The Hunt Begins: The Destiny Signal on Sasuke
Naruto didn't stop walking. His right arm naturally wrapped around Hinata's slender waist. The girl froze for a moment before softly snuggling into his arms. He raised his left hand and gently rubbed Karin's red hair with his fingertips.
"Don't stand on the street doing the math."
Naruto's voice was low, husky with a hint of domineering wildness, "Let's go home. There are extremely important village affairs to attend to tonight."
The Uzumaki Estate, the Secret Underground Chamber.
On the table were maps of the three outlying strongholds of the Otogakure that Kabuto Yakushi spat out.
Naruto leaned back in his seat and pushed the map towards the center of the table. "Find the problem."
"The water veins are not flowing correctly."
With a flick of his finger at the edge of the map, Bai, drawing on years of experience in Hidden Mist assassinations, pinpointed the problem. "All the underground rivers have shifted 700 meters eastward. This is a map-based trap designed to lure pursuers into the gas field."
Karin closed her eyes, her red hair moving without wind. Mind's Eye of the Kagura's Eye perception network overlapped with the map in her mind. "There are gaps in the residual Chakra! At the false Coordinates of the three strongholds, there is a hidden high-density energy field."
"I compared it with the old mountain archives of the Hyuga Clan."
Hinata's fingertips glowed with the faint light of her Chakra as she pointed to a Byakugan spot behind the gas field. "Combined with the Byakugan's ability to see through blind spots, the true underground entrance is beneath this abandoned mine, codenamed 'Northern Ridge'."
By piecing together the three pieces of intelligence, Orochimaru's true colors were completely exposed.
Naruto picked up a pen, circled the three fake Coordinates, and a cold smile played on his lips, "We'll keep the real Coordinates. These three fake Coordinates will be sent to the Hokage Building tonight through the medical team, the Hyuga Reconnaissance Team, and the Anbu's high-level channels, respectively."
Byakugan flashed. "Lord Naruto, are you trying to find the mole who passed messages to Orochimaru?"
"The soil in Hidden Leaf is too hard; we need to help the Fifth Hokage turn it over."
Naruto stood up. "Get some rest. Tomorrow, prepare for a bloodbath."
Night falls, in the top-floor office of the Hokage Building.
Tsunade sat alone under the lamp, flipping through twenty pages of the list of beneficiaries in front of her, but not reading a single word.
She unconsciously rubbed her earlobe with her right hand, the spot where Naruto's breath had brushed against her on their last night in Tanzaku Town Onsen Town, when Naruto leaned in and whispered, "Give me the first command."
"Click."
The door was pushed open, but there was no knocking.
Anbu the two guards were about to draw their short blades, two thick vines suddenly sprang up from the wooden floor, wrapping around their wrists like giant pythons and pinning them to either side of the door frame!
Naruto, dressed in a black coat prepared by Bai, carrying a huge sealing scroll on his shoulder, walked in, his military boots gleaming in the moonlight.
"Lord Wudai was distracted on his very first day in office? He can't even guard the gate. We'll replace him tomorrow."
Naruto Teuchi his fingers, and the ANBU were dragged out of the door with Anbu before it slammed shut.
"You trespassing into the Hokage's Office? Do you really think I wouldn't dare punish you?"
Tsunade suppressed her shock at the Wood Release that required no Hand Seals, her tone cold and hard.
"Bang!"
Naruto slammed the sealing scroll onto the table without any hesitation, causing the seal to dissipate.
More than a dozen old files bearing the personal seal of the Hokage Advisor, secret ledgers detailing the Root organization's transactions with Orochimaru involving human experimental drugs, and a route map showing the secret transfer of Hidden Leaf war orphans were all exposed under the light.
Tsunade picked up one of the lists, and when she saw the words "born in the same year as Nawaki" marked as experimental consumables, her pupils instantly turned bloodshot, the veins on the back of her hand bulged, and with a "crack," she squeezed the hard mahogany desk corner so hard that a terrifying crack appeared.
"Settle the mess in this village first, then you can judge my crime."
