Tachibana knew it wasn't his fault that none of his friends were in their homes but seeing Tsunade's glare made him feel guilty for some reason.
He'd gone around to Naruto's house first, checking if the blond friend could let him crash in for the night, but he was missing.
Tachibana searched for ANBU messengers using his spirit vision, but none of them were available to help him find his friend since none of them were guarding the place.
Then Tachibana left for the Uchiha compound where he searched for Sasuke high and low, trying out every training ground wondering if his friend was training himself to death, but he couldn't find him.
The only option left was divination, so Tachibana quickly leaned on a wall, pretending to be waiting while he used cogitation to let his spirit roam the astral world as he figured out where the two of them were.
'Seriously!?'
Tachibana nearly cursed after he saw where they were.
'I mean they are important assets…but really? Do they think the other nations will just stroll in and capture the two of them?'
Naruto and Sasuke were taken in by the ANBU and were confined to the headquarters where everyone else could easily protect them.
'Shikaku's not wrong…but then where do I go tonight?'
'By the way, am I not important to the village!? Wouldn't it be terrible if the Daimyo suddenly found his son dead in the village because of some other shinobi that suddenly strolled into the village!?'
Tachibana conveniently ignored the fact that just a few seconds ago he was sure no one would simply stroll into the village and after thinking about it for a bit, Tachibana retraced his steps to appear from the place he had just been kicked out of.
"And so I'm here. I don't have anywhere to go. You wouldn't want a random person to come to me while I was sleeping and assassinate me, would you? I mean, you know that I'm the Daimyo's son right? Soo…"
Tachibana gave Tsunade his best kiddy-eyed face, but it wasn't working.
Tsunade's eyebrows were twitching and she was trying to keep her hands from turning into fists to punch the kid away, but she managed to keep it to herself before speaking calmly.
"What about your girl teammate?"
Tachibana frowned when he heard that, "Really? You want me to go to a girl's house?"
Tsunade's brows twitched, "And we?"
Tachibana had a slightly hard time following her question and her logic but as if realising something he nodded hard, "I understand. You think I should feel shy around you right? But sorry, I don't have a thing for old lad- middle aged lad- blonde ladies, yes I don't like blond people. I only like people with neon orange hair."
Tsunade who was about to punch the boy held her fist back before looking at Shizune who was now standing beside her as she asked, "We have enough food for him?"
Shizune nodded, "I made enough for it to last us until tomorrow Tsunade-sama."
Tsunade *sighed* before she looked at Tachibana and spoke softly, "You heard what she said, you can stay with us for tonight. And from tomorrow you'll have to find a place for yourself."
Tsunade quickly picked up her plate and stuffed it with food, before leaving the dining room and going to her room to have food in private.
Shizune glanced at Tsunade and gave Tachibana a slightly embarrassed smile as she explained, "I'm sorry, Tsunade-sama is a private eater."
"No, no! Please don't apologise to me! I'm the one that's intruding."
Shizune smiled at Tachibana's good nature and nodded before inviting him for the lavish dinner she had prepared.
"This is soo good Shizune-nee! I can't believe I haven't had such good food in the palace!!! Seriously!!!"
While Shizune acted embarrassed in front of Tachibana's compliments, Tsunade who had finished her food quickly left her plate in the sink before returning after saying her good nights to Shizune.
"Did you follow us from Tanzaku Quarters?" Tachibana finally asked just to make conversation as he cleaned the plates with Shizune.
Shizune responded softly with a slightly forlorn look.
"Tsunade-sama wanted to follow your team after she heard about a few things regarding the experiments on children and something about the Senju clan."
Tachibana nodded and asked, "She wanted to know how our sensei got wood release?"
Shizune was a little surprised but Tachibana shook his head and explained himself, "It's not that hard to figure out. The First Hokage was widely known for his Wood Release Techniques. And when we learnt about human experiments, I pretty much had it figured out."
Shizune nodded, accepting the explanation before she asked him a question of her own.
"Have you told anyone yet?"
Tachibana shook his head.
"No. I haven't. I'm sure most of my team would've figured it out by now, except Naruto, though I'm sure even he probably has a gut feeling about the issue."
"*sigh* all this, it hasn't been easy on Tsunade-sama."
"I can see..."
After they were finished wiping the plates, Tachibana left Shizune after she showed him the guest room on the first floor and he collapsed onto the bed.
On the bed, however, Tachibana didn't fall asleep.
Instead, he looked blankly at the screen that only he could see.
[The system has detected that the Host has completed the challenge given by the system to the best of his abilities. Does the host want to close the challenge and accept the rewards or does he wish to keep the challenge open for longer for better rewards?]
Tachibana looked at it for a while before asking the system a question.
'So will I get the Sefirah Castle right now if I accept the mission rewards?'
[...]
[The system evaluates the host to have done a lot of damage to his target, Shimura Danzo.]
[The host has broken most bonds that Danzo had with the village and has caused him to be assigned the tag of an S-Class rouge shinobi.]
[Simultaneously, the host has caused Danzo to lose an arm while also permanently causing the downfall of the organisation, ROOT, that he had set up.]
[All of this qualifies for the best reward for the host, the Sefirah Castle.]
[Does the host wish to accept the reward?]
Tachibana thought about it for a few seconds but then shook his head, 'Keep that on hold for now. I want to ask you another thing, did my potion digest because of the grand performance I conducted?'
[The current digestion state of the Sequence 7 Magician potion is 99%]
Tachibana's eyes narrowed and he quickly sat up on his bed and pulled out his purified kunai.
After quickly setting up a wall of spirituality around the room, Tachibana sat down and began to go over the rules of the potion he had acted out.
'The first maxim is to never perform unprepared.'
'Through out this mission, I always remained one step ahead of the people in my play by using divination and knowledge about their personalities to make sure I was able to string them the way I wanted.'
'The second maxim is to take the initiative to perform.'
'Throughout this mission, I always made sure to drag the people I wanted into my play. This is important because only by taking the initiative to perform can I set the mood and the framing of the scene I want to display. This also leads into another maxim which is-'
'-to wield control of the target's attention.'
'By making sure to ask the 'right' questions using the 'right' words I was able to trick Danzo and Hiruzen into working against each other. And by using Tsunade's hatred for what was happening, I was able to protect myself from being caught in the cross fire once they realised that I was the problem.'
'Next maxim is to always challenge the impossible, even if the final outcome is nothing but an illusion.'
'Danzo hasn't really even died, but publicly and politically he is as good as dead. No one would ever sit quiet if Danzo ever returned to the village anymore. Even though he isn't really dead, he might as well be considered to be.'
'And the last maxim is-'
'Try to get applause from the audience.'
'Although there wasn't any literal applause to my performance, the audience's shock and surprise compensated for it since they never realised that the twist of my play was that the leader they all trusted so much was the person that was feeding on their blood, sweat and tears after all.'
'By dragging Hiruzen into the play, I was able to set up a surprise that none of them expected.'
As soon as Tachibana collected all the maxims, he found his body regained the familiar lightness he always felt whenever he fully digested the potion.
[The host has fully digested the Sequence 7 Magician potion. Does host wish to advance further to Sequence 6 Faceless?]
Tachibana looked at the system and nodded, causing a vial filled with a sickly green Non-Newtonian substance to appear in his hands.
The vial had bubbles emerging from its depths before they burst with a soft burp. And as soon as they burst, the bubbles exploded into a small face that vanished before it could say anything else.
Tachibana looked at the vial for a few seconds before he quickly uncorking it and gulping it down in a second.