Arc 2 Chapter 7 Part 6- Age: 10.02, Year: 14.02

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We weren't being tailed, surprisingly. The bulk of whatever force there had been, had likely been the one that had attacked that keep. Even spreading out my observation as far as I can, I wasn't picking up any foreign signals.

Was it a trap? I mused to myself as we carefully slid through the trees, the noble proving he was more adept than he'd let on as he leapt in within the middle of the formation.

Tobirama had taken the head of it while I protected its end. Koharu and Hiruzen leapt side by side with the noble.

Even as we jumped from branch to branch with relative peace, I couldn't help my thoughts- It was going too well. But despite that strange assurance, I also couldn't ignore the fact that we survived an attack that for all intents and purposes shouldn't have been survivable by one Jonin and three Genin. Even if that Jonin was the Kage's own brother.

For all that, I still couldn't help myself as my chakra was wasted incrementally by the second as it searched for enemies without reason.

Forcing in a deep breath, I took in the others and found Hiruzen breathing heavier than I'd ever seen him. While he'd shown his prowess, I had a feeling he hadn't expected it to be so draining, especially for how little time he'd actually used Haki for.

On the other end, Tobirama was relatively calm, in breathing and from what my ninshu was picking up, in mind.

Koharu was the complete opposite of Hiruzen, while completely fine, her mind echoed out swarms of fear and discomfort at the close call to her life, with a strange feeling sweeping behind her.

The biggest issue though wasn't my teammate's situation- No matter what might happen, their lives were guaranteed. It wasn't even the fact our route back to the village was surprisingly silent- Though I suppose even if the attackers had expected us to survive their ambush, they likely would've never conceived of us retreating.

No. The biggest issue was the noble's admission.

He'd taken credit for something that would start a war without his head. That would start a war even with it. The noble had made a mistake that was going to cost us regardless if we succeeded or not, and there was no way out of that truth.

The ideal situation would've been to take his head and serve it on a platter and hope it stopped the other villages from retaliating- I had no doubt the other Daimyo's would jump at the opportunity solely for the fact one of their own had been killed by the moron, supposedly.

And yet for all that, I'd be a hypocrite for it given I was the one that'd actually done the fucking deed in the first place. Not that that would've stopped me from fixing the dumbasses idiocy- I was more than happy to really, it just wasn't exactly feasible at the moment. It wasn't just a matter of that, it was the fuckers words back in the Kage office- That he knew truths that would likely start a war with his death.

My hand itched as my mind ran through as many different scenarios as it could.

Could I stop that war? I didn't really need to. The moment one kicked off, was the moment it just as well ended. I wasn't exactly scared of the thought of it, I was more scared of its repercussions. The only way to truly win a war was to make sure your enemies stopped existing because anything less led to sequels and all things considered, those kinds of sequels generally existed for less and less reason and so were harder to put down for good.

I had no doubt Hashirama would draw the line at my idea of how to win a war.

But that was a problem for the future.

The problem for the present was what we were going to do with a noble who ran his mouth for almost anything that might give him an edge over his relatives- Even if that edge belonged to a Samurai's blade. And wasn't that terrifying? That the noble that could start a war with his tongue, also had to be the greediest noble of them all?

Seriously who the fuck openly claims to have killed a bloody Daimyo's son!?

...I think it was the son and daughter-in-law anyway. I couldn't actually remember. Might've been the other way round.

Didn't matter- Either was as bad as the other!

I took in another deep breath-

"I have to say-" The noble, because of course he chose this moment to, opened his mouth mid-leap. "-I knew you were good, Shimura-" Leap. "-I didn't think-" Leap. "-you were that good!" The man finished with a somewhat deranged cheer to his voice.

I noticed a strange feeling echo out from the head of the formation at the noble's words while appreciation oozed out of Hiruzen-

Honestly, that boy has no sense at all! This is not the time to be happy about that sort of thing!

"I know we only-" The noble continued, to my chagrin. "-agreed in name-" Leap. "-but how would you like-" Tobirama strangely seemed to have slowed down ever so slightly.

I frowned at that, just as the noble turned his gaze ever so slightly in my direction, his own speed not dropping at all. "-to work for me-" I gave him a deadpan look at the stupidity that was about to come out of his mouth as he made a jump off the last branch, the edge of the tree-line passing by us and turned towards me fully as we landed on a very worn un-mapped road.

