EPISODE 38: Caught!

On his way back, he was using his sage mode at first, so he went back much faster than what it took him to get there. Eventually, he let go of all his sage chakra to conserve his strength and he continued the return path as a normal human. He also began to follow a hidden route through the trees, without making much noise, to avoid being seen.

A few minutes after that, Jim heard a woman's aggravated voice and he followed it to its location. The voice was moving and it was getting louder, so it was evident that its owner was getting closer to Jim's location as well. The voice seemed pretty familiar and not happy at all.

Quickly, Jim Namikaze found the ideal hiding spot, behind a thick set of close branches and trees, which was barely visible from the main open path. He thought that the noises could be from the team that caught Mina. He waited for them to arrive to that location. And sure enough, what he heard was Mina's voice and the group was the Anbu squad that kidnapped her. She sounded really loud and annoying, but she was doing it on purpose, in case any ninja from The Leaf was following her trail.

"Set me free you sissies! Hand over my weapons and fight me like true Anbu ninjas! Aren't you an elite team?! Then, prove it to me!"

Grazu had lost his patience with her.

"Shut up! I am going to be the first in line to kill you once this mission is over! Keena! Do something to keep her mouth shut! Shoot another dart at her for God's sake."

"Captain I only have a second dart and that should be saved for extreme situations. I will tape her mouth to stop her from shouting nonsense."

Then, they went pass Jim's location and Mina—who knew that section of The Leaf's border pretty well—looked at the best hiding spot in the area and spotted someone there. The ninja had a headband that looked like The Leaf's headband. This clue told her that she would have some sort of reinforcement shortly, so having her mouth with a tape on it wasn't convenient. Her mood and attitude calmed down a little, all of a sudden:

"Ok, I will remain quiet until we arrive at the Clan of the Stone, but when we get there I expect to talk with the Second Tsuchikage himself. He better be able to explain what is the meaning of this."

Keena didn't like her either. Someone else would have been quiet like a rock after getting caught, but this one had a pretty brave nature.

"Lord Tsuchikage is not going to waste his time talking with you. You are our hostage, so you will be the one giving explanations, if you value your life. Next time you shout like that I will keep your mouth shut permanently."

Jim started to follow them, without losing sight of them.

They continued moving for a few miles, and then they stopped. They camped to eat at an open area that didn't have many trees nearby. Two of them stayed on guard duty and the others began to eat. Jim counted a total of eleven of them. If they really were Anbu-level ninjas, he couldn't fight all of them at once… unless he was in sage mode, of course.

He started to gather sage chakra and he was ready to launch a full assault on them, as soon as he reached sage mode. They had placed Mina in front of a large tree and one of the guards was watching her closely.

Jim was getting close to becoming a sage when a shuriken struck the tree that he was standing on, just one inch away from his face. It barely missed him.

He quickly turned around and jumped to the other branch on the tree. At that exact moment, a second attacker landed where Jim was, with a really fast sword strike. Apparently, he had been waiting for the right moment to attack, from a higher branch that was above Jim's location. If Jim had not jumped out of there quickly, the sword strike would have landed on his head instead.

When the Anbu ninja's sword landed on the branch, Jim jumped back to it and grabbed the attacker by the forearms. He passed nearly all of the natural chakra he had gathered to the other guy. The attacker had zero training with sage chakra control, so all of it went out of balance with his body's chakra, almost as soon as Jim passed it to him. When he was going to start a sword battle with Jim, the ninja realized that his arms and hands were far too heavy for that. With the sage chakra going ballistic, they began to turn into stones. He tried to warn his "partner"—the one that threw the shuriken at Jim first—but it backfired.

"He has a strange technique! Don't let him touch you!"

The other Anbu reacted by throwing an explosive knife at Jim and his partner, but by the time it reached them, Jim had jumped out of there. The other guy had a hard time even moving because his two arms had turned into heavy stone already, so he got caught by the explosion. Both of his arms fell down with the impact—it certainly wasn't a pretty sight.

The long-range attacker didn't lose sight of Jim. He threw another explosive knife at him, but that attack backfired too.

"Earth-shot jutsu!"

Jim's earth bullet hit the knife before it exploded and pushed it all the way back to its origin. When it finally exploded, it was right in front of the one who threw it.

Grazu, Keena, and the others heard the explosions. Grazu knew that something had failed for the two that he sent after the spy that was following them.

"Leave your positions and attack! The spy from The Leaf didn't fall in our trap!"

