Hagoromo took a moment to collect his thoughts before heading off to grab some rations. The war had raged from dawn until dusk without a single break for a meal, and his stamina was bottoming out. It was high time to refuel.
Food in hand, he wandered back and claimed a spot on a fallen log directly across from Kakashi. A crackling campfire was the only thing separating them.
Silence stretched between them. They didn't exactly have much in the way of "common interests." Kakashi, at this stage, was a rigid rule-follower whose entire personality was subsumed by the mission.
Hagoromo, by contrast, was a free spirit who did things mostly because they seemed interesting. Did he actually give a damn about the grand outcome of the Shinobi World War?
Highly debatable.
Surprisingly, it was Kakashi who broke the silence.
"How do you negate the side effects of Lightning Style?"
The question came out of nowhere, but Hagoromo knew exactly what he was asking. It seemed that spamming multiple Raikiri today had left Kakashi in a world of hurt.
"It's an unavoidable trade-off. The more powerful the jutsu, the higher the risk—every shinobi knows that, right?" Hagoromo replied, tearing into his rations. "A high-level technique like the chidori boosts your speed and gives you insane piercing power, but the electrical stimulus to the body is extreme. I don't know your personal limits, but objectively speaking, an average ninja shouldn't use it more than three times a day. Any more and you're looking at a corpse."
He paused to chew. "You just have to gradually acclimate your body to that level of lightning and build up a natural resistance. Complete avoidance is not possible."
Hagoromo wasn't sugarcoating it. Kakashi was looking for a shortcut to bypass the recoil, but shortcuts didn't exist here. Hagoromo had warned him about this before, but either he hadn't listened or the heat of battle had forced his hand. Either way, using it two or three times at his age was suicidal.
Kakashi opened his mouth to ask more, but Hagoromo cut him off, anticipating the next question.
"And don't even think about comparing yourself to me. My body is... unique. I'm essentially immune to the negative side effects of Lightning Style—well, electricity in general. But that's a biological fluke, not something you can train for. For simplicity's sake, you can just treat it like a Kekkei Genkai. It's not something others can learn."
Hagoromo was indeed a special case, a fact only he truly understood. As long as it wasn't a physical, blunt-force strike, Lightning Style barely scratched him. If Kakashi stabbed him with a Raikiri, he'd still end up with a hole in his chest. But if someone hit him with a Chidori Sharp Spear or even a massive, S-rank AOE like Kirin, he could tank the electrical discharge and walk away relatively unscathed.
That was a feat Kakashi could never replicate.
"A Kekkei Genkai..." Kakashi muttered. He didn't fully grasp the mechanics, but he understood the point. To him, Hagoromo's ability to ignore the recoil and fire off instant, hand-seal-free lightning techniques was the definition of a specialized bloodline.
Hagoromo let him believe the "Kekkei Genkai" explanation. It was easier than explaining the truth, which he couldn't clarify even if he wanted to.
"Also, there's one more thing," Hagoromo added, shifting the focus from his biology back to the technique itself. "You aren't fully proficient with the chidori yet, which means your chakra control is still messy. From where I'm standing, you're wasting a lot of energy. When I use it, I don't maintain such a massive, constant output. It's unnecessary."
"In terms of single-target lethality, keeping the jutsu at an A-rank level is plenty. There's no point in forcing it to an S-rank just for the 'maximum power' flex. Dead is dead, whether it's an A or an S. Why waste the chakra?"
He shrugged. "Of course, our fighting styles are different. That's just my personal habit—take it or leave it."
In truth, Hagoromo loved flashy, overpowered jutsu as much as the next guy. Unfortunately, his chakra reserves were constantly in the red, so he'd learned to be a penny-pincher out of pure necessity.
Kakashi fell into a thoughtful silence, processing the advice.
"What are you two whispering about?"
As they talked, Rin had finally finished her rounds. Medical ninja were in short supply, so even young trainees like Rin were being worked like seasoned adults. She looked exhausted, having only just found a moment to breathe.
"Here, Rin. For you."
Hagoromo didn't answer her question. Instead, he handed her an extra portion of food he'd grabbed earlier, sensing she wouldn't have had time to eat.
"Thanks, Hagoromo! You're a lifesaver," Rin said, taking the food with a grateful smile. She looked at the two of them. "Have you both eaten?"
"Yeah," Hagoromo said. "By the way, I've been meaning to ask—why didn't Minato-sensei bring Obito along?"
He'd felt a bit of an "uncomfortable" vibe hanging around Rin and Kakashi. Now he realized what it was: the lack of a noisy third wheel.
"Because he's useless," Kakashi said, his voice dropping a few degrees in temperature.
"Obito is back at the Iwa front recovering from an injury," Rin added quickly. Since he was wounded, there was no point in him coming here. The Minato Squad had been operating as a trio, and even then, they had been split up during the actual fighting.
"Injured in battle?" Hagoromo asked, surprised. Obito didn't seem like the type to seek out the front lines as aggressively as Kakashi. What kind of serious wound could he have taken?
"I wish," Kakashi scoffed, sounding somewhere between annoyed and amused. "He got his thigh caught in a massive iron trap—the kind hunters use for giant bears. The bite force was so strong it did enough damage to sideline him for two months."
"A bear trap..." Hagoromo looked up at the night sky, speechless. That was such a classic Obito move it almost hurt.