Naruto slammed his hands on the table, his aggressive gaze fixed on Tsunade. "I want you to establish the Fifth Hokage's direct Sound Shinobi Suppression Squad and give me absolute control over the front lines."
Tsunade stared intently at him. "You raid strongholds and kidnap people, and you expect me to vouch for you and stamp your approval?"
"I'll take care of emptying Orochimaru's lair; you take care of making sure Hidden Leaf can take this piece of meat."
Naruto pushed the Hokage seal towards her.
Tsunade took a few deep breaths, grabbed the seal, and slammed it onto the command post. But she immediately added, "The slaying squad must be accompanied and supervised by medical-nin directly under the Hokage. Shizune will be the vice-captain. This is the bottom line!"
"Make a deal."
Naruto folded the warrant and stuffed it into his pocket, but the tone of the scene suddenly changed.
He pulled a piece of white paper from the corner of the table, wrote a line, and pushed it in front of Tsunade, his tone tinged with an ambiguous low hue. "Official business is done, now it's time to talk about the 'personal request' you owe me. The Double Revision Method of the Strength of a Hundred Seal, tomorrow morning at eight o'clock, your private clinic. I need you to use Medical Ninjutsu to unlock the second layer of restriction on the Eight Trigrams Seal in my abdomen—the entire process requires you to use Yin Release Chakra, completely merging with my Yang Release."
Tsunade's breathing stopped instantly.
As the strongest medical-nin in the Shinobi World, she knew all too well what "complete fusion of Chakra" meant physiologically and sensoryly. It was equivalent to removing all defenses and allowing the opponent's power to penetrate deep into the meridians.
"Are you crazy?"
Tsunade instinctively stepped back, her body bumping against the back of the chair. "Release the Fourth Hokage's seal is like removing the Nine-Tails' safety pin! Besides... you're such a good person, brother. Your improved method goes deep into the meridians. What if the Chakra goes berserk halfway through? I wouldn't even have time to defend myself. How would that be accountable?"
Naruto's body passed over the desk, and his extremely yang life force enveloped her as if it were a tangible force, causing the hairs on the back of Tsunade's neck to stand on end.
"When have you ever seen me lose control of a situation?"
Naruto's gaze swept over her slightly reddened earlobes.
Silence stretched wildly through the air.
Finally, Tsunade sat up abruptly, snatched the paper and pen, and snapped the pen tip in two with a loud "snap."
She took the broken pen, wrote a line on the back, and pushed it over. "Unsealing conditions: I will control the Chakra circuits throughout the process; any abnormality must be immediately stopped! I set the rules!"
Naruto glanced at it, a smug glint in his eyes.
Just as he turned and pushed open the door to leave—
"Waaaaah!!"
A high-level enemy attack alarm suddenly blared from the direction of the interrogation room in the basement of the Hokage Building!
Tsunade's expression suddenly changed.
The two exchanged a glance and vanished from the office in an instant.
The dimly lit underground interrogation room.
Kabuto Yakushi was pinned to the restraint chair, bleeding from all seven orifices, his body convulsing violently.
An Anbu who was originally on guard duty had a crack in his mask and was stabbing a blood-stained sealing needle into the back of his neck!
That was Orochimaru, a mole within the high Orochimaru of the Anbu!
The Brain-Destroying Formula was forcibly detonated, and dark purple Chakra, like venomous snakes, climbed up the wall, eventually corroding a line of glaring bloody words onto the cold rock:
[I have received the three maps. Respectfully, Orochimaru.]
At the same moment, hundreds of kilometers away, in the cold and damp underground tunnels of the Otogakure.
Sasuke Uchiha stood alone at the fork in the road on the right, a chilling, stabbing pain shooting through the Snake Mark on the back of his neck.
However, the golden Yang Release mark left by Naruto on his shoulder pulsed rhythmically in the darkness.
Deep within the Destiny Radar, the S-class signal representing Guren and Tayuya is flashing wildly.
The prelude to the hunt has been completely torn open.