Hidden Leaf, Hidden Talents 110 (Patreon)

I stayed as still as a statue.

Believe me, I was dying to do something, literally anything, just to mess with them. Being folded up under this desk like a forgotten umbrella was boring as hell, and a solid prank felt like the only way to stay sane. But two things were stopping me. For one, I actually have a shred of self-preservation. For another, Tsunade had her legs wrapped around my neck in a total death grip. Every single time I even thought about shifting an inch, her thighs squeezed down harder. It was like being stuck in a room with a python that knew exactly when its dinner was trying to make a break for it.

So, I just gave up on moving.

Right above me, Dan was droning on. The absolute worst part was that he was not even trying to flirt. I had been sitting there in the dark, bracing myself for some cheesy line or a smooth compliment about her hair or whatever it is that pretty boys say when they are trying to work their magic. But he didn’t do any of that. Instead, Dan was out here pitching policy.

Real, mind-numbing policy.

"I went ahead and organized all the casualty data from both of the fronts," he told her. "The squads that had a medic assigned to them had a forty-three percent higher survival rate on missions that were basically identical. The mission success rates stayed about the same, maybe a few points off here and there, but that gap in survival is just massive."

Something landed on the desk above me. A stack of papers, from the sound of it. A pause, then pages turning one by one for a while before she spoke up.

"This is actually really detailed," she said. I could tell she was genuinely caught off guard by it.

"I have been working on this since the day the war started," Dan said. "All the numbers are right there. I cross-referenced everything I could get my hands on, from the deployment records to the final mission reports."

The war ended about twenty-four hours ago and this guy already has a full presentation ready with charts and statistics from two different battlefields. He is exactly like that one kid in the front row who goes out of his way to remind the teacher that she forgot to collect the homework.

Minutes started dragging by. Their conversation shifted into topics that made my eyes glaze over even with my lids shut. They were going back and forth on things like staffing, training, and manpower distribution. Dan had an answer for every single thing she threw at him. He had thought this through so perfectly that even when Tsunade pushed back on a point, he had a response ready to go without even getting defensive about it.

I yawned without making a sound, which, for the record, is not easy when your jaw is currently sandwiched between someone’s thighs.

Still, boring or not, I was picking up enough to get the picture. I know a thing or two about this guy. His sister died right at the start of the war. That wasn't exactly top secret information. Pretty much everyone in the village knew about it. I didn't know the exact details, but I knew enough. Someone screwed up. His sister died. And now Dan was apparently trying to make sure nobody else got screwed the same way.

Listening to him now, as he laid out survival statistics and deployment models like a person who'd rehearsed this exact talk a thousand times in his head, I could fill in the blanks without much effort. His sister probably bled out in the dirt or took a hit that got worse because nobody on her squad knew enough medical stuff to keep her stable until the backup arrived. That's the only situation that creates a man this obsessed with putting a medic on every single team. You don't compile casualty data from two different fronts and write up a forty page proposal just because you read a random article about medicine. You do it because someone you loved died when a single competent medic could've stopped it from happening.

The thing was that he wasn't wrong. Having a medic on every squad would definitely save lives. The numbers were right there in his paperwork doing all the heavy lifting for him.

The real problem was that it was almost impossible to actually pull off.

Training a medical ninja took years. We're talking years of hitting the books, years of practice, and years of building up chakra control fine enough to knit skin back together instead of accidentally turning someone's liver into a smoothie. You couldn't just grab some random chunin off the street and say, "congrats, you're a doctor now, here's a scroll, good luck." The pipeline just didn't work that way. Even if you somehow managed to fast-track the whole thing, you'd still need enough people who actually had the talent for it. You needed fine control, a decent brain, and personality that stays cool while someone's insides are trying to become their outsides.

Listening to Dan talk, I could feel how much he meant it, and I actually felt kind of bad. The guy wasn't running some game. He wasn't even trying to get in good with Tsunade. He was just trying to make sure nobody else's sister died the way his did. I couldn't find a single selfish thing in his voice, and believe me, I was looking for one. If he'd just been a jerk or a little slimy, I could've disliked him the right way.

