The Hatake compound was no longer silent; it was a pressurized chamber of electrical energy and frantic, solitary effort. Kakashi had sealed himself off from the world, the thick outer walls of his home serving as a symbolic barricade against the pity and judgment of Konoha. His immediate surroundings were a forgotten, overgrown training ground behind his house—a field where the earth was now scarred with deep, black furrows, the result of raw, unchecked electrical power.
He had dedicated the last week to mastering the technique he had salvaged from the forbidden section of his clan's scrolls—an A-rank Lightning Release Ninjutsu that fused a continuous, high-intensity current with any physical weapon. He named the technique Raiton: Kurokiba (Lightning Release: Dark Fang), a cynical tribute to his father, twisting the White Fang's memory into a weapon of cold, hard power.
Currently, his father's short sword was sheathed, replaced by a standard, durable Konoha-issue katana, its steel blade humming, shimmering under a sheath of brilliant blue-white lightning.
"Control. Precision. Efficiency."
Kakashi's mantra was a low, guttural sound, barely audible over the crackling energy. He launched himself at a thick cedar tree, a massive trunk that had stood for generations. The Kurokiba struck not with a clang, but with a tearing, burning sound—a sound of matter violently giving way. The lightning-sheathed blade extended its reach by nearly a meter, a jagged, electric halo surrounding the steel. The tree, thick enough to withstand a small fireball, was cleaved in two, the separation instantaneous, and the wood around the cut turned to smoking, glassy charcoal.
He repeated the exercise. Another target—a boulder—was shattered, not by blunt force, but by the blade's sheer electric density, which bypassed the rock's structural integrity.
He pushed the technique, holding the charge, forcing the chakra flow to maintain the agonizingly perfect equilibrium required to keep the lightning stable around the metal. Kakashi's focus was inhuman; his breathing was shallow, precise, allowing him to cycle air with minimal distraction. His chakra control was already legendary for his age—a natural gift he honed into a relentless, energy-saving art form. He had virtually zero chakra leakage; every particle of energy went exactly where it was intended.
Yet, despite this surgical efficiency, a dark, heavy fatigue began to crash against his mind. The feeling was not exhaustion from muscle strain, but a deep, central emptiness, the instantaneous draining of his core reserves.
He glanced down at the katana. The bright blue light around the blade was starting to flicker, destabilizing into erratic, dangerous sparks. The technique was failing.
1 minute, 57 seconds.
With a sharp, involuntary gasp, Kakashi released the flow, and the electrical charge vanished. He staggered back, his body instantly drenched in cold sweat, his vision blurring slightly. He felt utterly hollow, a shell waiting to be refilled. He leaned against the rough bark of a surviving tree, his knees shaking uncontrollably.
Insufficient. The word echoed in the sterile chamber of his mind. Pathetically insufficient.
He sank to the ground, legs crossed in the familiar meditation posture, but his eyes remained open, sharp, and calculating. He didn't allow himself the luxury of simply resting; the immediate failure was now the subject of rigorous analysis.
I managed 1 minute, 57 seconds. Even with perfect control, the A-rank Kurokiba consumed approximately 85% of my total chakra reserves. This is unacceptable.
His father had failed because he was emotionally weak, but in a practical sense, his mission failed because he chose to abandon it. Kakashi understood that true power meant never having to make that choice. True power meant completing the mission and retaining the necessary reserves to kill anyone who questioned you afterward. The Kurokiba gave him the destructive power he craved, but its crippling consumption left him vulnerable—a flaw he could not tolerate.
My physical growth will increase my reserves naturally, he thought, his consciousness focused inward on the agonizingly slow churn of his chakra network. But I will never have the chakra reserve capacity of other clans like Senju, Uzumaki, or Uchiha, or even a normal shinobi with naturally large reserves. Relying on nature is a weakness. I must artificially accelerate my capacity.
He then recalled the logs he had kept meticulously over the last three days. His focus, intensified by grief and rage, had subtly sped up his natural recovery rate. He calculated the numbers: on the first day, recovering from a similar high-drain jutsu took 45 minutes; today, it was down to 44 minutes and 35 seconds—a negligible but measurable improvement of 25 seconds over the period.
Idea 1: Maximize Restoration.
If I could increase my recovery speed infinitely, he mused, the thought cold and detached, I would have infinite chakra flow. I could use smaller, less costly jutsu indefinitely. That would be efficient.
