When the video ended, Kakashi fell into deep thought. The sheet of paper in his hand was already covered in dense notes, every line written as he watched. Memory never beat ink.
Adults could go years without changing much, but kids couldn't. Judging by Sasuke's appearance in the footage, everything must have happened less than a year from now.
Which meant he would be face-to-face with Itachi soon.
The difference in their ocular power was obvious. Even with both eyes open, even staring straight into the Rinnegan, it wouldn't have stopped Itachi from dragging him into the hell of Tsukuyomi, torturing him for three days… no, probably much longer than that.
What a pain.
He used to be the one everyone feared because of the Sharingan. Now he had to fear someone else's. Shows how little experience he really had.
After all, ever since he got the Sharingan, he'd never actually fought someone with a truly powerful one.
From everything he'd read, his combat application of the eye was already considered excellent, even among the Uchiha. But Itachi… Itachi was something else entirely.
He was the one who wiped out his whole clan single-handedly.
Was the Mangekyo Sharingan really that strong?
Could it surpass the ordinary Sharingan by that much?
Kakashi decided he needed to visit the archives and look up everything he could about the Mangekyo. There were plenty of files he had no clearance for, but there were also many he did. He had simply never thought to check.
After all, there weren't many Sharingan left in circulation. What was the point?
And then there was Itachi's behavior. He had so many chances to kill Kakashi, yet never did. Even at the end, he didn't let Kisame finish him, but ordered him to take him instead.
What did that mean?
It confirmed two things Kakashi already suspected. One, Itachi had held back. Two, he might have been intentionally leaking information.
He underlined "suspected" twice. Even he knew how bold that thought was.
A rogue shinobi who massacred his entire clan sending intel to the Leaf? Hard to believe.
Yet he couldn't shake the feeling.
The second conclusion was even more alarming. The brief glimpse of Itachi's strength confirmed it. He completely outclassed an elite jonin like Kakashi. He was already well within Kage-level power.
And his partner, the one who obeyed him so naturally, Hoshigaki Kisame, clearly wasn't just some normal elite jonin either. If he were, Itachi wouldn't have told him to take Kakashi and kill Asuma and Kurenai too.
Both Asuma and Kurenai, while slightly weaker than Kakashi, were still solid elite jonin.
Which meant Kisame was very likely Kage-level as well.
If that was true… it led to a terrifying possibility.
If all three known members of Akatsuki—Orochimaru, Itachi, and Kisame—were Kage-level, then the organization's upper limit was far beyond what he'd imagined.
It meant their baseline wasn't elite jonin.
It might be an organization made entirely of Kage-level shinobi.
Kakashi felt the air catch in his throat. If that were true, the situation was far more dire than he'd ever realized.
A lineup like that could suppress any village in the shinobi world.
Only in the age when the Leaf was at its absolute peak could they have resisted such a group. Back then, Konoha had the Third Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen, a council of top-tier elders, his own father the White Fang of Konoha, his teacher the Yellow Flash Namikaze Minato, the Sannin, and countless other Kage-level fighters.
That Konoha had been unstoppable, winning on multiple warfronts at once.
The Konoha of today was a pale shadow of that glory. Even Orochimaru dared to plan a full-scale Leaf Destruction.
But if every member of this organization had Kage-level strength… who was their leader?
What kind of monster could command such people?
Kakashi felt he was brushing up against the true shape of the world for the first time.
All the doubts he had about Kaede Kitahara's diary evaporated. These scenes hadn't happened yet, but everything matched too well with his understanding.
It was time to learn from Guy how to fight without looking into someone's eyes. Maybe he could read their shoulders or torso instead. Anything was better than falling into genjutsu.
Sharingan genjutsu needed eye contact to trigger. That much he knew.
Kakashi stared at the sheet for a long moment, then held it over a flame. Everything he'd written burned to ash. Not a single word could be allowed to leak.
——
Meanwhile, Sasuke was glaring at the diary, flipping it back and forth to confirm there was no more text before finally giving up.
The diary's sudden appearance today had given him a series of revelations he never could've learned on his own.
For example, after passing the academy exam, his jonin instructor would be Kakashi Hatake, Konoha's Number One Technician.
Or that Itachi would return to the village soon.
Before, he would've hunted Itachi down at all costs. Now, after witnessing that power, the urge had weakened.
He wasn't afraid of death. If dying meant killing Itachi, he would do it without hesitation.
But he couldn't even scratch Kakashi, and Kakashi had been annihilated instantly. If he fought Itachi now, Itachi wouldn't even need Tsukuyomi. He could kill him effortlessly.
Sasuke wasn't stupid. He wouldn't throw his life away.
He needed a method that could truly kill Itachi.
Training under Kakashi wouldn't get him there. So… should he consider Orochimaru?
Only as a last resort. Orochimaru was clearly dangerous.
But someone as strong and well-intentioned as Kakashi still couldn't defeat Itachi.
Where was the real difference?
In those eyes.
The Mangekyo Sharingan.
Did he truly need those eyes to beat him?
And the price for awakening them… he knew that too.
It required killing one's closest friend.