The next week, Ryuu and Kakashi went to Sakumo's office and received their orders.
They walked to the Hokage's rooftop.
"I'm going to be meeting the Daimyo tomorrow. Ryuu, you'll be in charge while I'm gone. You two will make sure Danzo isn't plotting anything out of the ordinary."
Ryuu nodded.
"Are you sure putting Ryuu in charge of something this important is the right decision?"
"Hey! I'm right here, you know."
"It isn't the best decision, but he has you with him, so he won't make such a grave mistake while I'm gone."
Ryuu's head dropped depressingly.
Kakashi didn't respond.
"Well alright," Kakashi said with a tired voice.
The next day, Sakumo was being escorted by a four-man cell of Ryuu's wood clones.
The real Ryuu stayed inside the village.
Later in the evening, Kakashi and Ryuu headed to the Hokage's office after Sakumo came back.
"I have a mission for you two."
Sakumo removed the documents and gave them to Ryuu.
"What is this?"
Ryuu's eyes widened as shock struck him, seeing what was on the papers.
He handed the document to Kakashi, and he was also left wondering what happened.
"There have been reports of people missing, children, fully grown men too, the pictures you're seeing are the bodies we've found, there's a chance that there are more."
"Who did this?" Ryuu asked.
"That's the problem I need you both to solve.
Whoever is doing this has been doing this for a long time, I don't know if they've become sloppy or they want us to find them." Ryuu nodded.
"We won't fail you." Ryuu and Kakashi left his office.
"Do you have any suspects?" Kakashi asked.
Ryuu nodded.
"Only one."
"Who?"
"The only person capable of doing all this and not getting caught for all these years.
Orochimaru."
Ryuu and Kakashi went to search Orochimaru's lab.
'Orochimaru wasn't there, even his equipment, he took everything, or maybe he destroyed everything…
Sigh.'
"Found anything yet?"
"Nothing yet," Kakashi responded.
"Can't you sense his chakra?"
"I can but there's a problem, Orochimaru made perfect clones of himself using lord First's cells, by the time we find the real one, he'd be long gone."
"Here, I found something." Ryuu went over to Kakashi.
"It's not much, but now we know he's planning on leaving today." Ryuu nodded.
"If I know Orochimaru, he'll want to take some forbidden jutsu's from dad's office, let's go, Kakashi!" Ryuu and Kakashi entered lightning chakra mode and vanished.
"In there, they're fighting!"
Ryuu entered the room.
"Lightning style: emotion wave!" Sakumo shot out a stream of water coated with lightning.
"Earth style: rampart of flowing soil!"
The ground beneath them rose.
"Tch!" Ryuu clicked, glaring at Orochimaru.
He jumped on the ground and followed Orochimaru.
"Orochimaru! Why would you do this?! You had everything you ever wanted!"
Orochimaru frowned.
"I've only touched the tip of the iceberg, can't you see that there's still more to achieve?" Ryuu frowned.
"You could've still achieved everything without taking the lives of innocents!"
"Ryuu, you've been blinded all this time, and I've been planning my escape, knowing you would never let me go easily.
You're just as stubborn as Jiraiya…"
"What does that mean?"
Boom!
Multiple explosions occurred around the village.
"What?" Ryuu looked back and saw the Hokage stone statues falling.
"Wood style: Deep forest emergence!" Ryuu controlled branches of wood to cover the Hokage's office and the academy.
"Wha- "He looked back at Orochimaru, who punched Ryuu.
"Ugh!" Ryuu flew back, falling out of the air.
"Ryuu!" Kakashi ran to help him.
"No, don't worry about me, take care of the villagers!" Ryuu teleported behind Orochimaru and swung his sword toward him.
"Hmph!" Orochimaru dodged to the right and countered.
Boom! Ryuu crushed on the ground, making a hole in the earth.
"Your uncontrollable desire to protect others will make you lose this fight." Ryuu frowned.
Ryuu activated his Sharingan.
Orochimaru bit his finger and made a hand sign.
"Summoning jutsu!"
Boom!
A giant white cloud washed over Konoha.
"Shit, this isn't that easy anymore."
Ryuu said as he looked at the giant snake Orochimaru was standing on.
"Orochimaru, you better have made at least 100 sacrifices for my help."
"Why offer 100 lives while this one is worth a thousand more?"
Manda glared at Ryuu.
"Be careful Manda, Ryuu Uchiha is not a weak enemy, at any point, he could kill both of us here and now." Orochimaru responded.
"Orochimaru, don't tell me you're afraid of the child, he is simply a weak human, nothing to be afraid of."
Orochimaru frowned.
"Call him whatever you want, but Ryuu Uchiha is the furthest person from weak I've ever seen."
"Enough!" Ryuu made a hand seal and teleported them out of the village.
Ryuu went to one of Minato's old hideouts, where they used to train.
"Wood style: wooden dragon jutsu!" Ryuu held his hand out and four giant wooden dragons flew toward Manda.
Manda attempted to bite the dragons, but three more dragons took their place.
