Chapter 113: Ambush on Uchiha Ikeizumi!
After watching his estranged second son, Asuma, leave, Hiruzen Sarutobi lowered his gaze to the Daimyō's official document in his hands, muttering softly, "What is it that feels… slightly off?"
That Uchiha Ikeizumi killed the Daimyō's second son and that the Daimyō would be furious and want to kill him is reasonable and normal.
That the Daimyō wouldn't travel all the way to Konoha and would instead send Asuma back to relay a message also seems logical.
The only thing that felt a little strange to Hiruzen was...
The Daimyō's document in his hand, and the incredibly naive and childish plan that Asuma had relayed.
To get Uchiha Ikeizumi to leave Konoha, rely on his "Absolute Justice" to offend more people, and then use others to do the dirty work—this was a revenge plan the Daimyō would almost certainly fail to pull off.
Hiruzen believed the Daimyō knew the plan had an extremely low chance of success.
After all, who could guarantee that someone would dare to become the blade aimed at Uchiha Ikeizumi?
And who could guarantee that after Ikeizumi left...
He wouldn't set his sights directly on the powerful Daimyō of the Land of Fire himself?
"The Daimyō must have another scheme," Hiruzen muttered, furrowing his brow. "Asuma... he must know something, but he chose to cooperate with the Daimyō to hide it from me. Sigh. One troublesome thing after another, it's simply endless."
Hiruzen felt a deep weariness. For a man his age, dealing with so many troublesome matters was simply too much to handle.
One major crisis after another crowded his mind, making him feel like he was stretched too thin, and his thoughts had become sluggish.
"Someone," Hiruzen called for an ANBU ninja.
He gave the order: "Send for Ikeizumi."
"Yes, Hokage-sama."
"Wait..." Hiruzen stopped him, then gave another command: "First, assemble the ANBU. Then, call for him to come over."
In the end, Hiruzen was a little afraid to meet with Ikeizumi alone.
The risk was simply too high!
...
"Hey, hey, hey... Chiriku, where is your Asuma? Why isn't he here yet?"
Outside Konoha.
Kazuma held a senbon in his mouth, a kunai hooked over his index finger, which he spun as he spoke with a sinister tone. "This wouldn't happen to be a trap, would it? You say you're coming to deal with Uchiha Ikeizumi, but you're actually coming to deal with me? If I wait a few more minutes, will hundreds of Konoha ninja come out and surround me?"
With that, Kazuma slowly stood up, casting an unfriendly gaze at Chiriku, one of the Twelve Guardian Ninja, who stood before him.
The five others with him all rose as well, causing the other three on Chiriku's side to immediately become wary.
"Kazuma, what do you think you're doing?" one of them snapped. "Don't forget our mission. The Daimyō-sama wants us to deal with Uchiha Ikeizumi, not to kill each other."
Kazuma sneered. "That's not certain. The Daimyō-sama wouldn't do anything to me, of course, since he trusts me completely. But I can't be sure Asuma hasn't deceived him."
The impassive Chiriku pressed his palms together, softly chanting a Buddhist prayer before speaking. "Asuma is not the kind of person you describe."
But his eyes were fixed intently on Kazuma.
If the other man made the slightest move, Chiriku would not hesitate to attack.
Just as the tension reached a breaking point, a sudden noise attracted the attention of all ten people.
"Kazuma, you really do like to stir up trouble..."
Asuma took a puff of his cigarette, his voice cold as he addressed Kazuma.
"Tch!"
Kazuma twirled his kunai and questioned, "Asuma, you owe me an explanation for taking so long, don't you? Talking to the Konoha Hokage shouldn't take this long, right?"
Asuma's expression was complicated. He said in a low voice, "I did a little digging in Konoha regarding Uchiha Ikeizumi."
Kazuma raised an eyebrow. "Weren't you just back in Konoha a few days ago? Why would you need to find out more about him after such a short time?"
Asuma fell silent for a moment.
He, too, had initially thought it was unnecessary, but he had coincidentally discovered that many people in the village were talking about Uchiha Ikeizumi.
After asking around out of curiosity, Asuma was completely shocked.
Killing Danzō Shimura, killing illegal drug dealers, killing his own clan members, wiping out the entire Shimura clan—these were all the earth-shattering events that Uchiha Ikeizumi had caused just days after he had left Konoha!
And these were only the things he could find out. Asuma was sure there were many more things he couldn't uncover.
"Our enemy is far beyond what we imagined," Asuma said gravely. "This is a fight for our lives."
He then relayed all the information he had gathered.
Even Kazuma's sneering expression vanished as he listened.
"Hey, hey..."
