Leisure never lasts.
Hyūga Satoru 's short window of peaceful days ended the moment Shisui and the others arrived.
The squad's rendezvous point was the Hyūga compound. That morning, Satoru had just seen Hinata off to the Academy and returned home when he saw Shisui, Hatake Kakashi, and Might Guy enter together.
After a few polite greetings inside the main house, Satoru already knew why they'd come.
Minato had granted Shisui some leave, Guy happened to be between missions, and Kakashi—despite being in ANBU—wasn't currently swamped with assignments. Once the three gathered, they came to meet their new captain and discuss the "mysterious organization."
In the reception room, Satoru poured tea for them and went straight to the point.
"The Fourth has ordered our squad to investigate an organization that, based on what I've seen, is a large criminal group composed of rogue shinobi from multiple villages," Satoru began.
"Our intel is limited. We're sure a Waterfall rogue—Kakuzu—is one of them. The Sand's puppeteer, Sasori, was also a member, but he's dead."
"Our goal is to uncover what this organization actually is and, if possible, dismantle it before it causes a major incident."
As he spoke, Satoru 's gaze naturally settled on Shisui and Kakashi.
Might Guy was absolutely part of the team—but Satoru wasn't expecting him to contribute much to intel analysis or long-term planning. Guy was their pure "force-type," the spearhead in a fight. For brainwork, Satoru already had other people in mind.
"Satoru , the Hokage briefed us on some of this before we came," Shisui said. "He's already sent ANBU to dig up information on Kakuzu. The trail's faint, but they did find something."
Shisui produced a folded map and spread it on the low table.
It was a world map. In the Land of Fire, one area had been circled and labeled: Incident Site. Satoru only needed one glance to recognize it as the location where he'd fought Kakuzu and Sasori.
Several red lines spread out from that mark like veins—these were the possible escape routes Kakuzu might have taken, based on the ANBU analysis team's reconstruction.
They were guesses, but not useless: they at least indicated a few directions where Kakuzu might show up again.
Satoru scanned the map, then lowered his eyes.
"I already have a rough idea about how to start our recon," he said. "Put the map away for now. We won't need it at the beginning."
"Let's decide when to depart. Do any of you have loose ends to tie up? Anything you need to prepare? This will be a long-term mission—we may not return to Konoha for quite a while."
He handed the map back to Shisui.
The three looked at each other briefly. Guy answered first:
"We came because everything's ready. When are we heading out? The Hokage said you're in charge. Just give the word, Captain!"
He grinned as he spoke.
Guy had worried Kakashi would sink deeper into gloom under ANBU. He had even gone to the Hokage—more than once—to suggest Kakashi leave Root, but no one seemed eager to listen. Now that they'd been placed on the same squad, Guy finally had a chance to "drag him toward youth" personally. A long-term mission outside the village, away from ANBU's constant shadows, sounded perfect to him.
Satoru 's concern—that the job would be dangerous and drawn out—was reasonable. Most shinobi would want to say goodbye to family, or at least settle some personal matters.
But these three? Shisui, Kakashi, Guy… none of them really had anyone left to say goodbye to.
Satoru realized his question had been a bit redundant and moved on.
"In that case, we leave tomorrow morning," he decided. "The reason we discovered this group at all is because they hit a Hyūga-owned exchange office on the border. That alone tells us something: they're strapped for money."
"I want to start by following the money."
"Blindly chasing possible escape routes is inefficient."
As he explained, Shisui and Kakashi exchanged a quick look. Then Shisui spoke, sharpening the discussion:
"How are we investigating? Which people, which factions, which regions do we start from?"
Shisui had the instincts of a veteran operator. His questions nudged Satoru away from abstract "direction" and into concrete planning. In pure tactical command, Shisui or Kakashi might normally be more natural leaders—but since the Hokage had specifically appointed Satoru , Shisui chose to support him, and, at the same time, guide him into thinking like a commander.
What Shisui didn't know was that Satoru had already prepared.
"Give me a moment," Satoru said.
His figure blurred and vanished with the Flying Thunder God.
A heartbeat later, he reappeared in the room with several scrolls and folders in hand.
"These are detailed dossiers on the exchange offices in the black market," he said as he laid the papers out. "Not just Hyūga-owned ones. And not just in the Land of Fire."
"According to the Hyūga's intel network, several exchange offices were attacked before our branch was hit."
"Here are those locations and the timestamps of each attack."
"From this, the earliest confirmed strike was against an exchange house near the Land of Rain."
"If I'm right, their activities started in the Rain Country."
Satoru tapped the area representing the Land of Rain.
Shisui, Kakashi, and Guy leaned in. The map Satoru provided was more detailed than the ANBU one, layered with notes and numbered incidents.
The Hyūga's intelligence officers had done solid groundwork; the information was clear, and the pattern was visible at a glance.
Of course, the picture wasn't 100% literal truth. It was nine parts real intelligence and one part Satoru 's deduction.
