As you've pointed out, I'm almost pulling a Neon-Zangetsu by piling up interesting stories without completing them: I'll try to focus on this one, but I'm not going to ignore inspiration when it hits me about something else, deal?


Collision Route

25th February, year 14 AK

Kakashi dodged with a sharp twist of his waist, the deceptively thin hand of the Godaime Hokage missing him by less than an inch while he countered with a knife-hand aimed at her eyes, perfectly controlled chakra realizing an edge capable of cutting stone.

Tsunade bent her head backwards, exposing her throat and bringing Kakashi to capitalize, changing aim and going in for the kill.

Then he felt his ribs explode as he was flung across the training ground, his chakra flailing wildly as his vision went black.

Kakashi came to as Tsunade's chakra washed over his form, ribs snapping together and behaving like liquid as they were returned to their proper place, while his lung was built once more by the skilful Kage, who raised an unimpressed eyebrow at his prone form: "Not having a Sharingan doesn't allow you to stop checking for genjutsu."

The white-haired shinobi coughed out a lump of clogged blood before narrowing his mismatched eyes towards her: "That wasn't a genjutsu."

"It wasn't," she agreed with a snort, "but I blatantly offered you my throat, you should have immediately retreated then: at this level, rookie mistakes simply do not happen. I actually showed you my throat in order to have you retreat, as I was about to use ninjutsu, it should have been obvious that I wouldn't make such a mistake without being certain that I would strike first."

Without any more words, Kakashi circled his chakra through his body, casually checking for more injuries, but without finding any, like always, fighting the Hokage was proving to be thrilling: he could go all out, the rare wounds that he managed to inflict upon the woman tended to be healed before he could capitalize on them, while the punishing blows he received were swiftly dealt with.

"Are you ready?" the woman asked, but even as she spoke, Kakashi abruptly restarted the circling od chakra, dispelling the subtle genjutsu that hid the Kage's approach.

He pivoted on his left foot, his arm lashing out with a kunai even as he seamlessly manipulated Lighting natured chakra in order to release a bolt of lighting meant to distract more than wound: his arm met only air as the Hokage ducked under his swing, and he had to abort his attack because the woman as already inside of his guard. A seal-less kawarimi later found him hiding among the trees of the Hokage personal training ground.

The problem, as Kakashi was coming to realize, was that Tsunade managed to land blows capable of shattering mountains while remaining completely undetected: she was a ghost. Her stealth had been honed as much as possible, but shinobi, when in battle, tended to react instinctively because of what they naturally felt from the opponent's chakra.

"You need to start again with nature changing exercises, anything but your Raiton is sloppy." her voice came fro his left, and so he quickly went through three simple hand signs in order to spew a fireball to his left, where the woman was already charging in, only to jump away because the ground ruptured as a consequence of another of Tsunade's signature punches.

With a ducking motion when a fucking tree was hurled into his face, Kakashi fell back into ANBU training, masking his presence as best as he could and unsheathing his tanto: it was obvious that he was years away from being an actual challenge in an open fight. But as he suddenly found himself remembering, open fights were rare, and tended to happen only between amateurs or people so powerful that they couldn't hope to operate stealthily.

"Stop." when the order came, he returned to his Kage, ars folded behind his back and tanto in its sheat once more: "You took a while to understand this, didn't you?" the Hokage asked, "You're not Orochimaru, you're not your father, you're not me: stop trying to fight like an S-rank, you're not one yet. Simply being able to ration your reserves and last more is only a starting point, use Kage-bunshin for combination techniques if you must, but use those as a cover for a quiet ambush." she explained.

When he nodded, accepting the scolding for what it was, she sighed: "In a week, I'm sending you to the capital. We'll spar again once before you leave."

"My mission, Hokage-sama?"

"Daiki is making waves, I've ordered his 'House of the Rising Sun' to be closed down until furhter notice."

"You suspect the Akatsuki?" Kakashi asked, proving himself quick on the uptake.

The Hokage shrugged dismissively: "His books were dangerous in time of peace, now that there is less work, less food, less entertainment, the civilians tend to hide from the real world in those fantastical stories. Coming from the same publishing house, they talk among themselves, and dream of being able to have a say in the country' politics when the only thing they're taught is how to sow a field. They chat with each other, and that is going to become a problem"

"I'm sending his Nara student to see if his old sensei left something for him in the companies he set up during his time as a Fire Guardian." she shook her head wistfully as she observed the devastation she brought forth against Hatake: "Returning to your skills... you managed to remain alive longer than I expected, well done."