But here’s the thing. Dan was pouring his heart out about his grief, and Tsunade was listening. She was nodding along and agreeing with every single point he made. She was totally on board with his policy. Still, something about her reaction felt... well, a bit off. It wasn’t that she was being cold, but it was more like she was a doctor agreeing with a diagnosis rather than a patient who’d actually lived through the illness. Dan kept looking at her like he expected to see his own grief reflected back at him, and every time, he came up a little short. She cared about the issue. She just wasn't carrying the same weight he was.

I'd figure this out eventually, but the me under that desk was too busy being annoyed to see it. Nawaki was alive, so of course Tsunade wasn't carrying the same grief. That much was obvious. But I didn't connect the dots any further than that. It didn't occur to me that the whole approach Dan was taking, the shared pain, the matching scars, the idea that they both knew what it was like to lose someone, was supposed to be the thing that brought them together. I didn't realize that in some other version of events where Nawaki didn't make it, this exact conversation would've been the start of something between them. Two people with the same wound and the same dream. That’s a love story waiting to happen.

But Nawaki was alive, so that timeline didn't exist.

I tuned them out after that. I had total respect for the passion Dan was showing, but the moment they started talking about budgets, my eyes glazed over. My thoughts drifted back to my clones over in the Tanzaku Quarters.

The latest batch of memories I'd gotten back was a mix of good and bad news. They'd finally managed to make something you could technically call alcohol. It came out of the still, it smelled like the real deal, and it didn't immediately drop anyone who took a sip. The bad news was that it didn't exactly taste that great.

Was it sellable? Sure, I guess, if your business plan was to sell it once and never see that customer ever again.

My clones were completely split on the whole thing. Half of them wanted to keep playing chemist until they actually had something worth drinking before we put it out there. The other half argued that selling the early stuff would bring in some cash we could put back into better equipment and ingredients. Their logic was that we could fix the taste while we were already building up a solid customer base.

I got where both sides were coming from, which honestly just made the call a lot tougher.

The real issue was the branding. You only get one shot to make a first impression, and if our whiskey hit the street tasting like a half-baked science project, that reputation was going to stick. People in Tanzaku Quarters talk. The gambling dens talk. Even the tea houses talk. Word would get around that our stuff was total trash, and even when we finally nailed the recipe, we'd be fighting a losing battle against our own bad name.

On the flip side, waiting for perfection meant we were just burning through cash with nothing coming in. My clones in Tanzaku had been picking up random side hustles to keep the lights on, but that was a temporary fix, not a real business plan. Doing construction and hauling crates paid enough to keep us afloat, but nobody ever built an empire on day-labor wages. Even a mid-tier product would give us money that came in regularly, which was already a huge step up from praying a clone found another crate to carry. And the chess sets I'd been selling to merchants weren't exactly printing money either. After factoring in the cost of materials and splitting the profit between everyone involved, the margins were thin enough to see through.

But then again, I had to remind myself of the reality here. This wasn't modern Earth. There wasn't some global standard for booze, no rating systems, and no fancy experts sniffing a glass to tell me the notes were off. Most people out here just drank whatever the local guy brewed in his shed. You had rough sake and even rougher spirits, stuff that tasted like it'd been filtered through a dirty sandal. Nobody ever complained because they didn't know any better. In a market like that, even our rough draft was probably a huge step up from what half the countryside was chugging.

And just like that, the answer was obvious. We don't sell it as our flagship product. We sell it as the cheap stuff. Tavern-grade swill for people who just want something stronger than sake and don't care about taste. We pocket the money, pour it back into R&D, and keep improving quietly in the background. By the time we roll out the real product, the one with an actual flavor profile and a label worth looking at, we'll already have the infrastructure in place. Kanzaki starts at the bottom and works its way up. Every great brand has an origin story, and ours starts with bad whiskey and honest ambition.