The Hyūga had accurately tracked many of the attacks within the Land of Fire and had gathered account details from allied exchange offices in other neighboring countries—but they didn't have a full network that extended all the way into the Land of Rain.
That piece—the conclusion that Akatsuki's operations began in Rain—was Satoru 's own inference, drawn from the timing and geography. The last shop hit before the Hyūga branch was one stationed near the border between Rain and Fire. If you followed that chain of incidents backward, the origin point pointed straight toward Amegakure's territory.
It was just a direction, a starting line. Satoru would set the broad course; the fine details would come from investigation.
He also had a backup plan in mind: if the Land of Rain proved too risky to enter directly, they'd shift north toward the Land of Grass. Orochimaru had been active there in recent years, and Jiraiya had been tracking him. In the original timeline, Orochimaru had worked with Akatsuki; in this altered world his path was less certain. Whether Orochimaru was still connected to Akatsuki was a key question that Satoru wanted answered.
The intel Satoru brought was something Shisui and Kakashi hadn't seen yet, and the care behind it eased the slight unease they'd felt about following a first-time captain.
The plan was solid. Direction, reasonable. Targets, clear enough.
With the main investigative route set, the squad moved on quickly to specifics.
They would travel low-key, disguised as merchants. Wearing Konoha vests or ANBU gear would be asking for trouble; no one doing "clandestine work" walked around with a village badge on their chest.
Satoru also wasn't planning to rely on Flying Thunder God for every leg of the journey. He intended to move along the black-market circuits, visiting exchange houses and information brokers one by one, gathering intel as they went.
Akatsuki wasn't just a rogue collective; by its core structure, it was a mercenary organization.
After the Third Great Ninja War, daimyō began restricting the size and funding of hidden villages. Warfare didn't vanish, but the way it was fought shifted. Mercenary shinobi—off-book, deniable—became embarrassingly convenient.
Akatsuki stepped perfectly into that gap.
Strong, fast, paid in cash, and expendable: mercenary nin were the ideal tools for war without "war."
Which meant they weren't invisible. They left footprints in contracts, in rumors, in frightened reports of "mysterious masked ninja" completing impossible jobs. If you focused your search and knew where to listen, their traces could be found.
What bothered Satoru most was how to get close enough to take them apart piece by piece.
The ideal strategy wasn't simply "hunt them from the outside"—it was infiltration.
If he could convince someone like Orochimaru—who had already walked near the edge—to cooperate as an inside asset, that would be perfect.
In the original timeline, the Third Hokage had known about Akatsuki for some time and had his own plan: he'd had Uchiha Itachi join Akatsuki as a hidden Konoha operative. Before Itachi's death, Akatsuki never launched a direct, full-scale strike on Konoha itself.
Satoru , Shisui, Kakashi, and Guy all knew: their mission wasn't just hard—it bordered on insane.
Still, somebody had to start.
Once Satoru 's new mission became official, the whole Hyūga household braced themselves. They were used to this by now, but the actual act of packing and leaving still brought the old worries back up to the surface.
That evening, while Satoru was sealing clothes and supplies into a scroll, Hinata stood silently outside his door.
Her personality had gotten thornier, but her heart hadn't changed; the gentleness was still there. She was worried about him—she just didn't know how to say it.
When Satoru finished and slung the scroll over his shoulder, he stepped out and saw her.
"Hinata," he said, patting her head lightly, "work hard on your training."
"When I come back, I want to see you as a proper shinobi."
Hinata swatted his hand away with a huff and muttered, "Just don't die, okay?"
Then she turned and stomped off toward her room.
"Wow, that's a little harsh," Satoru said, half-laughing. "Couldn't you say it a bit more nicely?"
But the words, rough as they were, carried all the concern she couldn't express straight.
The next morning, Hyūga Satoru dressed for travel. Before stepping out, he casually flicked a kunai. The blade buried itself in the wall with a dull thunk—a Flying Thunder God marker—and then he closed the door behind him.
He didn't linger over long, emotional farewells. That wasn't his style.
But out in the shrine courtyard, Hiashi and Hanako were already watching.
Hiashi wrapped an arm around Hanako's shoulders as she gazed at their son's retreating figure.
"Don't worry," Hiashi said quietly. "He'll be fine. He's grown now—an outstanding jōnin who's already completed S-rank missions."
Hanako didn't look comforted. "That escort mission with Kushina was S-rank too, but this is different."
"It's not," Hiashi cut in. "Jiraiya wasn't with her all the time back then. Kushina had plenty of 'episodes' during training. Satoru 's stronger than you think—stop treating him like a child."
"He killed Sasori of the Red Sand in a two-on-one. There aren't many in Konoha who can challenge him now. Relax."
Hanako said nothing, but the worry in her eyes slowly softened.
Satoru didn't hear any of this. By the time his parents turned to go back inside, he had already teleported to the outskirts of Konoha, where Shisui, Kakashi, and Guy waited.
The four of them exchanged a few words, then turned toward the open road.
In the morning light, the squad's figures grew smaller and smaller as they walked away from the village—
—and then disappeared beyond the treeline.
The sortie had begun.
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