At this moment, Hagoromo's heart was howling internally.
Kushina-sensei—where exactly am I supposed to even begin complaining?!
First—
Is there such a thing as a teacher who openly encourages her disciple to become a thief?
Second—
I know this place too, okay?!
Even with my pitiful level of Naruto knowledge, I know perfectly well what that "mystical scroll" is supposed to be!
Third—and most important—
You can go there casually. You can touch that scroll casually.
But if I go there, I might get killed on the spot, and after killing me they might even whip my corpse and rummage through my brain, alright?!
However—
Did he dare to say any of that out loud?
No.
Absolutely not.
One must respect one's teacher.
…And to be perfectly honest, he really didn't dare provoke the Blood-Red Habanero.
So Hagoromo put on a pitiful expression and said carefully,
"Sensei… can I choose not to go? Just hearing about the place you mentioned gives me a very bad first impression."
"I may be young, but I'm extremely superstitious. First impressions are very important to me."
After listening to him, Kushina slapped the table again—though this time not as hard as before.
Heh.
Must've hurt her hand last time.
Then she declared, with an unstoppable, charge-forward tone:
"This is helping you go steal—cough—go retrieve ninjutsu. How can you not go? Steal—ahem—take something, and you're already whining this much?"
Sensei.
You just said steal.
You said it.
You even said it twice.
"What are you afraid of? If something happens, I'll take responsibility!"
…Did he hear that right?
Did this youthful, red-haired girl just refer to herself as "this old man"?
"Anyway, it's decided! Tonight—we act!"
Kamishiro Hagoromo: Unable to refuse.
Kamishiro Hagoromo: Knocked flat.
Kamishiro Hagoromo: Treatment abandoned.
Kamishiro Hagoromo: Resuscitation failed.
As she spoke, Kushina stood up and somehow produced a sheet of white paper from nowhere. Pen in hand, she began planning the infiltration route into the Hokage Building.
"What are you standing around for? Hurry up and clear the table."
"Ah—o-okay!"
Hagoromo snapped back to reality and hurriedly cleared the dishes.
Kushina spread the large sheet of paper out and began drawing a floor plan of the Hokage Tower.
First, she drew an old turtle.
No explanation needed—this clearly represented the Third Hokage.
Then she drew a small circle around the turtle.
This represented the top floor: the Hokage's Office.
Outside that, she drew two larger circles—
The lower two floors of the building.
Then she drew little stick figures inside the circles to represent the guards stationed there.
As for the art style…
As long as one could tell they were stick figures, expectations should be kept low.
"There are twenty-four shinobi guarding the first floor—all of them Tokubetsu Jōnin (Special Jōnin) or above."
"The second floor has about sixteen, all full jōnin."
"As for the Hokage's office itself—there are elite ANBU, at least captain-level."
She concluded calmly,
"Breaking in without alerting anyone and stealing the Scroll of Seals is basically impossible."
For Kushina, knowing the Hokage Tower's security layout was nothing unusual.
What was unusual was how seriously she was analyzing the feasibility of breaking in.
"Creating chaos outside and slipping in?"
"No—that won't work. Those four shinobi inside exist solely to protect classified documents. No matter what happens outside, they won't move."
"Or… should we just destroy the Hokage Tower entirely?"
She shook her head immediately.
"No, that's no good. Too much noise."
"And causing such a disturbance in the middle of the night would disturb the residents, right?"
That's your concern?!
This focus is completely deranged!
"Besides, it'd be hard to find the Scroll of Seals in a pile of rubble anyway."
Of course, she was mostly joking.
Even Kushina wouldn't actually do something as insane as leveling the Hokage Tower.
But her imagination was clearly running wild.
And at that exact moment—
Ding.
Your friend "Morally Bankrupt Theft Specialist Kamishiro Hagoromo" has come online.
There's a saying:
Life is like that thing—if you can't avoid it, then lie back and accept it.
Since escape was impossible, Hagoromo chose to actively participate, at the very least to stop Kushina from doing something truly outrageous.
He'd already accepted his fate.
Early death, early reincarnation.
Besides, he was just an accessory—
Kushina was the ringleader.
"Sensei," Hagoromo said seriously,
"I don't think we need to confront the guards at all."
"Hmm?" Kushina looked at him.
"You mean… peaceful entry?"
Yes.
Not only peaceful—
It barely even counted as infiltration.
"With your status, sensei, we can walk straight into the Hokage Tower openly. The guards on the lower floors won't dare stop us."
"The only problem is the four elite shinobi inside the office."
"We need to deal with them silently, before they can make a sound."
Kushina froze for a moment—then reacted.
Right.
She'd fallen into a mental trap.
With her identity, casually entering the Hokage's office was completely normal. She did it all the time, like visiting a neighbor.
Why had she suddenly become so cautious?
What she didn't realize was that, academically speaking, this phenomenon was called:
Guilty conscience.
"Go on," Kushina said, considering his idea.
"To avoid suspicion, the timing is critical," Hagoromo continued.
"Not too early—otherwise the Hokage will still be inside."
"And we absolutely can't take the Scroll of Seals out of the office. We copy whatever we can, and that's it."
Stealing one or two jutsus was a very different crime from stealing the entire Scroll of Seals.
Hagoromo was leaving them a retreat route.
The hardest part wasn't entry—it was timing.
They needed to know exactly when the Hokage left his office.
This wasn't too difficult. As the village leader, his schedule was relatively regular.
The second challenge was neutralizing those four elite guards silently.
That was something Hagoromo could never do on his own.
The goal wasn't killing them—
Just stripping them of their ability to resist.
After all, they were committing burglary, not robbery, murder, or arson.
If Minato Namikaze were here, things would be easy.
The Flying Thunder God jutsu was practically tailor-made for breaking and entering.
If Minato were present, disabling four guards would be trivial.
Actually—why bother with the guards at all? He could just teleport away with the Scroll.
Yes.
If Minato were here, he wouldn't be helping at all.
He'd be reporting these two criminals on the spot.
So—
Dealing with the guards would have to fall entirely on Kushina.
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