But efficiency was not power. The Kurokiba was merely an A-rank jutsu. To master the truly destructive techniques—A+, S, SS, SSS ranked—requires reserves far beyond these pitifully low reserves. Even if I could perform them, it would take precious time to gather enough chakra, and time is a luxury nobody gets in a battle.
I need a larger pool. A capacity that can take the full drain of a devastating technique and still have reserves left over for defense, escape, or a finishing blow.
He focused on the Shadow Clone Jutsu (Kage Bunshin no Jutsu), a technique his father had forbidden him to practice due to the inherent risk of sensory overload and fatigue. The mechanism was simple: create physical copies, let them do whatever you want to do, and then, when released, it transfers all accumulated mental and physical fatigue back to the original body.
Kakashi saw an elegant, brutal shortcut. What if the Shadow Clones focused not on training, but on accelerated chakra recovery? When the clones dissipated, the collective mental fatigue would transfer, but so too would the experience of the restored chakra. If he could force multiple versions of himself to meditate and restore their chakra simultaneously, he could potentially stack the cumulative feeling of restoration, shocking his own core capacity into a higher state.
He could currently summon 126 clones without completely exhausting his current reserves. Summoning that many and experimenting with them might be dangerous.
A controlled experiment.
With clinical determination, Kakashi raised his fingers into the sign of the Ram. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
Five puffs of smoke erupted, revealing five perfect copies of Kakashi, each as cold-eyed and stoic as the original. He felt the instant, significant drain, dropping his current reserves to under 16.67%. And so did the 5 clones.
He didn't speak. He simply transmitted the mental command: Meditate. Full chakra restoration. Now.
The six figures—Kakashi and his five clones—formed a tight circle on the scorched earth. They sat cross-legged, heads bowed, shutting out the world. The silence returned, heavy with the strained focus of six minds struggling to achieve a single, massive goal.
The late afternoon sun filtered through the tall pine trees bordering the compound. Dust motes danced in the thick, still air. Kakashi, the original, held onto the meditation, forcing the feeling of the restored chakra in his clones to filter back to him.
Push. Faster.
The process was agonizingly slow, a minute feeling like an hour. But the communal focus was effective. The collective experience of five clones drawing in and restoring energy was a powerful, if deeply unnatural, sensation for the original.
Finally, after 43 minutes 41 seconds, Kakashi felt the sudden, distinct fullness return to all of his other clones, who had —the collective reserves almost entirely replenished. 0.8 seconds faster than a moment, he noted, a sliver of satisfaction piercing his cold exterior.
He stood up, signaling the end of the exercise.
"Kai." (Release.)
The five clones vanished in simultaneous puffs of smoke.
The feedback was not a gentle return of memory; it was a physical hammer blow of five-times accumulated mental fatigue and five-times the pressure of a network forced to accept massive, unnatural influx.
A tidal wave of white-hot agony instantly surged through Kakashi's nervous system, overloading every sensory input. His knees buckled instantly, hitting the hard earth with a sickening thud. The world tilted violently. A sharp, burning sensation erupted in his eyes, nose, and mouth, followed by the warm, thick taste of copper.
He heard the liquid sound of his own blood hitting the dirt, pooling quickly beneath him as he retched, his body convulsing in shock. He had pushed the limits of the clone transfer, and his body was violently rejecting the attempt to break the natural order. His vision, now clouded with his own blood, flickered, fighting the darkness that threatened to claim him.
"Not good," the single, remaining logical thought whispered in the ringing silence. "The physical strain is too much."
Just as the blackness began to consume the edges of his sight, a sound broke the barrier of the compound—a desperate, familiar, and loud sound that cut through the internal screaming of his body.
"Kakashi! What the—?!" It was Obito's voice, laced with panic and confusion.
He dimly registered rapid footsteps approaching. Two blurry shapes materialized, rushing toward the epicenter of his pain. He recognized the bright pink of Rin's vest and the wild, uncontrolled movements of Obito.
Obito stood frozen, a statue of pure horror, staring at Kakashi's bleeding, convulsing body. But Rin, with the instant reaction of a medical-nin, dropped to her knees.
"Kakashi, what did you do?!" she cried, her voice cracking with fear and urgency.
He felt the sudden, gentle warmth of her small hands grasping him, pulling his ravaged body into her soft embrace. The sudden, unearned comfort was the final trigger. The physical agony, the crushing fatigue, and the shock of his own self-inflicted violence proved too much, and the cold, powerful mind of Hatake Kakashi dissolved into a merciful, deep darkness.