Naruto : Monsters: Chapter 37

In my mind ten seconds had passed since I entered my imperfect Lightning Release state, but in reality, everything that just happened occurred in barely a tenth of a second.

It was over. All I had to do was-

"Maa~ Aren't you the scary one?" A voice came from my right.

...

Huh?

My head reflexively turned towards the voice, infinitely slow, even though I didn't need to turn with my Byakugan open. There, just beside my right shoulder was Kakashi. He had crouched down a bit so that his head was level with mine, and he had one hand cupping his chin as he smiled at me.

What!? What the hell!

I swung my right arm toward him in an elbow strike, not an attack of the Gentle Fist but in a desperate attempt to force him away from me. My arm, like the rest of the world around me, moved sluggishly slow towards Kakashi's head. It felt like an entire lifetime had passed until -finally- my elbow landed on his cheek-

A hand reached out to pat me on my shoulder. "Really, kids these days are scary." Kakashi commented from behind me, somehow disappearing from right before my eyes only to appear at my back.

What the hell was going on!

This time I pushed my Lightning Release to the absolute limit. I put every last scrap of concentration I had to speed up my perception while I spun around to deliver another messy backhanded punch, more an attempt to just hit him than cause any real damage.

As my punch once again began to near his face, I made sure to keep my entire focus on him, and that was when I saw it.

Sparks of bluish-white light coated his entire body as electric current licked up and down his skin. Just as my strike was about to hit him, Kakashi dodged it. 

And I did not mean he slowly swayed out of its way at the same speed I was moving. I meant that he simply took a step back at his normal speed while I moved at a pace so slow that a turtle would have looked at me with pity.

In my eyes the entire world moved in super slow motion but not Kakashi, who moved with all of his usual speed. It was like he wasn't governed by the same limitation that everything around him was.

And when he next spoke, I could hear his words clearly, which was not supposed to even be possible. I was perceiving things at practically a hundred times my usual rate, even sound. Which meant that I would not be able to understand a single word anyone says to me, not as I was. Because all I would end up hearing would be gibberish nonsense as their words were stretched out and distorted.

But when Kakashi spoke, I had no trouble understanding him, which could have only meant one thing. Kakashi was speaking at the same speed I was thinking at, something he would only be able to pull off if…

SON OF A BITCH! That was the Raikage's Lightning Armor! Why the hell did Kakashi have the Lightning Release!?

"You know," Kakashi casually walked up to me after easily stepping out of the way of my blow, "It took me most of my life to learn this technique. I was nineteen when I finally figured out how to speed up my thoughts without frying my brain, and even now I still haven't gotten the hang of speeding up my body. Compared to the real deal, my Lightning Armor is nothing but a third rate copy."

Kakashi wasn't supposed to know this technique! He wasn't supposed to be anywhere near this strong without his Sharingan!

Kakashi squatted down, ducking under my follow up at attack with such casual ease that I would have been insulted under any other circumstance, and ended up crouching right in front of me. He smiled up from the ground, "But look at you! Barely even twelve and you already mastered half of it. I tell you, these days kids are scary." He shook his head mockingly.

This time, when he looked back up, his single eye was as cold as ice and his voice devoid of all humour, "But let me give you a piece of advice –"

Pain flared up from my chin and my head was sent reeling back as Kakashi struck me. The blow knocked me clear off my feet, the sky and ground switching places as I began to flip backwards.

"The problem with only speeding up your mind," When I next saw him, Kakashi was already behind me. I was still drifting in the air, hanging almost horizontally off the ground, so everything in my vision was inverted. 

"Is that while it does grant you the ability to see the attacks coming, it does nothing to help you avoid them. 

And when you find yourself in a position where you can neither block nor dodge, all you can do is watch as the attack draws closer to you infinitely slow, helpless and powerless to do anything to prevent it." He raised a hand about a meter above my head before clenching it into a fist. "Like this."

Then he swung down.

Yet even as I watched the fist come soaring down towards my face, I had one thought running through my mind, and it had nothing to do with the inevitable pain I was about to suffer. No, my thoughts were on the man responsible for getting me in this mess- Kishimoto.

You nerfed Kakashi didn't you?! You bastard! How much did you nerf the guy for him to be this strong?

I spent the next several seconds cursing Kishimoto in my mind, and still that punch hadn't reached me. Like Kakashi said, there was nothing I could do but watch as his fist came crashing down towards my face and…

… miss me?

Kakashi's fist changed course at the very last second, curving away from my face and into his side-pouch, only to appear a moment later gripping a very familiar orange book.

...

I am really beginning to hate this man.

I decided to turn off my Lightning Release. There was no point in using it against him, not when he could use it even better than I could, and keeping it on will only end up wasting more of my Chakra.

As soon as I dropped it the world began to speed up around me. I pulled my knees to my chest and held my hands above my head. The instant my fingers brushed the ground I pushed and backflipped onto my feet.

Kakashi ignored me, engrossed into his book. The man raised a hand to his mouth and let out a perverted giggle as he continued to read from the latest addition to the Icha Icha series: Icha Icha girls gone wild – lesbian edition.

Still, despite how unguarded he appeared to be, I wasn't fooled. Not anymore. I finally understood my mistake. When I began this fight I had been expecting to fight a different Kakashi, the anime version of himself. 

But I was wrong, and ended up getting my ass handed to me because of my mistake. That's because the person I ended up fighting with was someone entirely different than I thought he would be.

The man who stood before me was someone who had stepped into the battlefield in one of the bloodiest wars in history at the tender age of five and had not only survived, but flourished. This was the Anbu Captain, Konoha's strongest Jonin and the man who would become the Rokudaime Hokage.

He was the real thing, this was the real Hatake Kakashi.

I sighed even as I felt a smile bloom on my face. It was an odd feeling, knowing just how strong the man who stood before me was. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be feeling right now. Upset that he's that much stronger than me or happy that I'm going to be taught by someone this strong.

I barked out a laugh. Ha! I really should stop getting ahead of myself again. Until I got the bell off him I shouldn't presume that Kakashi becoming our Sensei was a sure thing. The last time I tried assuming something about Kakashi, I got my ass handed to me. For now, I should just ignore everything and just focus on getting the bell.

With a quick scan of my Byakugan, I checked up on the others. Good, looks like Naruto's almost done. While it hadn't turned out anywhere near as I hoped it would, I've somehow managed to stall Kakashi long enough.

All that's left is to bait the trap.

And I know just how to do it.

I sighed, "And I really was hoping to keep this hidden for a little while longer."

"Hmm?" Kakashi didn't bother to look up from his book, "Did you say something?"

"Not a thing," reaching up to my forehead protector, I yanked it down so that it covered my eyes. Yet even as I blindfolded myself, I didn't have any trouble seeing, not with my Byakugan. 

"But Kakashi, in exchange for the advice you've just given me, I'll give you one back in return. For the next minute or so, I suggest you don't take your eyes off of me even for a second or you'll end up regretting it."

When Kakashi just flipped a page and kept reading, I couldn't help but smirk. That's right you smug bastard, keep on ignoring. That'll just make things so much more satisfying when I finally got one over you

...

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