Shit.

Her finger was directed at the giant ball of smoke and fire caused by the explosion from a few minutes ago. He turned around to face Shikamaru, and based on the fact that the latter lost his trademark 'I-couldn't-care-less' expression, Naruto figured that he probably also arrived to the same implication.

"Mirai, focus. Where exactly did Kiba go?"

The girl started to sob again, but it only took Sakura tapping Mirai on her forehead once more for her to be able to resume talking.

"Ho- Hokage-sama, we were walking around and we found this.", she said, pointing now at a wooden box on the ground about a meter away from them that Naruto only now noticed.

"What is it?", Naruto asked, approaching the box and examining it from closer up.

"Or rather, what was in it?", Shikamaru specified and the implications hit Naruto instantly.

"A- a thing… I think it was a-, a device. I think a-, a bomb, of some kind. There was a timer on it... with not much time left."

Naruto felt a horrible sensation spread all over his body. He realized he didn't want to hear the rest of it, but he knew he had to.

"Mirai. Where did Kiba go?"

"I don't know, Hokage-sama. I panicked. I looked down and then when I turned and wanted to ask Kiba-senpai what we were going to do about it, he was not there anymore. And then I looked down at the thing again and it was not there anymore, too. A few moments later, the sky went on fire.. I- I think, he- "

Mirai was unable to finish, starting to hyperventilate again and this time, Naruto thought he could as well join her.

If only he could.

A warm and a very grounding hand made its way on his back.

"Naruto, we must send someone to go investigate what happened over there.", Shikamaru said, looking into the distance at the spot still visibly on fire.

"I will go!"

"No Naruto, it could be a trap. Plus, of all times, you have to stay with the village right now."

He complimented himself for selecting Shikamaru to be his advisor because really, at least someone was still able to think straight in moments like these.

"Then let's send the ANBU there."

He saw Shikamaru thinking about it for a few seconds.

"Ok, but we must deploy the ANBU around Konoha first. Someone just tried to kill you and blow up the entire tower along with it. We must first ensure the safety of the village. There might be more of these."

Oh right, someone just tried to blow his office up with him in it, he almost forgot. Really, thank God for Shikamaru.

Shikamaru kept looking around, seemingly evaluating the orientation and location of the box relative to the tower.

"Naruto, it really was directed at you. Until we know the type of the threat exactly, it is too risky having you just run around."

He didn't like that.

On his left, Naruto saw that Sakura was still trying to comfort the girl, while giving him a very troubled look.

"I will take her to the hospital. She is in shock."

Sakura disappeared with Mirai, and he gathered that she was happy to have something else on her mind, something that urgently needed to be taken care of and something other than the fact that their village was just attacked and their friend might have just been killed. He, on the other hand, felt completely helpless and useless.

God, he was perhaps getting too old for this. It was too easy to get used to peaceful times and always too hard to see these possibly going away.

"Naruto."

He turned and saw Shikamaru trying to get his attention.

"I know what's on your mind right now. It's on mine, too. But we must get you to safety and deploy help."

Naruto nodded and let himself be guided to the ANBU base, where Shikamaru informed everyone about what just happened. They decided (or well, Shikamaru did anyway) that two ANBU would stay with the Hokage at all times, two other would go investigate the place of the explosion and the rest was to be dispersed in the village along with the most capable tracking non-ANBU shinobi to search for any other potential bombs or traps.

Shikamaru soon left the base saying he had to go 'oversee' the operations (he just wanted to run away and feel busy, the bastard). In the meantime, Naruto had to stay in the base until the situation got under control.

This was not at all what he imagined. He wanted to be at the front lines, fighting the threat and defend Konoha, not here being body-guarded by others. But these were apparently the regulations and Naruto regretted not having read them and attempted to modify them earlier.

Naruto felt like the waiting took eternity. At some point, Sakura joined him and after informing him that Mirai was stable and with Kurenai, the two just sat there in silence, waiting for news.

Two hours later, the two ANBU who Shikamaru deployed to investigate the explosion location returned.

"No hope.", was all that one of them said.

'No hope?!' Really?

"Is that the entire report that you have to give?!", Naruto snapped back standing up quickly, fully aware of how angry he sounded.

And yeah, perhaps these were not the right people for him to be angry at, but he felt like he just needed to be angry at someone for all of this.

"We are sorry, Hokage-sama.", the other continued after swallowing, apparently not wanting to further upset him. "Everything in the radius of around a kilometer is completely burnt up. We could not even get to all of the areas around because they were still on fire. We could not find any remnants."

