Without Naruto's kinetic energy bouncing off the walls, without the genin nervously shifting and radiating barely-contained anxiety, the room settled into a calmer atmosphere. Someone might mistake it for comfortable, even.
But it wasn't comfort. It was the calm of acceptance. The quiet that settles over a battlefield when both sides understand the odds and have made their peace.
Minato leaned back in his chair, that apologetic smile returning to soften his features. "I must admit, Sasayaki-san, when I reassigned you from the Academy back to field operations, I didn't anticipate things escalating quite so dramatically." His tone carried genuine regret, or at least it felt so. "The mission parameters were straightforward. What you encountered was anything but."
I relaxed my posture slightly, keeping my response measured but less rigidly formal. "In my experience, Hokage-sama, the most dangerous element in field work is unpredictability. By definition, you can't prepare for what you can't foresee." I shrugged one shoulder. "It can't be helped."
A low chuckle rumbled from Hiruzen's direction. The former Hokage had, at some point, lit his pipe. Probably with some minor katon jutsu he'd developed specifically for that purpose, because why waste a match when you could casually demonstrate perfect chakra control instead? Smoke curled lazily upward as he nodded.
"Unpredictability is indeed the crucible in which shinobi are tested most severely," he said, voice carrying that gravelly wisdom that came from surviving multiple wars. "It's precisely why we structure teams the way we do—experienced jounin leadership to guide younger shinobi through the chaos." His eyes, sharp despite their age, focused on me with something approaching approval. "Minato chose well, placing you in command, Eishin-kun. Your tactical acumen and leadership capabilities proved themselves admirably. The mission succeeded, your team survived. Those are the metrics that matter."
Mmh…. I was starting to get a tiny bit uncomfortable. Genuine compliments from shinobi were rare creatures, usually carrying hidden barbs or ulterior motives. These felt real, which somehow made them worse. Either I couldn't see the poison laced inside them, or I was fundamentally unprepared to handle honest praise.
Probably both.
Minato responded with a slightly sheepish smile. "To be fair, Lord Third, I primarily recalled Eishin to active field duty because we're critically short on available jounin commanders." He turned to me, and his smile shifted into something more genuinely impressed. "That said, you've indeed demonstrated remarkable leadership abilities. It's difficult to believe this was only your second mission serving in that capacity."
Oh. Oh, I see…. you absolute fuckers.
The uncomfortable feeling crystallized into something colder. My expression flattened into a deadpan as I started connecting dots I really didn't want to connect.
"It makes me wonder," Hiruzen hummed thoughtfully, smoke trailing from his pipe as he mused aloud. "Had your previous team benefited from your instruction the way this one clearly did? Your first team must have learned a great deal under your command."
The smile froze on Minato's face, literally stopped mid-expression like someone had hit pause, and I started seriously doubting whether this conversation was the coordinated attack I'd assumed it was. Maybe they genuinely hadn't planned to pick at old wounds.
Maybe they were just naturally gifted at finding them.
Hiruzen, sensing the sudden shift in atmosphere, raised an eyebrow. "What happened?"
Inoichi's voice cut through the tension. "We can't be certain if they had been blessed—" He loaded the word with enough sarcasm to constitute a weapon. "—with Jounin Sasayaki's instruction. They were all dead before we could ask."
His glare, somehow, was infinitely more unbearable than his earlier smirks. There was real anger there, real judgment.
Hiruzen sighed, the sound heavy with the weight of too many funerals. "Such losses are always tragic. But their sacrifice contributed to the village's strength, to the protection of our people." The platitudes rolled off his tongue with practiced ease. "We honor their memory by continuing their work."
I tried not to scoff. Tried not to let any sign of how much that particular philosophical stance grated against my nerves show on my face.
Sacrifice. Honor. The Will of Fire.
Pretty words for ugly deaths. They'd given their lives protecting a careless, arrogant noble. A client whose deliberate withholding of critical intelligence had led them directly into the ambush that killed them.
But….. as much as I wanted to lay the blame entirely at his feet, I couldn't.
I'd seen the signs. Multiple signs. The inconsistencies in his story, the way he'd avoided certain questions, the nervous energy that went beyond ordinary civilian fear.
And I'd ignored them. Dismissed them as paranoia, as overthinking, as unnecessary complications.
Only I survived that mission. Needless to say, the client didn't either; I'd made certain of that afterward, in a way that looked enough like collateral damage to avoid official questions.
But my team was still dead.
I shoved the memories down, locked them away in that mental box where I kept all the unpleasant things I didn't want to examine or remember. I hadn't known them well anyway; barely three weeks of working together before it all went to shit. I was already used to how brutally short a shinobi's life could be.