"Thank you, Hokage-sama."

The message was clear: Spy on the Nara.


13th March, year 14 AK

Karin panted as she shot forward yet another jab, following immediately with a sidestepping motion that left her in a perfect position for a leg sweep. Her knee scraped against the ground and she knew that it was a mistake, but she didn't let that deter her from completing the Kata that her... sensei... was having her perform.

Sensei. Karin repeated in her mind as she elbowed empty air before following up with a knee strike that would have collapsed the solar plexus of anyone stupid enough to come too close to her. She was still weirded out by the strange turn of event that saw her go from a prisoner to an apprentice to an S-class nuke-nin, and she was less than enthusiastic about the taijutsu section of her training, in particular the sheer amount of body-weight exercises that she had to complete without the aid of chakra.

Still, the feeling of powerlessness that had accompanied her since her capture seemed to become lighter the longer she spent under the tutelage of the enigmatic Daiki.

She frowned as she quickly jumped back, her left foot lashing out in a quick motion meant to stop an opponent from engaging her while she looked for some breathing room, and she found herself considering the events immediately following her meeting with the Sage.

He had freed the other prisoners without giving them orders of any sort, letting them organize themselves: there were people both from the Land of Fire and Kiri, it was difficult for her to not notice immediately the twists in the chakra of some people, indicating the presence of a particular bloodline.

Karin performed a perfect cartwheel, her fingers dipping into a pouch on her right leg and lashing out with a small hail of shuriken, again, a move necessary in order to keep her distance from the imaginary opponent she was sparring with.

The prisoners' affinities were clear to her like colours on a canvas, more often than not accompanied by streaks of purple rage and red bloodlust. Karin, half-blind as she was given her lack of glasses, had nevertheless chosen to focus on her saviour, who insisted on calling her padawan: a powerful Suiton user, with white streaks of cutting winds and deep, unyielding pillars of stone that echoed a determination so driving that she could almost touch it. But beneath the canvas of the man's chakra, she had felt a connection, likely to a clone of some kind, tied to Daiki by an invisible stretch of chakra, which, strangely enough, seemed to come to an abrupt stop against what felt like... whirlwinds and harsh gales, howling over a rupturing ground, countered by calmly changing tides and soft rustling of leaves... Karin shuddered at the memory of that feeling, her balance shifting suddenly to compensate a wrong landing on her left foot.

"You are distracted." Daiki's voice cut through her sloppy routine, effectively halting her even as she felt sweat pour from her forehead and between her shoulder blades, making her cringe in distaste.

"I'm just tired," she replied turning her head towards the voice, her blindfolded eyes unable to pick up anything: "I'd rather continue my chakra training."

A soft laugh was the only answer she heard, and a scraping sound later, she landed on her butt: Daiki had moved and negligently tripped her: "You haven't even learned how to fall, and you expect me to continue when you haven't passed even this part of your training?"

Karin huffed in distaste as she ripped the blindfold off, her red eyes glaring unfocused upon her sensei: "I don't even have my glasses! she complained.

The shrugging movement of her sensei was so pronounced that it couldn't be anything less than an open mockery of her deficient sight: "We'll find you a pair of glasses soon enough, but you need to learn how to fight in the dark, using your sensing will help in most occasions, but you already know that there are people specialized in not being seen nor felt, so we need to up your awareness, it will help with chakra control in any case."

The worst thing about him is that he explains why he's right far too easily. Karin decided when he hauled her to her feet after she had grabbed his offered hand. She frowned as she considered his words, it wasn't like he didn't know what he was talking about, he had dispatched a group of hunter nin not a week before, and Karin had awakened only because of his sudden flaring of chakra.

While startled by the rough awakening, she wasn't overly worried, she could feel clearly enough that when he was 'open' to her, she could tell that he hadn't ill intentions. When his attention was on her, Karin could feel an undercurrent of both bright golden hope and steely expectations that she was meant to meet. So, when she felt the trio of hunter nin attacked him, she had immediately known that her sensei would defend her, and after his showing off during the bolting away from the Iwa outpost... well, she had some hard data to confirm his supposed skill.

