Chapter 142: 141. Angry Hanabi
(Gimme Powerstones... Pwease)
Sora left the Hokage Tower and wandered aimlessly. He had been told not to share anything about what happened, and if someone asked, he was to say the mission got bigger and that the Hokage had ordered silence on the matter.
Tsunade also said she would send people to inform Ino-Shika-Cho, as the information would have dangerous consequences if it spread.
She would only inform Shikaku—the current Hokage advisor—since he was too smart, and she didn't want to see the man piece together what happened just by observing these four kids.
The scary thing was that she didn't doubt Shikaku could do it.
It was only a matter of time.
So, it was better to save the man's time and the energy he would spend on that instead of what he was supposed to be doing by simply telling him.
"Go, call Shikaku," Tsunade told the Anbu who had returned to the room.
One of them went to the Nara clan and brought the man.
"Tsunade-sama, it was supposed to be my day off, and I was supposed to spend time with my son, who just came back," Shikaku was planning to play shogi with his son, which he hadn't done in three months.
"You must be curious what happened to them in the last three months? How about we save the energy and time you'd spend figuring it out on your own?" Tsunade smirked and tapped on the desk.
Signalling the Anbu to leave the room.
Such was the life of Anbu who guarded the Hokage.
They were supposed to protect the Hokage in case the Hokage dropped their guard.
But that was for fighting scenarios when some fool dared to attack an S-rank shinobi who was supposed to stay in their village.
In normal daily life, their task involved… going out of the room and coming back in.
Yup, if they were lucky or unlucky, depending on their perspective, they would be asked to run some errands for the Hokage, like calling people or fetching food for the Hokages—like the Third Hokage—or alcohol for the current Hokage.
If the Hokage could be said to be a glorified clerk, then their Anbu were glorified errand runners.
"Oh, I was told that it's not supposed to be shared," Shikaku smirked.
"I don't want you coming to the wrong conclusion, as the situation is too complicated."
*One explanation later.*
"Hmm, cool. Sounds like something I probably wouldn't have figured out anytime soon," Shikaku said. He couldn't believe his son's luck in meeting the legendary Kasumi Yamanaka.
"Nah, you definitely would have, just not sure when," Tsunade had more faith in Shikaku than he had in himself.
Well, it was natural to assume so, because Shikaku was *him*.
"Still, it would've taken too long—maybe a year or two—if I'd even been successful at all."
"Anyway, this information cannot be spread, as you understand. Please inform the three and enjoy your day off."
With that, Shikaku went back to his rare day off, which was rarer than a red moon.
Really, believe me. A red moon had probably been seen twice in the history of the shinobi world.
And Shikaku had gotten one holiday in the history of the shinobi world.
Rarer, right?
Back to the red-headed menace who was skipping through the village.
'Should I go to Ichiraku first, or should I visit Hanabi?' Sora usually didn't care much about making decisions, as they were easy.
But this was not an easy decision.
'What if she finds out I went to Ichiraku first? But we're talking about *Ichiraku*...' Sora looked around, trying to see if any Hyuga had spotted him.
'Meh, let's just meet her first and get it over with. I'll invite her to Ichiraku after we talk further,' Sora weaved hand seals for a body-flicker.
He was currently in a marketplace, and using any jutsu near civilians was not allowed. There were patrols to make sure it didn't happen.
Jounin could be exempt from this, but they generally didn't do it anyway.
But Sora was anything but a law-abiding ninja.
"HEY! YOU are—" a guy yelled at Sora as he felt a chakra fluctuation very close to him, like five meters away.
"Oops, I shouldn't have let the chakra leak. My bad," Sora winked at the guy, and in the man's vision, he disappeared in a red blur.
'Who was that? So fast… Wait, red hair? Is that Sora? Damn, it seems him being a chunin isn't a baseless decision after all,' the man thought.
Sora arrived at his usual training ground.
'Hmm, right, where does she train again? Also, nice that no one touched this training ground, which rightfully belongs to me,' Sora nodded internally.
(*A/N*: Refer to chapters 102-104; I don't remember the exact chapter number, but it was discussed why Sora is homeless.)