Kazuma rubbed the kunai with his fingertips. "Is there really no exaggeration here? Does this guy… never rest? Is he working around the clock?!"
Chiriku's expression was unmoved. "We have the advantage. He doesn't know we're lying in wait for him."
Asuma let out a heavy breath and nodded. "That's our only advantage. I lied to the old man to get him to send Uchiha Ikeizumi out. The moment he steps out, he'll walk straight into our ambush. To kill a figure this troublesome, we must do it in the shortest amount of time possible."
"If we give him even a moment to catch his breath, it will be a huge disadvantage for us. This means that none of us can hold back; we have to use every last bit of our strength, or we'll all get ourselves killed."
Kazuma spit the senbon out of his mouth and sneered. "A Konoha ninja this powerful, and you, Asuma Sarutobi, are willing to kill him? Maybe you're the cruelest person here, not the Hokage."
Asuma took a deep breath, and slowly said, "He's a threat to Konoha, that's all there is to it. So... are you scared?"
A muscle in Kazuma's eye twitched. "Asuma, if you say that word again, I'll kill you first!"
Asuma felt a small sense of relief.
His taunt had worked.
That Kazuma didn't get along with him wasn't a problem for now; as long as he wasn't thinking about backing down at a crucial moment, that was enough.
He looked at one of the Guardian Ninja beside him and asked, "Have you sent a summon to inform the Daimyō-sama that we're about to move?"
The ninja nodded slightly. "It was sent last night. My summon is very fast; the Daimyō-sama should have received the letter by now."
...
Meanwhile, at the Ninja Academy.
"Hiss..."
Ryōshin Yamanaka, who had been passed out, slowly opened his eyes. His neck felt a little sore, and his mind was a bit hazy.
"...Damn it!"
He suddenly widened his eyes and shot up from the ground.
He remembered that before he fainted, he had seen a pair of scarlet eyes. Then his mind went blank, his neck hurt, and he instantly lost consciousness.
Ryōshin realized he had been caught in a genjutsu, most likely a Sharingan genjutsu!
And, to be safe, the person had delivered a hand chop to knock him out before he could even try to break free!
Ryōshin knew his duty was to monitor the jinchūriki.
He wasn't knocked out because he was the target.
It was because the jinchūriki, Naruto Uzumaki, was the target!
Ryōshin broke out in a cold sweat. Especially when he looked up and saw the two large holes in the wall of Iruka's classroom, the sense of foreboding made him feel like he had committed a great blunder.
Failing to properly protect the jinchūriki wouldn't just be a simple matter of disappointing the Hokage.
"You're awake?" a sudden, clear voice startled Ryōshin, who quickly turned to see someone he recognized—the little follower of Uchiha Ikeizumi!
If he wasn't mistaken...
Her name was Uchiha Izumi?
Ryōshin's heart jumped. "Did you use a genjutsu on me?!"
Izumi shook her head. "Not me. It was Uchiha Itachi."
Ryōshin: "!!!"
"Don't worry... his target was Uchiha Sasuke, not Naruto Uzumaki. He probably just made you 'sleep' for a little while because he thought your presence might get in his way."
Izumi kindly explained. She had been observing Ryōshin for a while and had found that he was not a "red name" villain.
The young girl still held a general sense of goodwill toward those who weren't villains.
"If you're here, then Uchiha Ikeizumi..."
Ryōshin couldn't help but nervously look around.
"An ANBU ninja came by just now to say that the Hokage-sama wanted to meet with Ikeizumi-senpai. He's been gone for a while already."
Ryōshin was taken aback.
...
The Hokage's Office.
"A ninja mission?"
Uchiha Ikeizumi looked at Hiruzen, and even though he could already sense that he and Hiruzen were not the only two people in the office, his expression remained calm.
"Yes, a ninja mission." Hiruzen handed a mission scroll to Uchiha Ikeizumi, clearing his throat. "Ikeizumi, it's been a while since you've been on a mission, hasn't it?"
Uchiha Ikeizumi gave a time frame: "About two and a half years."
For him, the term "ninja mission" was something he hadn't heard in a long time.
"This is an S-rank mission," Hiruzen said slowly. "Don't worry, I won't ask you to do anything that goes against your 'Absolute Justice.' That was our promise all those years ago, wasn't it?"
He then added a flimsy explanation: "Recently, the number of people in the village who can handle high-level ninja missions has been dwindling. After thinking it over, I decided to give this mission to you."
This wasn't an outright lie.
But... why had the number of people in the village capable of S-rank missions been dwindling?
It was quite hard to guess!
Thinking of this, Hiruzen's gaze towards Uchiha Ikeizumi was filled with a mix of helplessness and resentment.
