had to survive the threat in front of him.
Kakashi was already charging again, his eyes cold and full of killing intent.
Hmph! If you want me dead, I'll kill you first.
All of Rikuya's bottled-up fear and anxiety erupted at once.
He'd been trying to keep a low profile because he knew how dangerous the shinobi world was—not because he actually wanted to die. But now someone had crossed the line.
When your life was on the line, there was no room left for hesitation.
"Taiichi, kill him!"
Rikuya pulled back to create distance as he gave the order.
In terms of personal fighting ability, he really wasn't strong—the "dead last" label wasn't fake.
Otherwise, did people really think experienced ninja couldn't tell the difference between a prodigy and a fluke?
Caw!At the command, Taiichi's eyes flared gold-red, locking onto the rapidly approaching Kakashi.
Whoosh! Whoosh!Several shuriken spun toward Rikuya first.
Fwoosh!Taiichi spread his massive wings, generating a violent gust that knocked the shuriken away like leaves.
Size = Strength.
In the shinobi world, that formula held true.
Not that size guaranteed victory, but a large body came with huge advantages.
Kakashi vanished into the wind, only for Taiichi to suddenly raise his right talon—flames wrapping around it before he slammed it down.
Boom!The ground shattered in a several-meter radius, flames erupting upward like a geyser.
The display of power left the other students stunned.
"So strong!""Am I under a genjutsu right now?""How could Rikuya have such a strong summoning beast? If it were mine…"
Shock was quickly followed by envy—having such a beast could catapult a ninja straight to the top.
The "Legendary Sannin" were proof enough of that.
Even Rikuya's two closest friends, Honda Taka and Yamanaka Koji, stared at him like they were seeing a stranger. The guy they knew only skipped class or slacked off.
Just as everyone was processing this, whoosh!—a figure burst out from the fractured ground beneath Taiichi.
Kakashi.
Clang!His short sword was caught in Taiichi's sharp beak.
Peck, claw, wing strike—Taiichi blocked Kakashi's quick, lethal blows head-on.
And he didn't just defend.
Whenever Kakashi tried to circle around, the crow launched short-range pounces—fast enough, with wing assistance, to rival Kakashi's speed.
After a few exchanges, Kakashi's momentum broke.
Realizing taijutsu wouldn't work, he leapt back, weaving seals and taking a deep breath.
"Fire Style: Flame Bullet!"
A wheel-sized fireball roared toward Taiichi.
For reference, the famous Fireball Jutsu was an Uchiha clan secret technique—more powerful and efficient than Flame Bullet, with many other such hidden fire styles, which was why they could claim to be "the strongest fire-style clan."
Caw!Facing the oncoming flames, Taiichi spread his wings wide, the air around him heating rapidly.
The onlookers panicked.
"Wait—that's—!""Stop it, now!""It's too late!"
From the sheer buildup, they knew the counterattack wouldn't be weak. It might not threaten veteran ninja—but for an academy student, it would be lethal.
And with the barrier still up, they couldn't intervene in time.
Boom!A massive wave of fire exploded forward from Taiichi, engulfing everything several meters ahead.
Crash!"Kakashi!!"
Sarutobi Hiruzen shattered the barrier with brute force, rushing into the field.
He found Kakashi collapsed, only unconscious from heat exposure, and let out a sigh of relief.
Meanwhile, Taiichi's body dissolved into smoke—the full-power attack had drained the last of his chakra.
Whoosh!ANBU operatives surrounded Rikuya instantly.
"Rikuya Hayashi, we suspect you of being a spy from another hidden village. You will be taken to ANBU for investigation!" the leader barked.
Rikuya didn't argue—he had no standing to.
By rank, he was just an academy student, not even a genin.By strength, even going all out he barely matched a low genin—and Taiichi could only threaten a chunin if the opponent had no intel on him.
No rank, no strength—there was nothing he could say to change their minds.
As for reasoning with them?
Forget it. Ninjas weren't in the reasoning business.
And he didn't regret what he'd done.
Kakashi had come at him fully intent to kill.
Only those prepared to die had the right to kill. Kakashi understood that, too.
If he survived Taiichi's attack, it was thanks to his own ability—not because Rikuya had "held back."
If someone's trying to kill you, holding back is just suicidal.
He didn't hate Kakashi for it.
The real culprit was Danzo—he's the one who wanted me dead.
Rikuya had been hiding for so long, but in the end, it hadn't been enough.
As ANBU closed in, he wondered whether it was time to gamble everything in one desperate move.
(End of Chapter)