After leaving the office, Kurotsuchi's doubts did not fade. Instead, they only grew stronger.
Rather than returning straight to the Training Ground or finding her friends as usual, she used her familiarity with the village's terrain to quietly skirt several guard posts and reach a rocky rise on the outskirts of Iwagakure, where she could stay hidden while enjoying a relatively open view.
It was some distance from the village's main buildings, but it offered a clear view of the main road in and out of the village, as well as part of the sky.
"The old man was acting way too strange today."
Leaning against a pillar of cooled lava, Kurotsuchi muttered to herself, her delicate brows knitted tightly.
She recalled what she had said when she went in earlier.
Usually, when she told Ōnoki, "Don't go dying before I become Tsuchikage," a teasing remark that mixed defiance with concern,
that stubborn, prideful old man would bristle and glare, loudly snapping back with something like, "What are you saying, you little brat?! I can stay Tsuchikage for another hundred years!"
But today, Ōnoki had merely waved a hand, seemingly without even the energy to lecture her.
It was far too strange.
"Something huge must have happened to the village."
Kurotsuchi was certain that anything capable of putting that expression on the face of the Third Tsuchikage, a man who had weathered countless storms, could not be trivial.
"What... could have happened?"
Just as Kurotsuchi focused on her thoughts, trying to piece together those scattered clues,
she suddenly caught something out of the corner of her eye. Far away in the azure sky, near the horizon, a small... golden cloud had appeared at some point.
"Huh?"
That unusual splash of color caught Kurotsuchi's attention, temporarily pushing her thoughts aside.
She