The Theft Operation Route Plan (Part 2)

At that moment, Hagoromo was roaring inwardly. Teacher Kushina, what the hell was your disciple supposed to even complain about?

First, was there really a teacher who instigated her disciple to become a thief?

Second, I know that place too, okay? Even with my pitifully limited Hokage knowledge, I know what that magical scroll is, okay?

Third, you can go there whenever you want, and you can touch that scroll whenever you want, but if I go, I could get killed at any moment, okay? After killing me, they might even whip my corpse and dig out my brain, okay?

But did he dare... No, could he freely complain about it? He could not. One still had to respect one's teacher.

Well, to be honest, he did not really dare to provoke the Red Hot Habanero.

So Hagoromo-kun looked pitifully at Kushina and said, "Teacher, can I not go? My very first subjective impression of the place you mentioned is that it's extremely bad."

"Although I'm young, I'm quite superstitious. First impressions are incredibly important to me..."

After hearing Hagoromo's words, Kushina slapped the table again, though not as hard as last time.

Heh heh, that must have hurt just now, right?

Then, in a tone brimming with unstoppable momentum, she said, "I'm helping you steal... helping you get ninjutsu. How can you not go? Steal... get something, why are you talking so much nonsense?"

Hey, hey, Teacher, you said "steal" just now, didn't you? You did, right? You even said it twice?

"What are you afraid of? If anything happens, this old man will handle it!"

Was he hearing things? Was he hearing things?

Hagoromo seemed to have heard the young maiden Teacher Kushina refer to herself as "this old man."

"Anyway, it's happily decided! We'll act tonight!"

Kamishiro Hagoromo, unable to refuse.

Kamishiro Hagoromo, collapsed on the ground.

Kamishiro Hagoromo, gave up treatment.

Kamishiro Hagoromo, beyond saving.

As she spoke, Kushina stood up, then pulled out a sheet of white paper from who knew where. Holding a pen in one hand, she began planning the route for infiltrating the Hokage Office.

"What are you standing around for? Hurry up and clear the table."

"Huh? Oh!" Hagoromo quickly came back to his senses and swiftly cleared the bowls and chopsticks from the table.

Kushina spread out the large sheet of white paper and began drawing a floor plan of the Hokage Office Building.

First, she drew an old turtle on the paper.

Needless to say, this represented the Third Hokage-sama.

Then she drew a smaller circle around the turtle, representing the Hokage Office on the top floor.

Next, she drew two larger circles around it, representing the two lower floors of the Hokage Office Building.

Then she drew people inside the circles, representing the ninjas stationed within the Hokage Office Building. As for the art style... as long as one could tell they were stick figures, that was enough. One could not expect too much from certain ninjas' drawing skills.

"There are twenty-four ninjas guarding the first floor of the Hokage Office Building, all of them at least Special Jonin."

"There are roughly sixteen on the second floor, all Jonin."

"And hidden inside the Hokage Office are elite Anbu at Squad Leader level... Infiltrating the Hokage Office without alerting anyone and stealing the Sealing Scroll is basically impossible."

For Kushina, it was not at all strange that she knew how the Hokage Office Building was defended.

What was strange was that she was actually seriously considering the feasibility of an infiltration!

"Should we create chaos outside, then infiltrate while taking advantage of it?... No, that won't work. The mission of those four ninjas in the office is to guard the confidential documents. Those blockheads won't leave their posts no matter what."

"Or should we just destroy the Hokage Office Building directly?"

Kushina shook her head and rejected her own idea. "That won't work either. It would cause too much of a commotion..."

"Making that much noise in the middle of the night would disturb the neighbors. That wouldn't be very nice, right?"

Was disturbing the neighbors really the only issue? Her focus was way too bizarre, wasn't it?

"And it would be hard to find the Sealing Scroll in a pile of rubble."

Of course, Kushina had merely mentioned it casually. There was no way she would do something as insane as destroying the Hokage Office Building.

Still, it was true that her imagination was becoming increasingly outrageous.

And so, at that moment...

Beep beep, your friend, the unscrupulous thief Kamishiro Hagoromo, is now online.

As the saying went, life was like that thing—since you couldn't do that thing, then just do that thing.

Since it could not be avoided, Hagoromo chose to actively participate in this public service activity, lest Kushina do something too outrageous.

In any case, he was going all out. Better to die early and be reborn early. He was only an accomplice; Kushina was the principal offender.

"Teacher Kushina, I think we have absolutely no need to confront those ninjas." Hagoromo immediately offered his suggestion, ready to act the moment he decided to.

"What do you mean?" Kushina asked. Could they infiltrate the Hokage Office Building peacefully?

Yes, they absolutely could infiltrate peacefully.

Or rather, it could not be called an intrusion at all.

"With Teacher Kushina's status, we can walk right into the office building openly. The ninja on the lower two floors won't do anything to us. The only problem is the four elite ninja in the office."

"We need to take them out silently before they can make a sound."

After Hagoromo's reminder, Kushina realized that she had fallen into a mental trap. Right—given her status, entering and leaving the Hokage Office freely was not a problem at all. She usually went there as casually as if visiting a neighbor. Why had she suddenly become so cautious this time?

What she did not know was that, academically speaking, her earlier way of thinking was called having a guilty conscience.

"Go on." As Kushina considered whether Hagoromo's proposal was feasible, she urged him to continue.

"To keep our movements from looking too suspicious, we can't act too late or too early. If it's too early, the Hokage will still be in the office..."

"Also, we can't take that ninjutsu scroll out of the office. When the time comes, we'll memorize as much as we can." Stealing one or two ninjutsu was entirely different from stealing the whole Sealing Scroll. Hagoromo was leaving them a way out.

The difficult part of this plan was not getting in, but when to get in. In other words, they had to determine when the Hokage would leave the office. Although that would be difficult, it was not impossible. After all, as the head of a village, the Hokage had to handle many major village affairs, so his schedule was relatively regular.

The second difficulty was how to silently neutralize those four elite ninja. Hagoromo could never accomplish that on his own.

The key was to render those four ninja unable to resist without killing them... After all, teacher and student were committing burglary, not robbery, murder, and arson.

If only Minato Namikaze were here. His Flying Thunder God Technique was practically an essential skill for breaking and entering, petty theft, and sneaking around.

If he were here, taking out four ninja instantly would be no challenge at all. But then why would they even be thinking about taking out ninja? He could just grab the Sealing Scroll and fly off with it.

Yes, if Minato were here, he would not be thinking about dealing with the Anbu ninja. He would be thinking about reporting these two criminals.

So dealing with the ninja would have to rely on Kushina.