On The News

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I don't own solo leveling or Naruto

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"Is everyone alright?"

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Goto Ryuji was going through his paperwork for the day when he heard a knock on his office door. He frowned internally because he wasn't expecting anyone for this afternoon, and he had made sure to tell his assistant to free up his busy schedule so that he could focus on the annoying paperwork that needed to be done.

"Enter."

The hulking form of Tanaka Kenjo entered the guild master's office with a frown on his face. He kneeled down as he went to speak with Goto.

"He's very powerful, master. More powerful than I anticipated." said Tanaka, a strain in his voice. "You went to go fight him, didn't you?" Goto asked rhetorically not at all surprised by his actions. Goto scanned the bruises and cuts on the body of his new S-rank hunter and wondered, 'Did he lose? To an A-rank?'

Outwardly his face was a stone cold brick wall, but inwardly he was puzzled at the possibility of an A-rank beating an S-rank in a fight even if it wasn't a serious one.

"How did it go?" he asked. He was interested, to say the least, at what Tanaka had to say about Uchiha Itachi's power.

"He beat me fair and square..." Tanaka answered.

This time he did visibly frown at the information he had received. 'Tanaka is a newly awakened S-rank hunter so it makes sense that it would take time for him to acclimate to his new powers, but still... He's an S-rank and Uchiha is an A-rank, Tanaka shouldn't have lost. He must have taken him too lightly,' Goto thought to himself trying to rationalize the fact that his S-rank hunter lost to an A-rank nobody.

'That A-rank nobody will become my newest asset,' he smirked internally with a predatory glint in his eyes.

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Few hours later

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After Tanaka had made his leave Goto went back to doing his paperwork for the rest of the afternoon until nightfall. He was really behind on schedule and wanted to get it done quickly so that he could get back to raiding. God knows Matsumoto would chew his ear out for not completing it, not that he was scared of the chairman it was just more trouble than it was worth to get on his badside.

'Speaking of which...' The telephone on Goto's desk began to ring. The caller's ID revealed to be the chairman himself, Matsumoto Shigeo. 'What does he want?' Goto wondered picking the phone to answer the chairman.

"Is there reason for you calling me this late?" Goto asked with slight irritation in his voice. He was tired of getting interrupted.

(Apologies, Goto. But I think you might want to know that you're newest interest has just done something of note.) Matsumoto's smooth voice said over the phone.

"Uchiha? What about him?" This hunter was being talked about a lot today.

(There was a B-rank dungeon break earlier. The association had dispatched the nearest hunters to deal with it, but it seemed that they were all under ranked and so had to hold out until back up arrived.) Matsumoto explained.

'A dungeon break... That's rare,' Dungeon breaks were nearly impossible in country like Japan because of all the advancements the Japanese had made in hunter technology. Japan set the hunter system standard that other countries in Asia tried to follow, but ultimately fell short in some way, the closest to them was China even then they were quite a ways away.

They were the only country not to have a S-rank Gate appear in the country, no one knew the reason why that was.

(It would have been a while before reinforcements would have arrived, but luckily Uchiha Itachi was in the area and took care of all the green orc monsters himself. If had arrived any later then I'm certain that all of the hunters we had dispatched would have been killed.) the chairman continued.

"By himself you say..." It just confirmed to Goto that Uchiha was at the apex of A-rank or a borderline S-rank hunter. Green Orcs were usually high B-rank monsters even most A-rank hunters struggle against even one of those beasts. Of course they were nothing to an S-rank hunter like Goto, but it was very impressive that an inexperienced hunter like Uchiha dealt with multiple of them with no issues.

(You should start looking to recruit him before another guild comes from the shadows and snatches him from your grasp. Or maybe even a foreign guild does, after all the International Guild Conference is coming up.) Matsumoto explained. He sounded more slimey than usual to Goto, like he was scheming some kind of plot. Goto didn't like that. The chairman did have a lot respect for Goto's strength and Goto knew that, but that will never stop people like him from plotting to gain more power.

"Don't be ridiculous, like that could ever happen. Do you know who I am?" Goto at scoffed at the notion of being subverted by any of the other inferior guilds in his country. It was simple the strongest always got what they wanted and he was the strongest.

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Itachi let out a heavy breath. He wasn't particularly tired, it was more a breath of relief after taking down the dangerous Orc monsters. He looked around the decimated street and he couldn't help but flashback to his childhood memories of the Third Great Ninja War. The sight of dead bodies was near identical to that time and he didn't like it, even though he wasn't surprised by them. Bloodshed was inevitable in any world, especially in a society so focused on strength like this one.

"Hn..."

He heard the sirens of multiple ambulances arriving on the scene to any soldiers or hunters in need of serious medical attention. Itachi did his fair share by helping those that were injured on to stretchers or by collecting all the dead bodies in area so that could be bagged and sent to the city morgue.

"I was debriefed by all the hunters that were dispatched by the Association and they all reported that you singlehandedly took care of all the B-rank monsters. I just wanted to thank you, Hunter Uchiha. Without you, I fear the outcome would have been far worse," Shin expressed his deepest gratitude to Itachi with the bow of the head. As soon as he realized that the Association had misread the magic level of the dungeon break he was forced to rush over with his squad to provide reinforcements for the underranked hunters.

"Yes... That's true," Itachi agreed with Shin's assessment. It was rare but the Association could misread the level of dungeon's magical power and whenever that happened it was difficult to get in touch with high ranked hunters that weren't bound to a guild or couldn't be asked to help out.

Itachi went to make his leave, but was stopped from doing so by the calloused hand of Shin on his shoulder. He turned his head wondering why Shin stopped him so suddenly.

"I heard that Draw Sword is planning to offer you a contract to join their ranks. Are you considering it?" Shin questioned him seriously. Itachi was briefly surprised as to how he came across such information but after a moment it made sense to him. Draw Sword Guild, the most powerful guild in Japan, had very strong connections to the Hunter's Association it only made sense that such a connection worked the other way. Shin was a high ranked agent of the Monitoring Division so it was natural that he was privy to information not yet known to the public from Draw Sword Guild.

"If I am?"

"I would say to watch yourself. Being part of the best guild in the country is dungeon in of itself," Shin answered vaguely, but Itachi knew what he was getting at.

"I figured," Itachi quirked his lips into a small smirk, vanishing from sight.