"The scroll contains several confidential documents that need to be delivered as quickly as possible to ninja at the Land of Fire's border," Hiruzen explained. "According to our intel... foreign spies are aware of the existence of these documents. They are constantly watching everyone who enters and leaves Konoha. This means the documents need to be delivered to a certain location right under the eyes of the foreign spies."
"Konoha is in the open, and the spies are in the shadows. There's a high probability they will attempt to ambush the ninja transporting the documents. But as for when they will strike, how many of them there are, or whether there are any powerful foreign ninja... I don't know yet."
"Therefore, this is an S-rank mission, and the process is extremely dangerous."
Hiruzen paused and continued, "I was going to give this mission to Might Guy, who has returned to the village, but on second thought, you are more suited to this task."
Uchiha Ikeizumi twirled the scroll in his hand. "Are you trying to get me out of the village, Third Hokage?"
Hiruzen: "..."
Communicating with a smart person was always so frustrating. It was as if all of his thoughts were seen through in an instant.
And Ikeizumi was a smart person who marched to the beat of his own drum. After seeing through his thoughts, he would even say it out loud.
This made Hiruzen's old face feel a bit awkward.
But he quickly masked it.
"Ahem! No matter what, Ikeizumi, you are the most suitable Konoha ninja to carry out this mission, aren't you?" Hiruzen said. "Your eyes, which can see 'the evils of the future and the evils of the past,' will be able to tell at a glance who the foreign spies are. They will be exposed before they even get close to you."
"Those foreign spies have more or less stained their hands with blood. In order to carry out their espionage, they have surely killed more than just Konoha ninja, and they've definitely killed innocent Konoha civilians as well. For you, Ikeizumi, isn't this an opportunity to carry out justice?"
"So... after thinking about it, I felt you were the most suitable."
Uchiha Ikeizumi looked thoughtfully into Hiruzen's eyes.
Hiruzen involuntarily averted his gaze. He told himself he wasn't feeling guilty; he was just wary of Ikeizumi's Mangekyō Sharingan.
Uchiha Ikeizumi weighed the scroll in his hand. "When do I leave?"
"Today," Hiruzen replied.
Just as Uchiha Ikeizumi was about to leave with the scroll, Hiruzen suddenly said, "Ikeizumi, the Daimyō-sama knows what you've done. In his eyes, you are the murderer of his son. He may engage in some drastic behavior, but... you should know that his actions will not pose a threat to you."
"For the sake of Konoha, I hope you will not turn your blade of 'Justice' against the Daimyō-sama. Konoha needs the Daimyō, and the Land of Fire needs the Daimyō. If something happens to him, the entire Land of Fire will descend into chaos, and more evil will be born."
"So..."
"Huh..."
Hiruzen hadn't finished speaking when he realized Uchiha Ikeizumi's back had already disappeared.
"Oh, well," Hiruzen sighed deeply, only able to hope that the Daimyō-sama would stick to his childish and naive plan.
...
"Huh? A ninja mission?!"
"And it's S-rank!"
Izumi hadn't expected the Hokage to give Ikeizumi-senpai an S-rank ninja mission.
For a genin like her, the highest-ranking mission she had ever been on was a C-rank. S-rank missions were nothing more than a "legend" to her.
"Meow, Ikeizumi-sama, I'll go with you!"
Kitsujirō volunteered. "The newbie has grown up a little, though she can't stand on her own yet, her skills are enough to deal with some less powerful villains."
"Besides, while she's dealing with those weaker villains, she can take those two brats with her to give them a taste of it. That way they'll have a deeper understanding of 'Absolute Justice'!"
Izumi quietly interjected, "Kitsujirō-senpai just doesn't want to take care of the two kids, does he?"
Kitsujirō's cat-face looked shocked at Izumi. "Who are you, meow? Who are you impersonating?"
Izumi: "???"
Kitsujirō pondered. "Usually, only Ikeizumi-sama and I can see through your thoughts. How could you have seen through mine?"
Izumi's mouth twitched. "...You admit it too quickly."
"Kitsujirō, you will come with me. Uchiha Izumi, you will stay in Konoha and continue to carry out justice. If you encounter any red-name villains you can't handle, make a note of them, and I will be the one to carry out justice."
Uchiha Ikeizumi said indifferently. "'Absolute Justice' is not a foolish justice that tells you to blindly throw your life away. Remember to save your life so you can carry out justice for more innocent victims."
Although she instinctively felt that Ikeizumi-senpai wasn't showing concern for her, but rather just calmly stating a fact, Izumi still felt cared for.
She immediately shouted, "Yes, Senpai!"
"Kitsujirō, let's go." Uchiha Ikeizumi turned and said.
"Meow? Aren't we going to prepare?"
"No need."
...
....
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