Sora disappeared again and reappeared in a tree.
He saw Hanabi going through 16 palms.
Her Byakugan was activated, so she looked in his direction.
Sora wasn't really trying to hide in the first place, so he was easily spotted.
Usually, if he wanted to hide, he would use a seal to suppress all of his chakra, so it wouldn't look obvious to a Hyuga, and then he would hide in trees or underground, where it would be hard for the Byakugan to detect a human body.
It's easier if the person knows where to focus—kind of like normal vision versus peripheral vision.
"Yo! Hanabi, how's it—" Sora ducked as a vacuum shell flew right past where his head had been.
Sora let his body free-fall as he weaved hand seals.
Just as Hanabi closed the distance, he used *Heavenly Weeping*to face her.
Water senbon shot at Hanabi at high speed, almost point-blank.
But Hanabi had already noticed when chakra was moving towards his mouth and concentrating there, so she was prepared.
Hanabi jumped forward and began spinning.
Yup, that was Revolving Heaven.
The senbon was not only deflected, but Sora was also caught in its range.
Sora almost used a mini-Rasengan on instinct to defend, but he corrected himself and used chakra to soften the impact.
He shot backwards into a tree.
"Damn, that hurts," Sora's pain tolerance was still not good, so he blacked out for a second.
He had been unconsciously weaving hand seals since being thrown back.
So, just as he regained consciousness and saw a few vacuum shells aimed at him, he released a water gun from his mouth towards the ground.
It threw him upward, away from the ground, dodging those strikes.
"Where were you? Previously it was three weeks, now three months?" Hanabi continued to launch air palms at him.
Sora had landed on the tree bark (*A/N*: With the help of tree-walking, so not on a branch, but the outer surface of a tree—like how one learns tree-walking—their face is upward, but in this position, his face is facing the ground, kind of).
He used it to change his trajectory, moving from one bark to another.
"It was supposed to be one week! I didn't know it would take three months. I couldn't come back or communicate," Sora cursed the restriction on the information he had, but he couldn't do anything about it.
Hanabi seemed to calm down, but she was still really angry, so Sora would have to be her sparring partner for now.
"Fine. Next time, I'm going with you on any mission. I want to see what happens when I go with you—something unusual always happens on your missions," Hanabi said while closing the distance.
Sora weaved hand seals for the Shape-Shifting Jutsu.
He was not under the illusion that he could dodge an angry Hanabi at close range without it.
Just as 16 palms were aimed at him, his speed increased, and by changing the shape of some of his body parts, he was able to dodge her.
"You've really gotten stronger. I'd say you could keep a newly minted Jounin on their toes," Sora remarked, though internally he was shocked.
"Yeah, I've been training hard. I learned Revolving Heaven from Body Blow and recently Vacuum Palm. I'm still refining them, but I don't quite meet the other requirements to become a Jounin yet," Hanabi answered honestly.
She had actually started training harder when she realized the gap between her and Sora had widened after he returned from the mission with Naruto and Sasuke. Her training intensified even more when she heard Sora's team had gone missing.
She believed Sora would come back, but slipping into negative thoughts was easy. To keep from worrying, she trained like crazy.
If Guy had been in the village, he would've been proud, proclaiming there was another person filled with YOUTH.
Her progress in the last three months had shocked Hiashi; he was speechless and unsure of what to say. Though he still didn't like the reason his daughter was training so hard, he could do nothing but watch.
"Yeah, I need to work on that too. My genjutsu dispelling could use some improvement before I'm officially a Jounin," Sora said, planning to grind on his medical ninjutsu over the next three months, which would naturally include that.
"Well, leave a clone here. I need a sparring partner. My father isn't always free," Hanabi said.
Sora sweatdropped, but it wasn't a bad idea. A clone could help him refine his not-so-great taijutsu skills.
Okay, maybe not nonexistent, since Sora's combat intelligence was excellent. But still, it needed work.
"Fine. How about we have lunch at Ichiraku?" Sora stopped dodging.
Hanabi's palm halted just before his face.
"Fine. Let's go. It's been a while since I ate there," Hanabi agreed readily.
And so, the two kids headed off to Ichiraku.
***
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