I idly wondered why Tobirama had decided on this route- we'd taken a detour from the original one halfway in and I'd barely noticed it.

 "-with you by my side, they'll have no choice but to fall-" The noble's voice brought my musing back to him. I watched him take a step towards me and-

My eyes didn't so much as blink as I watched whatever the man had been about to say die off as a hand palmed the top of his head and the man's eyes closed shut as he fell into a Genjutsu.

"To-Tobirama-sama?" Hiruzen questioned warily as he watched the sack of idiocy fall onto the ground, unconscious.

Koharu on the other didn't say a word, her eyes locked onto the noble's form.

"Danzo." Tobirama's voice washed over me. "How good are you at extracting memories?" He questioned me, calmly for that matter.

I crossed my arms at the man. "I am not entirely sure I want to be any more involved in this than I already am," I remarked warily.

Tobirama gave me a long look at that as he took in my true meaning.

If I find out any more fucked up shit about the nobles, I really was going to kill them all myself.

"Huh?" Hiruzen muttered, his gaze switching between the two of us. "...Uh, What's goin-"

"Danzo-kun killed the Earth Daimyo's son didn't he?" Koharu questioned, breaking her silence since we'd started leaping.

I turned towards the girl, rather surprised she'd managed to put that together.

"...I... I remember seeing you outside my window that day- I didn't really think anything of it until the news came out." She muttered carefully. "And even then it seemed really crazy to think but... then the memory came back when you called me a witness all panicked like..." She waited for a beat, her gaze switching between me and our teacher before it settled on Hiruzen as something flashed through her eyes. "And seeing Hiruzen cover your mouth back on that roof kinda just confirmed it..?"

"...And if she figured it out, this fuckwit wouldn't have taken long to." I sighed with a hand on the bridge of my nose.

Tobirama nodded ever so slightly at that just as Hiruzen came to the startling realisation of what the fuck we were about to do-

"We're going to fail our first A-rank aren't we?" Hiruzen muttered sullenly.

"...Can you break him?" Tobirama elected to question, evidently not bothering to hide anything from my teammates anymore.

"What's the point? He already claimed it."

Tobirama's gaze for a moment closed as a heavy sigh came out.

"...We're not just gonna fail our first A Rank." Koharu elected to whisper a faraway look in her eyes as she stared at the noble just as Hiruzen came to the startling realisation of what she meant. "...This is the kind... This is the kind of thing that gets buried, isn't it?" She questioned me directly, her gaze taking in a lost look.

"...What... what do you want us... to... do?" Hiruzen questioned slowly, to Tobirama's slight approval as the man gave the child a long look for a moment before he turned towards me.

"Every road leads to the same thing," The man elected to say. "Court Nobles are sacred," He added on. "A ninja has no place questioning them, nor judging them. Not without proof or certainty. And even then, that judgement is not left to us."

"But we can't exactly hand him over," I added on, conveying the fucking problem at hand. "If we do, he points it right the fuck at us and I very much doubt he needs half as much proof to get us into shit."

"...Is that why you said we have to fake his death?" Koharu questioned me slowly. I nodded in response. "...But... then... wouldn't he just be a problem later?"

A figurative light bulb went off in my head, just as a flash of realisation swept through Tobirama's gaze.

"That might work." The man remarked, evidently noticing my expression. "That might actually work."

"What would work?" Hiruzen questioned, confused.

"We're going to fake his death, by killing him." I deadpanned.

Make it obvious. Make it look so fucking fake that no one in their right mind would believe the dumbass had actually died.

Make 'em waste all their fucking resources trying to find a dead man.

"Huh?" The two actual children questioned at the same time.

I just shared a look with Tobirama. "Take 'em home, I'll handle it from here."

The man let out a snort at that. "Don't be ridiculous." He promptly leaned down towards the noble, picked him up and slung him over his shoulder. "Go."

I had to admit, I actually felt something for the fucker then and there.

Huh, who knew I still had a heart?

When Tobirama disappeared from our sight, I found two very confused children staring at me. "...I don't get it... Are we faking his death or not?"

"Sure." I nodded. "It just won't be real."

Koharu let out a sigh at that. "We're still failing the mission aren't we?"

"Oh yeah. That fucker's definitely not paying us."

Oddly enough I think that might've just convinced them he was going to live.

I didn't have the heart to tell them otherwise.

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