Mina's guard left too, so she had the chance to finish opening part of the tie that was on her hands. She was an expert on making effective ties; and the one that was used to hold her wasn't anything complex for her. She knew how to untie it and this was her chance.

Meanwhile, the whole Anbu team started to hunt down the spy. Things were not looking good at all, so Jim used the shadow clone jutsu to make four clones that would work well as a distraction. He knew that he couldn't fight all of them at once without sage mode.

Unfortunately, Keena never lost sight of the original and she also recognized that he was the one that stayed at Mina's place before. Clearly, he wasn't a spy from the Clan of the Stone. He was from The Leaf too.

"He is the real one! Attack him now!" yelled Keena pointing at the real Jim.

Three of the others launched a coordinated attack at once:

"Earth-arrow jutsu!"

Jim blocked the three arrows with an earth-based shield and he followed it with a wind-shield, before those same three ninjas could reach him with their swords. (They didn't wait a single second. After shooting the three arrows, they grabbed their ninja swords and headed for the main enemy on sight right away.)

The wind shield stopped the attackers and it gave the four clones enough time to get there and to engage them in battle. Jim launched three earth-shots at once at the enemies, while his clones fought them. He also used the earth-hold jutsu to immobilize two of them. It was clear that he was a high-level earth ninja, since not even these Anbus could do more than two earth-shots at once.

However, another one of them managed to get close to him while he was fighting with the help of his shadow clones.

"Sealing-jutsu! Earth!"

A strange seal pattern that he had not seen before appeared around his waist. The pattern had a brown color. The red-haired Anbu woman was the one who managed to place it on him. And soon, he knew what it was meant for…

The other three ninjas were on the floor, but his shadow clones were gone as well, and he couldn't make more in such a short amount of time. Grazu and five others arrived at Keena's location. Things were getting out of hand, so he planned a devastating earth-based attack to make his escape. (Hopefully, that was going to give him enough time to free Mina as well.)

"Earth-shaper! Swords of nature!"

When he finished, the swords didn't raise from the ground and nothing happened. He could feel that the seal around his waist was stopping him. It was a seal to block all earth-based techniques for the one that had it. He had heard about such techniques at the Clan of the Stone, but this was the first time that he met a ninja that could use them.

He couldn't make more clones and summoning was out of the picture as well—the dozens of monkeys who signed the scroll had not been born yet. Without his earth techniques or the time to reach sage mode, there was only one option left, and he had to use it. Jim closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, something was different about him.

Three of the seven Anbu ninjas left took the initiative to fight him. They unsheathed their ninja blades and rushed at him in a combined battle formation. All three were going to attack him at the same time from different angles.

Unfortunately for them, they gave him enough time to look at their eyes; and they were looking straight at his eyes too. They aimed their sword slashes at him coming from three different sides. When they had him close enough, they swung their swords with full force. And all three of them lost their balance and got the shock of the year, because they didn't hit anything other than the air there. However, all three of them could see him clearly before they attacked. He was there. What was going on!? It was the sharingan's genjutsu…

Grazu, Keena, and the other two saw what really happened. The earth ninja from The Leaf did something, then he jumped out of there, but the other three attacked as if he had not moved from his original spot. It was as if they had not seen him move at all.

Jim got some distance away from them. He grabbed the two explosive knives he had and threw them at the three that got caught by his genjutsu. The knives exploded on them when they started to realize that they had been fooled.

The leader, Keena, and the other two saw everything.

Grazu knew exactly what they were dealing with.

"He must be an Uchiha! Avoid looking at his red eyes at all costs! The sharingan users can only use their genjutsu if you look straight at their eyes. Let's bring him down together! Move!"

They didn't give Jim any chance to escape. They had been watching him, so they knew where he was. Jim noticed how these last four had begun to corner him. They were not looking at the sharingan either. Their eyes were focused on his legs, his hands, and his body movements, not on his eyes. They obviously knew about genjutsu and how it worked.

Jim had been a trained Anbu ninja from the Clan of the Stone too, so he knew that going in a 4-versus-1 battle with them was the wrong move. However, he really didn't have any other choice.

To raise his chances, he used the wind boost jutsu on the Namikaze sword, to make his slashes even stronger. That and the wind shield were the only wind-based techniques that he learned well, during the training with the old Hiruzen. After all, wind was his second nature for chakra techniques, so it was not his true elemental forte.

Their swords and his clashed. He couldn't keep them back…

Eventually, all four of them got close enough to engage him in battle together. When that happened, Grazu managed to reach him with one of his two swords. It made a minor but visible cut on Jim's left arm. Then, the other three jumped back and attacked together:

"Earth-shot jutsu!"

