AN: Chapter title: The Night Before Depature

"Hasn't this day been a long time coming." The bearded Jonin was tempted to light up a cigarette even if he was inside. For now, he contented himself with flicking his lighter open and close, an amused grin on his face. Despite how much he had been dreading this deal, it wasn't one he was wholly against.

Being named squad leader was more than a little expected, Asuma Sarutobi not surprised that he had been given such a title with his once status as one of the Twelve Guardian Ninja that had guarded the current Daimyo's father. It was no doubt something the Fire Daimyo had requested.

Even not taking the Daimyo's personal preferences into account, he was the only one experienced in this type of assignment.

"I'm just glad he's not delaying it any longer." Next to him, Kurenai could only shake her head. "Any reason he finally decided to head back to the capital?"

"I don't know and, if I'm being honest, I don't care." The bearded Jonin kept flicking his lighter open and closed. "What matters now is we've finally got a timeline. This mission won't be any different than any other high-profile protection detail. I'll link up with his personal guard tonight and see what route they've got planned, where they want us. We'll work out who does what before we head out. The trip, from the last time I traveled with the Daimyo, should take us around two weeks."

"Two weeks of him?" Kurenai almost wanted to shudder at what the future held. She had taken on S-Rank missions where one mistake could cost her not only her life but the village so much more, had gone into battles knowing her life could be cut short with even a single second's lapse of focus, with less horror than she felt now. "I don't even think Ibiki could last the whole time with him."

"That's why we're going to rotate. Same way the Twelve Guardian Ninja used to do it. We'll keep one member of the squad close to him, one on intercept duty, and the rest will scout out in teams. Basic security plan for a high-profile target like the Daimyo. We'll keep in contact and challenge when we approach one another. All the regular precautions." Asuma was more than familiar with it all. Even if years had passed since the last time he had run a bodyguard mission this high-profile, it was impossible to forget. "Putting that schedule together is going to be a pain."

"Can I at least look forward to some preferential treatment?" The two had found some privacy as they walked through the Hokage Tower, this late at night and not many Shinobi who would gossip were around. That privacy was what afforded the Jonin the chance to kiss her lover. Nothing too intimate but it was one of the few times they had done so in such a public space.

"As much as I would like to, you know I can't."

The two shared a laugh as they headed down the hall.

The rest of their eight-man squad would be waiting for them tomorrow morning at the gates, all of them were either already informed of the mission or had been told as of today what they would be doing for the next few weeks. It was going to be a boring assignment but it would be easy.

Dozens of top-class samurai.

An entourage consisting of top-class bodyguards.

Traveling on an already scouted road.

The Hokage had already sent ANBU to further secure the route, the masked Shinobi certainly making short work of any threats that could be lying in wait for the Daimyo.

The ANBU would also be screening the route ahead of them the entire time, Asuma the only one able to contact the unknown number of covert Shinobi attached to the squad.

And, as much as Asuma had been against it, the Uzumaki's clone force would also be part of this mission. They would be filling much of the same role as the attached ANBU, would simply be more obvious about it as they marched through the forest ahead of the Daimyo.

All and all, it made for an easy assignment.

One with S-Rank pay. It could almost be considered a free paycheck.

It didn't take much for a Shinobi to know when they were just there for show. The Daimyo had made his trip to the village for the Chunin Exams with a handful of Shinobi, a Jonin to lead a squad of skilled enough Chunin for the job, a handful of ANBU sent ahead to covertly guard him. They had accompanied him and his entourage to the gates of the village, would've normally stayed with him for the entirety of his visit.

Normally.

They're usually wasn't an invasion to deal with, the continuing aftermath of a failed attack on the village to handle.

Only the failed invasion had made the Hokage decide to send some of his top Shinobi on a mission as easy as this. It was a message to others as much as it was a message to the Daimyo: The Hidden Leaf remained strong, remained capable, there was no reason to doubt the village's strength.

At it's core, it was the same reason why the village was taking on a surplus of missions, why the missions had become more and more high-profile, why Jiraiya himself was traveling across the Land of Fire with the Jinchuriki. It was all done to project strength. It was a statement that the village hadn't lost a step, that it could handle this and more.

It was a lie so utterly mixed with the truth you couldn't see where one ended and another began.

"Of course." For a moment, he let his eye twitch. He then let his head drop on his desk. Unfortunately, he didn't hit it with enough force to knock himself out, not even enough to give himself lasting brain damage. "Of course." He finally lifted his head up, took in the amused eyes of the messenger who had delivered his latest assignment to him. His red and black gaze narrowed. "Don't look so happy Yamanaka."

"I don't even know what you're talking about." Ino's grin was one of absolute delight, no attempt made to conceal it. "This is how I always look."

Sasuke only let his head fall to the desk again.

"Just leave. I'm already going to suffer enough taking that fool back to the capital."

