The mystery Kakashi had presented to her occupied her thoughts all weekend. She didn't say anything to her siblings, who had already been through enough that week, and instead focused on her novel project, which she was close to finishing. She crafted a black and navy-blue embossed leather cover, with the title engraved on the spine reading "Together Until Dawn." She hadn't known what to title it, so that honour had gone to Kurama, who had suggested it sarcastically.
Kakashi, meanwhile, seemed to be contemplating his return to Anbu. According to him, he had asked the Hokage for some time before giving her an answer. She found it hard to believe that he couldn't simply be ordered back, but apparently, the Anbu division was special. She could command him a thousand ways as a jonin, but she couldn't order him back into Anbu after his five years of service. Kakashi, like all Anbu, remained an Anbu for life, but after their initial service, they only returned to secret missions if they explicitly accepted.
"That means for the next five years, you'll have to follow Commander Ryu's orders whenever he assigns you a mission," he had explained. "After those five years, you'll only take on the missions the Hokage offers if you choose to accept them."
"And she can't just assign me the mission as a jonin?"
"No. As you know, these are missions that require one or more trained squads."
Seina, like everyone else, knew very little about Anbu. All this information was learned orally from superiors so that no records could be stolen. In fact, she had only been on two missions with the division so far, though she had been training with them for weeks. According to Kakashi, that was normal since she was in the most "relaxed" squad. It made some sense, she supposed—medics were meant to be the last ones to die, so they were protected at all costs.
"As long as we're in peacetime, the Anbu medical squad can take turns going on field missions."
That meant, of course, that her squad only had to go on missions once every X number of times. Honestly, that was better for her. Kakashi, however, wasn't part of the medical squad, so if he accepted, he'd be placed in a combat squad. The front lines, no less, meaning he'd constantly be in danger. Seina didn't try to convince him one way or the other, but she was worried. He had already served his five years in Anbu—plus an extra three, as far as she knew. He was incredibly lucky to still be alive.
She knew exactly why he was considering it. Because of her. If he said yes, he could help investigate all the chaos happening in Konoha and around her. If he said no, he could live with her without the constant fear of dying on an Anbu mission.
On Monday, of course, she had another mission. She was sent south once again with Sasuke and Naruto to track down some low-ranking exiled ninjas who were organizing somewhere in an unspecified location.
"Do you seriously have to leave now?" Kiba asked. "Just when we were starting to train?"
Seina yawned, thinking it would be an easy mission, but she was wrong. For starters, her spell couldn't give an exact direction, so they followed the map's coordinates instead. On top of that, there were five different possible locations spread out across a large southern region that they had to investigate. Still, at least they had a place to start.
"We can fly. From the air, we'll have a better view."
She nodded. Sasuke took charge of flying his dragon while she kept them invisible. They circled one of the marked locations, but without much success. It looked like the area had been abandoned days ago.
"Is this the place?"
"It seems like it."
"Let's land and take a look."
They checked for footprints, but just as they suspected, the trail was days old. The strange thing was the kunai marks on a tree, indicating a fight had taken place. Seina looked at the surrounding trees.
"Doesn't this seem odd to you?"
"What?" Sasuke asked, moving closer.
"Look. There are kunai marks everywhere."
"Do you think they fought among themselves?"
"Or someone attacked them before we got here," she said, frowning. "What did you two find?"
"Nothing interesting. It's like someone wanted to erase them from existence."
"Huh."
"Let's check the perimeter."
As they walked in circles around the area, they found more signs of battle. She also noticed a charred tree trunk next to some bushes, as if someone had used a fire jutsu. Unfortunately, the forest floor was too disturbed to find many clues or footprints.
"Nothing. There's nothing," Naruto repeated.
"Let's head to the next location on foot," she ordered. "Maybe we'll spot something along the way."
It took them half an hour at a quick pace to reach the next set of coordinates. Seina stayed alert to her surroundings, but there were no signs of combat. The next location on the map was nearly identical. It looked as if no one had ever used the clearing as a temporary base. The same was true for the third location.
"This is weird," Sasuke agreed.
"Could our intel be wrong? Seina's jutsu doesn't point in this direction—it points northwest."
"Sasuke," she called suddenly. "Could you summon Aoba to see if he can pick up any clues?"
"Of course. Kuchiyose no jutsu."
