The door to the Hokage's Office was tightly shut, keeping the footsteps in the corridor outside. For a while, only the occasional sound of wind through the window remained in the room.
Sasuke Uchiha was in the office, giving Jiraiya and Naruto Uzumaki a detailed account of what had happened in the Alternate Space.
Jiraiya sat behind the desk. The face of "Shihōin Naraku" he maintained with the Transformation Technique betrayed little expression.
"You're saying... you searched in the wrong direction?"
Standing before the desk, Sasuke nodded slightly.
"Yes. At first, we searched the areas we'd identified earlier, but the Alternate Space was far larger than we'd expected."
"Valleys, basins, and rock strata overlapped. A sense of direction was practically meaningless. We wandered around in there for a long time without finding anything."
Jiraiya leaned forward slightly.
"And then?"
"Someone alerted us."
Hmm?
Confusion appeared on both Jiraiya's and Naruto's faces.
"A powerful heartbeat, or perhaps drumming, kept coming from the Hokage's location, making the entire Alternate Space shake."
"That signal was what made us change direction and find the Hokage much sooner."
"Without it, the Rescue Team might have needed weeks or even months to search the entire Alternate Space."
Naruto, who had been standing to the side, couldn't help interrupting. "Was Big Brother Naraku making that noise to alert you?"
Sasuke shook his head. "I don't know!"
"Huh?"
"I suspect it was the Hokage, but I can't be certain."
"Suspect?" Jiraiya sounded puzzled.
Sasuke explained, "When that sound appeared, there were no chakra fluctuations nearby, no physical form, and no presence we could sense."
"But other than him, I can't think of anyone who would have been there and deliberately alerted us that we were heading the wrong way."
"Our enemies from the Ōtsutsuki Clan wouldn't be kind