"Wind-shield jutsu!"

The wind shield stopped their attack and pushed them back. Jim knew that he had to retreat and this was his only chance. He ran for it. He even started to open the first of the body's chakra gates to get away faster, but before he could finish that, he felt how something cut him on the neck. He grabbed it. It was a tranquilizer dart. He had seen those before and he knew how powerful they were. Had he failed?

"You are not going anywhere!" yelled Keena.

Then, she landed in front of Jim and dropped him to the ground with a very sudden spinning hook kick. The dart had begun to take effect on him, so he didn't block or dodge, and he didn't stand up again after that. The other two Anbus landed close to him and grabbed him.

"Do not kill him," ordered Grazu.

"Our mission isn't just to bring her to the Tsuchikage; we also have to make her talk, and I am sure that will be difficult with her. However, we can use him to make sure that she will talk.

Keena place a wind seal on him too and put his belongings and any other weapon he has far away from him. Something tells me that he may know as much as her, or even more. Tie him up well. We are coming back with two hostages instead of one."

One of the other Anbus that were near Jim asked an uncomfortable question to Grazu, while he was looking back at all the damage that this guy from The Leaf had done to their team of thirteen Anbu ninjas:

"Sir, are all the Anbu ninjas from The Leaf as good as this guy and the blonde woman? If they are, a war with them wouldn't be a good idea for our clan."

Grazu didn't like the way that question sounded.

"Agent, you better not repeat those words close to Lord Mu…

These two must be among their top elites. And that makes them even more valuable for us. I doubt that many more of them are like these two. The other surveillance ninjas that attacked us certainly were not at this level."

Keena interrupted them.

"We will be joining forces with the second Anbu team shortly and I sealed their elemental chakra techniques, so if you are worried about having to fight them on your own, don't be. We caught both of them, so at the end, they were not better than us. And after we join the other team, there is nothing that those two can do."

They placed Jim Namikaze close to Mina and began to recover their team. Two of them died and the other seven were badly injured. It wasn't too far stretched to say that one of the elites from The Leaf almost took down their whole team.

Grazu changed his orders after that realization:

"If for any reason we lose sight of any of those two or if they try to escape, kill them on the spot. We will need to erase any proof of what our clan is doing, so losing a hostage like them is not acceptable under any circumstance."

When Jim woke up again, they still didn't have a guard in front of him and Mina because they took half an hour to get their team's members back on their feet. They also planned to leave as soon as all the injured ones were ready.

Jim had been placed in the same tree where Mina was, but on the opposite side, so they were not seeing each other directly. Nonetheless, she didn't waste any chance to let him know what she thought, as soon as she heard him move:

"Great. So you came back, but instead of saving me, you got yourself caught too. It looks like earth sages are better talkers than rescuers."

Mina sounded a little sarcastic and so did Jim:

"I am glad to know you are fine too."

She began to regret what she said first, so she said what she felt for real:

"I am sorry about what I just said, I am glad to know that you came back Jim.

I am getting close to untying myself from here, so soon we will be able to escape.

These guys may be great in combat, but they don't know how to make a professional tie."

When he heard her say that, a psychological alarm woke up in him. He realized that it was still possible for her to die, just as he had seen in the visions from the future at the Dark Realm.

"Don't try to escape on your own after you finish there. Stay close to me."

She noticed he sounded agitated.

"Hey, relax. I am not a damsel in distress. I can defend myself. And if those bastards had not stolen my daggers, I would be thinking about fighting them instead of fleeing from them."

"I know that Mina, but…"

She interrupted him happily:

"You are worried about me. It's good to know I can count on you."

She sounded very glad, but she didn't know that his real reason for worrying was what he saw in the vision. She was starting to think—just think—that he had also enjoyed those long talks with her very much—so much that he came back for her (she thought…).

Clearly, he cared about her if he put himself in danger to save her, but it wasn't just because of those long talks. It was she who started to like him because of that, and because of what she read in his diary too… It had been years since she had met anyone that she could spend hours talking to as if it was nothing. She probably had never met anyone like him either. After all, she only knew the people from The Leaf, which was where she had lived her whole life…

At that moment, Grazu, Keena, and the others came back to pick them up. They were planning to continue their route to join forces with the second Anbu team from their clan. Then, they would keep going, until they reached the central town at the Clan of the Stone.

When they arrived, Mina had to make it look like she had not changed the tie on her hands, but, in reality, she was pretty close to opening them already.