Aoba was a young, shy, and friendly snake, about a meter tall and several meters long. Her triangular head, almost retracted posture, vertical pupils, small subocular scales, and deep blue-black colour told Seina she was an Acanthophis antarcticus. Extremely venomous. This was only the second time she had seen her—the first time, they had barely exchanged greetings before parting ways.
"Hello, Sasuke-sama, Seina-sama, Naruto-sama."
"Aoba. Can you try to tell us how many people have passed through here in the last few days?"
"I will try."
They let him work while they observed the other side of the clearing. It was strange to use a snake like a tracking dog, but Seina knew snakes had a good sense of smell, and Aoba was a ninja snake. As expected, he was able to give them an approximate number.
"Around 10 to 15 people passed through here. The scents are very faint, but there are traces in the soil since it hasn't rained in a while and this place isn't frequently visited."
"Thank you, Aoba."
"You may return," Sasuke said, nodding in gratitude.
Aoba disappeared in a puff of smoke.
"10 to 15 people?" Naruto asked.
Sasuke and Naruto started speculating aloud while Seina continued examining the area. There was nothing. How was it possible for low-ranking ninjas to erase every trace of their presence, even their footprints? Sasuke and Naruto knew how because Kakashi had trained all of them to follow jonin protocol and avoid being tracked or hunted during a mission. Then, as if someone had snapped their fingers in her mind, she realized what was happening.
"There are no footprints."
"Yeah, we already know that," Naruto sighed.
"No. There are no footprints on purpose," she reiterated. "Someone was here before us and deliberately erased their tracks. Why?"
"That's a good thing, isn't it? Someone already did our job for us."
"You're such a dobe. Now we have even more work figuring out who did it and why."
"It's clear that it was high-ranking ninjas. Chunin don't usually follow protocol this meticulously and erase every nearly imperceptible trace left during missions."
"So how the hell are we supposed to find anything if someone already wiped out all the evidence we could've used to track them?"
"Naruto has a point," Sasuke muttered, as if admitting it physically hurt him.
"Let's finish checking the remaining locations, but I have a feeling we won't find anything."
She was right. That's how they ended up stopping to eat while thinking about what to do next. The ninjas they were supposed to eliminate weren't there, and someone had erased the traces of those ninjas. It was one of two things: either there was someone of high rank among them who knew how to hide their tracks, or someone else had gotten there first. She explained her thoughts to her brothers.
"It's clear that someone has done our dirty work," Sasuke said, shaking his head. "The few kunai marks indicate that there was some kind of fight."
"They could be training marks."
"I think that's exactly what they want us to think. Otherwise, they would have erased those marks along with the footprints."
"And why leave the kunai marks?"
"Maybe they were already there before?"
"There's something strange here," she thought aloud. "I think we'd better review the information Hokage gave us."
"Bring it here."
Sasuke took the scroll from her hands. He unrolled it, positioning himself between Naruto and her, and they reread the information. No matter how much she looked, she couldn't find anything odd. They sighed almost in unison. Sasuke rolled up the scroll and handed it back. Then, Seina noticed something strange. She took it, examining the Hokage's seal on the outside, and realized there was a seal on top of another seal.
"Look at this," she pointed to a protruding edge with her finger. "There's a seal on top of a seal."
"A double seal?"
"One seems more recent than the other," Sasuke said, using his Sharingan to see the tiny differences. "One is darker. Why would she seal the scroll twice?"
"And on different days?"
"Did she give us a mission by mistake?" Naruto said in horror at the thought of wasting time. "We have to go back!"
"Wait a moment, Naruto… Do you really think she didn't realize she put a seal right on top of another seal?" she asked, thinking out loud. "She must have done it on purpose. Something's going on here."
"Do you think the mission is still valid?" Sasuke asked.
"No, but I don't think it was a mistake," she replied, piecing together the information she had so far. "I think she gave this mission to someone else before us. That would explain why it seems like someone 'did our job for us' and erased their tracks. It's because that's exactly what happened."
"And why would she give us a mission that's already been completed?" Sasuke asked. Naruto nodded. Both looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
"Maybe… to keep us away from Konoha."
"What? You think she sent us far from Konoha with a completed mission just to waste our time away from the village?" Naruto asked incredulously. "Why would she do that?"
"If that's the case, why wouldn't she just tell us?"
"I think something strange is happening in Konoha," she admitted.
