Naruto- Secret Sage

S rank sensation

My sensei wasted no time at all announcing Kakashi's elevation to S rank to the village which created a wave of celebrations. Each and every S rank ninja a village had meant that the village was even stronger than before. This was cause for celebration for that village and lamentation for the others as it meant that village was now even tougher to defeat. My sensei didn't say exactly how Kakashi became S rank but nobody doubted her as the man was already well known for being right at the precipice of the rank and so it wasn't odd that he finally crossed it.-

I took no praise for raising him up to there by teaching him sage mode but that was the deal between me and my sensei. I wanted my free time to remain as it was so I helped make the village more stable by teaching Kakashi and she left me alone about training new graduates. Admittedly it was also quite amusing to watch the silver hair shinobi awkwardly deal with the eager villagers who were in a small bit of frenzy over his new status.-

Those who were aware that Kakashi had been going to my house a lot before this announcement had figured out that I was involved with his "sudden" elevation and had tried sucking up to me to get similar help but I ignored them. Kakashi was being held back by his sharingan that left him with way less chakra to use than he actually had but for the rest they had no such handicap stopping them from reaching S rank. My training of Kakashi was mostly able to push him over the limit of S rank simply because it increased how much he could do without spending more chakra.-

If he could have used his full chakra pool he wouldn't have even needed my help as he would have already been considered S rank. Still I couldn't say that I didn't understand why these people were hoping to get my help to reach S rank. That position was a thing of great power and prestige so naturally everyone wanted it but how many ever truly achieved it? Six? Seven? Eight in two generations? The number was DRASTICALLY lower than the number that reached the rank below that Elite Jonin. There could be a dozen Elite Jonin in a generation but only one makes it to S rank.-

Talent was a factor sure but the biggest hurdle was putting the work in to be considered truly exceptional. Reaching Elite Jonin took hard work but S rank took near supernatural work ethic to achieve for most. The only real exceptions to this that I knew of was my sensei, me and the Jinchuriki. In our cases we were just different than everyone else in how hard we had to work to reach that height. For my sensei it was because of her bloodline to a massive degree as she had both Senju and Uzumaki blood and that meant her body without training was insane compared to literally anyone who didn't have a bloodline or were me.-

Add a decent work ethic and teacher to that and a passion for medical jutsu and you get my sensei. For the Jinchuriki they simply had to learn how to tap into the tailed beasts within them to reach S rank which had various degrees of difficulty based on how well the beast and person get along. Add on that they all had stupidly high amounts of chakra and trained as well and that explains that.-

As for me well that should be obvious at this point as thanks to being in sage mode since birth my talent was literally unmatched, the pinnacle possible. Add on the training I did and Orochimaru's interference and that was enough said. What all of these people wanted was some sort of shortcut they could take to avoid the work needed to reach S rank and after seeing Kakashi achieve it in such a short time of interacting with me near daily they thought I had this shortcut.-

They were both right and wrong as sage mode was certainly a great boost to ones strength but the trick was that they had to have the strength to boost to begin with. While I had no doubt that I could raise pretty much anyone to S rank if I personally oversaw their training for a time I saw no reason why I should waste my time on such people. By far the worst of these people had to be the Hyuga clans elder that had the audacity to try and blackmail me with the fact I was hiding my strength from the village.-

They would need to be blind to miss it with their byakugans and for some reason thought I was avoiding revealing my strength to the village. I couldn't help but wonder if they were senile and couldn't understand that I wasn't hiding anything, I just didn't have a reason to use it. I compared myself to the likes of the first Hokage and Madara Uchiha and while I fell short in terms of sheer skill I was fairly certain that I could match them in power, especially if I used saint mode. My sensei was perhaps the only person in the village who knew this and for good reason.-

My mere existence would be more than enough for all the other villages to put aside their strife and unite to kill me. No one wanted to see another Madara or Hashirama show up and all but forcibly suppress the other villages. Anyways I flat out told the old bastard where he could shove his blackmail before telling my sensei so she could decide what to do with them. It was almost funny how the old coot tried to spread the news of my strength. But rather than get me questioned by the village my sensei exposed that she was already aware and that the old coot was trying to stir up trouble and then sat back to watch the village tear the reputation of the bastard apart.-

The best part was that it effected the entire Hyuga clan as well and the main branch of the clan was forced to issue a formal statement condemning the elders actions and making it clear it wasn't the stance of the rest of the clan. The old bastard ended up "passing in his sleep" a week later which was suspicious as hell but got the heat off the clan at the very least.