Hatake Kakashi. With his lazy, drooping eyes and his perceived lack of drive, he seemed like a sloth of a man at first glance. But not a single shinobi in the Five Great Nations was deceived by this appearance. As the former Hokage, Hatake Kakashi was simply too well known.
For one thing, he had been the one to dispatch the Kizahashi gas survey team, so his popularity rivalled that of the Seventh Hokage in the Land of Kizahashi. With so much fame, how he could go unnoticed by a single person in a crowd was proof of how adept Kakashi was at erasing his aura.
Yanaru remembered reading a story in the newspaper about how Kakashi had been living a quiet life after retiring as the Sixth Hokage, spending his time onsen hopping. Yanaru never dreamed that the shinobi was still active in the field and working as a guard for the Seventh Hokage in addition to that.
B kicked slowly at the dirt with his straw sandals.
Hatake Kakashi had deliberately missed hitting A with the first kunai in order to allow Yanaru’s doppelganger to see his face. He had most likely meant to intimidate Yanaru. His initial attack had been a warning for third-rate assassins to quietly abort the mission and walk away since they didn’t stand a chance against the Hatake Kakashi.
What an annoying man, using his celebrity like that. Had he cut A’s head off just for show, to demonstrate that he was more powerful than Yanaru and to scare them away?
B pulled his hands into his sleeves and wiped the sweat away.
Calm down. Don’t let your nerves show on your face. He’ll find you if you’re acting unusual.
B inhaled and held the breath for a moment before parting his lips to let it out. But something blocked his mouth.
“—!!”
An arm quickly followed, wrapping around his neck, and he was yanked up, a whistling breath escaping his panicked lips.
B grabbed the wrist of whoever was covering his mouth.
Slender. A woman’s wrist.
Trying to get away somehow, B kicked his left leg back, but his kick was ill-judged. The tips of his toes kicked up and hit nothing but empty air. And then, as if his assailant was taking advantage of this opening, she kicked the leg he was standing on out from under him. He flailed forward until she caught him with a leg, and B was pinned in place, unable to move.
Deprived of oxygen, his brain slowly shut down.
In his hazy mind, he could vaguely feel something soft touching his back. So it was a woman.
A female ninja guarding the Seventh Hokage alongside Hatake Kakashi. A woman with enough skill to finish him off with no one in the crowd any the wiser, an immense strength that brooked no resistance.
Haruno Sakura?
He was sure of it, but B never found out if his guess was correct. Without so much as a glimpse of the face of the person strangling him, B turned into smoke and disappeared.
What was going on? Wasn’t the guard detail supposed to be light?
C panicked. Hatake Kakashi and Haruno Sakura—two extremely capable, extremely famous shinobi—were both guarding the Seventh Hokage. They could go ten against one in a direct fight with these two, and they still wouldn’t stand a chance.
The Seventh Hokage was slowly walking toward the airship.
Calm down, C told himself. I’m a doppelganger. They can attack, but I’ll only disappear; I won’t die. It’s already been five seconds since B vanished. The fact that I’m still okay means they haven’t realized I’m an assassin yet.
C touched the photon gun hidden inside his jacket.
It’s okay. I can get it done.
He let out a deep breath and waited for the Hokage to pass in front of him. Just a little longer. A few more steps.
Then he noticed a man with black hair standing on the other side of the path created by the red carpet. Being a head taller than anyone around him, he was quite conspicuous. While everyone else was focused on the Hokage, he alone was sweeping his gaze out across the citizens instead of looking at the hero from the Land of Fire. His chiseled features were only too well known among the shinobi.
Uchiha Sasuke. Even that monster was part of the guard?
A frontal attack was out of the question, C decided and pulled a nearby woman to him.
“Don’t move! I’ll kill her!” he shouted, pressing the barrel of the gun to the woman’s forehead. People around them shrieked and scattered. Sasuke stepped out to protect the Hokage, who had now stopped walking.
Perfect. The photon gun had enough firepower to pierce seven grown men standing in a line. He would get rid of both of them in one go!
The man raised his arm to turn the barrel toward Sasuke’s chest. At least, that’s what he intended to do. But somehow, it wasn’t his arm that moved but his finger. His lightly bent middle finger moved on its own and pulled the trigger.
The laser shot out of the barrel and through the woman’s temple.
Bang!
Flying out from inside her shattered head were … crows. Too many to count.
“Huh?”
Ebony feathers danced up around him.
He was suddenly overcome by a dizzying torpor, and unable to stay on his feet, C dropped to his knees.
Genjutsu. He knew it, but he still couldn’t fight his eyelids slipping downward.