He should've expected this, should've seen this coming. The Daimyo had even said as much when he and Caesar had met with him and the Hokage. He had only been hoping for the man to forget, for it to slip his mind or for him to become distracted by something else.

"Oh I'm sure it won't be as bad as you're thinking." Ino didn't even bother to hold back her laugh.

Her father had escorted the Daimyo all of three times over the years he had been one of Konoha's elite Shinobi. The stories he had told her afterwards were enough to know it was an awful assignment, more a punishment than an honor like many younger Shinobi would think of it as. The man prattled on without end, would talk your ear off and, by the nature of your duty as a Shinobi, there was nothing you could do but stand there and listen.

"I'm sure it'll be worse." Sasuke pulled his head off of his desk again, long enough to glare at the Yamanaka before he began rummaging through the drawers, eventually drew out a new scroll. "I'm drafting new orders for you and the rest of the Tribunes."

Ino's smile dropped, horror gracing her face.

"You don't mean…" To think he could be cruel enough to drag the rest of them along…

"I'm not that sadistic." Sasuke assuaged her fears as he went to work, writing the basics of the order quickly. 'And the entire reason you're even here is for this.' "I'm extending the authority of one of you. If only slightly. One of you will need to be in charge of the others." He finished quickly, one of the Praetorians posted outside the door entering the room moments after he finished.

'That seal works as a message too?' She wasn't a robust sensor but the surge of Chakra was obvious, couldn't be ignored when she was this close to the source. She could faintly get a picture of the Chakra of Naruto's clone as Sasuke handed the message off to the Praetorian.

She quietly filed the new information away, Sasuke dismissing the Praetorian with an order to duplicate the message and hand it out immediately.

"By the way: You won't be it." Sasuke rose from his seat. He ignored the over-the-top pout Ino decided to put on, the Chunin more than aware of why she wasn't picked.

"So who is it going to be?" As he left the office, Ino followed after him. "Come on! Tell me!"

"You'll know when the others do. You're dismissed for the day." The Uchiha lifted a hand in goodbye, signaled a pair of Praetorians forward. They formed a wall in the middle of the hall. "These two will escort you out."

He didn't need her to follow him. Already, the day for the rest of the Tribunes had been cut short, each being escorted out by the Praetorians who had been watching them all day. Minus one, the other six wouldn't be returning to their duties until tomorrow.

The Legate met the only Tribune left in the cells beneath the tower.

"You've done good work. Caesar will be impressed you've brought these dogs to heel so well."

Even the Praetorians he had brought with him seemed impressed with the final results of the Hyuga's training. He had elected to bring a number of Centurions with him, would trust them to explain what was needed to each of their Centuries.

None of the three looked up from the floor as he examined them, as Hinata allowed a smile to grace her face behind the three. Sasuke could admit that the Hyuga had provided better results than he could have, had molded the three into exactly what he needed them to be:

Dogs.

"And here I was thinking you would need a few more days to get them ready. I shouldn't have doubted you nor your skill." He finished his examination of the three with a nod, the red and black Dojutsu of the Uchiha Clan gone in the blink of an eye. "They know what's expected of them?" He received a nod from Hinata, the Hyuga being very thorough in teaching the three their new roles. "Good."

While the Praetorians were a formidable force, were trained personally by him into a capable arm of Caesar's Legion, they were limited in abilities. Beyond strength, they didn't have the necessary skillset to defend Karin from threats in the shadows.

He didn't have the time to give a large enough group a crash course on such a thing.

These three already possessed the needed skills.

These three would serve such a role.

And, with the seal Hinata had branded over their hearts, they would have no choice in the matter.

"Beyond the two of us, who else knows how to activate this seal?" With the fatal nature of its activation, he needed to know who could use it. That last thing he needed were one of his dogs dropping dead after all this work he had put into training them.

"With the book I discovered it in now being held here in the tower? Perhaps my father knows of it but would lack any information on its activation. The seals in that book are obscure even among the Main House of the Hyuga Clan."

"Obscure isn't unknown. You're to make sure there's no other record of this seal in your clan's records. Understood?" At her nod, he continued. "I'll send the Praetorians to assist you. If the records can't be removed, hide them. It's not uncommon for things to be lost, correct?"

He had, briefly, delved into the records of the Uchiha Clan once. Before the massacre. Before He had revealed his true colors.

Even finding something as simple as notes on the Great Fireball had taken nearly an hour with just how many books and scrolls needed to be looked over.

He had no doubt the records of the Hyuga Clan were much the same: Exhaustive but dense. Few could navigate them well and even fewer could do so in a timely manner.

