CHAPTER 12

Chapter Summary: Suzuki Hiroshi confides to the Hokage about his secrets. He chooses how his future career as a shinobi will be.

I'll be changing the way I call the Hokages in this chapter and onwards. I used to refer to them as First, Second, and Third but from now on, I'll be referring to them in Japanese like Shodaime, Nidaime, and Sandaime. It honestly feels more right.

"Why do you need to ask that?", the Hokage skeptically queried.

It does seem weird to ask him for time just for a casual talk.

This is no casual talk, though.

I just stared at him and waited for a confirmation.

He sighed. "I guess we can go somewhere to chat. There's a tea shop over at-." He stopped his words as I grabbed him by his hands.

"What are you doing?"

"Please hold on to me tight. This is the first time I'll be bringing someone with me."

He was going to protest when I put in chakra within the seal to the Vault of Scrolls.

We were sucked in a vortex and we disappeared from the office.

The next moment we were in the entrance hallway of the Vault.

He realized what happened and stared at me with wide eyes full disappointment. "Didn't I tell you not to mess with space-time techniques?! Is my advice so hard to follow?!"

"I swear, this time, that it wasn't me! I didn't create this!"

"Then where did you get a technique like this?!"

"I'll explain better once we get Tsurutatsu. Let's go to the Lounge for now. It'll be more comfortable there than here in the hallway."

Thankfully, he set aside any scolding and looked around the place. We were walking through the hallway when several scrolls on the shelves grabbed his attention.

"These are all very valuable material! Would you allow the village to at least take a look at these?"

"Of course, Hokage-sama. It's just that I'm very skeptical in releasing these because Tatsu told me this place had helped in the creation of some of our village's kinjutsu like the [Impure World Reincarnation]." He gasped at what was said while I continued. "Now that I think about it, even this place can be considered a kinjutsu. Ah! Here we are!"

Our eyes were filled with the view of the Lounge. The Hokage appeared impressed. "This place is nice." He looked to the other hallways. "May I know where those lead to? This is quite the big place if not so… enclosed. Why don't you have any windows here?"

I started to explain. "This place is called the Vault of Scrolls. It can be accessed through the seal on my back. The seal is a space-time technique created by the ancient Uzumaki that leads to an unoccupied pocket dimension. They then fashioned said dimension into this place to preserve summoning scrolls and, later on, any and all knowledge. We have it almost all here; from basic books and scrolls to forbidden techniques. I'll summon Tatsu now since he can explain it better."

I bit my finger to let a little blood out. I then wiped the blood on my other palm to create the seal for the technique. "[Summoning Jutsu]!"

Smoke appeared and out of it came Tsurutatsu. He was surprised to see Hokage-sama but immediately greeted him. "Sandaime-sama, it is nice to finally see you again. It is my absolute pleasure to welcome you to the Vault of Scrolls." He bowed like a true gentleman – err, gentlebird.

Tatsu then turned to me. "Seeing as Sandaime-sama is here and you summoned me, am I to believe that you want me to tell him everything?"

I nodded and he started the story.

Tsurutatsu might have a hidden grudge against the Hokage.

The story he told was essentially the same as what he told me. But when he came to the Senju Extermination Conspiracy, he was exaggerating a lot. I don't really want to recount what he said but it was a very brutalized version of what he told me. Either way, it shocked Hokage-sama to the core so the message was probably received. It was probably his way of letting out years of stress but because of that,, Hokage-sama seems much older now.

"I- I never knew. I always thought that the Senju were just the kind to sacrifice everything for a village they helped raise when in fact they were actually being slaughtered behind our backs."

The Lounge was filled with silence for a moment. There was no sound that could be heard within the Vault which made the atmosphere more unnerving that it should have been.

After a few minutes of silence, Hokage-sama turned and bowed his head to us. "To you and the rest of the Senju Clan, I deeply apologize for my mistake on not better protecting the village and its citizens. I am very ashamed as a Senju appointed me as Hokage. I hope to help you on this matter however-"

I quickly finished his sentence for him. "Since there is a war going on, we'll need to postpone any investigation pertaining to this. Yes. I understand, Hokage-sama. I was also hoping the perpetrator of the event be brought to justice but not now; we still have a war we need to fight." I then helped the Hokage up who could only sigh so sadly.

"This is the man?"

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

We were in the makeshift lab where the masked man that attacked me on my first C-rank mission was in. The capsule looked as homey as it could be for him.

We checked his mouth again, only to see the seal that Root agents are forced to have.

"I can't believe this. It really is the Cursed Tongue Eradication Seal. If Danzo could do something so vile to our teacher's clan, what other things has he done?"

We couldn't exactly answer that so we all stayed silent for a while.

Tatsu then brought out piles of paper that were bounded together at one edge with thick strings. "This is the evidence that Naomi obtained after sneaking into what seemed to be their main headquarters. It was bigger than others we found so we assumed so."