This time, Naruto just nodded. He didn't trust his voice and silence was more fitting anyway.

The two ANBU bowed their heads and left.

He heard Sakura cry. And then he heard himself cry as well.

It did not take long for the rumors to make their way through the village. Shino was the first one who came to seek Naruto, not that long after the ANBU team returned.

Apparently, Kiba would always have some of Shino's insects around just in case the former found himself "in some kind of annoying trouble again" as Shino liked to put it. He summoned his insects after the explosion to gather information, so when the insects accompanying Kiba failed to return, and when he couldn't manage to find his friend with the rest of his insects for the hours after, he knew that not everything was well.

For Naruto, he found at least some comfort in the thought that Kiba was not completely alone in his final moments, parts of his best friend always with him.

"I am sorry.", was all he managed to say. Naruto knew how close Shino and Kiba became over the years. Though he did not quite understand how their personalities worked together, he knew that Kiba was the first one who offered a proper, real friendship to Shino, while Shino was the first one who was able to look past Kiba's unhinged behavior as a child and see him as a valuable comrade. Tsume was like a mother to Shino and Shibi was like a father to Kiba. It wasn't just Hana who lost a brother and it wasn't just Tsume who lost a son. He had no idea how Shino was going to cope, but then again, he had no idea how he was going to cope either, knowing that this was his first loss of a close friend as a Hokage.

Shino understood the meaning of Naruto's apology and turned around to leave.

"You can stay here with us, if you wish.", he heard Sakura kindly offer.

"I need to mourn. I prefer to do that alone".

He could see that.

Hinata also came an hour later. She did not have insects for wide-scale reconnaissance like Shino, but she did not need to. If at any point anything happened in or around Konoha, Kiba and Shino would find her soon after if they were available to make sure she was safe. Hinata never really understood why they were so protective of her, but she appreciated it and she was also glad to always see that they were fine too. Only Shino showed up this time, with a very disturbing expression painted on his face, so when after a few hours of waiting there was still no sign of the dog-nin and could not find him, she went to seek out her husband.

They made their way together later that day to the Inuzuka compound, but it turned out that there was no one left to inform. Tsume just nodded and sent them away, probably not wanting to look sad and be vulnerable in front of someone who was not from her family. Akamaru had already made his way to Shino's place to be by his side before they even arrived. Naruto never really knew how they all found out so quick, but if he did learn something about the clans such as Inuzuka or Aburame during his first year in office, it was that he would never be able to truly grasp just how much these people sensed and just somehow knew about the world around them.

The funeral was held two weeks later, without any body parts found. The news spread fast also outside of the village. Konoha faced the murder of their former police chief just a few months before that, so the fact that his successor was dead soon after made a strong headline. In addition, terror attacks such as this one were no longer something frequent after the war, especially against the Hokage himself, and so it was only natural that other villages wanted to talk about it and learn as much about it as possible to improve their own security.

All Naruto cared about, however, was that not even a year into his office, he already lost one of his close friends. He never wanted anyone to die for him and while he knew that that was in principle what the position of Hokage also entailed, he just somehow presumed that it would not happen to him. He wanted to be a Hokage to protect those dear to him, not to have them die in his stead.

Akamaru passed away two months later. While it was stated by Hana that he simply passed of old age, which was to be expected at some point, everyone knew he would have probably lived much longer had his owner been at his side.

Indeed, he would never forget this day; the day he was almost killed and his friend was pronounced dead, saving his life.

He knew that he would now also never forget the day from a week ago, a year after that; the day he was almost killed again, by the hands of that very friend.

And finally, he would not forget today; the day he found that all of this might have been caused by the Lord of the Land of Fire himself, the man he once trusted and relied on.

Coming back to his office, he found Shikamaru leaning against his desk, a serious and a questioning look on his face.

"So?", he asked expectedly.

"I don't like it, but the puzzle does fall together. At least where Kiba is concerned.", he replied.

Shikamaru's "hmph" that he let out told Naruto that he more or less agreed.

"What do you want to do then?"

"We don't have solid evidence yet. We need to find out where all of this was taking place."

"The ANBU are loyal to the Hokage, not to the Lord. I can send one or two groups to monitor the movement of the Lord, just to get an idea where he spends his time.", Shikamaru proposed.

Naruto felt himself nodding.

"And I will ask Ino to make the link again, this time to extract some information about the location and the people involved."