"I'll make sure they can't be found. Destroying them will be too noticeable but members the Main House rarely search the records themselves. As long as members of the Branch House are sent, I can order them to leave as heiress." Hinata's face twisted for a moment, changed. "What a horrible system…"

"It is." On that, Sasuke could agree with the Hyuga. He moved on just as quickly. "Caesar will need to be instructed in it as well. Unfortunately, we've run out of prisoners for him to try it out on." It was an unforeseen problem. He had only spared these three from the mass execution he had ordered, hadn't considered any other prisoner worth it. Hired thugs and criminals had few uses in his eyes.

Clearly, he had been wrong.

And the Legion hadn't wanted for funding since Caesar's conquest of the Land of Waves, his seizure of Gato's resources. The bounties weren't necessary in the slightest.

'Perhaps it was foolish to collect all those bounties.' The Legate privately reprimanded himself for not stopping such a thing, at least ordering the executions in stages if nothing else. 'But the past is the past. There's no changing it.'

"I'll have to discover some way Caesar can practice with this." Sasuke would think over the problem, would hopefully have something ready by the time Caesar returned from his journey with the Toad Sage. For now, it wasn't exactly critical to solve. "For now, these three will need to be made presentable for their new role."

They wouldn't wear the armor of Caesar's glorious Legion. Dogs didn't deserve such an honor.

Besides, with his report to the Hokage in mind, they were still considered prisoners and prisoners weren't allowed to carry weapons. Even if these three were considered a special exception, put under guard of a Chunin, there was still limits to what he could and couldn't do.

Already, he would need to have them under guard and record their movements, would need to concede to an independent examination by Konohagakure's Torture and Interrogation Force of the three. And he could delay that last part for only so long, would hopefully keep it from happening until his return, when the three dogs would be under his watch once more.

He had ways to…influence the examiners if it came to it.

"I'll leave it to you. You've trained them after all." The Legate headed for the door to their new cell. "If you have anything else to report, you know how to reach me. If not, I expect them to shadow her by tomorrow morning. Her guards will be made aware of them."

"Wait." Hinata stepped around the three that had been her focus since gaining the title of Tribune, approached Sasuke. The Uchiha didn't stop but he allowed the Hyuga to catch up to him as he stepped out the door. "Naruto-kun asked me to search for information on the Caged Bird Seal. I've gathered everything I could since then." She held out a scroll. "It's not exhaustive but it should help Naruto-kun."

Sasuke handed the scroll off to a Praetorian, didn't need to give the order of it being for Caesar only.

"That reminds me." He drew out his own scroll, handed it over to Hinata. "I'm leaving in the morning to escort the Daimyo back to the capitol. Until either I or Caesar return to the village, you'll be placed in charge of the Tribunes. I don't expect much to happen but keep them in line. Neither I nor Caesar need to return to find the tower burned to the ground. If the worse occurs and you require aid, speak with the Praefectus Castrorum. He'll either solve the problem or contact one of us."

'More than likely me. There's no telling where Caesar will be if something happens. The Toad Sage is leading him nowhere.' The last time he had checked, Caesar was in the Hidden Waterfall. Or somewhere nearby. His message wasn't very descriptive beyond the giant waterfalls the three of them had decided to stop at.

"Now, you should leave with the other Tribunes." Sasuke allowed a humorless smile to cross his face as he spoke, his eye once more twitching. "I need to go prepare for a fresh waste of my time."

"I'm sure it'll be as miserable as you think." Hinata's smile was a marked opposite of the Uchiha's own. There was obvious glee on her face, delight at what awaited him. "If it's any comfort, one of my old caretakers will be traveling with you. I'm sure you can find some entertainment from him."

"Hopefully. Will the seal you taught me work on him?"

"Not at all. Main House members aren't marked."

"Fun." It was the exact opposite judging from his tone. "I guess I'll have to get creative. Do you know if he's been told to spy on me? Maybe try to get rid of me during the mission?"

"He'll spy on you but I'm sure everyone will be spying on you. Besides that, he shouldn't try anything obvious. If he does, I'm sure you can deal with him. Ko is strong but he's far from exceptional."

"Will I be in trouble with your clan if I kill him?"

"…I don't know. Ko is one of my father's preferred lapdogs. He's also not disliked by the Branch Family, no more than any other Main House member at least." She thought in silence for a moment, hummed. "…Just hurt him. His body. Not his eyes." Her pale gaze locked with the dark eyes of the Uchiha. "I'm sure you understand why."

"Only a little." Red replaced black, the Legate almost laughing at his own joke. "I never did like your little caretaker back at the Academy. He always had this smug look on his face anytime I saw him, anytime he looked at me. I'd like to at least break his nose for that."

"As long as you don't damage his eyes, no one will care. But maybe you could break more than his nose, try his jaw." The Hyuga smiled. "Yes, that would be wonderful."

"I feel there's a story to that request."

"If you break his jaw, I'll be happy to tell you."

"You have my curiosity if nothing else. Consider it done."