The Hokage received the papers while Tatsu continued talking. "I will tell you what I told Hiro-kun: If you value your sanity, I suggest you do not read it. The Cranes are very patient and peaceful beings, especially so our elders, but when we read through that we were shaking in rage and ready to go to war."

The Hokage seemed determined to read it so I stopped him. "You don't have to read it now, you know? It would be better for us if you do not read it now. If the Cranes barely held themselves back, you'd probably jump at Danzo and shout for blood the next time you see him. We can't have that."

At my words, he hesitated and eventually returned the papers to Tatsu. "I'll read it at a later date. Please keep it for now."

Tatsu nodded. "Of course."

We were walking back to the lounge when Tsurutatsu spoke again.

"Now that I remember, there was something else that horrified Naomi so much when we were sneaking in the base to the same degree as the Senju's eradication."

That grabbed the Hokage's attention. "Another monstrosity? What is it?"

"Hmmm. Even I'm not so sure. All I know is that there were these fist-sized blobs of white mass stored in glass jars. Some people in white robes were injecting them into shinobi but after the injection, they suddenly coughed up blood and their bodies shriveled until they died. Naomi didn't know what was happening as well but when I told her that the white blobs felt similar to the Hashirama trees surrounding the village, she went as white as paper."

I froze and went as white as paper like what probably Naomi did.

Tatsu and the Hokage noticed this and were alarmed. The Hokage asked me what I thought they were and I answered. "Hashirama Cells. Cells that have the Wood Release. If they're injecting them into people, then he's probably trying to make his Root shinobi have the Wood Release."

Tatsu was horrified at what I said.

The Hokage nodded at this, though. "Yes. There were sanctioned experiments into recreating the Wood Release in willing participants. They failed, though, as it killed too many participants so I closed it off permanently and abandoned the research. But, of course, Danzo is still continuing it. I should have known."

Isn't this how Orochimaru gets tangled up with Danzo? How he gets all deranged and crazy to experiment on children?

I wanted to stop that from happening so I thought it best to warn the Hokage of it. "If Danzo wants to perfect something like this, he might need very brilliant individuals on the field of genetics. I hear one of your students was a scientist? Danzo might approach him and while I don't know how crafty Danzo really is, he will probably do anything to get Orochimaru to help him."

The Hokage realized how it was very possible and nodded. "I'll make sure Danzo doesn't take hold of anymore loyal shinobi. He won't be touching anyone, especially my students."

"I understand that you haven't properly trained with your summons just yet?", The Hokage asked.

"Yes. I was afraid that Danzo would recognize the Cranes as Senju Naomi's summons and work out a connection between us."

"It's understandable. The Cranes were always a partner to the Senju Clan as far as I can remember. He'd definitely investigate extensively if he found out you suddenly had them as summons."

"Tatsu and I usually train here at the Vault but we couldn't practice tag partner maneuvers because there's only two of us who have access here."

"How about I help you with that?"

My face brightened. "You'll help us train?"

The Hokage shook his head immediately. "Oh no. Have you seen how much paperwork goes through my desk every day? No, I can't help you train." My face fell at that. He was quick to continue his words, though. "But, I could claim to have given you their contract as a gift. That way, you could freely summon Tatsu to train with you and Team Minato."

Tatsu understood. "It could work but wouldn't it be suspicious to suddenly gift someone something as valuable as a summoning contract?"

The Hokage shook his head. "Not really. I'm known to value very talented shinobi and I give gifts to them every time they had done something helpful to the village. The most extravagant gift I gave was a kinjutsu, the [Flying Thunder God Jutsu] of Tobirama-sensei. I gave it to Minato and now he's one of the finest shinobi Konoha has ever had. I could claim as such this time as well. The downside is that a lot of eyes would be watching you by then."

I nodded. "I don't care about eyes. They could look at me for all I care. I just hope they don't try to kill me or something."

With everything out in the open at that. We decided it time to return to the outside.

We were sucked in and out of the vortex and the next moment, we saw the familiar interior of the office.

The Hokage went back to sit on his chair and acted like I didn't drop a bomb on him. "You certainly gave me a lot to think about, Hiro-kun.", he said with a grandfatherly smile. Oooohh. He's good at acting. I guess we'll need to keep up the pretenses now.

I smiled then bowed my head. "I sincerely apologize for that Hokage-sama."

"No apologies needed, Hiro-kun. I should be the one to apologize. Now, you'll need to leave me with my paperwork. It would get more suspicious if you stay any longer."

He deactivated the privacy seals and I bowed my head once more. I exited his office at a steady pace as to not illicit any suspicion.

I'll need to go home for now.