I was feeling pretty good about that plan when the light hit me.

Tsunade shoved the desk back, and suddenly I was sitting there like a bug under a flipped rock. The office lamp poured over me, and I had to squint up at the world above.

Dan was gone. The office was empty except for the two of us.

She was looking down at me with a smile. Her mouth said she was happy to see me, but her eyes said I had about three seconds to start praying.

Her legs went gyuu around my neck. Then another gyuu-gyuu, like she was testing how much pressure it took before I made a funny noise.

"Mghh—"

I tried to say something, but it came out as a mix between a wheeze and a squeak.

"Do you know," she said, "how many times I almost sneezed during that meeting? Your breath kept tickling my knee. Every single time, I had to clench my jaw and pretend I was just nodding along to Dan's presentation."

Her eyes narrowed.

"And if I'd sneezed, Dan would've asked if I was okay. And if Dan had asked if I was okay, I would've flinched. And if I'd flinched, he would've noticed something was off."

Her smile softened. Not in a reassuring way.

"And then he would've looked under the desk. And then he would've found my student curled up between my legs like a stray cat."

Her smile got even sweeter.

"And then I would've had to kill you."

A small pause.

"And then I would've had to kill Dan too, because there's no way I'm letting a witness walk away from that."

She leaned in just a little closer.

"Two bodies, Shinji. Two bodies, all because you couldn't just leave through the window like a normal person."

I tapped her thigh twice. Pon-pon. The universal 'please don't kill me.'

She completely ignored it.

"Mercy," I wheezed. "Sensei, mercy. I'll be good."

She loosened her grip just enough to look down at me for real. Her eyebrow went up.

"You'll be good?" she repeated. "You?"

Yeah, she wasn't buying it. About fifteen seconds later, I was stuck in a chair, bound in bandages from my shoulders down to my ankles like a human burrito. It was honestly terrifying how fast she could do this. If she ever got tired of being an Iryonin, she had a bright future in kidnapping.

I tried to wiggle just to see if I had any luck. Nothing. She'd even pinned my arms tight against my sides.

"Sensei," I said, trying to sound like the most reasonable guy on the planet. "Let's be real here. We can work this out. How about I handle dinner for a whole week?"

She didn’t even look at me. Just went right back to flipping through Dan’s paperwork.

"Make it two weeks," she said, turning a page.

"Two weeks. Fine. Whatever you want, I'll cook it."

"And lunch."

"And lunch... Fine."

"And you're cleaning this office every single morning before I show up."

"That's… okay, you know what? Deal. Just untie me already."

She just flipped another page. "I'm busy."

"Can I get just one arm back? My nose is itching like crazy and it's driving me nuts."

"That sounds like a you problem."

I spent a solid minute squirming in that chair, trying to scratch my nose against absolutely nothing, but I wasn’t getting anywhere. She just let me struggle in silence for a while before speaking up again.

"You know, I could just leave you like this."

I stopped squirming.

"Ha. Very funny."

"I'm dead serious." She kept right on reading. "I'll just tuck you in the corner over there, right between the cabinet and the plant. If any patients ask what's going on, I'll just tell them you're a practice dummy."

I let out a nervous laugh. "Okay, good one, Sensei. You can stop with the scary jokes now."

She didn't laugh back.

"You'd definitely be a lot quieter this way," she went on. "Less of a headache for me. I'd even feed you between my appointments."

"Really?" I actually perked up for a second. "You'd cook for me, Sensei?"

She looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "I'd be using the food you're supposed to be making, obviously. I'd untie one of your hands so you could cook the meal, then I'd wrap you right back up."

"That's completely insane, Sensei."

"You sat under my desk for over ten minutes. I'm pretty sure you're the one who set the bar for insane today."

"Look, I'm thinking about what I did. Right now. I'm having a very deep, meaningful moment of reflection."

"You don't look like you're reflecting on anything."

"Trust me, it's all happening on the inside."

