Kakashi likely carried the greatest reputation among Konoha's jōnin now, not just because of his history, but because of what he'd shown during the invasion.
The strength, the composure, the presence, it reminded people of the White Fang in ways they hadn't dared to say out loud before. Jiraiya needed no explanation.
As for Shikaku Nara, he lacked both fame and raw strength compared to the first two, but to Tsunade, he was maybe even the most valuable man in the room.
He had served as a Jōnin Commander for years and occupied several senior administrative roles under Hiruzen, also being something close to an unofficial assistant.
More importantly, he stood at the center of the Nara, Yamanaka, and Akimichi alliance, the most powerful clan bloc in the village.
Those were not small clans.
They were large, disciplined, and deeply rooted in Konoha's infrastructure.
The Nara in particular controlled vast medicinal herb resources, managed entire forests, and the deer that supplied key compounds the village depended on.
And, thankfully, this Shikaku Nara, whose sharp mind was also as valuable as any other strength in Konoha, had already made his position pretty clear to her.
He was also on her side completely.
So, one by one, they gathered in her office next.
However, before anyone spoke, Jiraiya moved.
He didn't announce it.
Didn't even draw attention to himself.
He simply stepped away from the door, fingers brushing the wall as chakra bled out in quiet, practiced patterns.
The air in the office thickened, sound dulling first, then vanishing entirely.
Light bent just enough to feel wrong at the edges, reflections slipping out of alignment.
Even chakra perception flattened, smeared into something indistinct and uninteresting from the outside.
A meeting meant not to exist.
Jiraiya glanced back once, gave Tsunade a small nod.
"Go ahead."
The door closed behind them, and the four greeted each other in their own ways, the atmosphere shifting from formal to intent.
"So," he said. "You still look terrible. Guess that means you're doing the job right."
Jiraiya spoke to Tsunade first, eyeing the stacks of paperwork with a crooked grin.
Tsunade still didn't turn from the now slightly altered window.
"If I ever look comfortable in this chair, it means I've stopped doing the job."
Jiraiya chuckled. "That bad already?"
She finally glanced back at him. "Worse. I remember why I left."
Kakashi gave a small bow. "Lady Hokage."
"Drop it," Tsunade said. "If I wanted ceremony, I'd have invited the elders."
Shikaku sighed, hands slipping into his pockets as he took in her expression.
"…That answers my next question."
Tsunade moved back to the desk and leaned against it, arms crossed.
"Sasuke's gone the entire morning," she said. "And apparently I'm not supposed to do anything about it."
"They blocked leadership successfully. And I want to know how and why, Shikaku..."
Silence settled in the room, heavier than before.
Not shock. They'd already had that hours ago.
This was what came after.
Jiraiya leaned back against the wall, arms folded, eyes half-lidded.
To anyone else, it might have looked lazy.
Tsunade knew better.
His mind was moving fast, faster than his mouth ever did.
He spoke at last, his voice roughening just slightly.
"They're even calling it defection," he said. "What bullshit."
Tsunade didn't answer.
She didn't have to.
Her stance was already clear.
But the compromise was narrow and ugly.
Sasuke would not be declared an official missing-nin, nor marked for international capture.
In return, she would not authorize a search party right now.
The elders had just enough facts to make their case airtight.
There were no external signs of a struggle at the point of disappearance.
Everything pointed to Sasuke Uchiha leaving for Orochimaru silently and deliberately, of his own free accord, and even incapacitating his teammate, Sakura Haruno, on the way out.
That was the trap.
Tsunade couldn't simply overrule them and send a team.
The moment the elders framed it publicly, it could very well stop being a "search and rescue" kind of mission and instead become a "pursuit of a defector".
And a defector carried a bounty, not a lifeline.
Anyone sent after him could be authorized to bring back a head, not a boy.
So Tsunade compromised.
She chose to wait, to recover Sasuke on her own terms, but only after consolidating her authority inside the village.
Until then, Jiraiya's network would keep tabs on him, quiet and unofficial.
That was why this group was here. To help her fight for her rights as the Hokage next.
"Just talked to him… I should have seen it..."
Kakashi stood where he was, muttering something, hands relaxed at his sides, posture perfect in that infuriatingly controlled way of his.
But his eye had gone distant, fixed on nothing.
Sasuke. Gone. Not captured. Not killed. Left.
