Naruto had been waiting for Ino for a while.
Knowing Sarutobi as well as he did, the man had likely been telling the truth, when he had said that he was going to give him what he had asked for.
Well, he hoped so, at least. Otherwise, things were going to become a bit more complicated.
There was something happening in the village, something big. There had been a flurry of activity around the Tower, with a few agitated chakra signatures coming in and out of it.
Whatever Fugaku was doing, he wasn't sure. Nobody was allowed in the Tower, according to what he had heard some people say. Not that he was about to get in there again.
He'd have to stay in the village, in case Ino was planning on meeting him at night. But finely honed instincts told him something was off.
So he created a Shadow Clone, who would sleep in an inn, while he hid himself in his old house.
Another would walk through the village under a disguise, looking for more intel.
That's how Naruto spent his night. Meditating. Waiting.
The Uchiha clan waited too.
Despite the terrible news not supposed to be out in the open, any clan member held in high esteem knew that the Hokage had been killed already.
They would mourn silently for now, waiting for the time they could celebrate Uchiha Fugaku's life and times properly... And for the assassin to be revealed, so that they could get their revenge.
In the meantime, several of the families gathered in quiet houses, sharing a meal in the company of the living.
Fugaku's funeral would be a grandiose event.
Uchiha were born in fire, and in the fire they departed.
During the night, Naruto's clone pretended to sleep.
What he was actually doing was extend his sensory abilities, waiting for Ino… or something to happen.
In the middle of the night, this something happened, in the form of four masked men who entered his room silently. They were good, the clone figured.
Even their chakra signatures were so dampened that he could barely notice them. If he truly had been sleeping, he wouldn't have noticed anything.
Curious as to what their goal was, he let them apply several tags to his body with a feather's touch. Huh.
His chakra was out of reach. Binding seals, then. If they had been a touch stronger, he might even have dispelled entirely.
They bound him with a strong rope after that, to which he couldn't pretend to be asleep anymore.
"Hey! What the hell is this?! Who are you?" He shouted.
To no effect, as they also had applied a seal that prevented him from speaking. And they covered his eyes of course. Something was done to his smell and hearing, too.
The masked men didn't bother answering his confusion. Instead, the strongest looking of the bunch threw him over his shoulder, leaving through the window.
A kidnapping, then? If they didn't try to kill him, they likely needed him alive. Was this about Orochimaru…? He wouldn't be too surprised if the man just so happened to have done a few things that warranted more attention from the village.
Konoha had likely decided they wanted to torture him for whatever information they thought he had.
Strangely enough, he was not particularly worried.
The most obvious reason, of course, being that he was only a clone.
Then there was the fact that he didn't intend to stay in Konoha for long. As long as he managed to get the scrolls from Ino, the rest — including his relationship with the village — did not matter.
Finally…
This was the exact kind of thing he had come to expect from a ninja village. What was next, torture? Followed by a mind-wipe to make him forget it had happened in the first place?
He was almost curious.
So he made a mental map of Konoha, and used chakra sensing — still workable under restraints, if harder — to figure out where they were bringing him.
Under the cover of the night, they moved toward what Naruto knew was not Konoha's Intelligence Division.
Were they playing some sort of waiting game?
They had dumped him in a dark holding cell for the entire night… as well as the whole morning.
There was somebody, in a remote room, yelling periodically. Even with his impaired hearing, he could hear as much. He could not reach far enough with his sensing ability to figure much more.
Part of him wanted to dispel himself to warn the original, but he found out the hard way that he could not even do that much. Maybe if he bit his tongue hard enough...
So he waited.
In the meantime, he was focusing what chakra he could spare into the seals, learning their inner workings... and undoing them slowly.
Sarutobi Hiruzen was smoking like a chimney.
A bad habit of his, he knew, and one that both of his sons had picked up over time. One that got worse when his nerves were frazzled.
It was something he had unfortunately gotten in the habit of doing back when he first became Hokage.
His father, Sarutobi Sasuke, had been smoking for as long as he could remember.
When he died, during the First Great War, Hiruzen had tried it out, out of curiosity… and wanting something to remember his father by.