"Ah!" Manda yelled as the dragon bit into him, draining his chakra.
Orochimaru jumped off of him.
Manda was squirming, attempting to slither away.
"Orochimaru, don't you dare leave me here!" He yelled as he tried to get off.
"Wood style: wood explosion jutsu!"
Boom!
A massive explosion sent trees flying.
Ryuu blocked oncoming attacks by using Susanoo's ribs as a shield.
Ryuu looked at Manda and saw nothing but his skeleton.
"What?!" Ryuu jumped up and threw exploding tags.
Boom!
The explosion created a small crater on the ground and exposed Orochimaru who had been hiding inside the ground.
"Hmph." Orochimaru licked his lips.
Orochimaru went on all fours and opened his mouth.
Thousands of snakes with swords coming out of their mouths slithered toward Ryuu.
"Chidori senbon!" Ryuu shot out senbon towards the ground, piercing the snakes, and killing most of them.
Ryuu did the snake hand seal.
"Wood style: Floral graveyard!"
Multiple thorny flowers came from the ground, piercing Orochimaru and his snakes.
Orochimaru smiled.
"So you've beaten me?"
Ryuu frowned.
"No, you're just a clone, I figured that out long ago."
A sinister smug appeared on Orochimaru's face.
"Then why didn't you stop me?"
"Because…" Ryuu looked away.
"Because you're my friend, I know the experiments you do, I've always known.
I know you can never truly have the freedom you need in the village.
Wherever you're going, I won't come for you, maybe at some point, you'll want to come back instead of me hunting you.
However, we both know multiple people don't think the same as we do.
Goodbye, old friend."
"Despite everything I've done in the village, you let me go so easily? This goes against your principles, doesn't it?"
Ryuu nodded.
"Don't think I didn't notice how you attacked all the easily accessible places in Konoha.
I also noticed that you avoided crowded areas when you ambushed us.
This doesn't mean that you had good intentions all along, but it meant you didn't want to make any enemies in Konoha, you just want to be left alone.
I hope to see you again, next time on better terms."
Orochimaru's clone started fading.
His skin started melting off.
"You're the same as Sarutobi-sensei…"
"No, because I accepted who you are and still wanted to be your friend, he wanted to change you into who he thought you could be." A smirk appeared on his face before melting.
"Sigh…
Some things can't be changed."
Ryuu teleported to Kakashi.
Kakashi was near the village border, sweating as if he'd been in a fight.
"Kakashi, did you get him?"
Kakashi shook his head.
"What about the village, is it safe?"
"Yeah, it's safe, fortunately, there aren't any casualties." Ryuu nodded.
"You'd think someone as powerful and intelligent as Orochimaru-sama would have at least 1 casualty."
"Yeah, luckily he missed, we should be thankful he didn't get anyone hurt."
Kakashi nodded.
"We have to go back and get new orders," Kakashi said.
They left and went back to the Anbu base.
This time, Root and Anbu teamed up to search for Orochimaru.
Danzo stood beside Sakumo as he gave new orders.
"Listen up, Orochimaru has escaped Konohagakure, I've received Intel saying that he's injured and cannot escape the land of fire easily, find him and do whatever's necessary to keep him from crossing the borders.
Ryuu, Kakashi, you're both leading this operation." They nodded.
Sensing a disturbing glare from Danzo, Ryuu looked back at him.
"Do you have something to say?" Ryuu asked.
"Hokage-sama, perhaps it's unwise for someone who's been in the Anbu for just over a year to lead such a big operation."
"No, Ryuu knows Orochimaru best, he'll give the best advice on how to find him, Kakashi will assist him in that."
Danzo grit his teeth.
"Unfortunately, that means the root cannot assist, Ryuu is an amateur in such an operation, root is my organization, under my direct control."
Sakumo frowned.
"Danzo, would you like me to remind you who has the highest mission success in Anbu and leaf history?"
"No, Hokage-sama, I'm not criticizing Ryuu-sama's capabilities, however-"
"Danzo, the Root might be your organization and under your command.
However, it's still part of my village, you work under My command, is that clear?!"
Danzo frowned.
"Is that clear?!"
"Yes… Yes, Hokage-sama." Sakumo nodded.
"Danzo, if you ever try to undermine my authority as Hokage, I will cut off more than your hand next time, and don't forget who kept you from going to prison.
Dismissed!"
Sakumo left and the Anbu members all left, following Ryuu's and Kakashi's commands.
Ryuu and Kakashi left the village, searching for Orochimaru.
They spent hours searching his hideouts and other places; it was dark, and he blew most of the places up to hide evidence.
"We're getting nowhere like this."
Ryuu bit his finger.
"Summoning jutsu!"
*Poof!*
A giant silver bulldog appeared, he was bigger than both Kakashi and Ryuu put together, on top of the dog were 6 German shepherds, all wearing the Konoha forehead protector.
They were all different sizes and colors, and almost all of them were fully grown, only one wasn't. He sat on the top.