Karin's eyes went even more unfocused as she lived again the events that led to her newly found freedom: not long after the prisoners started moving against the incoming Iwa nin, which were immediately made aware of the suddenly freely moving chakra systems in their midst. Then Daiki had... changed for lack of a better term. The defining qualities of his chakra fìwere still there, undeniable at the close distance he kept from her, but the intensity behind those had turned out to be simply terrifying. There was still a strange sort of protectiveness geared towards Karin, but the contradictory carefree determination that had brought Daiki to free her had turned into titanic swathes of power rolling off his form: the same feel of the still vastness that Karin had perceived connected to her saviour was poured into him as the chakra-link unravelled.

From that moment, everyone in the base had been made aware of the S-class in the heart of the outpost, and Karin had strangely felt somewhat relieved that such a power was in the hands of Daiki. She didn't know him that well yet, but she felt enough to know that there wasn't even a hint of bloodlust in him, nor enjoying of his clear superiority over others.

The seals that kept the earth from being manipulated had simply ruptured when Daiki landed his hands on the walls around them, his chakra flooding the system of caves without any hope of being countered: the earth had shifted, the attempts of Iwa shinobi to attack the recently freed prisoners felt like pebbles thrown against a wall, no, like rocks thrown into a calm lake. The forceful manipulation of the earth in the hands of Daiki was disrupted minimally in some areas, but the influxes of Iwa nin' chakra were rapidly subdued by the sheer momentum behind her recently self-named sensei's will.

"You're spacing out, Karin." his voice jolted her back to the present, making her blush faintly.

She focused once more on his presence: a royal blue awareness of everything in the surroundings, with quick-changing streaks of stone-grey determination and desolate-brown sadness which were quickly subdued under golden-tinted hope and a lighter blue... affection/protectiveness geared towards her. "How did you use that much chakra?"

Daiki sighed tiredly at her question, raising his right hand with chakra coming to his fingertips, changing from its natural blue state to the green-tinted medical one: "With control, both of your body and your chakra, comes a form of power that will never betray you." and when she looked at him expectantly, he chuckled softly: "If I were to explain it now, I have no doubt that you would try it, and given your current capabilities, you would be met with either failure or death."

Karin sighed in relief as the green-tinted chakra of her sensei - it was still strange to refer to him as such - washed over her tired muscles: "We need to push you a lot until the end of your puberty, in a few years you'll notice your reserves turning out to be truly impressive, turning your control to be pinpoint will require another year once we're there."

"So... I'll be S-rank strong?" Karin asked what she'd been thinking about since the 'padawan' thing had sunk in.

Daiki ruffled her sweaty hair ignoring the gross-ness of the action: "If I have it my way, you'll be stronger than that."

"Oh," the Uzumaki felt the surprise wash over her as she was reminded once more of the quiet honesty that seemed to surround her sensei's intentions: "But... what are we doing here? I mean, why aren't we moving around some more then? The hunter-nin keep running tighter circles around us."

"You are trying to train while figuring out where you are and what you want for your future." Daiki patted her head twice before turning towards a tree: "I am overseeing your training and waiting."

"Waiting? Waiting for what?" as she finished asking those questions, a burst of cawing laughter revealed a raven waiting for Daiki to free a message from its leg.

"For this." the Sage quipped, reading the small scroll while the raven studied him with a keen intelligence through its beady black eyes: "In the capital of the Land of Fire we will find a shop for your glasses." he simply said to his padawan before turning towards the bird.

"We'll be there." he stated, and with a peal of cawing laughter, the raven disappeared with a puff of smoke.

Karin felt her jaw go slack with surprise at the event, realizing that there was much that she had yet to learn, both in practical skills and about her mysterious yet stalwart sensei.


AN

Another character-building chapter, I fear:

Part 1: Kakashi

I'm not nerfing him: he's an exceptional ANBU, and on the higher end of A-rank, but it's not been that long since he lost the Sharingan, and developing techniques takes time, as Kishimoto stated in the Manga, Naruto ignoring that rule because of Kage-bunshin and plot-armour related bullshittery.

Tsunade is a hardass, she never does anything until the final battle against Madara, mostly because Kishimoto needed to showcase Naruto's Sage-mode against Pain than anything else. Think about it: when you are the strongest fucker in the village, you deal with the threat, and only then you heal the survivors.

In this story, she's put in the Hokage seat right at the beginning of the Fourth Great War, and while she must remain in Konoha to keep fuckers from trying direct attacks, she is far from useless.