She didn't buy it. Obviously.

Still, I wasn't a quitter. If I couldn't negotiate my way out, maybe I could charm my way out. I switched gears and started laying it on thick. I told her her hair looked great today. That shade of lipstick? Totally her color. I said the war hadn't aged her a single day, then started explaining how the office lighting made her eyes look like warm honey when someone knocked on the window.

We both turned. An ANBU was crouched on the windowsill, that porcelain mask catching the early morning light. Cat mask, if I had to guess. One hand was still up from the knock.

"Tsunade-sama," the ANBU said, professionally acting like there wasn't a guy tied up in a chair right in front of him, "there's an emergency that requires your immediate attention."

A save from an ANBU. Beautiful. I owe that guy a drink.

She frowned. "Why are you bringing this to me? The Hokage handles—" She cut herself off as the realization hit. "Right. I forgot."

He said. "Since the Third is still incapacitated at the hospital, his standing order remains in effect. You're the acting authority for all village operations until he's fit for duty."

Tsunade leaned back and just stared at the ceiling for a second.

"That old man," she muttered. "Even when he's stuck in a hospital bed, he finds a way to dump more work on my plate."

She stood, letting out a long breath. "Fine. What's the situation?"

The ANBU hesitated. I could tell right then it wasn't going to be good news.

"We just received a messenger bird from one of Jiraiya-sama's contacts in the field. The report says..." He hesitated. "Uzushiogakure has fallen."

Both of us froze.

Tsunade went still with her hand on the back of her chair. I wasn't doing much better. My brain just kept repeating the words.

Uzushio... is gone?

Outside the open window, a single petal drifted by. It was a deep, vibrant red. It spun slowly in the early dawn breeze, taking its sweet time as it danced through the air.

Nothing stays red forever, though.

The petal drifted lower and lower until it finally vanished from sight.

Suddenly, a flash of ancient purple surged behind my eyes like a bolt of lightning.

The bandages didn't come off. They burst. An invisible wave of pressure rippled out from me and every single strip of cloth covering my arms shredded into tiny white flecks.

I stood up.

Tsunade turned to look at me. So did the ANBU. I could feel them both staring, completely stunned.

"I think that’s enough playing around, Sensei," I said. "I'm going to Uzu. I’m going right now."

Her eyes moved from me to the ANBU. Whatever she saw on my face was enough to make her decision fast.

"Leave us," she said.

The ANBU bowed deeply and disappeared without a single word.

The office became unnervingly quiet. It was just the two of us now, with the remnants of my bandages still fluttering down to the floor like snow. She turned her full attention toward me, her expression unreadable.

"Sit down."

"I'm not sitting down, Sensei. I just told you, I'm going to—"

"Sit. Down."

She said it like I’d just pissed her off and she was one bad decision away from throwing me through the wall. I sat down.

Not because I was scared, okay? I just... my legs were tired. We literally got back from a war yesterday. So sitting down was honestly the most logical thing to do.

"Good," she said, folding her arms over her chest. "Now. Walk me through your plan."

"The plan is to get to Uzushio," I said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"And then what?"

"And then I save everyone."

"Okay, and how, exactly, are you planning to pull that off?"

I opened my mouth to answer, realized I had absolutely nothing prepared, and decided to wing it anyway.

"With speed," I said. "Lots of it."

She pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a tired groan. I really didn't see the problem. Speed is everything, isn't it? You get in, you get the job done, and you get out. That's literally the foundation of every successful mission ever.

"You haven’t slept," she said. "Have you."

It wasn’t a question, but I felt like I should defend myself anyway.

"I definitely closed my eyes during Dan’s presentation earlier. That should somewhat... count for something, right?"

"You haven't slept in days. Your eyes are bloodshot and I’m pretty sure if I flicked your forehead right now, you’d just tip over."

That was a gross exaggeration. I felt perfectly fine. Mostly. My eyelids were a little heavy, sure, but that was just the lighting in this room. Offices always make people sleepy. It’s basically a scientific fact.

