"What...?"
"What do you mean, assassinate Uzumaki Hayashi!"
The Third tightened both hands around the ANBU's collar, his face almost pressed against the man's mask as he hammered out each word.
Even the lights in the office shook at that shout.
The old man's sudden intensity left the ANBU struggling to breathe. He could only answer haltingly:
"Captain Hayate only said that much before he passed out again."
"He... didn't tell us anything else."
The Third stared at him for a full two seconds.
At last, the hands gripping his collar slowly loosened.
As though granted a pardon, the ANBU lowered his head and stepped back half a pace.
"You may go."
The old man waved a hand.
The ANBU turned, about to leave the office whose oppressive atmosphere made it so hard to breathe.
But the Third suddenly raised his head.
"Stop."
The ANBU froze in the doorway.
"Then go and call the Hokage Advisor, Danzo, back."
"The Kazekage has some nerve."
On that deeply wrinkled face, the usually gentle, tolerant eyes now held a lion's fury.
His graying beard billowed in the air, and undisguised killing intent filled the creases at the corners of his eyes.
What the ANBU saw at that moment.
Was a sight that would leave no one thinking this old man was aged and feeble anymore.
The sorrowful lion, seized by the mane, was about to unleash his loudest roar!
"Assassinate Hayashi..."
Kakashi's perpetually listless eyes slowly narrowed.
A tide of anger surged through that one eye.
He finally understood why Hayate had been caught.
The shock of hearing that news must have shaken him so deeply that he had exposed an opening there.
The colleague who had greeted him with a smile on patrol only yesterday lay unconscious in a hospital bed tonight.