Chapter 588: Unintentional Changes
"So that's why you three brats came all the way over here?"
Kakashi looked at the three children in front of him, feeling both amused and exasperated.
But beneath that, he was genuinely touched.
Being cared about by others brought a warmth that was difficult to describe.
At the very least, Kakashi felt that all the effort he had spent looking after these three had not been wasted.
Even though they could no longer really be considered his students.
Their current instructors were all terrifyingly powerful shinobi, and compared with those people, Kakashi had to admit that there was still a considerable gap.
"Kakashi-sensei."
Naruto glanced at Kakashi's empty eye socket and could not stop himself from asking.
"Are you really not going to put a Sharingan back in?"
Kakashi could be extremely stubborn.
After removing the Sharingan Obito had given him, he had refused to transplant another eye and had simply left the socket empty.
Without anything covering it, the sight was honestly a little unsettling.
But once Kakashi pulled his forehead protector down over the empty eye socket, Naruto suddenly felt as though the familiar Kakashi-sensei had returned.
"Maybe I'll do something else with it."
Kakashi did not explain further.
He simply looked quietly at the three children standing before him.
After what happened with Obito, Kakashi had struggled to accept everything.
What made it especially difficult was that Obito, just like Rin, had ultimately chosen to die by Kakashi's hand.
That fact had weighed heavily on him.
But seeing Naruto, Sasuke, and Hinata standing here because they were worried about him had eased some of that pain.
Kakashi realized that even if it was not for anyone else, then for these three students, for Minato, and for Kushina, he should not continue wasting away like this.
He understood perfectly well what kind of battle was approaching the Shinobi World.
And truthfully, if Kakashi ended up dying on that battlefield, he did not think he would feel particularly sad about it.
Perhaps he might even feel relieved.
There were simply too many painful things in this world.
Some burdens were difficult even for him to bear.
Kakashi did not know how long it would take before he could finally free himself from that pain.
But he still wanted to try.
Not for anyone else.
For himself.
And for the people who were still alive.
"Kakashi-sensei, I think you looked more handsome with the Sharingan."
Hinata smiled.
Kakashi said nothing.
He simply smiled back and reached out, patting all three of them on the head.
For the first time in a while, he felt a little more motivated.
Then he caught a whiff of himself.
Kakashi's expression became awkward.
This was honestly embarrassing.
He had never allowed himself to deteriorate this badly before.
At that moment, Kakashi made a decision.
First, he was going to take a proper bath.
Then he was going to clean his house from top to bottom.
Sasuke did not say anything, but he was also genuinely concerned about Kakashi.
Still, compared with Kakashi's situation, Sasuke had another matter weighing even more heavily on his mind.
He looked toward the outside of Konoha with a complicated expression.
Tonight...
Itachi would return.
And Sasuke still did not know how he was supposed to face his older brother.
What Itachi had done in the past was unforgivable.
Later, Sasuke had learned the reasons behind those actions.
He had seen the circumstances Itachi had been forced into and understood the agonizing choices his brother had faced.
But no matter how many explanations he heard, whenever Sasuke remembered what Itachi had actually done, he still could not accept it.
His heart hurt.
And the contradiction inside him only grew worse.
Originally, Sasuke had wanted revenge.
Then he learned that the real mastermind behind the tragedy, Danzo Shimura, had already been killed by Kenichi.
For a while, Sasuke had been completely lost.
What was he supposed to do now?
His enemy was already dead.
But his slaughtered clansmen...
His parents...
They were still...
Sasuke scratched his head in frustration.
His feelings toward his parents had once made forgiving Itachi completely impossible.
But after Kenichi helped resurrect Fugaku and Mikoto, the hatred Sasuke felt toward his brother had weakened considerably.
Now, what remained was less pure hatred and more a tangled mixture of pain, confusion, and conflict.
...
"This is good."
Hiruzen watched the warm scene through his crystal ball and relaxed slightly.
"Although I somehow feel a little stuck in the middle of it."
Minato, who was sitting nearby, silently glanced at the Third Hokage.
His feelings toward the man he had once respected so greatly had become much more complicated.
Minato was not heartless.
After personally seeing the miserable childhood Naruto had endured, it had become impossible for him to view Hiruzen exactly as he once had.
When Minato sealed the Nine-Tails into Naruto, he had already considered that his son's life might become difficult.
But Minato had been the Fourth Hokage.
He had died protecting the entire village.
At the very least, he had believed Konoha would treat his son kindly.
Reality had proven otherwise.
"As long as Kakashi can overcome the shadow left by Obito's death, that's enough."
Minato looked toward the image in the crystal ball.
"I don't want to see my student continue like this."
Then he frowned.
"But regarding the Uchiha Clan..."
"Is bringing that person back now really the right decision?"
Minato knew that Kenichi's intervention had repaired many regrets throughout the Shinobi World.
Even Fugaku, the former head of the Uchiha Clan, had been brought back.
But Itachi was different.
Was allowing someone who had committed such a terrible massacre to return to Konoha really wise?
Yes, there had been reasons behind Itachi's actions.
But very few ordinary villagers knew those reasons.
To most people in Konoha, Itachi was simply a madman.
A lunatic who slaughtered his entire clan before defecting from the village.
And Itachi himself probably still held resentment toward Konoha.
That much could be inferred from the extremely limited amount of intelligence he had provided after infiltrating Akatsuki.
"There isn't much choice."
Hiruzen sighed helplessly.
"Akatsuki already exists in name only."
"If Itachi doesn't return, where else is he supposed to go?"
Minato frowned.
