章 48: Escape

Hiruzen looked at Yama. "Yama you are an elite tracker, go with Minato and track them down. We will gather other experienced trackers and cover other routes."

"Ok." Minato replied and looked at Yama telling him to start moving. Yama sighed helplessly and went to the underground maze along with Minato.

Yama knew the path Orochimaru and Danzo took but he didn't want Orochimaru to get caught so he led Minato to the wrong path.

He did want to kill Danzo but if he took Minato with him Orochimaru would also be dead along with Danzo and if he went there alone he wouldn't be able to fight them two on one.

Hiruzen and Jiraiya along with various other clan heads also entered the mage with some experienced trackers but Orochimaru and Danzo had long since escaped the village.

The maze had many exits all were outside Konoha towards the edge of the land of fire no one knew which exit Orochimaru and Danzo took.

After 'searching' for a day Yama and Minato's route came to a dead end so the two of them returned to the village. Jiraiya and Hiruzen had also already returned back to the village.

Minato and Yama both went to Hiruzen's office which was now repaired.

"Did you find anything?" Asked Hiruzen.

"No, it was a dead end." Yama said while shaking his head.

Hiruzen let out a sigh. "We found many exits but we don't know which one they used."

"How did they even manage to escape in the first place?" Asked Minato

Hiruzen looked angry just thinking about it. "As soon as we reached the research lab. Danzo and Orochimaru rushed inside. We all ran after them but many shinobi started attacking us. They were not normal shinobi they were kamikaze who strapped themselves with various paper bombs.

"While we were fighting with the kamikaze the two of them disappeared from our view and in the next second the whole place blew up. Their other lab that was located on the other side of the village also blew up a couple of seconds later."

Yama knew all of this but still hearing this from Hiruzen with a frustrated voice made him satisfied. Minato on the other hand was pissed off.

"I told you to take me with you but you didn't agree, and now look what happened as the result of that." Minato said with an angry voice.

Hiruzen couldn't say anything to that. He just stayed silent.

Yama looked at Hiruzen "Now that one of the Hokage candidates has become a missing-nin, I believe only one candidate is remaining."

Hiruzen's whole attention was on catching Danzo and Orochimaru and he had nearly completely forgotten about this matter. Now that Orochimaru left the village he had no other option than to name Minato the new Hokage.

"I will call another meeting tomorrow and announce Minato as the 4th Hokage."

After that both Minato and Yama headed to their respective house. Both of them had not been home for over a day so their family would be quite worried about them.

Yama went to his mom's house because he had told pakura to stay at her place and protect her while this whole Danzo and Orochimaru situation was going on.

When he reached the Inuzuka clan's compound many people started to greet him. But the 1st one to greet him wasn't a human. It was Friday, Friday jumped at him and started licking him.

"I missed you a lot to buddy." Friday kept clinging on to him.

"Since you don't want to separate from me why don't you carry me in the back and take me home like the old times."

*woof woof* Friday barked with excitement.

"Thank goodness you are fine leader, there is a rumor going around that Danzo and Orochimaru attacked the higher-ups of the village and deflected."

"Haha, thanks for worrying about me."

"I am so happy you are fine." Another clan member said.

"Don't worry your clan head is strong, I won't get hurt easily."

After talking briefly with few clan members along the way he finally reached his mom's house."

Friday had informed Luna and Pakura that Yama was coming home so they were waiting for him at the door.

Yama 1st went and hugged his mom.

"When will you stop worrying me?"

"Mom your son is strong you don't need to worry about me."

He then hugged Pakura.

"What took you so long?"

"Orochimaru and Danzo ran away from the village and we were chasing after them but unfortunately they managed to escape."

"We heard a loud explosion did you get hurt anywhere?" Asked Pakura.

"I wasn't there when the explosion occurred."

"Who is going to be the 4th Hokage?"

"Tomorrow, Minato will get the title."

They talked for a while, ate dinner, and Yama, Pakura, and Friday left for their own house after dinner.

The next morning Yama and Pakura were still in bed. Pakura snuggled close to Yama.

"Good morning, Yama said and kissed her on the forehead."

Instead of her usual playful way, Pakura looked a little sad. Yama rolled over and got on top of her. He gave her another peck on the lips.

"What happened? Why do you look so sad?"

She paused for a bit. "I have a request."

Yama was a bit surprised. She usually never asked for anything.

"What is it?"

"I want you to train me. I did train with Jiraiya sensei and Kushina also taught me some Fuinjutsu but… but I am still so weak compared to you.

"I want to help you, protect you. I felt so useless when you were in danger yesterday and all I could do was stay home and hope for your safe return, I don't want that. I want to be strong enough to... To walk alongside you wherever you go."

Yama laughed. "I made me worry for no reason since tomorrow Minato is going to be the Hokage we will be partying and I will be helping him little settle into the office I might be a little busy for a couple of days. So how about this, after one week, I will completely place my focus on training you, Friday, and few other people."