"A clone?"
Baki felt a belated chill of fear.
Though fans of the original series jokingly dubbed him "Kakashi of the Sand," Baki really did have some genuine skill.
It was simply that Hanabi's true body had never been on-site to begin with.
What had appeared here was only a clone.
If he'd made a move just now, he'd have exposed himself.
"What exactly happened in the second exam?" Baki asked quickly.
"That person just now, Hyuga Hanabi—in the last exam, she suppressed that thing inside Gaara. Gaara didn't go berserk even while he was asleep." Kankuro was sweating as he spoke.
"Our plan... she may have already seen through it," Temari said with a sigh too.
"Hyuga Hanabi, huh." Baki mulled it over. "Legend has it the Hyuga clan is split into a main house and a branch house. By rights, everyone except the firstborn heir becomes branch house—but this case is an exception." Baki sorted through the intel he'd gathered. "Hyuga Hanabi—word is she's blind, and she's the younger sister, yet she didn't become branch house. On the contrary, she lives in the main house as the young lady of the Hyuga, alongside her sister."
If the clan was willing to break tradition for her, it meant she had to possess something special enough to warrant the exception.
"Talent?"
That was the most immediate thing Baki could think of.
If she could even suppress Gaara's Shukaku...
Wait.
A possibility suddenly occurred to Baki.
—What if... I could keep her by Gaara's side, permanently...?
[Unreal]
[Mega unreal]
[So this whole circus, and he's just thirsting after my waifu's body!]
[You filthy degenerate!]
[Brother Chongba says: flay 'em all and stuff 'em with straw]
[It's so absurd I don't feel a single ripple of emotion]
[lmao]
[what even IS Shukaku]
[I asked the AI. There's a Bunbuku Chagama legend circulating in Japanese folklore, and it's got a priest Shukaku in it]
[So is Gaara's real name Bunpuku, then?]
[Grass (a type of exclamation), can't even picture it]
[My read: Bunpuku might be Gaara's father or teacher or something, and maybe Shukaku's just a borrowed name. Hunting for the inspiration is fine, but whatever you do, don't map it onto reality]
The audience was pretty sharp—with no lore explainer from the original Naruto series, even a legend as obscure as Bunbuku Chagama could still be dug up by them.
"Strictly speaking, that's the AI's doing, I suppose?"
Hanabi tilted her head.
After Baki, the view switched over to Naruto and Sasuke.
Kakashi had led the two of them away from the exam hall and brought them up to a rooftop.
Then Kakashi started briefing them. "Listen. Strictly speaking, in terms of raw individual ability, the two of you are already far beyond ordinary Genin."
"Awesome, so does that mean we can become Chūnin?!" Naruto cheered.
"Idiot, pay attention to what Kakashi said—'individual ability.'"
Sasuke was at a loss over Naruto's reading comprehension.
"Correct. And even in terms of 'individual ability,' you're both at a very dangerous level right now," Kakashi nodded.
"Uh... that guy with no eyebrows..." Naruto really did sense that the no-eyebrows guy might be quite strong.
And Sasuke had fallen silent too, because the one he had to fight was Hanabi.
Both of them had splitting headaches.
"Naruto, how well have you mastered the Rasengan?" Kakashi looked at Naruto.
"Totally mastered it!" Naruto thumped his chest.
But Kakashi sighed. "The Rasengan requires no hand seals—it's meant to be used in an instant. Naruto, right now you need a Shadow Clone to help you form it. Are you sure you can pull it off 'instantly'?"
"Uh, that's..." Naruto scratched his head.
"The Enten that Sasuke's mastered counts as a Nature Transformation move derived from the Rasengan. It's lower difficulty than the Rasengan, and yet Sasuke can deploy it instantly." Kakashi held Sasuke up as the example.
"Hmph~" Sasuke looked thoroughly pleased with himself.
"Nature Transformation...? What's that?"
Naruto's face was a total blank.
"Wind, Fire, Earth, Water, Lightning—a shinobi's basic natures. On top of those, there are two more special types: Yin Release and Yang Release. A shinobi is born able to handle one or several transformations, but with later training, most can be acquired... didn't Hanabi go over this back when we were training?" Sasuke was a little exasperated with Naruto.
"Did she...?" Naruto thought hard.
Then the view cut directly to a flashback.
And the content of that flashback was the special training Naruto and Sasuke had done earlier.
Since there'd been plenty of time between graduation and the Land of Waves, Hanabi had in fact passed on a fair bit of advanced shinobi knowledge—Nature Transformation, for one.
Fire Release was the fire-natured transformation; Water Release, the water-natured one. You had to master Nature Transformation to handle a given jutsu with real fluency.
Hanabi wasn't in the flashback herself, and even she hadn't expected the Stage to serve up a flashback sequence and hand her some bonus screen time.
For Hanabi, this was rather fun.
"So, have you ever done a Nature Transformation test?" After the explainer flashback, the view returned to the real world, where Kakashi was asking.
"I'm Fire and Lightning, and Naruto's Wind," Sasuke remembered.
"Oh, right, right, right!" Naruto hurriedly nodded.
Umm... that was probably it?
"Then there's no problem," Kakashi said. "Sasuke, I have an original Lightning Release jutsu. You've watched Lee's taijutsu with your Sharingan, haven't you? This jutsu needs taijutsu of about that caliber to go with it."
"Mn." Sasuke nodded gravely.
"As for Naruto... hmm, there are plenty of Wind Release jutsu, and I could teach you a few, but I feel like they wouldn't be much use."
Ordinary Wind Release probably wouldn't work on Gaara.
In a place like the Hidden Sand, where sandstorms raged, Naruto's Wind Release was practically useless.
"Huh?" Naruto was dumbfounded.
"Maybe we could start from the Rasengan." Kakashi thought it over. "Chakra has two kinds of transformation: Shape Transformation and Nature Transformation. Gathering chakra in your palm and compressing it through high-speed rotation to form the Rasengan—that's Shape Transformation. And Nature Transformation, well, Sasuke just explained it... think of it simply as our various Release techniques."
"Ohh ohh ohh."
"Sasuke's Enten works by compressing a Rasengan to a certain point and then suddenly letting it disperse, converting the chakra inside into Fire Release that latches onto the enemy and keeps on burning," Kakashi said.
"So does Naruto need to add a Wind Release Nature Transformation to his chakra?" Sasuke asked.
"Hmm... hard to say." But Kakashi looked a little troubled. "It's easy enough to say, but Naruto only just mastered the Rasengan itself. Adding a Nature Transformation on top of it—that's something even the Fourth Hokage never managed."
Still, the way Kakashi saw it, if Naruto wanted to "punch above his weight" and beat Gaara, then aside from the Rasengan, his only real option was the Nine-Tails' chakra.
And whether he could even master that kind of jutsu in a month was anyone's guess. Worst case, Naruto ended up with nothing to show for it.
Kakashi knew plenty of jutsu, but teaching two people at once was still a bit of a stretch.
—Don't tell me Naruto's about to get another teacher dropped on him out of the sky?