For this reason, Kakashi deliberately addressed Sasuke Uchiha, Naruto Uzumaki, and Sakura Haruno of this world.
"You'll handle this yourselves. Unless you're completely defeated, we won't step in right away."
In this world, Sasuke was already barely holding back his impatience. Naruto's explosive growth, the awakening of the Sharingan, and Orochimaru's cursed seal all piled together, making his temperament increasingly unstable.
And now, his counterpart from another world had already awakened the three-tomoe Sharingan at the same point in time. What irritated him even more was that they seemed to tacitly assume that only Naruto Uzumaki could defeat Gaara?!
The thought left Sasuke deeply displeased, stirring a strange sensation from the depths of his soul. Fear, unwillingness, rage, and emotions he couldn't even name tangled together.
Driven by this turmoil, his entire fighting rhythm turned excessively aggressive. He pressed forward relentlessly, trying to break through his limits as he chased Gaara down without giving him a moment to recover.
Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!
Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique!
Uchiha Shurikenjutsu!
Explosive tags!
The Sharingan combined with taijutsu—Shadow of the Dancing Leaf!
Followed immediately by a full Lion Combo!
After smashing through Gaara's monstrous arm defense, he didn't hesitate at all and unleashed the Dragon Fire Technique.
The entire chain of attacks gave him no chance to catch his breath. By the end, he could barely stay standing, almost dropping to his knees on the tree branch beneath him.
Naruto and Sakura both noticed how rushed he was, but the sheer intensity of that barrage was undeniable. Watching Gaara lie motionless for so long, the two of them grew excited, convinced the attacks had worked.
But on the other side, Team 7—who had already fought against Shukaku in its complete form—didn't think so at all.
As another Sasuke Uchiha, the one from the mission scroll world gave his assessment calmly.
"The rhythm's too aggressive. Too much chakra wasted early on."
In his eyes, Sasuke's frantic output looked like someone rolling their face across a keyboard, attacks thrown out with almost no structure at all.
"Something like that won't take down Gaara…"
He had already seen Naruto and Gaara's tailed beast versus tailed beast battle in their world. When Gaara lost control of Shukaku, the only way to deal with him was to force him to burn through his chakra, make him use the Feigning Sleep Technique, then beat him awake.
Sure enough, just as everyone in this world thought Sasuke Uchiha had beaten Gaara into losing consciousness…
Gaara, lying on the ground, let out a terrifying laugh that sounded neither fully human nor fully beast.
"Very good, Sasuke Uchiha…"
Sand lifted him to his feet. The sand poured out of the gourd behind him, crashing onto the ground and forming an enormous tail.
His combat power and speed doubled in an instant.
Sasuke narrowly avoided being struck by that tail, but even the dodge looked messy and desperate.
Sakura in this world simply didn't have the combat strength to participate in a fight like this. Naruto could use Shadow Clones to interfere with Gaara's movements, but Sasuke's emotions were far too aggressive right now. His coordination with Naruto was practically nonexistent.
Not only could they not work together, they were actively getting in each other's way.
The other Team 7 watching from the sidelines could only look on helplessly.
Adult Kakashi sighed.
"They really don't have any sense of teamwork at all… Compared to them, Sasuke and Naruto on our side get along much better."
Comparison really does hurt.
Still, Kakashi knew in his heart that even if they were clashing right now, Sasuke was still Sasuke, Naruto was still Naruto, and Sakura was still Sakura. Their core wouldn't change.
It was just that, with information being uneven, Sasuke had become a bit too impatient. As long as they could get through this safely, that would be enough.
Besides, his barrage of attacks wasn't completely meaningless. Gaara's growing impatience and the visible drain on his chakra said everything.
Naruto and Sakura would also come to recognize their own shortcomings and push themselves to train harder.
Wasn't it the same back in the Land of Waves? No matter how rough the process, the three of them always ended up standing together in the end.
Sasuke, standing beside Kakashi, watched his otherworldly self fight so recklessly and almost wanted to turn his face away.
Just dealing with feelings like this was already painful enough. He couldn't imagine how strong Obito Uchiha must have been to endure the truth after learning that the masked man was another version of himself.
Oh right. That guy had already awakened the Mangekyō back then.
Looks like the stimulation had been intense enough.
At that moment, Naruto and Sakura tried to ask the Kakashi on this side for help, but they were sharply stopped by their own Sasuke.
Watching his counterpart from another world, Sasuke—who wasn't participating in the battle—couldn't help but sigh inwardly.
Still not stimulating enough. Otherwise… maybe he could've awakened the Mangekyō too?
The current state of the battle was clearly unfavorable for Sasuke Uchiha. Gaara was steadily revealing more of Shukaku's form, frightening Kankurō and Temari into retreating even farther away to observe from a distance.
"Sasuke Uchiha, how did you get weaker? At least entertain me a little more!"
Sasuke clenched his fists tightly, the unwillingness boiling inside him leaving him deeply stifled.
Naruto Uzumaki jumped in to help, buying Sasuke a brief moment to catch his breath.
Watching from the sidelines, Naruto felt that this version of Sasuke was even harder to deal with than the one he knew. His emotional knots were far heavier too, unlike the Sasuke by their side, who had already begun to loosen some of his burdens.