It had been a thoroughly unpleasant experience, so he had decided not to repeat it.
The stress of the Hokage position made him change his tune quickly.
And now… Fugaku was dead.
He felt sorrow, for yet another Hokage he saw dying during his lifetime.
It felt as though he had condemned him himself by offering him the position.
Would he have been the one to die instead if he had chosen to step back up?
Would things have been better?
He had left this kind of politics behind, choosing not to take the spot he had earned himself on the Council.
He had made too many mistakes already. Whenever Fugaku had asked for his advice, he had come through. But that was where he had drawn the line.
And now, Danzō was Hokage.
Danzō, who had helped him as faithfully as Koharu or Homura did since the very beginning.
Danzō, who despite his flaws, his fears… Because they were fears, Hiruzen knew his old friend as well as anyone could claim to. In spite of them, he loved and wanted to protect Konoha as much as Hiruzen himself did.
Danzō, who had adopted an even more ruthless version of Tobirama-sensei's teachings.
Danzō, who was more suited for the shadows than the light.
And there stood the crux of the problem.
At this point in time, Danzō and underhanded methods seemed to be the world's oldest friends.
What would he do when he was in power…? Hiruzen found that he was somewhat worried.
Fugaku had been assassinated.
And some part of Hiruzen, no matter how much he still trusted his friend, told him that if Danzō had believed this to be in Konoha's best interest… He wouldn't have thought twice before killing him, no matter the fact he was the Kage. That also meant he would blame someone… or something.
As far as powerful ninja went, Fugaku had already been overtaken by both of his sons, as well as Shisui, of course. And that was no big deal.
His leadership had been one focused on maintaining peace.
And he had done pretty good on that. But through events that were not of his own doing, war was at their door.
Danzō was right about that much.
And as loathe as Hiruzen was to admit it… Danzō was likely to be a better war-time Hokage.
Even then, Hiruzen worried.
He had learned about Fugaku's death from Itachi, who was not supposed to tell him in the first place.
The less people knew, the more time Konoha would have to prepare for the coming storm.
He hadn't heard from Ino, or even Naruto.
He hoped everything had gone smoothly.
Ah, Naruto…
His handling of the situation was something else weighing him down.
Hiruzen took another puff of his pipe, thinking about and mourning for another younger man that he had led to his death.
As far as being imprisoned went, this was a bit different from what he had expected, Naruto's clone thought.
There was no torture, and whatever guards he could notice through sensing were doing a great job of ignoring him.
He was making some progress with the limiters placed on him. The one on his sight was the first one to go. Which was not that helpful, considering he was still blindfolded.
The amount of chakra he could access was a bit larger, though, which was the main reason he had taken the time to undo it.
Which meant his chakra sensing ability told him something that he would need to investigate. Why?
Because Ino was somewhere in here.
Where exactly was hard to pinpoint, since he was still limited.
Whether she was a friend or a foe, he did not know. She could be working with them, for all he knew.
But she had the scrolls that might mean life or death to him. Naruto was not about to leave without them. Hopefully, this was not a setup by Sarutobi, either.
He still had his hands bound behind him, but it was time to apply something Sarutobi had taught him, years ago.
Kage Bunshin was based on several principles. One of them was the following.
"Even if you split up and disperse your chakra, as long as you keep even a little bit there, your original body can link itself and resonate with your clones."
That's what Sarutobi had said, long ago.
But if a link existed… that meant the clones could also communicate with the original, without necessarily having to dispel right away. Now, the clone focused on trying to find that link, trying to send a signal of some sort.
The chakra pathway system transported chakra the way veins and arteries did for blood. The same way, every cell in the body was connected to this pathway.
And that's the way the clone tried to see himself as. A part of a whole.
He let his awareness flow inwards. Unraveling along the thin thread that started from around his navel, he found the way through.
He pulsed his intention through it.
The second night Naruto spent in Konoha, the clone managed to reach through.
During the day, he - the real Naruto - didn't even manage to feel Ino's chakra signature.
Meeting the Third was too risky, as even last time had been too visible.
