White Fang Returns to the Village

White Fang Returns to the Village

After Kakashi's shadow clone left Orochimaru's laboratory,

he quietly circled back near his true body, observing the people monitoring him in the darkness.

There were three of them in total. Once he used his smoke bomb, they surrounded him in a triangular formation.

Under the cover of the night, Kakashi slowly crept toward one of them.

His primary objective now was to figure out whether they were ANBU or Root.

Orochimaru had just hinted to him that the higher-ups in the village were targeting him. Once he confirmed they were ANBU, operations against Hatake Sakumo might already be in deployment or underway.

Upon sensing his shadow clone approaching, Kakashi's true body stopped the sword training he had been practicing just moments before. Instead, he began practicing ninjutsu, attempting to distract the watchers.

After executing a Lightning Release followed by a Fire Release, Kakashi paused briefly to catch his breath.

Suddenly, he brought his hands together in front of his chest!

"Wood Release: Deep Forest Emergence!"

"Nani!"

"Nani!!"

The ninjas keeping watch from the shadows were startled. Wood Release: Deep Forest Emergence was one of the signature ninjutsu of the God of Shinobi, Hashirama Senju.

In current understanding, apart from Hashirama Senju, there was not a second ninja in the entire shinobi world who could use Wood Release. The white-haired brat they were monitoring was actually practicing Wood Release in secret right here!

Raising their vigilance to the absolute maximum, the two of them stared fixedly at Kakashi in the training ground.

Why were there only two?

Because just as he drew the attention of all three of them, the shadow clone had launched a sneak attack and knocked out the third watcher.

Pinching the guy's chin with one hand and forcing his mouth open, a black symbol distinctly revealed itself at the root of his tongue.

Root... well, that's fine. Throwing down the unconscious Root ninja, the shadow clone dissipated, dispersing into the forest.

Back in the training ground, having played the Root watchers for fools, Kakashi received all the information brought back by his shadow clone.

He scratched his head.

Is Wood Release really that difficult? Isn't it just earth and water combined? Oh well, I guess I don't have the talent to practice Wood Release. With that, he packed up his ninja tools and short blade, and set off for home.

The two watchers hidden in the shadows still had no idea one of their teammates had been taken down, and continued to follow behind him.

As he approached the Hatake Residence, Hatake Sakumo's chakra appeared in his perception.

A moment later, Hatake Sakumo seemed to have also noticed Kakashi and the two tails behind him.

Hatake Sakumo, who had been sitting in the courtyard waiting for his son to return, slowly stood up and crossed paths with Kakashi.

"Dump them both in the Third Training Ground," Kakashi said in a low, rapid voice as they brushed past each other.

With White Fang's strength, the two Root Chunin lost consciousness without even knowing who had attacked them. Clamping one under each arm, White Fang quickly arrived at the Third Training Ground, where he found their companion already unconscious in the bushes.

With a casual toss, the three of them were piled into a heap. They could feed the mosquitoes out here in the wild tonight.

Using the Body Flicker Technique to return home, Hatake Sakumo didn't even have a chance to ask anything before Kakashi took the initiative.

"Father, who have you offended recently, or was there something unusual about the mission you took lately?"

Hatake Sakumo, never expecting to be cross-examined like this, clearly had his brain freeze up.

"I just graduated from the Ninja Academy and I'm only a Genin. Even if I'm a genius, I don't qualify to be tailed by Root. The only reason must be special treatment because of you." Giving a calm explanation of how he reached his conclusion, Kakashi leisurely crossed his hands behind the back of his head and looked at the man before him, who met such a tragic end in the original story.

At these words, Hatake Sakumo fell into deep thought, his brows furrowing tightly. It seemed as though a flash of insight had just crossed his mind, and his expression slowly grew gloomy.

"If I had to say I have any intersection with Root leader Danzo, it would probably be when I succeeded him in the positions of Hokage Advisor and Deputy ANBU Commander," White Fang said slowly, recalling past events.

"The Shinobi World War had just ended back then, and he was quite heavily wounded. Lord Hokage promoted me to reward my achievements, while Danzo took charge of Root. Root was also spun off from the ANBU as an independent entity around that time, becoming a new department."

Pausing briefly to think further, White Fang spotted the contradiction.

"Yet this happened many years ago. If he wanted to retaliate against me, why wait so long? Besides, he went from Hokage Advisor to elder, and after being relieved of his post as Deputy ANBU Commander, he became—"

Just as White Fang was unable to make sense of it, Kakashi chimed in from the side with a reminder.

"Was there anything wrong with the mission you recently executed?"

"A mission? Something wrong?"

"Yeah. When I first returned to the village, I summoned Pakkun. At that time, it told me you were about to return to the village, but it took so many days for you to finally come back. Did some unexpected situation happen?"

"..." Hatake Sakumo, who originally hadn't wanted to talk about it, never expected Kakashi to spot clues from the time difference of his return to the village.

"The mission I received didn't have any problems. It was just a routine escort client, and the completion went smoothly as well. Except..." At this point, Hatake Sakumo pushed his sensory perception to the maximum, swept the surrounding area to confirm there were no watchers, and brought Kakashi into the house.

"I don't think I ever told you who my old supervising instructor was, did I?"

"Huh? Indeed, I've never heard you mention it." Realizing that Hatake Sakumo intended to recount some ancient history, Kakashi patiently sat down and prepared to listen respectfully.

"Back when I first graduated from the academy, my squad leader was a very outstanding young Jonin. Just like... your current squad leader, Namikaze Minato. His name was Senju Ken. He was the strongest genius of the Senju Clan in that generation. When the Second Hokage was still alive, he once praised my teacher as the star of hope for the Senju Clan."

As he seemed to recall the voice and smile of his teacher right before his eyes, Hatake Sakumo's originally icy expression slowly melted away.

...I see... As expected, history is written by the victors.

Originally, Kakashi had never been able to figure out why Hatake Sakumo was slandered to death.

Given Hatake Sakumo's personality, even if public sentiment was extremely high and supported him in becoming Hokage, the possibility of him accepting it himself was very low. Therefore, the Third Hokage and other higher-ups shouldn't have feared him overshadowing the ruler.

Secondly, Hatake Sakumo possessed an unyielding personality. If the Third Hokage and the others tried to drive him to his death, his strength might just lead him to make a desperate gamble. Defection was out of the question, however.

There was no doubt that Hatake Sakumo deeply loved the village, but the possibility of him drawing his blade in anger did exist.

The higher-ups wouldn't take such a desperate risk to deal with Hatake Sakumo using such an obvious and petty trick. The only possibility was that they used something he cared about to threaten him.

Looking around, the only thing that could make Hatake Sakumo throw caution to the wind was Hatake Kakashi.

By this point, he knew the direct reason for Hatake Sakumo's suicide, but why did the higher-ups have to drive Hatake Sakumo to his death?

The root of the cause lay right here with Hatake Sakumo's supervising instructor. This was Kakashi's intuition!