Still.
That voice in the back of my head—the one that sounded uncomfortably like my own—whispered that they'd been my responsibility. That their deaths were my failure.
My fist clenched hard.
Was that the plan? Part of me wondered with detached cynicism. Psychological destabilization before the real questions start? Because if so, congratulations. Mission fucking accomplished.
Minato's smile had taken on a strained quality, and when he spoke, his tone was deliberately lighter, clearly attempting to redirect. "Perhaps we should return to the matter at hand—clarifying the specifics of the recent mission." The subject change was seamless, professional, the mark of someone who'd spent years navigating difficult conversations. "I'm sure everyone has questions about the tactical decisions made in the field."
Shikaku Nara straightened slightly, rolling his shoulders. "If no one objects, I'd like to go first." His bored expression hadn't changed, but something in his posture suggested actual engagement. "I have several questions. But before we get to the specifics..." He paused, those sharp eyes fixing on me with uncomfortable precision. "I'm a bit curious, you see. Was the failure of your first mission as team leader the reason you stepped back from field operations?"
I wondered, maybe if he'd used different phrasing—"loss," "tragedy," "unfortunate outcome"—it wouldn't have landed so hard. But he'd chosen failure, and—
My chakra flexed outward in a sudden, violent flare.
The table rattled, lifting fractionally off the floor. Hairline cracks spider-webbed across the stone beneath my feet, spreading outward in a pattern that mirrored the sudden spike in pressure filling the room. The air seemed to thicken, pressing down with the weight of barely-controlled killing intent.
Most of them stayed in place. Minato's expression shifted to concern, Hiruzen's eyes narrowed, and Danzo's single visible eye opened. But Inoichi's hands came up, fingers already forming the beginning of a seal. Ibiki took a half-step forward, voice cutting through the pressure. "Stand down, Sasayaki. Now."
Shikaku, bearing the full brunt of his careless words, was trying very hard to maintain his composure. But his shoulders were hunching, slowly pressing down under the weight. A fine tremor ran through his frame. I wanted him on his knees.
Then a hand landed on my shoulder, firm and grounding.
"That's enough, Sasayaki-san."
Minato's voice. Calm. Authoritative. Not quite an order, but close enough. He appeared at my side and I, unsurprisingly, didn't even see him move.
I took a slow breath and forced my chakra back under control, pulling it in with the precision that came from years of dedicated control exercises. Like flipping a switch; clean cut, immediate cessation. The pressure vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, leaving only the evidence of cracked stone and rattled nerves.
I lowered my head, jaw tight. "My apologies, Hokage-sama. I lost control." The words came out rougher than I intended. "I'm willing to accept any punishment you deem appropriate."
I felt like absolute shit. Angry, yes—still angry—but more than that, I was embarrassed. Ashamed. It was pathetic. I'd lost control like some fresh genin who couldn't manage their emotions, let my chakra lash out in a room full of people who could make a life in the village thorny.
I blamed Itachi. That handsome bastard…. Ever since our encounter, I'd been on edge, my nerves frayed and my temper shorter than usual.
Not entirely fair, but it felt good to have someone to blame other than myself.
Minato's hand patted my shoulder one before he moved back toward his seat, his expression sympathetic but firm. "You've only just been released from the hospital, Sasyaki-san. Your injuries were severe, and recovery takes time—physically and mentally." His tone gentled further. "If you're not feeling well enough for this discussion, we can reconvene at a later date."
As if, I thought with bitter sarcasm, a single jounin could actually inconvenience this many high-ranking officials. Make them reschedule, rearrange their entire day, because poor little Eishin can't handle his feelings.
Yeah. That was happening.
I bit back the sarcastic thoughts and waved off Minato's concern with a polite, "No, I'm fine, Hokage-sama. I'm ready to continue."
Because honestly, it was really hard to feel "fine" when Danzo was sporting what might generously be called a smile. Why is the fucker smiling?
I'd really fucked up here. What I'd done could reasonably be interpreted as treason—an uncontrolled chakra flare in a room containing the Hokage and his highest-ranking advisors. The fact that Minato was willing to brush it off, to offer me an out, was either remarkable mercy or political calculation I didn't fully understand yet.
That said, I also noted with some bitterness that Minato hadn't said a damn thing to Shikaku for asking a question that was not only irrelevant to the mission report but also a carefully framed psychological attack.
I turned my gaze back to Shikaku, feeling the faintest tug of guilt. Part of me—the dashing, gentlemanly part—felt the urge to apologize for losing my temper. But the rest? Yeah, the rest of me overruled that nonsense. I leveled him with a steady look, waiting for him to say something.
