After a full day and half the night, Hanyu returned to the Hidden Leaf Village with the squad. They wound this way and that through the village's rows of buildings, and by the time Hanyu was nearly dizzy, they finally entered a vast underground space through a hidden passage.
Yes, not a "basement," but an "underground space." As a ninja village, Konoha had an enormous network of underground structures. In an emergency, it could serve as a shelter; it could also be used to store things—or people—that couldn't be brought into the light, or simply classified information.
The underground world was dark, enclosed, and vast. After descending layer upon layer of stairs to a depth no one could guess, the group entered a spacious "hall," where Sanshao was waiting.
The other three ninjas in the squad nodded to Sanshao in greeting, then walked straight past her and into the dark depths of the hall. Hanyu, however, stopped beside her for the moment.
"Hanyu, you must be wondering why I called you back from the front lines at a time like this... There was no choice. This is an emergency mission." Sanshao spoke to her student. They had been apart for only half a month, but she noticed he seemed to have grown a little taller.
Now that he had seen Sanshao, Hanyu knew the reason for all this would soon be revealed. But another possibility occurred to him. "Teacher Sanshao... Could it have something to do with Shimura Danzō?"
In Konoha, if something bad was happening or about to happen, and no one could figure out who was responsible, then Danzō had done it.
"Why bring up Shimura at a time like this? Do you have some kind of misunderstanding about him? You have to know, Shimura may be a