"Sasuke, Sasuke… do you think he still doesn't know that Itachi was an undercover agent?"
Sasuke stared at the other Uchiha, who was standing there with his head lowered in stubborn focus.
"Probably," he said, then shot Naruto a sideways glance.
"Even so, I won't forgive Itachi. Don't make it sound like I already have."
Naruto groaned.
"I never said you did! Why are you so hard to deal with too?"
"Who are you calling hard to deal with, you super idiot?!"
"....."
Kakashi sighed inwardly. See? Even over here, they could start arguing at any moment.
"Sasuke-kun!!!"
Sakura Haruno's anxious cry rang out from the battlefield, pulling everyone's attention back.
On the field, black, flame-like markings were spreading across most of Sasuke Uchiha's skin. They weren't particularly grotesque, but they gave off an inexplicably unsettling feeling.
Sasuke activated his Sharingan and focused on his other self.
"The chakra flow in his body is strange. It's like something is controlling it from the inside."
Kakashi quickly pulled down his forehead protector and used his Sharingan to examine the situation as well.
"It's spreading from the back of his neck outward," he said. "This is most likely Orochimaru's cursed seal. At most, he can probably only use Chidori twice a day. Just now, he activated the seal Orochimaru gave him to forcibly use it a third time."
The third Chidori inflicted further damage on Gaara's body and mind.
But at the same time, Sasuke Uchiha ran completely out of strength and collapsed to the ground…
Gaara charged at him in a frenzy. The claw formed from sand, Shukaku's claw, was about to slam down on Sasuke!
Unable to watch any longer, Naruto Uzumaki, who was practically about to explode with anger at Sasuke's behavior, leapt forward with a flying kick.
Whoosh—thud!
The kick sent Gaara flying backward.
To be honest, even Naruto himself thought that kick was pretty cool.
Sasuke felt a bit embarrassed and didn't feel like saying anything.
Sakura was worried about Sasuke, who had been marked by Orochimaru's cursed seal.
"Yare yare," Kakashi said. "That burst of power is really something…"
Even without mission scrolls, and even if Minato-sensei had never personally guided their training, the power inherited from his sensei's bloodline would only accumulate before erupting. It could never truly stay dormant.
At this moment, Naruto was furious at Sasuke Uchiha's complete lack of cooperation. In his mind, Sasuke should have been calmer and stronger, yet at such a crucial moment, he hadn't properly brought out his strength at all.
"I already told you I'm in a hurry."
Naruto's voice was clearly displeased.
Lying on the ground with the cursed seal spreading across his body, Sasuke was furious as well. But he would never say it out loud:
it was precisely because you idiot were in such a rush that I wanted to finish off Gaara as quickly as possible!
Just now, though, Gaara had reminded him of the person he had to kill, and of his own weakness.
That was why the cursed seal had…
The pain from the cursed seal made Sasuke cry out miserably.
"Sakura, take that idiot Sasuke over to Kakashi-sensei."
Sakura hesitated.
"Then what about you…?"
"Either way, I'm much calmer than that guy right now."
Naruto stepped in front of Sasuke and Sakura, facing Gaara head-on.
Sakura glanced at Sasuke-kun, whose body was covered in cursed seal markings. In the end, her worry for him won out. She said softly to Naruto, "Be careful," then half-supported, half-dragged Sasuke toward the Adult Kakashi.
At the same time, Shikamaru Nara and Shino Aburame jumped down from nearby branches to join them. The two of them had plenty of questions as well, but since they weren't members of Team 7, they quietly listened instead.
"Kakashi-sensei…"
Sakura found it hard to speak, faced with another version of herself, another Sasuke, another Naruto, and another Kakashi all standing together.
The Sakura from the mission scroll world didn't say anything. She crouched down and used medical ninjutsu to treat Sasuke's injuries.
The soft, glowing green chakra left Sakura Haruno staring in shock.
"That's the Mystical Palm Technique," Sakura said quietly.
She couldn't help feeling a little envious.
"We went through some unusual experiences," the other Sakura explained to her Kakashi-sensei. "I can't remove the cursed seal on Sasuke-kun. I don't know why, but the chakra from this thing feels really bad to me."
After observing for a moment, the Adult Kakashi said, "It doesn't seem like it can be eradicated. We'll have to see whether Minato-sensei's sealing techniques can do anything once we meet him."
Tormented by the cursed seal, Sasuke's consciousness wavered. Even so, in his haze, one thought surfaced clearly.
So Naruto's father is named Minato…
That name felt strangely familiar, as if he had heard it somewhere before.
Under normal circumstances, Sasuke would have immediately realized who that name belonged to.
But right now, the cursed seal was eroding his sense of self, leaving him unable to focus on thinking things through.
After some time passed, Sasuke finally felt a little better. He looked toward Naruto, who was still fighting Gaara, then turned his gaze to the Sasuke beside him.
He asked again, "You don't have a cursed seal? And how did you get the three tomoe? You still haven't answered me."
"I awakened it not long ago," Sasuke replied.
As the image of that photograph that made his skin crawl flashed through his mind, he silently swore that sooner or later, he would slaughter every version of Danzō Shimura across all worlds.