"Listen to me," she said, her voice dropping into serious mode. "Uzushio is an island nation surrounded by water, and it’s currently occupied by an enemy village with a full military presence. You don't even know how many forces Kiri has deployed. You don’t know the state of the island’s defenses. You don’t even know who’s still alive. You're really going to charge in there blind, exhausted, and all by yourself?"

"I have clones there already," I countered.

"And have any of those clones dispelled yet?"

"...No."

"So you have no idea what’s happening over there. No intel, no updates, nothing."

That one actually hurt because she was right. Not one of my four clones had dispelled yet, which meant I had zero information. If even one of them had gone down, I would've gotten their memories and a clear picture of the situation on the ground. But I had nothing. They were either too busy fighting to send back a report, or they were in a spot where they couldn't risk it. Either way, I was totally in the dark.

But being in the dark didn't change what was on the line. "It isn't just Kushina over there, Sensei. Minato and Jiraiya is there too."

"I know," she said softly.

"So then you understand why I can’t just sit here—"

"I understand perfectly," she cut me off, her gaze sharpening. "Which is exactly why you need to think before you move. Jiraiya is one of Konoha’s finest. Minato might be young, but he’s certainly not helpless. And Kushina is an Uzumaki on Uzumaki soil, surrounded by her own people. They aren't defenseless."

I wanted to talk back at her, but the honest truth was that she had a point. Jiraiya was in a league of his own. If I hadn't even been in the picture, he and Sensei would've already faced off against Hanzo and walked away with that legendary "Sannin" title by now. That tells you everything you need to know about his skill. Then you've got Minato. Sure, he's not the Yellow Flash quite yet. He's still more of a duckling than an eagle, but the kid's got talent coming out of his ears. He's got raw potential practically leaking out of him. If anyone's capable of surviving a disaster long enough for the cavalry to show up, it's those two.

But here's the problem. Potential doesn't stop a person from dying. Being talented doesn't mean you can take on an entire country by yourself. Kiri isn't some small-time operation. They've got their own Kage, their own Seven Swordsmen, and enough manpower to put a total blockade on an island nation. It doesn't matter how strong Jiraiya and Minato are. At the end of the day, they're still just two people on an island crawling with enemies.

They're up against a whole village.

Those odds aren't pretty no matter how you look at them.

"Give me a day," she said.

"A day?" I stared at her, completely floored. "You're asking me to just sit here for a whole day?"

She nodded seriously. "Yes, one day. Maybe two at the most. I'll reach out to our intelligence assets near the coast and push Jiraiya's contacts for more details. We need to figure out the actual situation on the ground before we do anything. If it’s as bad as it sounds, we'll organize a proper response. Not just you running off on your own like an idiot."

"I wasn't going to run off like an idiot," I muttered.

I sat there for a while, just staring at the floor. On one hand, every hour I spent here in Konoha was an hour Kushina was spending on that island. On the other hand, charging in exhausted and half-blind was something a brute would do. Besides, it wasn't like Kushina was sitting there with zero backup. Four clones with Rinnegan were already on that island. Four of me. That's a pretty heavy advantage.

"...Fine," I said. "One day. Twenty-four hours at most. But if I don't have answers by then, I’m going whether you've got intel or not."

She nodded. Apparently, that was enough for her.

I stood up and my eyelids immediately started drooping. I blinked hard a couple times and played it off. Yeah, okay, maybe the exhaustion thing wasn't entirely an exaggeration. I honestly couldn't remember the last time I'd slept.

On my way to the window, I caught a good look at her face. She wasn't doing much better than me. The bags under her eyes were dark enough to pass for bruises. "You need to get some sleep too, Sensei. We just got back from a war. Like, literally just now. And you haven't slept a wink either."

She let out this little smile. "Oh? You want me to rest? That’s sweet. But you realize if I take a nap, your one day might turn into two. Maybe even three. I’d hate to keep you waiting."

I just stared at her.