Shikaku scratched the back of his neck, making a sound somewhere between exasperation and grudging respect. "Sheesh. You've got a temper that rivals my wife's, and for the record, that is not a compliment." He finally looked up properly, a lazy, lopsided smirk touching his lips. "Point taken, though. The past is the past. Let's pretend I never asked—dealing with this much murderous intent before lunch is way too troublesome."
I shrugged, letting my posture relax into something more casual. "I'm not the type to hold a grudge, Nara-san." I paused, let a beat of silence stretch. "Though it does hurt my heart to hear you speak so ill of such a lovely woman as Yoshino-san."
I winked at him. Not holding grudges, my ass. There's no way I'm not firing back after that shit.
"Personally," I continued, "I've always found that kind of…. intensity in a woman incredibly attractive. Keeps the blood pumping, you know? And honestly, a saint like Yoshino-san deserves a medal for putting up with your…. lethargic peculiarities." I let my smile sharpen just slightly. "If she's got a temper, I'd call it passion. And I'm a very big fan of passion."
The implication hung in the air.
Even as the words left my mouth, I realized how far that jab had gone. The faux pas embedded in it. In shinobi culture—hell, in any culture with basic social awareness—implying interest in another man's wife, especially in a room full of witnesses and authority figures, was the kind of thing that could start blood feuds. Or at minimum, earn you a very justified ass-kicking.
But I didn't back down. Didn't soften it with clarification or apology. Just kept that smirk firmly in place as the room fell into another loaded silence. Because fuck them all.
Then Hiruzen laughed, deep, genuine amusement that broke the tension once more. He was good at that.
"It seems the legendary strategic patience of the Nara clan has finally met its match," the old man said, eyes twinkling with mirth, "not in strategy, but in sheer, unadulterated audacity." He looked at me, shaking his head with something between disapproval and admiration. "Oh, dear boy. Your tongue is as sharp as any blade, and just as likely to get you into serious trouble." Another chuckle. "Even Jiraiya wouldn't dare make overtures toward Yoshino-kun. She is well-known for her… formidable presence. You're either very brave or very foolish."
Shikaku, for his part, seemed more bothered by the prospect of his wife hearing about this exchange than by the jab itself, which only annoyed the fuck out of me further, because where was the goddamn reaction?
He sighed dramatically, pulling out a cigarette. "It's not just Jiraiya-sama who wouldn't dare, Lord Third. It's anyone with a shred of survival instinct." He lit the cigarette. "Believe me, if I thought he could actually handle Yoshino's temper, I'd trade him to her for a month of peace and a free weekend."
I scoffed, letting the sound carry my disdain. "I'd take that deal any day, Nara-san," I said, because I didn't learn my lesson. I blamed Itachi for that as well. "Someone should show her what it's like to be properly appreciated."
Again, no visible reaction beyond mild amusement. The Nara bastard wasn't giving me the satisfaction of getting under his skin.
Shikaku exhaled smoke, cracked his shoulder with a small popping sound, and fixed me with that perpetually bored expression. "So troublesome." Another drag. "Just so we're clear—when my wife inevitably hears about this conversation, and she will, I'll be standing way back. I don't interfere with natural disasters." He rolled his shoulders again, settling into a more focused posture. "Now, if you've quite finished painting a target on your own back, can we actually get through these questions? I'd like to make it home before dinner."
Minato cleared his throat, clearly eager to move past this particular detour. "Yes. Let's proceed, shall we?" His smile was strained around the edges, the expression of someone who'd just watched two people verbally circle each other and wasn't entirely sure how to feel about it.
Unlike Hiruzen, who was still looking far too entertained.
I nodded, as did Shikaku.
The Nara took another drag from his cigarette, regarding me through the smoke with those sharp, calculating eyes that saw far too much despite the lazy affect.
"There's something that's been bothering me throughout your account, Eishin." He tapped ash from the cigarette absently. "During the timeframe when Naruto and Sai stumbled upon Zabuza Momochi's hideout—when they made contact and engaged in that initial confrontation—you weren't present. Now, given your skill level and expertise as a formidable jounin, you wouldn't need to maintain constant visual surveillance on your targets, despite what you implied. Shadow clones, tracking seals, simple periodic check-ins—all viable options." His eyes narrowed slightly, voice taking on a sharper edge. "So where were you during that window? And more importantly, what were you doing?"
I blinked.
This was Shikaku Nara, after all. Of course, he'd poke at the one part of my story I hadn't fully explained. I should have gone after the Nara harder while I had the chance.
Fuck. So troublesome indeed.
The room waited, all eyes on me, and I could feel the weight of expectation pressing down like a physical thing.
Time to talk fast, Eishin. And for the love of everything, don't mention Tsunami's tits.
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