Whoosh—!
At Konoha's main gate.
A gust of cold wind swept past, rolling up the withered grass on the ground and fluttering the clothes of passing pedestrians.
Carts and horses passed in and out, while pedestrians came and went through Konoha's gates.
Shisui maintained his usual serious attitude toward work, diligently screening every suspicious person.
Spurred on by what had happened to White Fang, putting the mission first had become an obsession in Kakashi's heart.
Thus, even though he was somewhat unwilling, he still treated this utterly unreasonable assignment seriously.
Yet whenever Kakashi's gaze fell on Uchiha Shingen beside him, his drooping eyelids could not help rolling upward in exasperation.
At that moment, Uchiha Shingen was lazily reclining in a lounge chair nearby.
A pot of hot tea sat on the small table at his side. He carefully flipped through the first draft Jiraiya had sent over early that morning, occasionally picking up a pencil from the table to make notes and revisions.
Whenever he came across an especially brilliant passage, Uchiha Shingen even sat up straight and offered a few words of praise. As expected of a writer he had trained himself.
Even Kakashi, with his indifferent temperament, could not help complaining at such behavior.
"This is way too outrageous!"
Kakashi had never seen anyone take a mission so lightly. This was practically dereliction of duty.
He had originally intended to report it to his superiors, but after thinking it over carefully, he gave up.
For one thing, he did not want to put Minato and Jiraiya in a difficult position.
For another, Konoha's gate guards fell under the jurisdiction of the Police Force.
And the Police Force belonged to the Uchiha. Even the Hokage had no authority to interfere, so it went without saying whom Fugaku Uchiha would