Chapter 98: The Art of the One-Handed Seal
The visual feed from Hyūga Hizashi's Byakugan, spliced into the live stream via Ren's system hack, was a revelation. The world resolved into monochrome clarity, walls and trees dissolving into transparent grids of chakra and structural outlines. It was a god's-eye view, and it was currently focused with laser precision on Hatake Kakashi.
The initial, damning impression from the obscured angle was immediately overturned. The Copy Ninja wasn't engaged in solitary depravity. His right hand, the one hidden in his lap, was a blur of precise, controlled motion. His fingers danced through a rapid, silent sequence of hand seals—Ram, Boar, Snake, Tiger—over and over, each transition flawless and blisteringly fast. He was practicing one-handed seal speed, a high-level skill that demanded immense chakra control and dexterity. All while his visible eye scanned the pages of his book, his expression one of detached focus.
[Tobirama Senju: Hmph. Disappointing. It's just advanced chakra control drills. Efficient, but mundane.]
[Uchiha Izuna: I knew it! Too good to be true. The man's a workaholic, not a pervert. Boring.]
A wave of palpable relief, mixed with paternal pride, emanated from Sakumo Hatake. [Sakumo Hatake: See? Discipline! Constant self-improvement! That's my boy!]
[Minato Namikaze: I never doubted him! A true shinobi hones his skills even in downtime!]
The narrative had been neatly corrected. Kakashi was a dedicated professional, squeezing in extra training. A wholesome, if obsessive, image.
Then Kakashi moved.
His head snapped up, his single eye sharpening. He scanned the darkness outside his window, his senses clearly picking up on something—perhaps the faintest whisper of the Byakugan's observational chakra, or more likely, the distant, cold presence Ren had been tracking. After a tense moment, he slipped silently out the window and fluidly ascended the same gnarled tree Ren had vacated moments before, choosing a different, thicker branch.
[Tobirama Senju: Oh? Now we're getting somewhere. Nighttime field exercise?]
[Uchiha Izuna: Or he finally needs some… privacy for the real activity. The room was too cramped with the old man.]
Kakashi settled on the branch. He reached into his flak jacket and pulled out not Icha Icha Paradise, but a different, sleeker volume. This one had fewer words and more… illustrations. High-quality, glossy, full-color illustrations of a very specific, anatomical nature. Bathhouse surveillance photography, artfully (or not) framed.
The Byakugan's detail was, once again, merciless. Every curve, every shadow, was rendered in clinical clarity.
The dead shinobi of the Pure Land, whose entertainment options were severely limited, reacted with a spectrum of responses.
[Hyūga Hizashi: By the Ancestors… such indecency…!]
[Yūhi Shinku: Hmm. Subject 18 demonstrates excellent lumbar flexibility and muscular definition. My daughter could learn from her posture.]
[Minato Namikaze: SHINKU!]
[Tobirama Senju: Fascinating composition on number 3. The lighting through the steam is quite artistic. And look—the photographer's credit. 'Jiraiya.' Of course it is. The man is a polymath of perversion.]
[Uchiha Izuna: Number 7 is where it's at. A healthy, robust physique. None of that willowy nonsense. You need substance!]
A debate on aesthetic preferences in cheesecake photography erupted among the ancient warriors, with Uchiha Madara dismissing it all as "distractions from true power" while secretly having the Byakugan zoom in on number 12.
Then Kakashi, still studying the images with an analyst's eye, did something unexpected.
He casually, almost absently, unzipped his pants.
The chat froze.
His right hand—the same one that had just been performing flawless, one-handed seals at Jonin speed—disappeared inside.
For a heartbeat, there was only the silent, stark image from the Byakugan.
Then, movement. Not the frantic, shameful motion of earlier assumptions. This was different. Slow. Deliberate. Almost… clinical. His fingers, trained to manipulate chakra with micro-surgical precision, were now applying that same focus to a different, vastly more intimate task.
[Tobirama Senju: …I stand corrected. The man is an innovator. Combining advanced chakra control theory with… stress relief. A truly holistic approach to shinobi wellness.]
His text was filled with a kind of horrified admiration.
[Uchiha Izuna: I TOLD YOU! I TOLD YOU ALL! THE ONE-HANDED SEALS WERE A WARM-UP! THIS IS THE MAIN EVENT!]
[Sakumo Hatake: (A psychic sound akin to a dying whale)]
[Nohara Rin: I… I need to go lie down. In a different part of the Pure Land. Forever.]
[Minato Namikaze: Kakashi… why… why outside? The tree? Have you no… environmental awareness?]
[Kushina Uzumaki: MINATO, THIS IS YOUR LEGACY! YOUR STUDENT IS A TREE-COPULATING PERVERT!]
Ren, watching through the shared link from his own hidden position deeper in the village, felt a wave of surreal disbelief. This was a layer of Kakashi's character that no fan theory, no data book, had ever hinted at. The aloof, tragic Copy Ninja, reduced to… this. It was absurd. It was humanizing in the most grotesque way possible.
He saw Kakashi's face in the Byakugan's view. There was no leer, no expression of base lust. His visible eye was half-lidded, his brow slightly furrowed in concentration. He looked like a man solving a moderately difficult puzzle. One hand held the book of nudes at the perfect angle in the moonlight. The other was busy inside his pants.
It was so profoundly, hilariously weird that Ren almost lost his focus on the cold, gliding presence he was supposed to be tracking.
The operation lasted for a precisely measured minute and forty-seven seconds. Kakashi's breathing hitched once, minimally. A faint tremor ran through his chakra network, then stabilized. He withdrew his hand, re-zipped his pants with the same efficient motion, closed the book, and tucked it away. He then pulled out a small canteen, rinsed his hand with water, dried it on a leaf, and finally, produced a lemon-scented sanitizing wipe from a seal on his wrist, scrubbing his fingers meticulously.
[Tobirama Senju: …He sanitizes. He plans for the cleanup. This isn't degeneracy. This is a routine. A horrifically efficient, field-appropriate masturbatory protocol. I've never been more unnerved and impressed in my entire death.]
[Third Raikage: In Kumogakure, we call that 'logistical preparedness.']
[Yagura Karatachi: In Kirigakure, we'd just use the mist.]
Kakashi, now cleansed and composed, leaned back against the tree trunk, looking out over the sleeping village, the picture of post-"mission" calm. The whole episode had been less than three minutes.
And in those three minutes, Ren's primary target—the cold, observant presence—had used the distraction, the sheer bizarre humanity on display, to close the distance significantly. It was now in the village proper, a silent, icy ghost moving between the shacks, its focus no longer on the house, but on the lone figure in the tree. On Kakashi, vulnerably lost in his post-coital (or post-whatever) reverie.
Ren's smile returned, sharp and cold. The farce had served its purpose. It had drawn the hunter's eye, provided a moment of profound distraction.
Good, he thought, melting deeper into the shadows, his chakra a void, his movements a whisper. You looked at the clown. You saw the bizarre ritual. You think you understand the guards.
Now look at me.
He moved, not towards Kakashi, but on an intercept course with the gliding chill in the mist. The 'Silent Shadow Weave' made him utterly invisible. The hunter was about to become the hunted.
The night's comedy was over. The tragedy was about to begin. And Ren had the best seat in the house, with a front-row view courtesy of a horrified Hyūga's Byakugan.