HSU: Ch. 317

The Hiding in Mist Technique was a very cost-effective ninjutsu. As an area-based interference jutsu, it actually didn't consume much chakra.

Moreover, as a ninja's rank increased, the interference effect also became stronger, the higher-ranking the ninja, the more chakra they could infuse into the mist.

It could also be stacked. When released in groups, if enough people cast it, it could completely cover the battlefield.

However, this jutsu could only be effectively performed once a ninja reached the chunin level. In the Kiri corps, it was a required technique for chunin to master.

The Silent Killing, which was used in conjunction with the Hiding in Mist Technique, was purely a taijutsu move, taught at the Academy level in Kiri.

A standard tactic of the Kiri corps was for the chunin squad leaders to release the Hiding in Mist Technique first, followed by the many genin charging in with Silent Killing.

This combo was cracked during the Third Great Ninja War by the Konoha southern army corps made up of Uchiha and Hyūga clans. And the reason for this was simple, jonin-level Byakugan.

The Hiding in Mist Technique had little effect against Byakugan of that caliber. At that level, Byakugan could see chakra networks clearly through the mist. Although the three-tomoe Sharingan couldn't see the chakra pathways, it could perceive chakra density, so against Sharingan users, the mist was nearly useless unless you were extremely close.

Still, it was undeniable that in peaceful times, where most battles were chunin vs. chunin, and neither side usually had Sharingan or Byakugan, the Hiding in Mist Technique was a devastating tool, very effective.

The Hiding in Mist Technique cast by a ninja at Itachi's level couldn't even be seen through by Kakashi. Even without removing his Sharingan, it was useless.

As for Masashi, his version of the Hiding in Mist Technique was even more overwhelming, few in the Hyūga clan could see through it. The chakra was so saturated it would blind them outright.

Seeing this familiar ninjutsu, all the Uchiha and Hyūga present instinctively turned their heads to look at Masashi.

No one had expected that he would actually teach Kiri's assassination technique to Itachi. This combo of techniques, if kept within a single family, could sustain that family's power for generations.

In a clan, there were always individuals worth protecting, and the family must be preserved. Teachers as generous as Masashi were rare.

Even Hiruzen, who personally trained the Three Sannin, never taught them the Sarutobi clan's exclusive summoning technique, Enma.

"You're really generous," Shisui said, clearly very happy.

The fact that even the Hiding in Mist Technique was taught showed that Masashi truly acknowledged Itachi.

"This technique suits him," Masashi replied simply.

After all, he had carried the title of Itachi's teacher for so many years, he had to teach him something worthwhile. Otherwise, it would reflect poorly on him.

Besides, even though Itachi's "Will of Fire" had become increasingly "magical" over time, at least he could now view things from the clan's perspective. That gave Masashi peace of mind about teaching him.

If Itachi wanted to be "magical" outside the clan, Masashi had no objections.

"Whether I'm generous or not, doesn't matter right now," Masashi said, pointing downward. "From this point on, there's nothing left to see."

Shisui blinked, then glanced below again.

Yep, thick fog.

Occasional flashes of lightning.

That was it.

"I guess… it's really like that…" Shisui muttered awkwardly.

And he wasn't the only one, everyone was caught off guard.

All eyes were glued awkwardly to the giant cloud of mist below.

What was there to even watch anymore?

While there were still sounds, they were all coming from Kakashi.

Suddenly, someone leaped out of the mist and landed near the group of Hokage.

It was Tsunade.

And she looked furious.

"Who taught this?! Are they insane?!" she shouted. "How am I supposed to supervise a sparring match when someone uses a jutsu like this?!"

A large number of eyes immediately turned to look at Masashi.

"Don't worry, once they determine a winner, the mist will disperse," he called out loudly.

Tsunade realized it was Masashi who responded. Her lips moved as if to say something, but after thinking it over, she held back.

"Then I guess this has nothing to do with me. Let Masashi be the referee." The more Tsunade thought about it, the more reasonable it sounded. "I'm leaving."

With that, she didn't wait for Hiruzen or Minato to say anything before making a quick exit.

She left so decisively that even Hashirama and Tobirama didn't have time to call out to her.

"Sigh…" Hashirama let out a long sigh. "That girl…"

Though he said that, his eyes were fixed on Madara, who was sitting off to the side. He knew his old friend's temperament all too well.

Madara was never a fan of watching sparring matches, doing so only reminded him of Izuna. If he did watch, it had to be a fight worth watching, intense and satisfying. Otherwise, he might just jump in and beat up both sides himself.

"Why are you looking at me!?" Madara flared up the moment he saw Hashirama's gaze.

He stood up, glaring fiercely at Hashirama.

"If you think it's boring, we can have a match ourselves."

"Madara, don't complicate something so simple," Tobirama said. "You're no longer the Uchiha clan leader."

"Was I talking to you?" Madara shot him a deathly cold look.

So cold it could double as air conditioning.

