Author here thanks for putting up with my crappy writing. I want to thank those who gave reviews after reading up to the latest chapter. Hopefully I can improve upon my writing from those points mentioned. I realized that its a little bit too rushed so let's slow down a little bit.

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Hiruzen sat on his chair after deploying a group of shinobi to track down Naruto he was already thinking of ways to protect the mischievous little runt because many people would love to see Naruto gone.

He used his crystal ball to spy on the little prankster and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Naruto is practicing shadow clone jutsu. It is no less dangerous but it's danger stems more on the chakra volume of an individual and Naruto being a jinjuriki, this problem doesn't really exist.

'Good choice, the brat is lucky but can you learn it before the ninjas I've sent find you?'

A few minutes passed and Hiruzen immediately stood up from his chair and vanished from the room with a gloomy look on his eyes.

Mitzuki knocked Naruto out and took the scroll.

••••••

Mitzuki dashed through the forest after seeing the sleeping Naruto and taking the scroll of seals. He wanted to play some more with the kid but his master's orders comes first so he was determined to deliver at all costs.

"I assume you are working for my student?"

Mitzuki came to a full on break after the light of the moon was cast on a figure in front of him.

"Lo.. Lord Hokage! I found the scroll!"

"Tch... Cut the crap and surrender! Don't make it harder for the both of us."

Mitzuki felt bitter, he was about to succeed but with the hokage here then leaving alive or escaping just became a pipe dream. Gritting his teeth, Mitzuki pulled the oversized shuriken strapped behind him and threw it towards the hokage's direction.

'I won't back down!'

Mitzuki became crazed realizing he will die anyway, then he'd die fighting like a proper ninja should. Hiruzen on the other hand easily avoided the shuriken and with a flicker, appeared in front of Mitzuki giving the guy a kick to the stomach.

Mitzuki vomited blood after he flew a few meters from the simple kick and passed out. The tree behind him creaked like it's about to fall over from the collision, cracks covered its bark and the leaves grew sparse littering the forest floor.

Hiruzen walked over and took the scroll from Mitzuki.

'Wh...th...fc...'

The old man was stumped. He grabbed Mitzuki and dashed towards the T and I department. He only noticed now but the scroll he is holding is a fake and the only lead he had to locating the real thing is currently severely injured.

While all this is happening, Gaara is dashing leisurely through the trees avoiding patrol groups after another.

'Ahh shit, now I'm jinxed. A hyuga and a Nara in a patrol group. tsk. No choice.'

Five figures slowly converged towards his location and surrounded him.

"Identify yourself!"

One of the five spoke loudly, they are ordered to tighten the border defense and to not let unknown individuals to come and go between borders.

Gaara didn't speak. There's no point. He drew his blade and dashed forward hitting and dodging the flying kunai that came towards him. Looking down he saw a burning tag tied to the tail of a kunai.

The ground shook, dust and smoke spread out fast before dispersing.

"Did we get him?"

A cannon fodder asked looking towards the Hyuga in their group before his eyes became round like when you see Valak for the first time.

"Duck!"

'Wind release: Great slashing tornado'

"Where?"

The cannon fodder was puzzled as he looked around before his body split into two.

"Be careful, there's more of them coming. Southwest, 350 meters... Northeast 300 meters..."

"I don't see any..."

The Nara was bisected by an invisible blade along with two other shinobi of their group.

Slash* Blade met flesh and another one hit the dust.

Blood splattered on the ground gushing like a river, the sudden silence became deafening.

Gaara on the other hand suddenly felt distaste towards killing he didn't vomit or had the urge to but still didn't like it, he however also knew that if the Hyuga lived then his chances of escaping unrecorded becomes almost non-existent his resolve became firm.

Gaara quickly cleaned up the scene of the crime, storing the bodies of the konohagakure ninjas and once again resumed his journey back to Suna with more gains than he initially planned.

"Do we have leads on the location of the real scroll?"

Hiruzen questioned Yamanaka Inoichi.

"Lord Third. Mizuki's mind is riddled with traps and it is very dangerous for even me to explore. One thing is for sure... from what we have gathered Orochimaru is linked in this incident."

Hiruzen had a complicated look on his face, when Orochimaru betrayed the hidden leaf in search of immortality he had guessed for his student to have wanted to get his hands on the forbidden scroll of seals but manipulating Naruto to get it was out of the scope of his expectations.

The old man sighed and visibly grown older as he considered handing the seat and get out of this mess for a proper break from all the politics.