When I went home, I immediately checked the security seals I placed. My modified security seals worked just like a general one but I added a secret function that let me check on whether it was tampered with or not. I wanted to know if Danzo or any other party was trying to snoop around, hoping to find anything on me. Sadly for them, I have somewhere I could use that isn't here.

I checked the privacy seals and lo and behold, there was one instance when the privacy seals were deactivated. They were probably here to check if they have anything to use against me. Or maybe to plant falsified evidence.

When I thought of that, I immediately checked every nook and cranny within my apartment when I found nothing. My gut told me that there definitely was something here that didn't belong. I looked up to the ceiling and thought it was a great hiding place. I searched and there it was. I opened it and found out it was a separate scroll for the [Impure World Reincarnation].

I was greatly disappointed. I thought it would be something that I didn't have at the Vault yet. It's kind of funny how Danzo thought to make me a villain in his sad little manipulations. He would probably say that I'd try to bring back my parents or something.

I threw the scroll into the Vault, sent an Origami Messenger to the Hokage about what I found (locked with the recently learned blood seal so that only he can access it) and went on my merry way to where Team Minato was.

Team Minato was currently having a sparring session. And I was surprised.

These days, Minato-sensei noted that Obito has been more driven to improve. He's also becoming more mindful of things he did and speak. He was trying his best to be better and that made me happy. He's on his way to avoid being crushed by a boulder. Despite all this, though, his old loud and immature self still makes its appearance from time to time.

Kakashi, on the other hand, seemed to be less arrogant and aloof. He engages in useless, small talk with the other members of the team. He also annoys Obito less now. He has become slightly more considerate of others. This is quite the surprise. I guess what I said really came through him. At times, though, he's still a prick.

Kakashi and Obito were trying to put bruises into each other. Their training was to incapacitate the other. While that was happening, though, Rin passively heals their bruises and cuts as soon as they appear by covering them with Water Jellyfishes.

This went on for a while until Obito slumped down to the ground, heaving large breaths at quick intervals.

Rin sighed at this and went to Obito to check on him. Kakashi sat down while panting.

I clapped my hands to grab their attentions and as soon as they turned their heads to me, they greeted me blandly. I was satisfied with it though seeing how hard they were training.

"I have news!"

Obito asked boringly, "What is it? You have a new jutsu? If you do, it's not really news." The whole team chuckled at that. Yes, even Kakashi.

I rolled my eyes. Was my jutsu creation that infamous? I don't think I made that many. Yet. "No. I just came from the Hokage's Office and look what he gave me." I took out a storage scroll and unsealed it, revealing my chunin vest.

Upon seeing the vest, they were surprised but after a while, they gave smiles my way. Yes, even Kakashi. And it's slightly creeping me out.

Minato-sensei smiled at me so happily like a proud father. "Congratulations, Hiro-kun! I was actually told beforehand that you were slated for chunin on-field promotion. I heard you were offered places in three different places as well. Do you know which one you'd be going to? I bet it's Konoha R&D due to your love for jutsu creation.

"I was planning on that, actually. I don't think they made anything useful for a while now and I have a lot of ideas. Maybe I could help jumpstart the operations of R&D in some way. I also thought of the Sensory Division since I heard they were lacking in people."

Rin-chan frowned. "Hey! Think about the hospital, too! I heard they were offering you training and they said they could force you to go to them by using the Water Jellyfish incident."

I cringed at what she said. "Being a medic-nin is alright but I can't see myself being in the backlines, healing. My talents are much more useful on the frontlines. I won't deny the training, though. That's useful wherever I end up with.", Rin-chan seemed satisfied with my answer.

Kakashi interjected with what he heard as well. "I saw Kushina-nee-san go to the Hokage's Office to offer someone an apprenticeship yesterday. I assume that was you?"

Minato-sensei widened his eyes. "Kushina did that?! Is she trying to poach my student from me?"

I was hasty in scolding him. "It's probably because you boasted of my progress in fuinjutsu. The Hokage told me Kushina-nee-san offered the apprenticeship because of that. And, well, probably because she finds me cute."

Obito asked, "So you have offers from Konoha R&D, Konoha Hospital, Sensory Division, and Kushina-nee-san. They all seem great."

I sighed frustratingly. "Exactly! That's why I came here! What do you guys think I should pick? Any advice?"

Rin-chan raised her hand excitedly, "Konoha Hospital is the place where you should be! You have perfect chakra control! You were destined to be there!"

Kakashi was next to pitch his idea. "Isn't your dream to create a lot of jutsu? You could do that at Konoha R&D. You could also help the village as a whole there since the division almost encompasses every other one."

Minato-sensei was ever supportive. "You should go with Kushina. You'll learn a lot from her. She helped me with my [Flying Thunder God Jutsu]. You'd succeed in life if you chose her."

Obito's idea was simple and I was considering doing it anyway. "Why not do everything?"

Yeah. I was planning on that from the start. I was just too brilliant like that.