Jim and Mina were separated and kept under surveillance, until they reached the spot where their captors joined the other squad. The other group had eight Anbu ninjas, so the situation got even worse than before for Jim and Mina. They were placed not too far from the guards of the other group.

As soon as he had a chance to talk to her without anyone too close to them, he did:

"How does your teleportation technique work? Do you need the daggers for it?"

He had something in mind already.

"I have more than one technique. I need to keep at least one dagger with me for the one I use with the daggers. They are all marked with the right seal already, so as long as I have one with me, I can relocate to the locations of the others. However, I don't have any of them now. The Anbu leader has them.

The other teleportation techniques that I learned require placing a special seal on the other object, or on the other location, before you can use it to take you there. You must have been there before or you must have touched the other object before and placed the seal on it."

(Her techniques only worked for places that she could go to and objects that she could touch. She could not make the trips to other realms or to different timelines. Jim could do it only because the Sage of Six Paths taught him the right secret seal to use in combination with his special sharingan eye.)

"I see…" replied Jim, while he located the Anbu leader visually. Right away, he could tell that the shiny weapons Grazu had in one of his pockets had to be Mina's daggers.

"Listen, we don't have much time. They are already close to the end of The Leaf's territory. We need to escape before they begin moving us again. I will use my sage mode and recover your daggers. When I return them to you, escape from here. I will delay them first, then I will make my escape too."

It sounded like an ideal plan, but when he tried to gather sage chakra, he realized that the earth seal acted as a barrier for that too. He really couldn't use any earth-related power or technique.

"What's wrong?" asked Mina.

"Things are worse than I thought. I can't turn into an earth sage because of this earth-blocking seal that she placed on me. And you also have two seals on you."

Mina didn't seem too worried.

"I know how to remove these seals."

"You do?"

He sounded surprised.

"Yes, I have read a lot about how they work, so I can remove them, but first give me some time."

She finished opening the ties she had on her hands. Then, she started making a seal that was used to break other seals, like the ones they had. She had to do it keeping her hands on her back, so that their captors would not notice she was free. She managed to release her two seals first. After that, she got closer to Jim and started to do the same for the ones on him. She removed the wind seal on him. However, before she finished removing the earth seal, one of the masked Anbus noticed that something was odd about them.

"Hey! Why are you two out of your spots!? We didn't put you there!"

They were not listening, so the ninja from the second team walked to the spot where they were placed on their camp. During that tiny frame of time, Mina finished removing the other seal from Jim.

The one that suspected that something was wrong got there and pushed them apart violently. He unsheathed and pointed his two swords at them—one at her and the other one at him.

"Don't try anything stupid. If any of you tries to defy us or to escape, you won't live to tell the story. Is that clear!?"

"Yes," answered Mina with an undefeated look, after she got back up from the ground to a sitting position.

"Goood. There are almost twenty of us and just two of you. It doesn't matter how good you are. You better think twice before you try anything."

Jim Namikaze didn't say anything…

The ninja went back to his position, but, before he got there, he stopped cold on the spot, halfway between the prisoners and the others in his group. Something was different: they didn't have the elemental seals that were placed on them before Grazu's team brought them to their location. They had removed the seals!

"The hostages are trying to escape! Take them down!"

As soon as that alarm was heard by all the others, Jim's eyes and the skin around them changed. He had begun the process since Mina removed the earth seal from him. He continued, even while the guard was talking down on them…

One of the Anbus in the second group knew exactly what those yellow eyes and the changed skin color around them meant. His instant reaction was to make an earth arrow and to shot it at the sage as soon as possible. However, a dozen arms of earth appeared and the arrow was stopped completely by just one of them, as if it was nothing. Two of the other hands grabbed Grazu from the surface and lifted him up. They made him drop Mina's daggers. Another one brought the set of daggers to Mina; and the rest laid waste to all the attacking ninjas in between. Mina also removed Jim's ties as soon as she got her daggers back.

"Get away from here Mina. I will follow you as soon as I know that you are far enough from the reach of their arrows."

Mina felt like staying and joining the battle (she truly had an Anbu spirit), but she knew that fighting that many wasn't a wise move and she wasn't a sage from another realm like him, so she did as he said.

However, when she used a second dagger to teleport to the location of the first one she had thrown, she saw that it didn't work. She looked at the others and she noticed that the seals she had on them had been altered. Apparently, Grazu was prepared for this. After all, it was evident that she would try to get them back. And he, obviously, was not a fool—he was an Anbu leader after all.

