As Hiashi and the Hyuga elder heard this, they looked at Hiruzen. They meant to ask whether Hiruzen had read or heard about something like this from the secret records or from the previous Hokages. But to their disappointment, Hiruzen shook his head and said "This is the first time I am hearing about this. Even the animal is something new for me."
Kurenai who was at the side quickly asked "Hokage-sama do you think this could be someone's summoning animal?"
Hiruzen nodded and said "That is the only theory that makes sense Kurenai. When an animal is summoned and its summoner dies, sometimes the animal cannot go back to its realm."
"I haven't heard of such a summoning animal in my entire life." Kakashi said absent-mindedly. Kakashi used to be an Anbu and so he had read way more books than other jonins and he had more access to knowledge than them but still, it was less than what Hiruzen processed. If the man who is famously called the professor is at his depth in this matter, he saw no use in digging through his Anbu books.
"H-Hokage-s-sama…L-Lord H-Hiashi" A weak voice pulled everyone's attention toward him. This voice belonged to Yazu who was lying on the bed. His face looked pale as if he had lost all signs of life but his shivering hands and half-open eyelids were enough to show everyone that he hadn't died yet.
Hiruzen, Hiashi, and the elder walked closer to the hospital bed. Hiruzen gave a pity smile and asked "Yazu, how do you feel? Is there anything you need?"
Yazu shook his head slowly and said "I-I cannot m-move my body Hokage-sama. Except for my head, I cannot feel anything." Hiruzen looked at the doctor who said "His muscles have become stiff. We estimate that they may come back to normal in a few weeks. "
Yazu then looked at Hiruzen and asked "What about the others Hokage-sama? Were they able to outrun that thing?"
Hiruzen shook his head and said "No they are in the same state as you or even worse. Do you remember what happened?"
A tear dropped from Yazu's eye and trickled down to the below under his head as he said "I can't forget even if I want to. We were guarding the outposts near the border of the Land of fire. We had 2 teams of cloud shinobi with us as well. They had been guarding it as it would be the exit point for the Lightning Daimyo. The security was pretty lax as we hardly faced anyone except a few small bandit groups."
This time it was the Hyuga elder who came forward as he spoke "If everything was under control, how did things get out of hand so fast?"
Yazu continued his story as he said "From time to time we used to use our byakugan just to be sure. And at that moment one of our chunins found a chakra signature moving toward us. He came to my office to tell me. At first, I thought he was exaggerating when he said the chakra signature was brighter than a Kage-level shinobi. But still, as a fellow Hyuga I activated my Byakugan and looked at it as well and he was right. The chakra signature was more denser and brighter than a Kage level shinobi and it was moving toward the border outposts with great speed."
Yazu then looked to the side a little as if hiding his face in embarrassment. Hiashi frowned at this behavior and asked "What happened next Yazu?" Hiashi asked in a slightly demanding tone as if asking as the Patriarch of the Hyuga clan. Yazu looked at Hiashi's eyes in slight fear and sighed.
"Just by seeing such a strong chakra signature I was terrified. This was not someone could fake. The only thing that came to my mind with such power was a tailed beast. I knew that I wouldn't stand a chance so I ordered everyone to vacate the outpost."
When Yazu said the word tailed beast, Kurenai and Asuma's eyes widened and they slightly glanced at Naruto for a brief second. As they were sitting behind their students, none of the genins noticed this.
"How could you…" the Hyuga elder said as he grit his teeth. Running away while the enemy is coming toward them was a cowardly move in the eyes of someone like the Hyuga elder but everyone else understood that this move saved Yazu and others' lives.
Hiashi signaled his father to calm down and looked back and Yazu and asked "What happened after that?"
Yazu felt a little relieved after seeing that Hiashi and Hiruzen didn't outrage after hearing his decision. "The ones with me got ready to leave but the cloud shinobis wanted to fight. They thought we were exaggerating and stayed at the outpost. As we were leaving we heard many screams from the outpost and also saw many lightning jutsus go off. I thought the animal must have been heavily injured or even dead by the number of jutsus that I saw but when I looked I saw that the chakra signatures of all the cloud ninjas were vanishing at a fast pace and the animal's chakra signature was moving fast between the outposts. He then started coming toward us. I and the chunins with me split into different directions thinking that it would come to find us individually but that's where we were wrong. The beast started hunting us one by one. We realized that it was tracking us using our chakra signature as well."
Hiruzen frowned as he heard that and asked "Then why didn't it kill you or the chunins?"
A sad smile appeared on Yazu's face as he said "Because we didn't attack him. We were focused on escaping rather than fighting. We weren't worthy for him to even kill us. I saw with my Byakugan he would go near a chakra signature and after a few seconds the chakra signature would become grey instead of blue and then he would move on."
The doctor interjected in between and said "Hokage-sama, all 4 who had the toxin in the system…their chakra signatures looked grey instead of the usual blue."
Now Hiruzen asked the most important question. One that everyone was waiting for "How did the animal look?"
Horror could be seen in Yazu's eyes as he heard that. He took a deep breath and said....
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