It was early morning on the next day, and Yuna, Hinata, and Naruto were standing in the Hokage office in front of a scowling Tsunade.
“Whatever happened, I am innocent and it is in no way my fault.”
Tsunade glared at Yuna after she said that and moments later rolled her eyes at Yuna’s antics.
“Yesterday evening Sasuke left the village. Sakura coincidently met him and was knocked out by him. She woke up a short while ago and reported the matter.”
“Oh? In that case, I actually AM innocent. What a surprise!”
Although Tsunade heard Yuna’s words, she decided to ignore what Yuna said, while Hinata and Naruto chuckled a little.
“I want you three to chase after him and bring him back to Konoha.”
While Hinata and Naruto nodded in understanding, Yuna still had a few questions about the mission.
“Why are you sending a jonin and two special-jonin after him? Is someone supporting his getaway? If it is just Sasuke, then a single jonin might already be overkill.”
“Someone is indeed supporting him. One of our patrols noticed Sasuke, but before they could stop him, a group of shinobi intervened and stalled our people.”
“Orochimaru’s people, I guess? I wonder how he found out that Sasuke will leave today. Or did they wait for him the whole time? I guess that doesn’t really matter. What does Konoha plan to do with him after we bring him back?”
“He will be put on probation and we will see where it goes from there. If he doesn’t become obedient, then we will simply have to imprison him. Everything is better than having him work for Orochimaru.”
Yuna nodded her head in understanding and asked her next question.
“On a scale from zero to four, how many of his limbs are allowed to be missing?”
Instead of answering Yuna, Tsunade only glared at her and after a few moments of silence, Yuna shrugged her shoulders.
“Fine, zero it is. Anything else we need to know?”
After a short moment of thinking, Tsunade nodded her head.
“If Orochimaru himself appears, you can abandon the mission. You are more important to the village than Sasuke and there is no reason to risk your life for him. Well, from what I have seen so far, you would happily fight Orochimaru even if it wasn’t part of a mission, so I guess it doesn’t matter. Additionally, if bringing him back is impossible, but you get a chance to kill him, then you are permitted to do so. If Konoha can’t have him, then no one can.”
Yuna nodded in approval at Tsunade’s ruthless order, while Hinata and Naruto nodded their head in understanding. Although Naruto would rather not kill someone who was his teammate for a while, he would still do so if necessary. Hinata on the other hand couldn’t care less about Sasuke. She understood that Konoha didn’t want to lose the Sharingan, but felt like having Sasuke being part of Konoha is more trouble than it is worth.
Yuna felt like she pretended long enough to care about the mission, so she decided to get going. Considering how rampant Yuna usually acts, it might even make Tsunade more suspicious if she asked too many questions.
“Well, guess we will be going. See ya!”
The moment she finished speaking, Yuna disappeared from the room, and after Hinata and Naruto gave Tsunade a little bow, they vanished as well, leaving a dumbstruck Tsunade behind. Although Tsunade had already seen Yuna appearing and disappearing without the slightest chakra fluctuation, she didn’t think that Hinata could do the same while even Naruto’s movements were barely noticeable.
“Seriously, what is wrong with those three?”
Instead of an explanation, Tsunade only got a small chuckle from Hiruzen, who was in the room as well. Although Tsunade wouldn’t deny that she was thankful to Hiruzen for helping her get used to the job, she really would prefer if he acted a little more…dignified.
Hiruzen, meanwhile, has completely stopped giving a shit. He was lazing around on a couch inside the Hokage office, while blatantly reading one of his favorite books. If that wasn’t already enough, he was smoking his pipe that had something in it that Tsunade was pretty sure was illegal in the Land of Fire.
One might ask how Hiruzen managed to smoke a pipe while simultaneously reading a book despite having only one arm, but Hiruzen wasn’t called “The Professor” for nothing. He was using earth nature manipulation to hold the book while using wind nature manipulation to turn the pages. The first time Tsunade saw this, she almost coughed out some blood. High-level nature transformation is considered to be one of the hardest skills a shinobi can learn, but Hiruzen was actually using it to read porn.
Yuna, meanwhile, was racing through one of the Land of Fire’s many forests, closely followed by Hinata and Naruto. Now that they were no longer inside Konoha, Yuna decided to speak.
“It’s a bit of a pity, but this will be the first time we fail a mission. It would be more advantageous, if Sasuke got away today, after all.”
Hinata and Naruto were both surprised by Yuna’s statement but only nodded their heads in understanding. Although they weren’t sure why Yuna said that, it was clear to them that she had a plan, so they kept silent and waited for her explanation.
“I have put a [Flying Thunder God Seal] on Sasuke, and I am pretty sure he is heading straight for Orochimaru.”
Hinata’s and Naruto’s eyes shone in understanding when they heard that, and Naruto was the first to speak, closely followed by Hinata.
“Hehe, I guess Anko will be rather happy when she hears that.”
“Haha indeed… This will make it even harder to stop her from attacking Yuna. Maybe I shou…”
Although the last two sentences were only whispered by Hinata, Yuna still heard the first one completely while she could more or less guess the second one and couldn’t help but chuckle a little. Yuna was just about to tease Hinata when she stopped moving and looked behind her, while Hinata and Naruto did the same.
A massive smile appeared on Yuna’s face that sent shivers through Hinata and Naruto.
“Hehehe, you two go ahead, I have something to do.”
Hinata and Naruto could pretty much guess what was going on, so they quickly started moving again and left Yuna behind.
“Finally! He finally stopped hiding in his little hole!”
A few minutes later, a huge group of shinobi with featureless, white masks approached Yuna. The moment they got closer to her, they started spreading out and surrounded Yuna. Yuna, however, couldn’t care less. Her eyes were fixated on the leader of this group. Black, shaggy hair, a cross-shaped scar on his shin, a Sharingan in his right eye, and ten more Sharingan in his right hand that had an unnaturally white color.
A huge grin appeared on Yuna’s face that almost split her face in half when she saw the person in front of her, while her killing intent started flooding the forest, causing every single animal in the vicinity to flee in terror.
“Danzo. Finally.”