Poof!
C disappeared.
They got all my doppelgangers.
Yanaru bit his lip.
Hatake Kakashi. Haruno Sakura. And Uchiha Sasuke. The security for the Seventh Hokage was over the top. Given the Hokage’s own strength, it was excessive—no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Yanaru seriously doubted that today’s inspection warranted this kind of firepower.
Or maybe the advance intel he’d been given was actually true?
He’d only half listened to the story about the Seventh Hokage being seriously ill, so weak that he was no stronger than the average person in a fight. Yanaru hadn’t believed his luck could possibly be that good. Now, however, seeing the bodyguards the Hokage was traveling with, it took on the flavor of truth. This crew wouldn’t come together unless the situation was that serious.
In which case, this was maybe a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?
“Lord Hokage.” Yanaru stood in the middle of the carpet and looked back at the Hokage walking behind him.
“Hm?” Uzumaki Naruto also stopped and turned his carefree blue eyes toward Yanaru. He looked without suspicion at Yanaru, who had accompanied and guarded him constantly these past three days.
Yanaru swiftly approached the Hokage and moved diagonally to create a blind spot. He turned the kunai he had hidden in his sleeve toward the Hokage’s chest.
The tip hovered above his heart, coated in a deadly poison, and Yanaru was about to push it in when his body abruptly stiffened.
He couldn’t move. Not his hands or his feet. He couldn’t even blink.
“What a hassle.” Naruto sighed in annoyance. “Honestly, making us work like that. You’re the last of the assassins, yeah?”
Naruto’s palm strike drove into his solar plexus, and Yanaru gasped.
His mind went blank as he toppled forward into Naruto’s arms.
“Moegi, Udon. This is the real one. Take him away.”
The two young guards on standby behind Naruto quietly stepped forward and held Yanaru up by each arm.
He wanted to tell them to let go, but his throat was frozen and he couldn’t speak. He tried to run, but his body would not obey him.
The only part of him that was still functioning properly was his ears. He could hear people cheering. No one in the crowd seemed to have noticed there was a battle unfolding before their very eyes.
Yanaru was dragged away and handed over to the Kizahashi guards.
The Seventh Hokage walked forward, head held high, responding to the applause of the people with his gaze, and stepped up the ramp and into the airship. At the top of the ramp, he looked back at the crowd, and the cheering grew noticeably louder. He locked eyes with a boy jumping up and waving his hand, and waved in return.
Once the airship lifted off, the Hokage moved away from his staff and headed toward the passenger cabin that had been prepared for him. Before he pulled the door open, he felt around for auras in the area, and after confirming he was alone, he slipped into the room.
Lying on the floor in the middle of the cabin was Uzumaki Naruto.
“Nnnn! Mmph hngh ngh! Mgg nph hnnngh!”
His hands and feet were bound, and his mouth was gagged.
“Don’t glare at me. And I totally have no idea what you’re saying.”
The Hokage removed the gag, wet with saliva, and Naruto howled, “Shikamaru! Untie me this second!”
“What else were we supposed to do? You wouldn’t listen to us.”
“I told you I was going to go to today’s meeting!”
Poof!
The usual sound was heard as Shikamaru shed the look of the Hokage he had worn to the meeting and returned to his original appearance. He scratched his head in annoyance.
“They basically agreed to everything we wanted. The import price of gas will be the same, no increase. I don’t know if that’s why, but there were assassins in the mix, looking to take you out. My taking your place was definitely the right choice.”
“What?” The look on Naruto’s face changed at the word assassins. “No one was hurt, right?”
“Like we’d let anyone get hurt. Who do you think was standing guard?” Shikamaru said coolly as he untied Naruto.
The ropes were reinforced with the full force of the scientific ninja tool team and imbued with concentrated chakra. They couldn’t be ripped apart with the strength Naruto currently possessed.
“The assassin was a four-person cell made up of three shadow doppelgangers and himself. The doppelgangers were all taken care of by the guards. The man himself I caught with Shadow Possession, and we handed him over to the Kizahashi side. I hope they get him to spill who hired him.”
“So the guards … No way.”
Naruto had a sudden bad feeling about all of this, and as if in response, a board on the ceiling was peeled away to allow three figures to drop down soundlessly. Hatake Kakashi, Uchiha Sakura, and Uchiha Sasuke—the team guarding the Seventh Hokage that day.
Naruto looked at each of them in turn and then lowered his eyes in frustration. “I told you. I don’t need bodyguards.”
He hated this so much.
If only he wasn’t in the state he was in, he wouldn’t need to waste shinobi this powerful on babysitting the Hokage.