"Didn't Kenichi say he wanted Akatsuki to continue operating normally?"
He remembered that instruction clearly.
Kenichi's strength was now overwhelming.
He was practically the nominal leader of the entire Shinobi World.
The other hidden villages might not have been happy about it, but even they were willing to follow his arrangements.
Kenichi was simply too powerful to ignore.
If Itachi suddenly returned to Konoha now, would that not interfere with Akatsuki's continued operation?
More importantly, could such a change alert their ultimate enemy that something was wrong?
"It won't matter much."
A voice suddenly came from behind them.
"Akatsuki still has plenty of members."
Kenichi walked into the Hokage's office while yawning.
"Most of them are currently busy gathering funds and personnel for the organization anyway."
"So even if Itachi returns to Konoha, it shouldn't be enough to draw that guy's attention."
Both Minato and Hiruzen immediately stood up.
Kenichi had become frighteningly powerful.
More importantly, he had barely appeared in public for quite some time.
Seeing him suddenly walk into the Hokage's office naturally made Minato wonder if something major had happened.
Was the war about to begin?
But that did not make sense.
Neither Naruto nor Sasuke had even properly reached Kage level yet, much less surpassed it.
"Can you stop looking at me like that?"
Kenichi stared at Minato speechlessly.
"I just came out to get some air."
He really had no dramatic reason for showing up.
He simply wanted to leave the laboratory for a while, relax, and clear his thoughts before continuing with his experiments.
"It's mostly because you've been hiding in that laboratory for so long."
Minato smiled.
"If you didn't come out once in a while, I might actually start thinking you died in there."
Kenichi waved dismissively.
He did not mind joking around with Minato.
After all, the two of them could be considered friends.
When Kenichi first came to know Minato, Minato had treated him with considerable kindness.
"People need rest."
Kenichi yawned again.
"Taking a break now will also help me prepare for what comes later."
And he really did want to rest.
Nothing more complicated than that.
Being buried in experiments day after day was exhausting.
Even Kenichi had begun feeling mentally drained.
He wanted to relax first, then return to his research with a clearer mind.
His work on the time machine had already reached the point where most of its accessible systems had been analyzed.
The next step would be structural analysis.
If that succeeded, Kenichi could eventually attempt to reconstruct the machine's internal configuration.
Unfortunately, one particular issue was still giving him a headache.
Energy.
He had made almost no progress in determining what kind of energy the time machine used.
More accurately...
The energy source almost seemed not to exist.
Kenichi had compared the strange energy within the machine to nearly every common energy source available in the Shinobi World.
None matched.
That left him confused.
How exactly did the Otsutsuki Clan recharge this thing?
Surely they had not designed a time machine as a single-use device.
That would be absurdly wasteful.
Then again...
Kenichi thought about it and realized it was not entirely impossible.
He himself had created similar things in the past.
Back in his original world, the early chakra engines he developed had essentially been disposable devices.
Only after repeated improvements had their usable lifespan increased.
Still, Kenichi found it difficult to believe that the Otsutsuki would treat a time machine as disposable.
After studying the machine, he had confirmed that it could return to the time and space from which it originated.
That function was also one of the fundamental reasons Kenichi had agreed to help Hagoromo deal with Isshiki.
As long as Kenichi retained control over the time machine, he always had a way back to his own world.
That gave him an enormous safety net.
Under those circumstances, cooperating with Hagoromo to fight Isshiki while gathering more information about the Otsutsuki was an easy decision.
The time machine had been constructed with extraordinary precision.
Because of that, Kenichi was convinced that its power source had some unique replenishment method.
The problem was that the technology behind that process was probably so advanced that Kenichi could recognize what certain components were doing without understanding why they worked.
Still, given enough time, Kenichi believed he could slowly decipher its structure.
The machine could traverse space and time, but its energy source should not be completely impossible to obtain.
If the required energy did not naturally exist anywhere in the Shinobi World...
Then things would become troublesome.
That would mean Kenichi could not replenish the time machine through his own current resources.
His only alternative might be continuously traveling into other timelines and taking additional time machines from them.
That sounded incredibly inefficient.
After chatting with Minato and Hiruzen for a while longer, Kenichi turned and left the Hokage's office.
He planned to wander around Konoha for a while.
Eat something.
Then visit Naruto, Sasuke, and Hinata to see how the three of them were progressing.
Truthfully, Kenichi's requirements for Naruto and Sasuke were not particularly high right now.
As long as they became strong enough to protect themselves, that was enough.
If he wanted them to reach the level they possessed during the Fourth Shinobi World War, they would still need to put in significantly more effort.
Some things could be accelerated later through training, techniques, bloodline development, or other methods.
Their personalities, however, could only mature through their own experiences.
"I wonder how Naruto's negotiations with the Nine-Tails are going."
Kenichi yawned as he walked through Konoha's streets.
He had previously told Minato and the others that if they truly wanted Naruto's strength to advance to another level, Naruto needed to learn how to become friends with the Tailed Beast inside him.
That was essential.
However...
Considering Kushina's temper and her usual attitude toward Tailed Beasts, Kenichi suspected that helping Naruto become genuine friends with Kurama would not be especially easy.
Still, Naruto had a chance.
His personality was naturally suited for it.
When Kenichi finally found him, Naruto was in the middle of training.
He was running hard, already panting from exertion.
Hinata was following close behind him.
Kenichi looked around.
Then he frowned slightly.
"Where's Sasuke?"
Sasuke was nowhere in sight.
Kenichi tilted his head.
Had he gone to meet Itachi?
....
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