What was happening in the village…?
And there was one rumor that grew among some of the wary shinobi. That something had happened to the Hokage, and that was why nobody had been allowed inside the Tower for the last two days.
So when the clone he hadn't heard anything from finally sent him a signal, he knew it would likely be important.
Ino.
Naruto got out of the house, his chakra as compressed upon itself as he could make it.
He disguised himself the old-fashioned way, using dye, braiding his hair, and putting on contact lenses he was keeping sealed inside his pouch. The clothes, he exchanged for nondescript black shinobi fatigues.
His clone kept pulsing a low-intensity signal, and Naruto used it as a compass.
There were more ANBU patrolling the village than usual, but it seemed none of them saw anything out of the ordinary as he walked around casually.
The signal led pointed underground, apparently. It was a bit muddled up, once he got close, for some reason. The closest building that could fit the bill was one belonging to the Foundation, — also called ROOT — a branch of Konoha's Black Ops that took care of operations the village didn't want to be out in the open.
(According to what Sarutobi had said, there had been talks about possibly getting rid of the program altogether at some point.)
It was a huge four-sided brick building, one that was not much higher than most tended to be in Konoha.
Naruto guessed that ROOT was still active, then. The building held many chakra signatures.
Around twenty decently strong ones, as well as something obscuring the underground levels. Whatever they were hiding must be important, then.
He observed the layout and made preparations over the next hour.
ROOT Anbu Kanoe was standing guard with Hinoto that night.
There were three different teams on watch, right now.
One duo was on the first floor, one trio was guarding the only entrance to the underground level. The last duo — theirs — was keeping watch in front of the main gate.
And there was a last man behind the locked door, in case something happened to the two in front of it. This man was the only person could open it, because the code changed every night.
The rest of the ANBU inside the building were either resting or in charge of the cells, which was not much, in terms of pure effort.
The building they were guarding was one used to hold prisoners temporarily, before they were transferred to the more secure ROOT Headquarters. Obviously, the building had no windows.
The only way in was human error.
"Kanoe." His teammate called.
Kanoe lifted his head toward the rooftop.
"Yo."
Hatake Kakashi was crouching on the roof.
Kanoe felt somewhat nervous. Hatake was an ANBU legend, no matter if you were ROOT or not. Seemingly casual at all times… And yet, he was one of Konoha's greatest, most prolific killers.
As far as he was concerned, Kanoe prefered to stay wary.
Kakashi pushed something forward. It fell to the street with a thud… and a grunt?
"I think you guys might have lost this one. This was some pretty shoddy seal-work, so it's no wonder." Kakashi eye-smiled.
"Is this… the man we brought in…?" Hinoto asked him.
Kanoe stayed silent.
"I made sure he wouldn't be able to escape this time. He's locked extra tight." Kakashi added, his eye deceptively lazy.
Kanoe knew that this was just something the ANBU captain used to disarm friends and foes alike.
Was it a threat?
Then Hatake winked and disappeared with a Body Flicker.
The shape on the floor groaned in pain. He could barely move, likely from the fall… or the combination of seal-bindings and wire that bound him.
Kanoe motioned for Jizo, the man behind the door to ask for confirmation.
He went to speak with the underground team.
The underground team went to speak with the cell guards, who confirmed that the cell was empty.
The man, Indra, had somehow managed to escape. Because this was undoubtedly the man they had captured the night before. How he had managed to slip out, with his chakra bound, Kanoe didn't know.
But Danzō-sama definitely wouldn't have been too happy about it.
He and Hinoto picked the man up, and signaled for Jizo to open the door.
"Well." Kanoe said, observing Kakashi's handiwork. "There's no risk of him getting loose this time. These seals are very fine work. I guess we can't expect anything less from Hatake Kakashi."
Indra grunted something. Hinoto kicked him in the ribs for good measure. He had almost cost them some very rough disciplining.
They handed the prisoner to the underground team, who guided him to another cell, in case he had done something to the previous one during his escape.
There, they would hold him until Danzō-sama decided what to make of the murderer's accomplice.