From the moment he opened his mouth, he successfully derailed the entire mood. Now, everyone was on edge, terrified the arena would turn into the Valley of the End.

"I think the two of them will settle it soon."

The several Hokage and former Konoha legends turned their eyes to Masashi.

They stared for a long while.

Just when Masashi started to wonder if they were planning to gang up on him, Madara let out a cold snort and sat back down.

Everyone let out a silent sigh of relief.

As long as Madara didn't cause trouble, everything would be fine.

No one acted bored or complain about not being able to see anything, afraid of provoking Madara.

The stadium fell into a strange silence.

Only the occasional flashes of bluish lightning flickering in the mist reminded them that there were still two people fighting inside.

---

Unaware of the tense atmosphere in the stands, Kakashi was still locked in a fog-covered standoff with Itachi.

He had long heard of the fame of the Hiding in Mist Technique and the Silent Killing, but this was his first real encounter.

These techniques reflected a harsh reality:

Lethal moves that claimed to kill in one strike were often just for show. The truly deadly ones were the mundane-looking ones.

Basic attacks that appeared non-lethal were often the true killers, everyone relied on basic attacks to finish the job.

With the Hiding in Mist Technique paired with Silent Killing, one often only needed a kunai, or not even that, to kill.

Though these techniques were invented in Kiri, their most famous user was Masashi from Konoha. Once he unleashed the thick mist, his stealth techniques would clear the field.

Even though his chakra bar was nearly depleted, Kakashi remained cautious while using Chidori.

He still relied more on Earth Release.

But Earth Release's stealth weakness was that the user had to come up for air. This technique required breath-holding, making it a test of lung capacity.

Every clash between the two came down to a brief moment of detection.

To deceive the Sharingan, he could only keep using shadow clones.

Itachi's crow clones were equally annoying.

This clone-based back-and-forth prevented Kakashi from spamming Chidori and forced him into the type of combo-based combat Itachi excelled at, territory Kakashi was not unfamiliar with either.

In other words, it became a battle of basic attacks.

Just as Kakashi poked his head out of the ground, a flurry of shuriken flew at his face.

These Uchiha punks even put silencers on their shuriken.

Weren't those expensive? Didn't they feel bad wasting them?

Kakashi instantly whipped out a kunai, pa pa pa, deflecting the barrage.

But then, Itachi emerged from behind and stabbed him in the side with a blade.

"Slacking off, Kakashi-senpai? You didn't even bother using a shadow clone," he said.

But the Kakashi in front of him dissolved into sludge.

Before the mud even hit the ground, a massive earth dragon surged up from the opposite side, jaws wide open.

Its massive mouth closed, but only crushed a splash of water.

In the next moment, a thunderous boom exploded the earth dragon into a spray of mud, revealing Kakashi mid-hand-seal.

The shuriken that had scattered earlier suddenly exploded, turning into a flock of black crows with Sharingan eyes, diving toward Kakashi.

Honestly, given Itachi's combat style, Kakashi thought he'd be better suited for the ANBU than the regular jonin squads.

But Itachi also hated Kakashi's ninja hounds, whose keen sense of smell worked similarly to the Inuzuka clan's tracking ability.

As the crows closed in, Kakashi knew he couldn't let them get too close. Who knew if Itachi was hiding among them?

His hand seals were already complete, BOOM, a massive burst of lightning exploded around him.

A wall of lightning engulfed the crows.

And these two had been fighting for way too long. It was starting to feel… un-ninja-like.

The black crows dropped to the ground. Though Kakashi no longer had his Sharingan, his chakra control could compensate for the loss in perception.

His wide-range Lightning Release attack fried the entire flock of crows.

The powerful light pierced the mist, revealing a silhouette.

It was Itachi.

The lightning jutsu Kakashi had just unleashed incorporated a new technique he had exchanged for with post-war merit, Lightning Illusion Flash of Lightning Pillar.

This was a genjutsu technique from Kumo, using bright light to deceive the enemy and silently cast illusions.

He liked the concept, but thought it wasn't enough. So he fused it with Chidori's transformation properties.

Thus, it became a wide-range, illusion-infused, lethal composite ninjutsu.

In the fog, Itachi staggered slightly, a clear sign he was hit by the technique.

Kakashi gave himself a mental thumbs-up, canceled the summoning of his hounds, and triggered the explosive tag formation.

Earth surged across the field, spreading explosive tags everywhere.

The next instant, BOOM, a sea of fire engulfed everything.

The entire stadium trembled, but it held firm, proving it wasn't some shoddy construction job.

Otherwise, the contractor would've been in serious trouble.

Jonin-level tacticians like Kakashi were practically academic geniuses. Forget structural engineering, even the most annoying subject, fluid mechanics, he had graduated in. He knew exactly how to plant an explosion to kill enemies without damaging the structural integrity of a stadium.

If the stadium collapsed, it would definitely be due to poor construction quality.