She stared right back, still wearing that smile.

This woman is straight-up evil.

She had me backed into a corner and she knew it. I couldn't tell her to stay up without eating my own words, but I couldn't tell her to go to sleep because that meant I'd be waiting even longer. It was a perfect trap and I walked right into it with my eyes wide open. Well, maybe half-open. Fine, they were barely open, but you get the point.

Doesn't matter though. Trap or no trap, I don't simp that easily.

"Last I checked, nobody ever died from pulling an all-nighter, Sensei." I swung myself onto the windowsill and gave her a lazy wave. "Do your best. I believe in you."

She started pouting. It was adorable. I jumped before my brain had a chance to do something stupid.

...

My apartment smelled like dust and a whole lot of nothing.

I hadn't been back in a month, maybe even longer. At some point during the war, I just stopped keeping track of the days. You wake up, you fight, and you sleep anywhere that isn't your own bed. You just repeat that cycle until someone finally signs a ceasefire. Anyway, the thin layer of grime on the kitchen counter let me know it’d been a while. There was a glass I’d left by the sink with a nasty ring of dried water at the bottom. The curtains were still half-shut from the last time I was here, letting in this thin strip of weak light across the floor.

Home sweet home.

I kicked off my boots, didn't even bother hitting the light switch, and just collapsed face-first onto my bed without taking off my flak vest. The pillow actually smelled like laundry detergent, which meant one of my clones must've washed the sheets at some point. Based on the scent, it was probably yesterday.

Thanks, me. You're a real one.

I was out cold before I could even take my next breath.

...

Knock knock knock.

No.

Knock knock knock knock.

Absolutely not.

Knock knock knock knock knock knock—

I peeled my face off the pillow and immediately regretted the fact that I was alive. Sunlight was absolutely blasting through the gap in the curtains. My eyes felt like they had been marinating in hot sauce all night and my whole body was stiff. I tried to turn my neck and it made a sound like someone stepping on a bag of chips.

I checked the angle of the light on the floor. It was high. Way too high for morning. That meant it was noon or maybe even a little later. The knocking was still going, so I dragged myself to the front door. I cracked it open about halfway and squinted into the hallway.

It was Mikoto.

She was wearing a deep navy blouse with a fitted waist and a skirt that had a slit up the side. Her hair was pulled back and she looked like she had actually put effort into herself today. She was fresh and put together. Her arms were crossed though, and there was something about her expression that felt a little off.

She looked…worried?

"Morning," I said, even though I knew it definitely wasn't morning.

She sighed softly. "It is already past noon, you know."

"Then good afternoon. You should come in."

She stepped inside and looked around the place without saying a word. I shuffled over to the kitchen and put the kettle on the stove.

"Would you like some milk tea?" I asked.

"I would love some, thank you."

I pulled out two cups and started going through the motions. The kettle took its sweet time, and honestly, so did my brain. I was still booting up. My thoughts were moving like they're trying to wade through a jar of honey.

She sat down and waited for me to join her. I poured the tea, slid a cup her way, and dropped into the chair across from her.

"So," she began, wrapping both her hands around the warm cup as if seeking a bit of comfort. "Have you heard the news yet?"

I took a sip, even though the tea was definitely too hot. I drank it anyway because I needed the kick. "Which news are we talking about?"

She gave me a look like I was being dense on purpose. "Shinji."

"What?"

"About Uzushio."

I set the cup down and leaned back. "Yeah. I heard." I glanced at her over the rising steam. "Word travels fast in the Uchiha clan, huh."

Her face did this funny little twitch where she couldn't decide if she was relieved or frustrated, so she just looked confused instead. It was like she expected to find me running around the apartment in a total panic, and finding me half-asleep had completely thrown her off.

"You heard," she repeated, shaking her head. "You don't look worried at all. How are you not worried about this?"

"I'm worried," I replied simply. "I'm just not particularly good at showing it."