Kakashi, on the other hand, has never really needed to try. He's hailed as a genius (albeit not on Itachi's caliber), but he stopped progressing after receiving the Sharingan. Sure, his repertoire is basically bottomless, but you'll notice that in the Kage fight against Madara there are only a handful of techniques being used: but those techniques can be used both for a long time, and are devastating.

Onoki: flight & molecular destruction (plus random doton).

Mei: twin bloodlines of lava and acid mist (plus random Suiton).

A: lightning armour coupled with taijutsu.

Gaara: bullshit sand manipulation.

Tsunade: she's a fucking unstoppable tank, but her control evolves in erasing her presence, and some skill with genjutsu (the only explanation for genjutsu is that the user invades the opponent's chakra coils with his own chakra, and that it requires control and intelligence, Tsunade is the best med-nin around, and she's been trained by Sarutobi: all the sannin have solid taijutsu, scary summons and a specialization. Orochimaru has countless ninjutsu and can shed skin, Jiraya has fuinjutsu and selected powerful ninjutsu). Let's be real here, perfect chakra control has countless applications, and she's a veteran.

Kakashi is still finding his feet: being born a genius does not an S-class make: Sasori was a genius, but he worked for years at his craft, while Deidara as a bomb-genius or gifted with a powerful bloodline but he's shit, a one-trick pony. Kakuzu has learned taijutsu from sheer experience, but he makes use of only a couple of tricks: in fact, he's bested by a bunch of low A-class in the manga (there is some plot armour going on in there, but whatever).

So, what I'm trying to get across is that Kakashi has the potential for S-rank, but it can't be based upon the Chidori, that he needed the Sharingan for, and so he has to rework his entire fighting-style: genius or not, it requires time. Besides, I think that now that the Sharingan it's gone, he needs to rework his chakra control, since he no longer needs to compensate the constant drain.

He's more suited to quiet works than open battles, and he has a lot to do before returning to the higher end of A-rank, nevermind reaching S-rank.

Try and go read 'Hurricane Suite' there is a wonderful build-up with a clear cut showing of the difference between A-rank and S-rank.

Part 2: Karin

Once again, I skipped the action that saw Karin getting freed, merely having her recall the events. This choice is more a writing exercise than an actual part of the story, still, you've already seen Daiki casually curb-stomp random shinobi, and I tire of writing out meaningless fights when there are still many battles to be had in the future.

I try to not repeat a sequence of events if I can avoid it, besides being less than effective training for me, it's kind of meaningless for the story: Daiki didn't learn anything from the assault on the Iwa outpost (even if reluctantly admits with himself that he kind of cares about his wayward genin), while Karin's perspective on those events is character building.

There isn't much characterization of Karin in the manga, nothing besides her obsession with Sasuke, casual cruelty, and random emotional swings. All of that is after three years under Orochimaru, so I'm going from the little that has been shown of her before Shippuden.

Her village wanted her only for her bloodline, and since she couldn't face a bear, I think that her training was shit, mostly because Kusagakure didn't want such an asset to become independent: in this story, she's been captured and was being railroaded for slavery and breeding. It makes sense that she wishes to become stronger.

I have pretty much a free hand about what to do with her character, for now, she's determined and obviously grateful: it's the first time she's met someone that isn't after her simply because of her vampire-healing-bullshit (he knows about that, she doesn't know that Daiki knows), and while the MC has obviously considered everything when he decided to take Karin under his wing, she is also one of the few people around that sees more the horror of the Elemental Nations than the rose-tinted version everyone village-raised is capable of perceiving.

So Daiki basically saw this: huge potential, 0 bonds, and an already jaded vision of the world. She's the best starting point he could ever wish for in an apprentice, and while I've only hinted at it with the way he decided to bust into the Iwa outpost, he's kind of lonely. The Elephant Clan didn't turn out to be a family in the same way the Toad Clan is for Naruto, the Kages are hardly there for companionship, and the less is said about the Snake Summons the best it is. Besides the worry about his students (Shikamaru could become a peer of Daiki, but he's bound to his clan and to Konoha), the Sage thinks more often than not about Itachi, who is the only one truly capable of being Daiki's equal: not because of power, but because of mentality.

So, having an apprentice capable not only of becoming as powerful as Daiki is (Uzumaki related bullshit), but capable of thinking on a large scale just as the MC does, with a clear perspective, isn't something he's willing to ignore.

I'm not saying the MC is aware of his loneliness since he's too focused on the rest of the world for true introspection, but our ideas and choices are rarely based on sheer logical processes: does his behaviour make sense?