"Stop."
Hiroki's steps came to a halt.
He turned around. The one who had spoken was Rasa.
Rasa?
Was he calling him? Hiroki looked over in surprise.
He saw Rasa staring straight at him.
"What did you just do!?"
Just now—?
Hiroki froze for a moment, then remembered something from a few months earlier: when he had been kidnapped by the Cloud Ninja, he had used a WiFi signal to communicate remotely, and the Cloud Village had detected it!
His remote telepathy had been sensed!
—How sharp!
There were too many WiFi signals in Konoha. He hadn't had the time to check whether a new WiFi signal had appeared in the long list, probing for him.
Uchiha Fugaku frowned. His gaze shifted from Rasa to the ordinary-looking boy standing in the shadows at the alley entrance. He vaguely recognized him: the new administrator in the archives.
Why had Rasa suddenly stopped him?
Yoshihiro's eyes widened, too. He recognized him—it was that librarian!
Why was he here? Had he been spying on them the whole time?
"Tch—what a pain," Hiroki muttered.
The Third's order had been, "Don't expose yourself."
And now, a Sunagakure jōnin was questioning him in front of everyone.
Honestly, Hiroki's initial idea had been to simply cut and paste the jutsu of the three Sunagakure ninjas—oh, four of them—and then leave. That way, they might not even realize he'd been there before suddenly forgetting how to use their jutsu.
But if he wasn't supposed to expose himself, that meant the Third must have had his own concerns.
—For example, the old Third might have realized for himself just how much pressure it would put on Konoha to have two Kage enter the village at once. They might even attack Konoha directly.
In that case, he'd just have to