Chapter 41

"Is the Hokage here?" the head of the "Root" organization peeked into the village ruler's office.

"Come in, Danzo," Sarutobi nodded towards the chair in front of his desk and waited for the visitor to settle in comfortably. "At the moment, I'm only interested in one question — what do your spies in the Uzumaki clan say? Considering the imminent combat actions, I want to be sure about our rear."

The veteran grimaced disgustingly at the question and stared at the floor, slowly seething with anger.

"Danzo?"

"I don't have any more spies!" Shimura spat out with hatred, raising his gaze to the Hokage. "The damned redheads have wiped them all out over the past few years! Messages from the last one of the infiltrators stopped coming about two months ago!"

It was evident that despite his firm conviction in the necessity of controlling emotions, the head of "Root" was deeply troubled by the failure of personally trained shinobi in such an important matter.

"What news was in the last report?" the Third asked after a brief silence.

"The Uzumaki have been preparing something very important over the past year, judging by the secrecy surrounding it, but my man couldn't find out the details — he was supposed to try to thoroughly investigate all the rumors and find someone who could shed light on this secret. As it's obvious now — unsuccessfully."

"This is bad, very bad," murmured Hiruzen, pulling out and lighting his pipe. "Without a full deployment of forces, I won't be able to plan the upcoming campaign, and I'll have to leave a significant number of shinobi in the village just in case of a sudden attack from another of the great villages."

"Not the Uzumaki?" Shimura raised his eyebrows questioningly.

"They have enough of their own concerns, and they're too proud to be the first to attack a recent ally. Besides, they're relatives of the Senju, and they won't go against their own, understand?" the village chief puffed his pipe meaningfully.

"I understand. All plans to weaken the Senju will have to be postponed indefinitely," Danzo grimaced.

"Exactly. By the way, about them — withdraw your people from the Uzumaki and the founders," the Hokage ordered. "Mito-sama and Toka-sama visited me the other day with quite understandable displeasure about your goons."

"But…"

"No 'buts'! Let the old ladies die — then you can put surveillance," Hiruzen cut him off. "For now, it's too dangerous to touch them, and our relations are already too tense to add fuel to the fire!"

"And what about the vessel's security?"

"It's not a vessel yet, and it won't be for at least another year! By monitoring them, you'll only increase the chances of the spies exposing the jinchuriki, both current and future! It's easier to hide a candle among other candles! Do you understand me? So there shouldn't even be a hint that we're interested in Kushina Uzumaki! Right now, she's just Mito-sama's relative and one of many Uzumaki, let her stay that way! During her training at the academy, she'll be monitored by the Senju, and then her sensei will take care of it."

"Alright, Hokage-sama."

"I won't keep you any longer."

***

"Hey, Shenesu, over here!"

The head of the Nara clan, who had just entered the bar to have a couple of bottles of sake and soothe his greatly shaken nerves, jerked and looked around.

"We're here!" seeing the familiar outlines of a couple of close friends in the farthest and darkest corner of the hall, he headed towards them.

"Inoda, Choji, what are you doing here?" Nara asked, pulling out a chair for himself and sitting down.

"We just decided to take a little break from clan affairs," Akamichi replied. "And what are you doing here?"

"Especially knowing your wife's attitude towards visiting bars," the blonde smirked, teasing his friend good-naturedly.

"Ah... I'm just soothing my nerves, haven't been able to relax properly for the past couple of months," the shinobi sighed heavily, resting his head on the table and closing his eyes.

"Preparing for war?" the chubby man nodded understandingly.

"If only it were that..."

"And what else?"

"Saya decided to return to active duty, and for almost two months now she's been training almost non-stop," Shenesu reported.

"Eh, and what's so bad about that for you?" Yamanaka was surprised.

"The thing is, Ryo-kun is left without his usual taijutsu sparring partner, and guess who he turned to?" getting up from the table, Nara glared sternly at his friends.

"Wait, but hasn't he just turned eight recently? How can he cause you so much trouble that you're so exhausted? Why not just pass him on to Shikaku and be done with it?" Akamichi wondered.

"And you think I haven't tried? He knocked him out in literally half a minute of the fight, not even exerting himself!" 

"You know, Shenes, it's hard to believe that an eight-year-old kid, who hasn't even started at the academy and hasn't learned the basics of proper taijutsu — they start at nine, before that they just develop their bodies — can quickly put down an opponent two years older and who has studied in the shinobi academy for a couple of years," the chubby man shook his head.

"You know, I thought the same until nee-chan told me what 'warm-up' Ryo does every morning before breakfast — not every chunin can do something like that without collapsing from exhaustion," Nara snorted. "And in every sparring session with his son, Saya doesn't hold back the force of her blows."

"What?!"

"She could kill him like that!"