Mina was still at a disadvantage, since her best technique did not work…

Grazu, Keena, and two others went after Mina. She was their original mission and they could not let her escape, no matter what. Even killing her was better than letting her escape to The Leaf. The rest of the ninjas stayed to capture the earth sage.

Jim noticed that Mina wasn't getting away quickly and she wasn't using her fast technique either. Something was wrong. However, he couldn't go to help her get away because the others launched various combined attacks against him. They used earth arrows, earth shots, wind-based strikes that depleted the victim's chakra, and even water-style techniques. The sage mode was superior to those abilities, but these Anbu ninjas were still very difficult to deal with. The problem was that they fought as a unit, or as a well-coordinated team—just like Team Namikaze used to do—and there were many more of them now. Sage Jim had to fight them seriously. At least, they were focused on him, rather than on Mina…

Eventually, the other four got Mina in a situation where they could shoot earth arrows at her. There were few trees in that spot, so avoiding all four them was pretty difficult. Grazu and Keena forced her to move towards that area; then, they stayed behind, and the other two Anbus came and shot two arrows at Mina from different sides.

Jim Namikaze caught a glimpse of what was happening and he went out of his way to stop it, but the others were blocking his path, so he couldn't get there on time…

Fortunately, the Third Hokage, his personal Anbu squad, and two of his best students arrived just in time.

Hiruzen destroyed the arrow that was about to hit Mina with one of his explosive knives and caught everyone by surprise with a massive fire-style blaze technique. Everyone recognized that it was the Hokage because he was using the Kage vest and the large red hat that only the Hokages used.

"Are you ok?" asked Hiruzen to Mina.

"Never better," she said, knowing that the tables had been turned in their favor.

"You left these behind, which is something that you would never do. And the others from your group were found dead too, so I supposed that you were taken as a hostage. They are earth ninjas from the Clan of the Stone, aren't they?"

Hiruzen handed two daggers to Mina and she confirmed what he thought.

These two daggers had not been altered and they had been left behind on the ground.

They were exactly what she needed!

"It's time to show them what The Leaf's surveillance can do," said Mina with victory on her face.

Orochimaru and Tsunade were also there with Hiruzen.

The pale kid attacked the two Anbus that had shot the arrows at Mina. He used a water-style technique first. Then, he followed it with a large fire blaze, like Hiruzen's, and caught them by surprise all over again. (The kid was an abnormal phenomenon because he could use and mix all the elemental techniques, including the ones that were seen as total opposites. Even the Hokage could not use water and fire as if both were his primary element.)

Tsunade attacked Keena, but she missed completely and Keena placed several elemental seals on her. Keena laughed hard because Tsunade looked like a joke to her:

"A girl like you should be playing with dolls, instead of challenging someone like me. Go back to The Leaf before you get killed little girl. Fight with your dolls."

Tsunade got mad and Keena had her guard down, because, what could that little girl do to her? She couldn't even use chakra techniques after all the seals she landed on her.

Unfortunately, Keena didn't know that the girl was the First Hokage's granddaughter, and using elemental techniques was not what the girl was exceptionally good at.

Tsunade took the opportunity and landed a punch on Keena's rib cage. Something cracked in that rib cage and Keena landed on the ground and stayed there. She didn't show any signs of even trying to get up.

"I don't like playing with dolls," added Tsunade.

"I do like getting first places on all the board breaking competitions though. The boys make faces like yours when I win. And you didn't give me any chance to tell you that my master's team is full of dangerous ninjas, and I am one of them."

Little Tsunade was far more scary than what she looked like. Just like Orochimaru, she had been picked by The Leaf's leaders to be trained by Hiruzen because they recognized that she had exceptional talents too. She was an advanced medical ninja that was also lethal for close-range combat. Many years later, she was going to end up being the Fifth Hokage of The Leaf, and the first one who was a woman…

Hiruzen's Anbu squad scattered and started to fight all the other Anbus in the area. Mina also joined them and headed to Jim's location. The Anbus from The Leaf didn't recognize Jim, but they saw he had The Leaf's headband and he wasn't with the others, so they didn't attack him. They came at the perfect time because the sage mode didn't have a lot of time left either.

