The room was just as I remembered it. Big, unnecessarily so. That happens when they have space to waste and want you to feel small about it. Mostly empty, too. Probably by design. A used and reused psychological trick. Nothing like vast expanses of polished floor and high ceilings to make fresh genin feel appropriately insignificant when they received their hitai-ate. I couldn't recall this place being used for anything else, which made its current occupancy all the more concerning.
It wasn't full, exactly. But with the people currently in it, the quality, it might as well have been packed shoulder-to-shoulder.
A wide table, the only piece of furniture in the entire cavernous space, Minato sat behind it. He had that easy confidence that came with being legitimately terrifying while looking like a friendly gym teacher, his Hokage robes immaculate, his posture relaxed, concealing the means he could move faster than most people could blink. His hokage hat rested before him. The late morning light from the high windows caught his blonde hair, and I had the fleeting, intrusive thought that it was deeply unfair how the whole Namikaze-Uzumaki family had won the genetic lottery.
To his right sat Hiruzen Sarutobi, and fuck if seeing the former Hokage didn't make this feel about three times more serious. The retired Third Hokage's kindly old-man act was on full display, though I wasn't naive enough to believe it wasn't just an act. The old man could level a small country if sufficiently motivated, even in semi-retirement. His pipe sat on the table in front of him, hands folded, weathered face neutral, but those eyes were still sharp enough to dissect you and catalogue your weaknesses before you finished your second sentence. They don't call him professor for nothing.
To Minato's left…. I resisted the urge to sigh. This wasn't going to be fun.
Danzo Shimura sat there like a particularly malevolent ugly toad, one eye bandaged, the other half-closed, both hands resting on his cane in that deceptively frail old man pose that didn't fool anyone with a functioning brain.
The fact that Minato seemed to give him this much access, this much proximity to actual power, made my teeth itch. But what did I know? Maybe alternate timeline Minato had some kind of keep your enemies closer strategy going. Or maybe he was just politically obligated to include the walking war crime in important decisions.
Real comforting thought there, brain. Thanks.
Standing around the room's perimeter were the rest of Konoha's brain trust.
Standing off to the side, arms crossed, was Inoichi Yamanaka, expression locked in what I'd come to recognize as his default "mildly displeased with Eishin's existence" setting. The frown was deeper than usual, but not by much.
Which meant his wife hadn't told him she'd caught his precious daughter on her knees in the Yamanaka flower shop with my genetic material decorating her face. Small mercies.
Shikaku Nara stood on his opposite side, looking like he'd rather be literally anywhere else. Bored didn't even begin to cover it. The man radiated existential ennui, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips in clear violation of whatever indoor smoking policy the tower probably had. His scarred face and the way his eyes tracked movements without seeming to focus on anything specific marked him as someone who'd calculated seventeen different ways this meeting could go sideways and was already tired of all of them.
And because this wasn't sufficiently ominous, Ibiki Morino lurked off to the side, standing slightly apart from the others, like a scar-faced nightmare made flesh. The head of Torture and Interrogation personally attending what was supposed to be a mission report. He didn't say anything, didn't even look at me directly, but his presence was enough to make my instincts hum with discomfort. You didn't put Ibiki in a room unless you wanted someone to sweat.
I'd half-expected Guy-sensei to be here too, given that he'd been assigned to "monitor" little old me — the polite speak for "spy on the potentially treasonous jōnin"—but his absence made a certain kind of sense. Too much personal investment. Couldn't have him jumping to my defense and "contaminating" whatever impartial judgment they were trying to maintain.
The VIPs weren't the only ones in attendance. Facing the impromptu authority table were the other members of my last mission.
Naruto. Sakura. Sai.
The moment Kakashi and I stepped fully into the room, Naruto's head whipped around. His entire face lit up.
"Eishin! There you are!" Pure enthusiasm, zero regard for the tension thick enough to choke on. "Man, you're so late! We've been waiting forever!" Then his blue eyes landed on Kakashi with genuine surprise. "Kakashi-sensei? What're you doing here? Weren't you on a mission or something?"
I marveled, not for the first time, at Naruto's supernatural ability to completely ignore or possibly not even perceive social awkwardness. The kid stood in a room full of people who could end him with a hand gesture, and he was complaining about wait times like we were meeting up for ramen. More than that, he seemed utterly unbothered by... everything that had happened between us.
Everything…..
I pushed the tits away and crushed the thought with prejudice. Not now. Not here. Absolutely fucking not.
I felt a strange mix of guilt and irritation bubbling up in my chest.
Seriously, how was Naruto just... fine? How had he moved past giving me what was objectively a titjob, then moved past it with the same casualness most people applied to forgetting where they left their keys?
It made me feel insane, like I was the weird one for still thinking about it, for having it lodged in my brain like a splinter I couldn't dig out.
I wanted to pull him aside, prob him further, maybe shake him a little. Definitely punch him at least once. But my skin wasn't that thick, and more importantly, we had an audience of S-rank shinobi who probably didn't need that particular crisis added to today's agenda.
