The insects left everyone in the area in a state of shock and confusion, bringing them all to a sudden pause, be it the ink animals or Tsunade, Shizune and Yamato.
The pause didn't last long since they all acted almost on instinct when they saw the sudden insect cloud that had emerged out of the shinobi dive towards Tachibana as the insects decided he was the one that posed the most danger to their host.
Sasuke immediately weaved hand signs for the fireball jutsu since he already knew that the shinobi was possibly an Aburame, Sakura flicked kunai with explosive tags away from the area while Naruto performed the hand signs of the great breakthrough jutsu to empower Sasuke's fireball.
Among the adults, Yamato was the first to react since he created several clones and they began to follow the larger ink creatures that were rushing away since they'd been caught.
Tsunade also acted by signalling Shizune to follow the ink creatures but Sai was clever and instantly sent most of them away in different directions so that they couldn't be traced back to him.
Yamato at that moment finally noticed Tsunade who had lost control over her chakra suppression technique for a second when she realised that the ones attacking and conducting the trafficking ring were Konoha's own people and he flickered towards her position.
A large fireball escaped Sasuke's lips, only amplified by Naruto's Great Breakthrough jutsu, and engulfed the swarm of insects that was about to hoard around Tachibana and suck him until his blood was dry.
Tachibana teleported away with the help of the explosive tags that Sakura had flicked away from the swarm. They were his special explosive tags which he had given each team member for a just-in-case scenario where they would have to perform a coordinated attack or in this case, a retreat.
Tsunade's eyes were still narrowed in on the Aburame shinobi under the swarm of insects but she quickly looked at Yamato who was looking at her with a little bit of guilt.
Tsunade had a lot of questions for the man in front of her, but she held back. Instead, she simply told Yamato, "I won't interfere in the mission. We can talk when you are resting. I will find you."
Yamato was a little surprised.
"How will you find me?"
Yamato didn't want to brag, but he was a pretty decent Jonin by any standards and he was confident in his ability to evade detection as long as he wanted. Even though two people had followed him without it ever coming to his notice while on this mission.
Tsunade said nothing and just as the silence was about to get awkward, a simple bulge appeared from inside his collar and much to his surprise a slug climbed out of it.
"EEKK~-"
"I will make sure to keep an eye on him Tsunade-sama."
Yamato almost screamed when he saw the slug that was in his dress and nearly slipped from the tree and fell down because he suddenly lost control over his chakra due to the surprise.
He hadn't realised in any world or time that there was a speaking slug attached to his body.
'Ho- How did she get in my clothes without me noticing?'
'How long has she been here?'
"How?"
Tsunade looked at him with a smile that indicated she liked teasing her juniors before speaking, "A woman has her secrets. Katsuyu will let me know wherever you go so don't worry about going too far."
Yamato nodded and Tsunade spared a single glance at Tachibana and co. who were now examining the dead Aburame shinobi who had suddenly collapsed after releasing the cloud of insects that were burnt away by Sasuke, and used the Body Flicker Jutsu to go away.
Yamato looked at her, and then at his genin who all looked surprised and shocked.
'I knew they'd feel terrible when they realised it was from Konoha but I don't know how they'll react now that the reveal has become so blatant.'
'Especially Naruto-kun…'
'He seems to be taking this rather terribly for some reason…'
Naruto looked brokenhearted, his eyes were teary and his lips were trembling.
He clenched his hands and tensed his muscles before he managed to speak in a soft pained tone.
"It's not because of me right? I mean…I know the people in the village hated me…but…"
Tachibana was quick to stop Naruto from using his overactive imagination to do something stupid and *smacked* the back of his head.
"They didn't even care if you were awake or not." Tachibana reminded Naruto who was holding the back of his head in pain. "They only attacked me, Sakura and Sasuke. So their target was one of us."
Naruto's eyes shone as if he just realised what Tachibana said and then smiled happily.
"So it wasn't because of me!? Haha~ Then if I save the three of you now I'll be one step closer to becoming the Hokage won't I!?" Naruto said happily.
Tachibana was dumbfounded by Naruto's emotions, which flicked like a coin, and said nothing until Sasuke asked him a simple question.
"Why did you consider stabbing him as an option?"
The question was important to him because it was out of character for Tachibana. Especially when he'd only noticed the insects when he'd used a sharingan.
"I had a hunch."
"A hunch?" Sakura asked pointedly since she didn't believe Tachibana's lame explanation.
"I mean…a practical hunch." Tachibana corrected himself.
"The ink paper animals didn't try to keep us separated. They moved along with us when we left our own hostages and the worst offender of it all was-"
"-the fact that Sasuke was battling the most ink creatures than all of us. While it might be because Sasuke could be considered the strongest of us to someone without intel there were still too many creatures fighting him-"
"-plus, I could see that the ink creatures weren't interested in testing Sasuke's abilities. They simply wanted to run away with the Aburame shinobi by making flaws appear in Sasuke's defence."
"Test him?" Yamato suddenly asked once he arrived at the scene.
Tachibana nodded.
"I assumed they were testing us because there's no doubt that the Aburame shinobi knew about our presence due to the insects scattered around the forest. So it is likely they wanted to test something about us. Perhaps it was a simple mission to gather intel on us taken from the black market."
"Maybe they are shinobi that betrayed Konoha and teamed up with Sunagakure to buy our children to spit in our faces?" Tachibana threw out a random guess that he didn't believe in himself.
Yamato's brows jumped at the part about the black market and the shinobi switching sides with Sunagakure.
'How innocent…he still thinks that Konoha wasn't involved in this…I guess I will have to try and direct them towards understanding the ROOT.'
'It shouldn't be difficult to get them to notice the Cursed Tongue Eradication Seal and then scour the Black Market for information regarding it since that was the original plan anyway.'
But that was when Naruto spoke in a soft mumble.
"...not possible."
"Huh? What was that Naruto, I didn't catch that sorry, could you repeat it." Tachibana asked the boy.
Naruto looked at the dead Aburame with slightly wide eyes before speaking, "It's not possible for an Aburame shinobi to remain the host of insects if they leave their clan.-"
"-It goes against the clan's policy to allow any outsiders to summon their insects. The insets would've died out if they were not fed the special food that the Aburame produce to tame them."
Naruto's sudden claim left everyone a little surprised.
"This…" Sakura opened her mouth for a few seconds then closed it and then opened it to ask again, "How did you know that?"
"Sakura-chan I learnt about it from Shino. I used to play with his bugs in class when I got bored and once asked him if I could make a bug my pet because they were so cute!"
Everyone frowned at the information but Yamato and Tachibana were only faking it.
'Good job Naruto-kun!/ That should make my work easier.'
That was when Sasuke voiced his concern-
"So someone in Konoha was behind this attack?"
-causing Sakura and Naruto to freeze again since he had connected the dots.