Grazu got greedy when he thought that he had a shot at taking down the Hokage. He knew that if he could do it, it would represent great things for him at the Clan of the Stone. Lord Mu would probably ascend him in position and pay him loads of money too. Maybe, he could even aspire to be the next Tsuchikage. His head got flooded with ambition, but it wasn't the good type of ambition…

The Anbu leader fought against Hiruzen using his two swords and his best techniques. Hiruzen's preferred weapon was not a sword, it was a bo staff made of steel. (This bo staff wasn't the one that his summon, King Enma, could turn himself into though.) The younger Hiruzen was unbelievably good at fighting with that weapon. Grazu couldn't put a scratch on him with his swords.

When Grazu used chakra strikes that used rocks, instead of earth (to make them more powerful), Hiruzen retaliated with the same technique. The Hokage was one of those extremely rare ninjas that could use more than two styles of chakra-based elemental attacks. (In case you are wondering, Jim Namikaze wasn't one; only Hiruzen, Orochimaru, and the Sage of Six Paths have this ability; and the only ones who have it for every single style are Orochimaru and the legendary sage.)

During their battle, Grazu never managed to get the upper hand against the Third Hokage…

When Jim's sage mode ran out, all the ninjas from the other clan had been beaten. Hiruzen's squad was very effective; and Mina could have easily been one of them. She was at a different level with her teleportation daggers.

Grazu feared for his life when he saw the worrisome outcome of the clash with the elite ninjas from The Leaf, so he threw himself on the ground and begged for mercy:

"Hokage please forgive us. We are just doing our job. We won't come back to The Leaf again after this."

Hiruzen didn't look happy at all.

"Killing ninjas from The Leaf is your job? I can't forgive that, but I need someone to take my message to the one responsible for this. Tell Mu, your Tsuchikage, that he will have to answer me directly for this in the next gathering of the Kages. Also, let him know that if this happens again, his ninjas won't return and it will be an open declaration of war against The Leaf. I am sure that this would not be a good thing for the Clan of the Stone."

Grazu and the survivors agreed and they left with a deep aura of defeat above them. Mina didn't like Hiruzen's decision; she thought that they should have taken them as hostages to find out what the Tsuchikage was planning. However, Hiruzen wanted to avoid war for The Leaf, if possible, so he believed that what he did was their best choice.

Then, Orochimaru said something, and Hiruzen saw Jim, at last…

"Master, there he is. That guy is the one that was spying on us during our last training with King Enma. He didn't do anything, but I noticed that he was there before he left."

Hiruzen looked a little shocked when he saw Jim; it was as if he had seen a ghost from the past.

"He also looks like the guy that the drunk lady described to me master," added Tsunade.

"That means that he was also inside Konoha during the same day. He must be a really good spy," pointed out Orochimaru.

Hiruzen made a signal and half of his Anbu squad fell on Jim.

One of the guards grabbed Jim's jaw and looked straight at his eyes. Then, the guard's eyes turned into a normal sharingan; and they continued changing into a mangekyou sharingan, right after that. The guard had a mask on, so his identity was not revealed, but it was clear that he was an Uchiha. (His mangekyou sharingan looked much different than Jim's and its unique ability was different as well.)

Jim didn't struggle and he fell asleep deeply, as soon as he looked into the eyes of the Uchiha guard. The guard had used his mangekyou sharingan on him.

"Let's return to Konoha. Take him to my office. He has a lot to explain, starting from how he got that headband."

With Hiruzen's orders, everyone began to move, but there was someone there who couldn't accept this outcome.

"Hiruzen, what are you doing!? He was helping us! He is not one of them! He may have saved my life! And he is here because of you!"

The Hokage turned around and placed his hand on Mina's mouth:

"Do not say anything else Mina, we are going to have to talk about this later. And he will have to talk too; if not, Kagami will talk for him."

Hiruzen looked like he had good reasons for doing this. However, Mina knew what Kagami Uchiha could do with his sharingan.

"Wait! There is no need for that! I can prove that he is one of us. I have his diary! Also, you can look at his belongings."

"Bring them and the diary to us. And… don't comment anything about this with anyone. This may be crucial for The Leaf Mina. You will understand later, when we talk about it. Trust me, this is necessary."

"What are you going to do to him?"

Mina was starting to get worried.

"Don't worry, he won't be harmed, but I must know what he knows. I have good reasons for this. It matters for our clan."

Mina didn't know what to do. She had to leave Jim and trust that Hiruzen had a good reason for doing this.

The Hokage couldn't wait to find out the truth. This was the second time that he had seen the mysterious earth sage; and just like the first time, he had The Leaf's headband on his forehead…

What happened the first time marked Hiruzen's life forever… now, it was time to find out who the earth sage was… and what was the Hokage's biggest secret...

NEXT- Episode 39: Hiruzen's Secret