Chapter 11: Taijutsu Exchange
Is this really the dead-last?
Kakashi couldn't believe what he was seeing. The battle plan Naruto had just executed was brilliant—something even a seasoned Jōnin would struggle to devise on the fly. And yet this freshly graduated genin had nearly trapped him, Hatake Kakashi, in a flawless sequence of feints and misdirection.
Hidden in the tree line, Sakura and Sasuke watched the exchange with their jaws hanging open. Their eyes were wide, their faces frozen in pure disbelief.
They had seen it. Naruto's hand had been inches from the bell. If Kakashi hadn't unleashed that desperate Body Flicker at the very last second, the survival exercise would already be over.
A genin. Against an elite Jōnin. And the genin had almost won.
Neither of them could process it. This was the first time they had witnessed such a thrilling, high-stakes confrontation—let alone one where the underdog nearly triumphed.
Across the field, Naruto exhaled slowly, a satisfied smile tugging at his lips. He rolled his shoulders, loosening them up. That had been a warm-up—a small test of his current abilities. Nothing more.
If they knew I wasn't even using half my strength… he thought, amused. They'd probably faint.
Kakashi, having regained his footing, now looked at Naruto with entirely different eyes. His visible eye was no longer relaxed or lazy. It was sharp, focused, and calculating. The casual instructor was gone, replaced by the veteran warrior who had survived three world wars.
If I keep treating him like an ordinary genin, Kakashi admitted to himself, I might actually lose. An elite Jōnin… defeated by a child. My peers would never let me live it down.
He forced a smile back onto his face, though it didn't reach his eye.
"I underestimated you," Kakashi said, his voice carrying a new note of respect. "That plan was impressive—it genuinely surprised me. But as I said, Jōnin aren't so easily beaten. As your teacher, it's my job to show you what it truly means to be an excellent shinobi."
He was trying to regain control of the situation, to reassert his authority.
Naruto simply smiled, saying nothing.
Then Kakashi moved.
Faster than before. Much faster. He crossed the distance between them in a blur, his fist already arcing toward Naruto's face. The air howled around his knuckles.
"One of the fundamental combat skills of a ninja," Kakashi announced, his voice cold and professional. "Taijutsu."
Naruto watched the punch coming, his Three Tomoe Sharingan—hidden beneath his normal appearance—tracking the trajectory perfectly. He could have dodged easily. He could have countered. But instead, he made a different choice.
This is a good chance to test my Shinigami abilities, Naruto thought, his eyes glinting. Let's see how Hakuda fares against a true master.
Hakuda—the fighting arts of the Shinigami. Hand-to-hand combat refined beyond human limits.
As Kakashi's fist came down, Naruto shifted his body sideways, the blow whistling past his ear by a hair's breadth. Without pausing, Naruto launched an uppercut in response, his fist driving toward Kakashi's chin.
Kakashi's eye widened slightly. He dodged that?
Although he hadn't been using full power, that strike was far faster than anything a genin should be able to evade. Still, Kakashi's reflexes were sharp. He parried Naruto's counter and immediately pressed his advantage, unleashing a relentless barrage of punches and kicks.
The attacks came like waves crashing against a shore—fast, powerful, and seemingly endless.
But Naruto met each one. He twisted, ducked, and weaved through the storm. When evasion wasn't possible, he met Kakashi's fists with his own, their knuckles colliding with sharp, rhythmic thuds that echoed across the training ground like the clash of metal.
Thud. Crack. Thwack.
The sound of their exchange was percussive, almost musical—a brutal rhythm of impact and counter-impact. Neither was giving ground.
From the forest's edge, Sasuke and Sakura watched in stunned silence. Two shinobi, evenly matched in taijutsu, fighting with fierce intensity. Except one was an elite Jōnin… and the other was the boy they had always dismissed as worthless.
Sasuke's fists clenched at his sides. His teeth ground together. How? HOW?!
The dead-last. The failure. The boy who couldn't even perform a basic Clone Technique was now going blow-for-blow with Hatake Kakashi. It was as if the entire world had turned upside down.
Sasuke couldn't bear it any longer. Something inside him snapped.
With a growl of frustration, he burst from the trees, his hands already full of shuriken. In one fluid motion, he hurled three of them toward the fighting pair—indiscriminate, reckless.
Two blades flew toward Kakashi. One curved dangerously close to Naruto.
It was as if Sasuke was saying: Enough. My turn.
Both Kakashi and Naruto sensed the incoming projectiles immediately. In perfect synchronization, they threw one final punch at each other, the impact pushing them apart. They landed several meters away from each other just as the shuriken whistled through the space between them, embedding themselves in a tree trunk.
The fight paused.
Kakashi turned to look at Sasuke, his expression unreadable. "And what exactly are you doing?"
Sasuke didn't answer. His face was flushed with barely suppressed anger, his pride wounded beyond reason. Without a word, he charged directly at Kakashi.
Foolish, Naruto thought, watching.
Kakashi met the charge without hesitation. But he was still keyed up from his exchange with Naruto—his body still in that heightened state of combat. When Sasuke came within range, Kakashi's leg snapped up in a single, brutal kick.
THWACK.
The blow caught Sasuke square in the stomach. His eyes bulged, and he was sent tumbling backward across the dirt, rolling several meters before finally coming to a stop.
"Damn it…" Sasuke groaned, pushing himself up from the ground with dirt smeared across his face and clothes. "You bastard…"
His glare was vicious, his eyes burning with humiliation and fury. He had just watched Naruto fight Kakashi to a standstill—exchanging blow for blow, never backing down. And yet, when he attacked, he couldn't even withstand a single kick.
How could this be? Sasuke's mind raced, his pride in tatters. I'm the last Uchiha. The top of the academy. The genius. How is HE better than me?!
He struggled to his feet, refusing to stay down, but the look in his eyes told the whole story—he was shaken, confused, and dangerously angry.
Kakashi observed him for a moment, then sighed softly. This one has a long way to go.