"Uh..."
Hearing Guy say he would go on a mission with him, Naraku froze. As far as he remembered, unless something unusual happened, Anbu rarely went on missions with other people.
"There should be a chance," Naraku murmured.
After turning down Guy's invitation to do a handstand lap around the village together, Naraku returned to the hospital.
Kushina's hospital room.
Shizune, dressed as a nurse, was giving Kushina her daily checkup.
Huff! Huff!
Beside her, a tiny, bright-red toad was fast asleep, its snores reaching Shizune's ears.
It was Gamayan.
Shizune was already used to it. Every time she came to examine Kushina, Gamayan was like this.
"When will Lady Tsunade come back for me? And Naraku should be finishing his mission soon, right?" After finishing the checkup, Shizune murmured softly.
Since it was peacetime, there weren't many tasks at Konoha Hospital. Aside from checking on Kushina every day, she had almost nothing else to do.
That was bound to feel awfully boring for a young woman.
Knock! Knock!
Just then, someone knocked on the door, followed by Naraku's voice. "Is that you, Shizune? Are you done with the checkup?"
"Naraku's back." Shizune smiled, then got up and opened the door.
She didn't notice the sleeping Gamayan's eyelids twitch twice.
Because of Kushina's special status, Shizune always kept the door firmly shut while examining her.
After chatting with Shizune for a while, Naraku watched her leave.
"Hey, Gamayan. Thanks for your hard work," Naraku said with a smile from inside the room.
"Ha! Ha!"
"You're back!" Gamayan said with a yawn, as though he had just woken up.
"Since you're back, I'll head home." Without giving Naraku a chance to respond, Gamayan vanished with a poof of white smoke and returned to Mount Myoboku.
"Uh, that guy, honestly..." Naraku smiled helplessly. Still, for someone with Gamayan's personality, staying here this long was impressive enough.
Naraku closed his eyes, and a strange energy gathered around him.
"Mind's Eye of the Kagura, activate." In that instant, Naraku's senses expanded dramatically. The area within ten meters of him was covered by the Mind's Eye of the Kagura.
In this state, Naraku could clearly sense two powerful chakra signatures nearby. One was somewhat similar to his own chakra, while the other was filled with a violent presence.
Naraku knew that these two chakra signatures belonged to Kushina and the Nine-Tails inside her.
More precisely, they belonged to the Yin Nine-Tails.
"Big sis's chakra has gotten a little stronger," Naraku murmured, then deactivated the Mind's Eye of the Kagura.
A smile touched Naraku's lips. Kushina's improving condition meant that the time until she woke up was getting shorter and shorter.
"But there's plenty of trouble, too!"
Naraku opened his eyes. His dark eyes had turned crimson—the Three-Tomoe Sharingan.
Naraku walked over to Kushina and gently lifted her eyelid. The three black tomoe in his pupils spun rapidly, and his eye power slowly seeped into Kushina's spiritual world.
"Ugh..."
Naraku let out a pained groan, then gave a wry smile. "So it still won't work?"
"I wonder how Sasuke managed it back then."
Ever since Naraku's Sharingan had evolved to the Three-Tomoe stage, he had tried more than once to enter Kushina's spiritual world. Every attempt had failed.
Naraku understood that his eye power simply wasn't strong enough. Only once he reached the Mangekyo level would he be able to enter someone else's spiritual world with ease.
Still, he clearly remembered Sasuke entering Naruto's spiritual world with a Three-Tomoe Sharingan in the original story.
"Forget it. Big sis will wake up soon anyway." With no other option, Naraku finally gave up.
He had two reasons for wanting to enter Kushina's spiritual world. First, he wanted to meet the Nine-Tails. Second, he felt that if he could enter her spiritual world, he might be able to wake her up sooner.
Poof! Poof!
A cloud of white smoke appeared as Naraku created two Shadow Clones to keep watch over Kushina. Then his real body got up and left.
He returned to his room next door.
When he opened the door, there were two figures inside. A closer look revealed that they looked exactly like Naraku.
That was right: they were also his Shadow Clones, created before he left on his mission. Their purpose had been to protect Kushina.
If anyone really tried to harm Kushina, the Shadow Clones might not be able to stop them, but they could still get word to him.
"Thanks for your hard work," Naraku murmured, then dispelled the two Shadow Clones.
Poof! Poof!
With two clouds of white smoke, the Shadow Clones vanished.
Naraku instantly felt a flood of memories enter his mind, but the memories of the two Shadow Clones did him no harm.
After processing their memories, Naraku's expression gradually darkened.
The memories showed that during the days he had been away on his mission, strangers had repeatedly appeared around the hospital. Most of them wore masks.
"Root..."
Judging by their appearance, Naraku immediately thought of Konoha's greatest darkness: Danzo's Root.
Fortunately, they had only been watching from the surrounding area and hadn't approached Kushina's room.
Even so, Naraku sensed a hint of danger.
He knew what kind of person Danzo was. Since Danzo had sent people to get close to Kushina, he must have already noticed something.
Naraku began to think.
Although his strength was growing quickly, he had only reached the level of a jonin. He clearly couldn't stand up to Danzo's Root.
"In that case, I'll have to get the Third Hokage involved," Naraku murmured.
With that, he immediately left the room and hurried toward the Hokage Office.
The Third Hokage and Danzo were cut from the same cloth, but that was precisely why conflict between them was inevitable.
The Third Hokage was just as attached to power. If he learned that Danzo was approaching Kushina, a Jinchuriki, Naraku was sure he wouldn't just sit by and do nothing.
It was already nearing dusk, and the sun was slowly sinking in the west.
Inside the Hokage Office, the Third Hokage was puffing away on his pipe, a scroll in his hand.
Huff!
After slowly exhaling a cloud of smoke, the Third Hokage put away the scroll. On its back, the character for "Sand" was written.