"What are you... doing? Or rather, what happened?"
After returning to the camp, Kakashi had not seen the unfinished proposal on the table. He looked around, instinctively searching for it, before suddenly raising his head toward the front entrance.
Reflected in his eyes were Chiba, Hirohiko, and the unconscious guard ninja slung over Hirohiko's shoulder.
"Kakashi, you're back?"
At the entrance, Chiba and Hirohiko stepped inside as well. Hearing Kakashi's words, they instinctively looked up. Upon seeing him, Chiba spoke.
"What happened?"
At this point, Kakashi's gaze gradually shifted to the guard ninja. He recognized him as the ninja the village had assigned to guard Hirohiko's cell. When applying to the Hokage on Hirohiko's behalf, Kakashi had encountered him several times. He had occasionally brought Hirohiko meals too, so Kakashi was quite familiar with him.
His attention had mostly been on Chiba and Hirohiko just now, so he had not recognized him immediately.
Now that Hirohiko's guard had been knocked unconscious, something had clearly happened. Although Hirohiko appeared unharmed and bore no signs of an intense battle, Kakashi knew that something must have occurred.
After all, given Hirohiko's strength, anyone capable of engaging him in a large-scale or conspicuous battle would have to be at least a Jonin or Elite Jonin. Otherwise, they would basically be killed in an instant. Not noticing any signs of battle did not mean that nothing had happened on Hirohiko's end.
Moreover, this guard was actually rather ordinary in strength. If Hirohiko had not willingly allowed himself to be imprisoned, even ten guards of this level would have been dealt with by Hirohiko in a single exchange.
Against the carefully selected elite ninja of the enemy villages lurking around them, someone of this strength being silently knocked unconscious and taken out was hardly unusual.
There