She explained how Kakashi had been offered to return to Anbu, how they were considering investigating Akatsuki, the mysterious people following the Jinchuriki, and the members of Ne who were tailing important people around the village…
"And there's something else. Kakashi told me that Commander Ryu didn't find Hashirama's body and… Sasuke…"
"What is it?" he said, his expression turning severe.
"The bodies of the Uchiha buried after the massacre… don't have their eyes."
Silence filled the air as Sasuke processed what she had just told him. Naruto blinked in shock at the news, while Sasuke's Sharingan flared, his eyes burning with fury. They had to help him calm down so he could think clearly.
"And you think that's why she sent us away?"
"I don't know what else is happening, but if all this is true, like Kakashi says—"
"There must be even more that we don't know."
"Exactly. Kakashi told me that Tsunade-sama doesn't want to tell me certain things to keep me out of danger. You know, plausible deniability, but that just means there's more going on that I don't know about."
"Then, whatever is happening, it concerns all three of us, right?"
"It seems so."
"Even so, I feel like there should be something in the scroll that gives us an answer," she sighed. "Otherwise, how do we know when to go back home?"
They checked the scroll again from top to bottom. She conjured a magnifying glass to examine it. It was Naruto who noticed something strange.
"Look. It looks like there's something under the seal."
She conjured a scalpel and carefully removed the second wax seal, peeling it away from the first. On the back of the seal, the kanji for "summoning" was written. She immediately knew what to do.
"Very clever," she smiled. "She wants me to summon Katsuyu to send me a private message. Kuchiyose no Jutsu."
She gave a small amount of chakra so as not to draw attention from afar. The small slug—if a one-meter slug could be called small—greeted her immediately.
"Seina-sama, I've been waiting for you."
"It took us a while to figure it out, but we got there. What's going on?"
"Tsunade-sama wants you to stay outside the village in a safe place for the next five days."
"WHAT!? Why?" Naruto exclaimed, just as she expected.
"She didn't tell me anything else, I'm sorry. With your permission."
The slug disappeared, leaving them alone. They exchanged incredulous, curious, and worried looks. Seina knew exactly what she had to do and where to go.
"Let's get out of here."
"Where to?"
She raised her arms. Naruto and Sasuke grabbed her. Seina molded her chakra and transported them to Uzushiogakure.
"Uzu?"
"Actually, it's a good idea. No one knows we're here, and Seina has already protected this place."
They set up the magical tent in the first spot they found. Even so, no one felt like going inside. They stayed at the entrance, sitting on some logs.
"What do you guys think is happening?" Naruto asked aloud, but neither Sasuke nor Seina could answer. They had no idea.
The five days felt like an eternity. Luckily, she had brought Kakashi's novel with her, so she finished it by the second day while Naruto and Sasuke continued stacking debris from Uzu for her to make disappear. By the third day, when she no longer had an excuse to stay locked in her room, she subjected herself to Naruto's relentless questions and Sasuke's hypotheses.
"Do you think Danzo has realized that the old lady knows what he did?"
"I have no idea," she repeated for the umpteenth time.
"Do you think Kakashi knew about this mission?"
"Naruto… how many times do I have to tell you that I have no idea?" she sighed. Sasuke let out a short laugh.
When Naruto finally got tired of asking, accepting that she couldn't answer his questions, he helped her rebuild more parts of Uzu. It was heavy work, and they had only managed to clear about two neighbourhoods out of all those in the capital of the Land of Whirlpools. While there, she remembered the secret chamber again, but it was still as protected as before, so she ignored it.
"At least there's no more debris in the rivers or the sea," Sasuke complained that afternoon, "though I still wouldn't swim with currents like these."
"I'm going to shower. I'm covered in dust."
The day passed without much else happening. On the fourth day, they spent the entire time training, bored of construction work. Seina silently wondered what was happening in Konoha. She knew it had to be something important, but at the same time, nothing life-threatening. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to return to the village. No, it was clear that Tsunade-sama was trying to defuse a temporary situation. But what? That was the big question. She wondered what Kakashi thought about the Hokage sending them away on a false mission to… protect them? Did he even know, or had they kept him in the dark too?
By the time the fifth day arrived—Kakashi's birthday, September 15—they were ready to return. They hadn't been given a specific time, so they took it to mean they could return in the morning, as soon as possible.