He remembered watching him train himself raw, remembered that look in the hospital, the way Sasuke had stared at Naruto like he was seeing something unbearable reflected at him.
"This wasn't betrayal," He added, voice low. "It was abandonment. There's a difference."
Jiraiya snorted softly. "Tell that to the elders."
His gaze also drifted, unfocused, caught somewhere between the office and memory.
He felt he should have seen it coming the moment he watched Sasuke and Naruto tear into each other on the hospital roof.
He'd had a rival like that once.
And the pattern was uncomfortably familiar.
The same man the young Uchiha was now gravitating toward.
The thought sat badly with him.
Shikaku had been quiet longer than the others, eyes half-closed, head tilted slightly as if listening to a conversation no one else could hear.
An Uchiha in Orochimaru's hands.
That was the thought he kept circling back to.
Not the boy. The bloodline.
Sharingan of such tremendous potential, plus Orochimaru wasn't a missing-nin problem. It was a long-term catastrophe. Experiments. Augmentation. Breeding. Weapons that wouldn't stay pointed outward. Even one success could shift the balance of power across nations.
Blocking pursuit didn't conserve strength. It concentrated risk.
But more than the Sasuke matter, there was something else Shikaku disliked far more, and it was far more dangerous than this situation revealed on the surface.
Homura and Koharu's reaction to Tsunade had been too firm, too sudden, and too coordinated.
It wasn't a disagreement.
It was an obstruction.
And it hadn't been improvised.
Something about it smelled wrong in the way politics only ever did when a decision had already been made elsewhere.
He, on the other hand, had welcomed Tsunade without hesitation. So had his Nara clan.
So had the unofficial alliance of those three clans he quietly coordinated, an arrangement dating back to the village's founding and Tobirama himself, stewarded by Hiruzen and the Third Hokage in the last few decades.
Their abilities meshed too well to be accidental, and their influence ran deep through the village's logistics, commerce, intelligence, administration, and even medical infrastructure.
Tsunade was Hiruzen's legitimate successor.
Above all else, in recent decades, their clans had tied themselves very close to the Third Hokage and were the core of his faction.
And Tsunade would likely give them even more room than the aging Third ever had.
After all, for large clans like theirs, she was the ideal Hokage.
Not because she was weak.
But because she wasn't grasping.
Tsunade would listen. She would compromise.
She would push her medical reforms, build her reputation, and let others manage their own domains as long as the village functioned.
Under her, clan autonomy would thrive. Influence would grow quietly.
Interests would be protected without ever needing to bare teeth.
That was how Konoha had always worked at its best in his opinion.
What Shikaku would never accept was someone else exploiting that openness.
And the more he replayed the elders' behavior in his head, the more one name surfaced.
What sealed the deal was this question.
Which figure had always pushed hardest against the Uchiha clan?
Danzō Shimura.
A unitarist. A warmonger.
A man who saw clans not as partners, but as resources to be harvested.
One who had spent decades poaching their children, their techniques, their leverage, all in the name of "security."
Ceremony meant nothing to him.
Consensus meant weakness.
Root answered to no one but him.
If Danzō ever took the chair, it would be a nightmare.
Clan interests wouldn't be negotiated.
They would be stripped.
Influence wouldn't be wielded. It would be absorbed
The village wouldn't be guided. It would be controlled.
And yet, that was exactly what this looked like.
The elders had always stood against Danzō. Quietly, yes, but firmly.
For years, they'd blocked him, contained him, limited his reach in subtle ways.
They had been Hiruzen's staunchest supporters, aligned with the same power blocs Shikaku himself worked with.
So why now?
Why, the moment Tsunade returned, the moment a Hokage they all wanted finally sat in the chair, did they pivot.
Not openly. Not loudly.
But just enough.
Just subtly enough to box her in.
To stall her authority.
To frame her decisiveness as recklessness.
To make inaction look like wisdom.
Shikaku could understand the mechanics of the move.
What he couldn't understand was the motive.
Why pave the way for Danzō?
Why empower the one man none of them could control?
That question gnawed at him, quiet and persistent.
Because if the answer wasn't obvious yet, it meant it was dangerous.
After a moment, Tsunade spoke again.
"Alright," she said. "You've been quiet long enough. What's your read, Shikaku?"
Shikaku opened his eyes.
When he spoke, his voice was calm, measured, but stripped of any softness.
"This was never really about Sasuke."