Kakashi's expression turned awkward.
"Don't get so worked up. I came back in one piece, didn't I? If I'm fine, what do you think the chances are that something happened to Arata?"
Honmoto Tōichi's face stayed cold.
"Spare me the jokes. Just tell me how Arata is. You dragged him out of the village without even telling me. Did you forget what you promised me?"
"You said you wouldn't take him on out-of-village missions until he'd reached jōnin level."
He was furious.
Kakashi's unilateral decision had left him worried sick for over a month.
He had even considered leaving the village himself to go looking for them.
If the Third Hokage hadn't said the mission was just C-rank, he would've gone already.
But since the Third insisted it was simple, Tōichi had forced himself to wait.
And wait.
For more than a month.
Kakashi stopped trying to dodge and finally spoke honestly.
"This time, I really didn't have much of a choice."
"I was worried leaving him here would actually be more dangerous."
"If the higher-ups decided they wanted something from him, do you really think you alone could stop them?"
"Keeping him by my side was the safest option I could think of."
"Besides, he performed incredibly on this mission. His strength has grown at a ridiculous pace. If you saw how strong he is now, you'd probably be thanking me."
Even after hearing all that, Honmoto Tōichi's face didn't soften.
He still couldn't relax.
Until he saw Arata standing in front of him, alive and whole, he wouldn't be at ease.
Seeing that Tōichi was still stiff with tension, Kakashi felt a little helpless.
He had no choice but to keep explaining.
"The mission itself… went off script. It was supposed to be C-rank, but the client lied. It ended up being more like B-rank—we ran into enemy shinobi."
Honmoto Tōichi's brows knit even tighter.
Even if Arata's talent was outstanding, his actual combat experience wasn't that deep yet.
"He didn't get hurt, did he?"
Tōichi asked, voice tight.
Kakashi smiled.
"Hurt? How could I possibly let him get hurt?"
"Besides, with how strong your disciple is now, ordinary shinobi would have a hard time even putting a scratch on him."
In Kakashi's eyes, Arata was already sitting at Kage level.
Kage-class shinobi were rare even within the Five Great Nations.
Outside of them, they were rarer still.
Kakashi had no idea Akatsuki existed—let alone that most of its members were Kage-class monsters.
Even then, there weren't that many of them.
Hearing his words, Honmoto Tōichi finally let out a long, shaky breath.
"As long as he's not hurt… as long as he's not hurt."
He didn't particularly care how strong Arata had become.
He cared whether Arata was safe.
In his eyes, Arata's talent was so high that becoming strong was inevitable.
What mattered was that nothing happened to cripple his future.
Kakashi understood that perfectly.
He felt the same.
He also treated Arata like a personal disciple—and after spending more than a month together, he truly saw the boy as family.
Kakashi hesitated for a moment, then added,
"But—"
The moment that word left his mouth, Honmoto Tōichi's heart clenched again.
He stared at Kakashi, body tensed, afraid the next sentence would be something truly terrible.
Kakashi sighed, sounding a little guilty.
"But from now on… he probably won't be able to stay in your squad."
"Why!?"
Honmoto Tōichi shot to his feet, voice sharp and almost hoarse.
"Kakashi, I handed him to you to teach, not to take away. I'm still his teacher. What exactly are you trying to do?"
He thought Kakashi was trying to steal his student.
It wasn't that he cared about the title of "teacher" in itself.
He just didn't want Arata permanently tied to Kakashi's side.
He knew very well what kind of missions Kakashi was given.
He'd barely tolerated it when Kakashi took Arata out of the village without warning this time.
He absolutely did not want there to be a second time.
Kakashi lifted his head and looked at him helplessly.
"Look at you, flying off the handle again. You used to be an ANBU jōnin. When did you get this bad at staying calm?"
Honmoto Tōichi snorted.
"How am I supposed to stay calm? If I sit here 'calm,' my disciple might vanish on me entirely."
Seeing how agitated he was, Kakashi quickly clarified.
"What I mean is… because Arata handled the mission so well, and because the Third holds him in such high regard, the Hokage directly promoted him to chūnin."
"And he wants Arata to follow me for further training."
That last part was Kakashi's own embellishment.
The Third hadn't said it outright.
But even if he found out, he probably wouldn't deny it either.
Team 11 had been a fluke from the beginning.
The Third Hokage had never expected much from that team.
If Arata hadn't shown up, Team 11 would already be gone—
their members sent back to the Academy after failing evaluation.
Kakashi had fully expected Tōichi to blow up over this.
To his surprise, the man's eyes lit up.
"Really?"
Kakashi blinked.
"…You're not angry?"
"Why would I be angry? My student became a chūnin. That's something to celebrate."
Honmoto Tōichi actually laughed.
"But that means he won't be in your squad anymore," Kakashi pointed out, "and from now on, he'll be training under me."
Tōichi waved a hand dismissively.
"As long as he's safe, that's all that matters. Training with you is fine. I don't have much left to teach him anyway. He'll grow far stronger at your side than he would at mine."
"And it proves the Third Hokage acknowledges him. That means I don't have to worry as much about the village turning against him."
In Honmoto Tōichi's eyes, it was good news all around.
Whether Arata could keep doing missions under him or not wasn't important.
From the very start, all he'd wanted was for Arata to grow up safely,
to one day become a pillar of Konoha—
a hero who would protect the village.
Now that Arata was steadily moving down that path, how could he possibly be angry?
Kakashi hadn't expected such a calm, open response, but the more he thought about Tōichi's hopes for Arata, the more sense it made.
If it were him, he'd probably feel the same.
Once he'd sorted it out in his head, Kakashi continued,
"On this mission, we encountered two rogue shinobi from Kirigakure—Momochi Zabuza and Kuromaru Raiga from the Seven Ninja Swordsmen."
"Arata's talent exceeded even my expectations. I thought I already had a solid idea of what he was capable of."
"But over the course of the mission, his growth was… honestly, it felt like something out of a myth."
"Right now, his strength has already surpassed mine. He killed Raiga with his own hands, took down four chūnin, and suppressed a rampaging Naruto."
"If Zabuza hadn't escaped when he did, he might've ended up just another name on Arata's list of victories."
Honmoto Tōichi just stared at him in a daze.
If anyone else had told him this, he would've thought they were spinning a ridiculous fantasy.
As a former ANBU jōnin, he knew exactly what kind of shinobi Zabuza and Raiga were.
Both were elite jōnin of Kirigakure, infamous across the shinobi world—
Members of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen.
Just that title alone was enough to make many shinobi tremble.
And Arata had killed one of them—
And scared the other into retreat.
The most unbelievable part was—
Arata had even suppressed a rampaging Naruto.
Honmoto Tōichi had personally seen Naruto lose control once.
Back then, the Third Hokage had mobilized the entire Sealing Corps to stop him.
The pure hatred of the Nine-Tails, that suffocating chakra—
even now, Tōichi could still feel it if he closed his eyes.
And yet Arata hadn't just survived it.
He had subdued Naruto in that state.
Listening to Kakashi's report…
It didn't sound like a mission at all.
It sounded like a legend.
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