"I think we're going to have to do a little spying before officially walking through those gates," she said, looking at the village entrance through conjured binoculars from her magical hideout in a tree branch.
"You mean sneaking in without registering?"
"I'm in!" Naruto jumped in without even knowing why she suggested it.
"We don't know what's happening, and we haven't heard anything new from the Hokage. I want to understand the situation before putting the whole team at risk."
"…You're right."
"Kuchiyose no Jutsu."
She sent several of her summoned creatures throughout Konoha—one to her house, one to find Karin, one to fly over the village, another near the jonin department, and another close to the Hokage's tower. Sasuke and Naruto, with their eyes closed and their bond open, saw everything her creatures were witnessing. The house was empty, and nothing unusual was happening in the village, so they focused on the jonin department. The only notable detail was that Shikaku wasn't in his office. Everything was neatly arranged, with closed filing cabinets, yet the tea set and personal touches remained, indicating he was still working there—just not at the moment.
She had no choice but to spy on her own teacher.
"Isn't that Jiraiya?" Sasuke asked, being the least familiar with him. "And Kakashi-sensei."
"And Commander Ryu and Shikaku," she added. "Clearly, something is going on. I'm going to get closer. Be quiet."
"…He's getting bolder."
"He couldn't get his hands on Seina, but he knows her weaknesses," Shikaku said. His gaze landed on Kakashi as he spoke. "If he can harm Sasuke, Naruto, and you, he thinks he'll be able to manipulate her."
"It's clear Danzo doesn't know that little brat," Jiraiya chuckled. "She'd find a way to kill a Hokage advisor, and then we'd have a real problem."
"I don't think so. If Seina eliminated him, there wouldn't be any evidence pointing to her."
"We all know how proud you are of them, Kakashi, but even if there were no evidence, it would be easy to figure out who did it by process of elimination."
"Besides, we're not going to ask a thirteen-year-old girl to do our dirty work and carry that weight," Shikaku concluded. "You reluctantly put her in Anbu despite my warnings to tell her the truth, and now look. We haven't made any progress, and on top of that, she's turned against you."
"Don't remind me," the Hokage sighed. Then, she looked at Commander Ryu in her female form. "It's ridiculous. No one in the world is capable of truly changing someone's sex, and yet she did it just to mess with us."
"Jokes aside, what's going to happen with Danzo?" Kakashi asked, getting straight to the point.
"As I said before, I need proof. I need to know how many operatives he has with my grandfather's cells, with Uchiha eyes… We're in the dark. Plus, we know that the base we've been monitoring 24/7 is just one of many. I've accepted it… We can't deal with this with just seven people," the Hokage admitted. "And if we act while Seina and the others are still in the village, we all know what will happen."
"We'd be putting them in danger."
"He only needs a distraction to kidnap them. Commander Ryu overheard what he said—that Seina and Naruto would make great assets to the village if he could train them as weapons," she massaged her temples, ignoring the murderous intent radiating from Kakashi and Jiraiya, "and now this."
She tossed a coded note onto the coffee table, which Seina couldn't decipher at first glance.
"If Orochimaru agrees to this deal, it'll be easier for him to take Sasuke with Danzo's help from inside the village."
"It's actually a solid strategy," Shikaku said with irritation. "If Orochimaru takes Sasuke, Danzo could act like the good guy, getting close to Seina and Naruto, offering them 'help' to get Sasuke back in exchange for working for him."
"You think he'd try to manipulate them emotionally?"
"Kidnapping Seina failed. I doubt he'll try again anytime soon. Now, his only option is a more peaceful approach to indoctrinate them into Root."
"But Seina wouldn't fall for that trap, especially once we tell them what's going on."
"Seina wouldn't, but Naruto might… and she wouldn't let him be alone," the jonin commander shrugged. "The problem with all this is that Danzo doesn't realize that Seina isn't easy to manipulate, but when he figures out that the peaceful approach doesn't work…"
"Doesn't it seem like they're taking too long to return?" Jiraiya asked aloud.
"Clearly, you don't know my team either," Kakashi chuckled.
He walked over to the window and discreetly looked through it. Seina and the others watched as he searched for one of her creatures. Amused, she deactivated the concealment spell from a distance, watching as the jonin's grey eye immediately locked onto her bee perched on the window frame with a satisfied gleam.
"They're already here."