Good for Nothing but a Pretty Face

Several furtive figures gathered beneath the hazy night sky.

"Hagyi, what happened on your end? Why was someone still with you so late?"

"Yeah, we had to change the meeting point at the last minute because of you."

Hearing his companions' complaints, Hagyi's nose stung, and he nearly burst into tears.

Those two brats had tormented him for most of the day. He had nearly gone from being a ninja to becoming a chef. After they finally left, he found the signal his companions had left by the shop's back door and rushed nonstop to the new meeting place, without even having time for a bite to eat.

Was it easy for him?

After struggling to calm the turmoil in his heart, Hagyi explained, "Sorry. I never expected two troublesome brats to latch onto me."

"Latch onto you?" The others were startled and hurriedly asked, "Were you discovered?"

"How could that be?" Hagyi waved his hand. "If I'd been exposed, a whole bunch of Leaf Anbu would've jumped out to arrest us by now... Mmph! What are you doing?"

"Watch your mouth." One of them removed his right hand from Hagyi's mouth and glared at him fiercely. "I used to have a companion whose words always came true whenever he said something like that."

Hagyi's mouth twitched as he muttered, "How could something like that happen? That's not Nindo at all."

"Enough." The ninja leading them stopped the exchange, then asked, "What exactly happened?"

"Two Leaf brats wanted to deliberately provoke me and draw over the patrol ninjas..." Seeing the others' faces change drastically, Hagyi hurriedly explained, "Don't misunderstand. Those two brats didn't know my identity. They only did it to stir up conflict and avenge the Second Hokage."

At that, the others laughed as well. "Who would've thought that Leaf Village's higher-ups were all cowards, while there were actually a few hardliners among the brats?"

Hagyi laughed along with them. "Haha, one of those brats even claimed to be the Third Hokage's son..."

"Huh? Why did you stop laughing?" Seeing the smiles suddenly vanish from everyone's faces, Hagyi was initially confused, but he quickly "realized" what was going on and regretted it bitterly. "I get it. I should've grabbed that brat right then. We were grabbing someone anyway, and that brat was obviously more valuable than the target..."

"Idiot!" the leader cursed in a low voice. "Haven't you heard that the Third Hokage loves using the Telescope Technique to spy on people?"

Hagyi's eyes widened. "Spy on people?"

A ninja beside him replied, "Lord Baiwei said that Leaf Village's Third Hokage had an extremely strong desire for control. That was why he specifically improved this technique for surveillance."

Hagyi exclaimed, "Then what do we do?"

"Good thing you, idiot that you are, didn't make a move. Otherwise, we'd all be finished by now." Suppressing his anger, the leader asked, "Think carefully. Did you reveal any flaws earlier?"

"Probably... not?" The more Hagyi tried to recall, the less confidence he had.

"Probably?"

At that moment, a ninja beside them raised a question. "Wait. That Hokage's son hadn't even made it home for dinner. Wouldn't the Third Hokage send someone out to look for him?"

The leader pondered for a moment, then suddenly asked, "You mentioned two Leaf brats earlier. Who was the other one?"

Hagyi thought about it. Other than being handsome, that brat had been completely forgettable. "I don't know. Other than being handsome..."

However, the leader was overjoyed. "I know! That brat must be Shimizu Soseki, the one I've been investigating these past few days. I heard the Third Hokage thinks highly of him. Maybe the Third Hokage used the Telescope Technique and saw the two of them together, so he felt reassured and didn't keep watching."

"Is that so?" Hagyi looked utterly bewildered. He was clearly just a brat who was good for nothing but looking handsome. Had Leaf Village really fallen so low that it selected people based on looks now?

"Captain, what should we do now?"

The leader pondered for a moment, then let out a heavy breath. "No matter what, the risk of us being exposed has increased greatly. So we have to take action tonight!"

Worried about being discovered, Soseki and the other boy had been following from a great distance. The drawback was that they had no way of overhearing the others' conversation.

"Yawn... Why haven't they acted yet? Don't tell me they fell asleep?" Asuma yawned and quietly urged, "Soseki, should we get a little closer?"

Soseki shook his head slightly. "These ninjas might not be stronger than us, but they definitely have more mission experience. If we get any closer, the risk of being discovered will be too great!"

"Fine." Asuma sighed helplessly, then clenched his fist hard. "Once we catch these bastards, I'll make them understand the consequences of keeping me from sleeping."

"They're coming out!"

"What do you mean, coming out... They're finally going to act?"

Soseki nodded and whispered, "Get ready to follow them."

They were far away from the enemy. While that was safe, one careless mistake could cause them to lose their targets.

Therefore, neither of them dared to relax in the slightest. Once the enemy moved, they quickly followed.

After tracking them for a while, Asuma exclaimed softly, "Huh? That direction?"

Pretending not to know, Soseki asked, "Is there a problem?"

"There aren't many homes in that direction. Only a really fierce big sister lives there." Asuma then asked, "Soseki, do you know about the Land of Whirlpools?"

As he leaped from place to place in pursuit, Soseki nodded. "The Land of Whirlpools used to be a friendly allied nation of Leaf Village, but it was destroyed in a war several years ago."

"Yeah, that big sister is a survivor from the Land of Whirlpools." Asuma explained the "truth" as he understood it. "To protect the orphaned survivors of the Land of Whirlpools, the old man and the others let that big sister settle in the village. But because she's an outsider, her relationship with the other villagers doesn't seem very good."

"But why would these Cloud Ninja want to capture her?"

Soseki could not help laughing inwardly.

According to his memories from his previous life, only the Third Hokage and a few elders knew that Uzumaki Kushina had become the Nine-Tails' Jinchuriki. No one else—not even the Three Ninja—knew.

This created an awkward situation. If they assigned people to watch her, spies from other villages would definitely notice something was wrong. But if they did not assign anyone to watch her, those important figures could not keep their eyes on a young girl every moment of every day.

In the end, they could only choose to trust Leaf Village's security.

Meanwhile, Cloud Village had never intended to capture the Nine-Tails at all. Otherwise, they would not have sent out such trash. They had truly only been interested in her special Chakra, but who could have known that a casual cast of the line would hook a super-sized fish?

PS: According to the Book of Formation, this incident took place twenty-seven years before the end of the Fourth Shinobi World War. Based on the timeline issue I mentioned at the beginning, that meant it happened in Leaf Year 41. So my original outline had this event taking place at the end of the previous year, but a few days ago I got carried away and somehow wrote it into the second year instead. Now I can only say that the event happened right across the transition from the end of Leaf Year 41 to the beginning of Year 42. This was a stupid mistake on my part. Even with the outline set, I still made an error, so go ahead and roast me (;`). One more thing: people often think this plot happened while Namikaze Minato was still in school, because the preceding section was about school. But in fact, when Namikaze Minato saved the beauty, both of them were wearing Leaf Headbands—they had already graduated.