The explosion completely blew away the mist, allowing all the spectators to see clearly. The fog created by the Hiding in Mist Technique was blasted into the sky along with the shockwave.

This kind of countermeasure was very Konoha, the explosive tag formation had been widely used by Leaf forces in the Third War against Kiri.

The difference was, back then it was to kill the caster.

Here, in the "cramped" stadium, the concentrated blast could act directly on the mist itself.

Everyone craned their necks.

Finally, the smoke cleared.

The battlefield was a complete mess. A single person lay on the ground.

"It's Itachi!" someone couldn't help shouting.

Amateurs. Like no one else could tell.

"Did he just get blown to death?" another person blurted out, drawing glares from everyone around.

The Uchiha clan ninjas, however, weren't angry. If the clan leader wasn't beating anyone up, it meant everything was still under control.

Suddenly, a small mound of earth bulged up from the ground, rumbling all the way next to Itachi… and then, a hand stretched out, holding a twig, and gently tapped Itachi on the head.

Everyone: "..."

Still, everyone recalled the earlier rapid-fire, deception-filled Basic Three Techniques duel between the two and could kind of understand.

These two had practically turned the Basic Three Techniques into muscle memory.

But for two geniuses to still have such solid fundamentals… it was honestly kind of overkill.

Itachi, lying on the ground, still didn't react.

Kakashi slowly poked his head out of the ground, cautiously, in a way that made people feel a bit sorry for him.

He just sat there with only his head out for a while, then gradually pulled himself up out of the dirt.

"I won," he said.

This time, he was speaking to the people in the stands.

In the stands, the four Hokage all let out a sigh.

Kakashi didn't get the reaction he expected. He seemed to realize something.

He turned again to look at the "Itachi" lying on the ground.

That wasn't Itachi, it was a dummy.

The kind used in training fields to test the power of explosive tags, very durable.

Just a combination of Substitution and Transformation Techniques. He shouldn't have been fooled by it.

Kakashi turned his head. Itachi burst from the ground behind him with a gust of wind.

This was a literal, physical breakout, not a technique.

Kakashi fell silent, walked over to the dummy, and inspected it. He found the explosive tag trap underneath.

And the hole dug using Wind Release.

"When did I fall into a technique?"

"Just a small trick," Itachi said. He wasn't completely unscathed either, but he had succeeded. "You can use genjutsu through Lightning Release, why must I rely only on the Sharingan? A little misdirection, enough to keep your subconscious from doubting."

"Even if the trap works, the next step, close combat, works in my favor."

"So let's call it a draw," Itachi said. "Honestly, senpai, you're strong as you are. If you still had Obito's Sharingan today… you would've lost already."

"..." Kakashi didn't respond to that.

Itachi didn't expect him to.

Everyone had known the answer from the start.

Logically, people felt Kakashi had thrown away significant power when he gave up the Sharingan, but emotionally, they understood and admired the decision.

In the stands, Minato stood up.

"This match between Kakashi and Itachi ends in a draw," he announced loudly.

No one objected. It was clear to all, if the two weren't fighting to the death, they were evenly matched.

But to make them fight to the death? You'd have to be insane.

These two were among the most vital reserves in Konoha's top-tier ninja pool.

To put it harshly, the better things seemed, the more you needed to stockpile elite fighters. That lesson had already been learned the hard way.

As the silence continued, Minato knew everyone agreed with his ruling.

"Next, regarding the return of the Mangekyō Sharingan," he said, "I intend to negotiate with the Uchiha clan, alongside the three previous Hokage, and find another way to resolve this. What do you all think?"

Masashi frowned.

He didn't like the sound of that.

Minato's proposal… wasn't ideal.

"I don't like it."

But the one who spoke wasn't Masashi.

It was Madara.

The entire atmosphere instantly turned tense.

Itachi and Kakashi looked up toward the stands, both sensing the shift.

Kakashi looked at Madara's silhouette.

He didn't know much about this Uchiha. To him, the name Madara was just a page in the history books. Even now, revived by the Reanimation Jutsu and temporarily residing in the village, he had never had the chance to interact with him.

But Itachi was different. Because Madara occasionally visited Sasuke at home, the two had crossed paths several times.

From every angle, this man warranted the label: Extremely Dangerous.

Madara's eyes didn't acknowledge anyone else. He was locked on Hashirama.

"I said this would be resolved today. So it will be resolved today," Madara said coldly. "If you can't solve it, then I'll use my method."

He leaped from the stands and landed in the arena with a thunderous thud.

Dust surged like wind from flat earth, sweeping past Itachi and Kakashi, whipping their clothes tight against their bodies, even straightening their hair.

"You. Get up there," Madara glanced at Itachi.

As for Kakashi, he didn't even bother to look at him.

Neither Itachi nor Kakashi said a word. Whatever they were feeling, they moved quickly, silently hopping back onto the wall.

Madara surveyed the area. His tone was absolute, no room for discussion.

"If you can beat me, take the eye. If not, leave it behind."