"Alright! Go, Kakashi-sensei! Go, Bushy Brows-sensei!"
Naruto stood off to the side, waving his arms and cheering excitedly.
With Naruto shouting in the background, Kakashi and Guy clashed again. Konohamaru, meanwhile, somehow continued meditating despite all the noise.
"Guy, you still aren't opening the Gates? Then I'll go first—Open!"
After trading elbows with Guy, Kakashi sprang backward, and the aura around his body suddenly surged.
"Huh?" Guy froze for a moment.
He knew Kakashi could use the Eight Gates.
However, Kakashi could only open the First Gate, the Gate of Opening.
But... whatever Kakashi was doing now clearly was not the Eight Gates.
Kakashi shouted "Open," but what exactly had he opened?
As everyone knew, senjutsu chakra was formed by maintaining a stable balance between spiritual energy, physical chakra, and natural energy.
Jiraiya's summon-assisted version of Sage Mode relied on summon beasts—who naturally found environmental energy easier to control—to help stabilize that ratio.
The three forces formed a steady triangle.
Kakashi's setup, however, was fundamentally different. He had eight dogs clamped onto his body.
That meant Kakashi himself served as one corner of the triangle, while every pair of dogs formed another triangle around him.
Two dogs created the baseline Sage Mode.
Four dogs created two overlapping triangles, producing an intermediate Sage Mode. Six dogs created the advanced version.
Only all eight dogs working in tandem produced the complete, perfected form.
The more summon beasts assisting him, the more natural energy they channeled—and the more internal chakra Kakashi needed to supply to balance it.
A portion of Kakashi's chakra already drained continuously into his Sharingan, meaning his natural reserves were nowhere near large enough to sustain this multi-layered fusion for long.
That was why he chose to temporarily seal the accumulated senjutsu chakra and release his Sage Mode in bursts, similar to opening one of the Eight Gates.
"Good! Then I'll open mine too! Eight Gates—Open!"
Might Guy's philosophy was simple: if his rival opened something, he would open something too!
His speed immediately skyrocketed.
Might Duy taught him that the Eight Gates were meant to protect others, not to show off or win petty competitions.
Makoto also reinforced this lesson during Rock Lee's match in the Chūnin Exams.
But that didn't stop Guy from opening the first few Gates in casual combat.
Opening only the early Gates did not count as risking his life.
For Guy, it was barely a warm-up stretching routine, so naturally, it didn't violate his personal moral code.
Back when Lee first learned to open the Gates, nobody stopped him from practicing either. It was only when Lee gambled his life over a mere tournament match that Makoto stepped in and established strict rules.
Right now, Guy obviously had no need to risk his life against Kakashi.
Since it was only a bet.
'Naruto's senjutsu seems to have unconsciously carried over some of Mount Myōboku's specific Sage Arts.'
While fighting Guy, Kakashi noticed something unusual and adjusted his tactical approach mid-combat.
For Makoto and the shinobi who received his specialized 'stones', natural energy was simply the raw energy of nature.
There were no specific or rigid traditions involved. Everything depended entirely on the individual's imagination and control.
That was why Makoto-style Sage Mode could also be called Personal-Style Sage Mode.
But the two publicly known Sage Mode systems in the shinobi world—Mount Myōboku and Ryūchi Cave—operated on completely different logic.
Anyone with eyes could tell their combat styles belonged to entirely separate, isolated systems.
Logically, both were simply methods of harnessing natural energy, so there shouldn't have been such a strict mechanical divide.
Take Frog Kata, for example.
Its core principle was incredibly simple: while in Sage Mode, the user manipulated the ambient natural energy around them to form an invisible physical extension of their own strikes.
Only another senjutsu user could sense it. It was basically an invisible, blunt-force sword.
Nothing about that mechanical principle suggested it had to be tied exclusively to Mount Myōboku's toads.
And in truth, it didn't.
It was merely a geopolitical issue; Mount Myōboku and Ryūchi Cave were sworn enemies and strictly hoarded their proprietary techniques.
If compared to shinobi clans, this wasn't like a genetic kekkei genkai.
It was closer to a secret-technique clan like the Ino-Shika-Chō families. People claimed only the Nara clan could cast the Shadow Possession Jutsu, but if an outsider obtained the written manual and the formula, they could replicate it too.
Kakashi was now exactly that kind of outsider.
He clearly hadn't trained in Mount Myōboku's orthodox senjutsu.
But Naruto only ever learned Mount Myōboku's proprietary system, and Naruto was entirely incapable of adapting principles from one method to another.
Frankly, it was already a miracle the kid could explain the baseline technique at all.
So Kakashi effectively obtained the secret manual of a hidden-technique clan.
And he learned Frog Kata.
By now, anyone observing could probably guess what Kakashi was about to do.
"Sage Art: Frog Kata—ONE THOUSAND YEARS OF DEATH!"
A terrifying excitement flashed through Kakashi's visible eye.
He formed the Tiger hand seal and thrust both hands viciously forward!
"N-NANI?!"
Guy twisted his waist to the absolute physical limit in pure terror and barely dodged Kakashi's physical fingers.
After evading the strike, Guy was still wondering why Kakashi's supposedly enhanced One Thousand Years of Death looked no different from the standard version.
Then the real attack arrived.
Kakashi's visible strike missed, but Frog Kata's invisible, extended hand of natural energy slammed squarely into Guy's target area before he could even sense it.
Guy clutched the struck area and launched across the battlefield.
"Frog Kata can be used like that?! Kakashi-sensei really is a genius!" Naruto jumped up in delight, looking as though he just learned the ultimate secret of the universe.
He knew it.
As long as he passed Sage Mode to Kakashi-sensei, Kakashi would solve all the technical problems for him, and Naruto could simply copy the homework afterward.
And now he even received an unexpected tactical bonus!
Guy climbed unsteadily to his feet, limping as he glared at Kakashi with extreme caution.
"An invisible One Thousand Years of Death... Kakashi, you've developed a truly terrifying technique."
"It isn't invisible." Kakashi shook his head and pointed toward Naruto. "Ask Naruto if you don't believe me. He can see it. More precisely, anyone who practices senjutsu and masters Sage Mode can see it clearly."
Guy fell silent.
He never imagined Kakashi would go this far just to force him into learning senjutsu.
If he refused, wouldn't Kakashi be able to ambush him with an invisible One Thousand Years of Death every single day?
Would every future contest between them end in a humiliating defeat?
"Fine! I'll see whether I can learn it. If I disappoint you, don't take it personally. I'm not a genius like you, Kakashi. I only specialize in taijutsu." Guy sighed and finally gave in.
No matter how he looked at it, Kakashi was doing this for his own good.
"But Kakashi... could you make that Frog Kata thing stop touching me?" Guy added, looking deeply uncomfortable.
"Touching you? I'm not."
Kakashi shook his shoulders, and all eight ninja dogs dropped straight to the grass.
They barked twice, then disappeared in identical puffs of white smoke.
With the summons gone, Kakashi's Sage Mode instantly dropped.
Clearly, his sage-like state ended—meaning his Frog Kata ended as well.
"What? Then... then what is touching me?" Guy shuddered violently, cold sweat instantly breaking out across his entire body.
Despite being a bright, hot-blooded taijutsu fanatic, Guy not only suffered from severe seasickness—he was also absolutely terrified of ghosts!
The moment he realized that whatever was currently poking him was not Kakashi, every terrifying ghost story he ever heard flooded his mind.