Sakura, my new student, at least, seemed to have functioning social awareness. Her pretty green eyes were wide, taking in all the important figures, and she'd gone slightly pale. She was very aware of how far out of her depth she was. Still, she reached out and tugged on Naruto's sleeve, voice strained with embarrassment.
"Naruto," she hissed, trying for discreet and landing somewhere around mortified whisper. "Naruto! Stop yelling! Can't you see who's in the room?!"
Naruto blinked at her, then looked around as if noticing the various high-profile shinobi for the first time. He scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Oh. Uh. Right."
Sai, for his part, stood there with his usual pleasant, empty smile. Not contributing, not reacting, just... existing. Like a well-dressed mannequin someone had propped up for ambiance.
"Good to see you too, Naruto," Kakashi ambled past me, hands in his pockets, voice carrying that lazy amusement that never quite left. "Just got back from a mission myself. Thought I'd see how my favorite students were doing." His visible eye crinkled at Naruto. "Though you might want to save the commentary for when people aren't actively trying to be official. Just a thought."
Naruto made a face but subsided, only slightly chastened.
I nodded at them as I walked past, taking my position in front, facing the assembled leadership. Time to be professional. Time to pretend my heart wasn't trying to hammer its way through my ribcage.
"Hokage-sama." I kept my voice level, posture correct without being stiff. "You summoned me."
I didn't know the protocol here. Should I acknowledge the others? Greet them individually? Hiruzen had been Hokage, but wasn't anymore. Did he still rate a formal address? Was I supposed to make eye contact with Danzo, or would that count as aggression in his paranoid world-view?
I decided to play it safe and focus on Minato. When in doubt, defer to the person who could actually order your execution.
Minato's smile was warm, genuine in that way that made you want to trust him even when your paranoia was screaming against it. "At ease, Sasayaki-san." He gestured slightly, a small motion that somehow encompassed the entire room and its tension. "I know this probably seems excessive for a mission report." His blue eyes held mine. "How are you doing? Recovery treating you well? I heard you were released from the hospital a few days ago."
"I'm well, Hokage-sama. Thank you for your concern." I kept it simple, polite, giving him nothing to work with beyond basic courtesy.
Hiruzen's gravelly voice cut in, warm with the brand of grandfatherly authority that came from decades of political survival and a lot of tobacco. "It's good to see you up and about, Eishin. Your health is an asset to the village, after all. We're fortunate to have you back."
I nodded, offering him the same polite acknowledgment. "Thank you, Sarutobi-sama."
Danzo, predictably, said nothing. Just sat there with his eyes closed, hands on his cane, radiating vague menace like it was a competitive sport.
Minato leaned back slightly, his smile softening but not quite disappearing. "Now, I know this setup might seem... unorthodox. But let me be clear—this is just a formal mission report. Like any other." He paused, and something in his expression suggested he knew exactly how unconvincing that sounded. "However, given that the mission deviated significantly from its original parameters, and given the scale of the events that transpired, we felt a more comprehensive debrief was warranted. But please, think of this as you would any standard report. We're simply being thorough."
Before I could respond, Naruto, predictably, decided to chime in. Because the universe had cursed him with an inability to let things sit.
"Ohhh, so that's what all this is about." He gestured vaguely at the assembled authority. "I mean, it seems like a lot of trouble for—I mean, fine, yeah, Eishin maybe killed someone pretty important, but they were bad guys! Enemy ninja attacking us! It's not like—" He paused, his face screwing up in thought. "I dunno, it's not like we were supposed to just let them kill us, right? That'd be stupid!"
Several heads turned to stare at him. Expressions ranged from bemused to exasperated to carefully blank. Most not knowing if they should correct him or just ignore him.
I looked at Naruto too, and something….. This bastard was he defending me? Loudly, tactlessly, and with all the political awareness of a concussed brick, but defending me. I…. wasn't used to that. Wasn't used to someone jumping to my side without calculation, without weighing what it cost them. Least of all expect it.
It made me uncomfortable. Made me want to tell him to shut up before he made himself look worse, before he tied himself to my potential disaster and went down with me.
Before I could open my mouth, Kakashi spoke up. He'd drifted to the side.
"It's alright, Naruto." He scratched the back of his head, somehow making the gesture look both casual and deliberate. "Mission reports are standard procedure for every mission. This one was just delayed because Eishin was recovering. And like the Lord Fourth said—things got complicated. Other parties got involved, the situation escalated beyond what anyone anticipated." He shrugged, visible eye crinkling. "The village just wants to make sure we have a complete picture. That's all. Nothing to worry about."
Naruto looked unconvinced, his mouth pulling into a stubborn line, but he muttered something like "If you say so, Kakashi-sensei" and subsided.
Minato nodded, as if that settled things. "With that established, let's begin. Kakashi, if you would?"
Kakashi straightened slightly. He walked along our line, and each of us produced a scroll from whatever storage seal or pocket we'd stashed it in.
Kakashi collected them without ceremony, crossing the room to set them on the table before Minato, Hiruzen, and Danzo.
Four scrolls. Four perspectives on the same clusterfuck.
I tried not to think too hard about what I'd written in mine. Tried not to wonder how many ways my own words could be used against me.
The examination was about to begin, and all I could do was stand here and wait for the verdict.
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