She didn't seem convinced by that at all. But panicking wasn't going to suddenly teleport Kushina back to Konoha, and worrying myself sick over something I couldn't fix this second wasn't going to help anyone.

"Hey, Shinji."

"Hm?"

"What if..." She paused and took a breath to steady herself before starting again. "What if we went to check on things? Just to see for ourselves. You and me."

"Check on things," I repeated, trying to make sure I heard her right.

"Just to see how things are," she said, her words coming out a little faster now. "We could leave this afternoon. I can be ready in ten minutes. We'd go to Uzu, find Kushina, make sure she's safe, and come right back together."

I looked at her over the rim of my cup. She was serious. Dead serious. Mikoto Uchiha, the queen of rules and following protocol, was sitting in my kitchen suggesting we sneak out of the village on an unauthorized rescue mission.

I couldn't really blame her for it though. If it were someone I cared about, I'd probably be saying the exact same thing. Actually, I had said the same thing about six hours ago. Tsunade just happened to be way better at talking people down than I was.

So I did what Sensei did for me. I talked her through it. I kept it gentle. No lectures and no telling her she was being irrational or anything like that. It was just two people sitting across from each other with some milk tea, going back and forth until the panic started to lose its grip. I basically recycled every single argument Sensei had used on me earlier that night.

When she still didn't look fully convinced, I played my best card. I told her I had four clones already on the island that I'd sent days ago, even before Kiri invaded Uzu. They were all still active and they were all still breathing. I told her if even one of them had been taken out, I'd know about it, and I didn't. For all we knew, they already had Kushina and were heading back home. That was what finally did the trick. The tension in her face loosened up bit by bit, and by the time I poured myself a second cup, she'd calmed down.

"She'll be okay," I said. "I wouldn't say it if I didn't believe it."

A few seconds passed before she met my eyes again, and when she did, they were trying very hard not to look too hopeful.

"You mean it?" she asked softly.

"I mean it. She'll be home before you know it."

I walked her to the door and watched her head down the hallway before I closed it. Then I turned back toward the window.

There was already a shadow sitting on the sill.

It was one of my clones, crouched there like he'd been waiting for Mikoto to leave. He probably had been. He's a polite guy.

"Hurry up," I said. "What do you have for me? If it's not important, you should just handle it yourself."

"Oh, it's important alright," the clone said as he hopped inside. "Well, it’s important for our future plans, at least."

I raised an eyebrow. "Hm?"

That definitely got my attention. I leaned against the kitchen counter and let him talk.

It turned out Orochimaru had left the western front. Nothing weird about that, he was supposed to have come back with us yesterday, but something must have held him up. The weird part was that he'd gotten within eleven kilometers of the village and just stopped. His dot had been parked in the same spot all morning. Not moving toward the gates, not moving anywhere. Just there.

A few years ago, I would've called this clone crazy. Tailing Orochimaru without getting caught? Sure, buddy. That's like trying to sneak up on a snake with ears while you're wearing bells. But things were different now. The Rinnegan's passive sensing let me and my clones track chakra signatures within a six-kilometer radius without even lifting a finger. People just showed up in my head like dots on a map. Tailing someone from that distance wasn't hard at all. It was effortless.

As for what Orochimaru was doing out there instead of going home like a normal person...

Well. I could think of a few possibilities, but the most likely candidate was the one I had the most complicated feelings about. Human experimentation. Eleven kilometers from the village. Eleven. I almost wanted to facepalm. Of all the places to set up a secret lab, he picked a spot you could practically see from the Hokage's office on a clear day. No wonder the Third eventually found out about his little hobby. The man wasn't exactly making it hard.

But complicated feelings aside, Orochimaru's work, particularly anything related to the cells of Hashirama, was something I was going to need eventually. Shutting him down now would feel satisfying in the short term, but it'd be incredibly stupid in the long term.

The clone raised an eyebrow at me. "So, what's the plan?"

I glanced out the window toward the northeast and sighed.

"I think it’s about time I paid our dear senpai a little visit."