Shortly after the two young Jonin finished gathering information from the academy, Shota and Shisui moved outside the Kiri academy after a few minutes of listening to conversations and going through the entire academy silently.
The thick mist continued to hide their presence as they left the academy grounds behind. Shota created a shadow clone who stayed at the back of the academy. The clone would watch the area and wait for further orders.
They would not be targeting the kids yet until they verified some of the information that they have gathered. If they attacked the academy right now, the whole village would be instantly alerted and Shisui and Shota would have to run from hundreds of shinobi and would not be able to get more intel and verify the ones that they had already found.
The sudden chaos would end their chance to confirm the most important leads. And running from so many shinobi would be very dangerous so they needed a distraction later if the situation required it.
Careful timing mattered more than immediate action.
Shota spoke, "We will meet at the discussed point in two hours. If we do not arrive within the appointed time and five minutes after that, the other person would consider the other captured or worse and run."
Shisui nodded in agreement and accepted the plan without argument.
Shisui tried to lighten the heavy mood with a personal comment. "Let us hope it does not come to that. I do not even have a girlfriend yet and I still want to attend my friend's marriage and even see how he would propose."
Shota asked for clarification. "Your friend?" He was curious about the person who could hold such importance for the usually carefree Uchiha.
Shisui answered with a small smile and began to explain. "Yup his name is Itachi. He is quite composed and keeps to himself most of the time."
Shisui continued, "But he has a crush on this girl named Izumi. She is a good person and she cares about him a lot. The problem is that his clan duties as well as his duties for the village take almost all of his time and she is only a half Uchiha so he is scared of what the elders might say if he tries to get closer to her."
The complicated feelings made the usually confident Shisui sound almost protective of his friend. "I keep telling him to just talk to her properly instead of staring from a distance like a lost puppy. One day I am going to push him into a conversation whether he likes it or not. Watching him panic would be the best entertainment the clan has seen in years."
Shota listened and then ended the talk with a practical note. "He must be a nice guy. Anyways let us go now." The two of them parted ways under the cover of the mist.
Each carried a different task that needed to done before any larger action could begin by the joint squads.
Shisui went to see the two clans of Terumi and Yuki and whether they would be open for a meeting of alliance against the Mizukage. The growing unhappiness inside those bloodline families offered a possible opening for future cooperation.
Shota was to go to see if he could confirm the location of the Swordsmen of the Mist. But before that he was going to check on the Kaguya boy to confirm if it really was who he thought it to be.
---
As Shota appeared on the Kaguya compounds he saw it being completely desolate. The once proud clan grounds of a clan that had the ability similar to Kaguya Otsutsutki looked completely empty without a single person.
According to what they knew, the kids and the women of the clan were also killed by the orders of the Mizukage. The recent massacre had left almost nothing behind.
As he entered the clan grounds, he saw the two ANBU guards that were supposed to be guarding the Kaguya clan lay dead. He checked their bodies which were still warm that made it clear they died just recently.
The kills were fresh and the attacker/s were pretty quick by the look of things. The only wound was of strangling their necks. Someone had managed to strangle both the Anbu so easily that they could not even react.
He walked inside carefully since he had doubts of their attacker being still here. He hid himself when he heard footsteps of two people approaching from deeper inside the compound.
"Oh how interesting." a voice sounded as the person whose footsteps they belonged to looked at the hidden Shota who was hiding using the camaflogue jutsu.
The speaker had noticed him despite the concealment. Shota deactivated the jutsu. He recognised the person and the person himself recognised Shota at the same moment.
"Hohoho if it is not the Eraserhead of Suna. What might you be doing in Kiri?" The man said in a smooth and unsettling voice as the child with him stayed close at his side.
The child looked up at the man and asked in a polite voice. "Who is this Orochimaru san?"
Orochimaru answered while keeping his eyes fixed on Shota and licking his lips, "Someone whose abilities interest me greatly."
Shota's first thought at seeing him licking his lips was that he wished the person in front of him was Pakura who was doing it. He would not have minded seeing her licking her lips by looking at him so creepily.
--------Author Notes---------
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