Chapter 231: A-Mu Was Captured
"If you only have theory and zero practical combat experience, you're never going to make it as a real ninja."
Kakashi stared at the freshly posted exam results, his visible eye twitching in mild exasperation. He looked from Stelle's flawless first-place score in the written exam to her abysmal, dead-last ranking in practical combat, utterly unable to hold back his complaints.
Stelle, of course, had anticipated this exact outcome. She leaned back in her chair, entirely unbothered.
"It's fine," she waved a hand dismissively. "I plan to find a nice, quiet clerical job in Konoha after graduation. Coming out of the Elite Class, it should be a breeze to land a desk position."
"But what if you encounter danger when you go out?" Genma Shiranui, who had been admiring his own passing grades nearby, overheard her and leaned in, chewing on his signature senbon.
Stelle rested her chin on her palm, tapping her cheek as if giving the matter serious thought. "If I just never leave Konoha, I shouldn't encounter any danger, right?"
"Not leaving the village your whole life? Wouldn't that get incredibly boring?" Aoba Yamashiro poked his head over the row of desks, adjusting his dark glasses. "Even if Konoha is big, you'd eventually see every corner of it."
"It wouldn't be boring at all," Stelle mused, a sly smile tugging at her lips. "I'll just work hard, earn a mountain of money, and then hire all of you—my dear classmates—to protect me on a grand, luxurious tour of the entire Land of Fire. We'll eat the best food wherever we go, and play wherever we stop. It sounds like a perfect vacation. What do you guys think?"
Around her, a group of half-grown children immediately paused, their imaginations running wild. Their eyes practically lit up at the prospect.
When people are young, the desire to travel the world is a powerful instinct. The world was vast, and they all wanted to see it. Expressions of pure anticipation bloomed across the classroom.
"A-Mu, your trip sounds so fun! If I get the chance, I really want to go," Kurenai Yuhi praised, her red eyes sparkling. The other girls gathered nearby immediately chimed in with excited agreements.
Rin Nohara offered a gentle, warm smile. "That really is a wonderful idea. Count me in, A-Mu."
Ebisu squeezed his head into the growing circle, pushing his round glasses up his nose. "It does sound logically appealing. It would be even more enjoyable if the entire class participated."
Another classmate shoved his way into the huddle. "I heard there's a specific kind of sake sold at the border that all the stationed seniors swear by! We have to buy a few bottles to try when we get there."
Yet another head popped up from below. "Who cares about sake? There's a famous dessert made in Kikyo Castle that's supposed to be amazing, but it spoils too fast to transport. I've only had it once in my life. When we pass through Kikyo Castle, I'm going to eat until my stomach bursts!"
"I definitely want to be on Kurenai's team!"
"Oh, this is the true essence of youth! Please, A-Mu, you must take me with you!"
When this final, bowl-cut head aggressively squeezed into the center of the group, it pushed with far too much momentum. The sudden force caused a catastrophic domino effect. Heads slammed against heads with loud, hollow thuds, prompting a chorus of painful gasps and groans.
Everyone rubbed their bruised foreheads, turning to glare fiercely at Might Guy. A second later, the entire group pounced. The energetic, half-grown kids instantly dissolved into a chaotic, rolling brawl right in the middle of the classroom.
Kakashi exhaled a long, tired breath, glancing at the melee erupting around him. Weren't they just talking about exam grades? How did it instantly derail into a discussion about cross-country travel, and then into a fistfight? It made absolutely no sense.
They didn't know A-Mu's true strength, but Kakashi refused to believe his own instincts were wrong. Betting on his honor as a swordsman, he knew A-Mu was a terrifyingly gifted genius who was deliberately hiding her true abilities beneath this lazy facade.
Suddenly, a stray foot kicked out from the dogpile, aiming straight for Kakashi's head. He casually tilted his neck, letting the heel breeze past his ear. A split second later, a rogue fist flew directly at his face. Kakashi raised his hand, caught the wrist effortlessly, and slapped it away.
Good heavens. Before he could even blink, a classmate came flying through the air, crashing heavily into his shoulder.
Dragged into the chaos against his will, Kakashi tried to endure it, but his patience snapped. He grabbed the airborne friend by the collar, swung him in a full circle to clear some space, propped one hand on a desk for use, and delivered a sharp side-kick to an incoming attacker. Just like that, he was pulled into the melee.
"Don't worry, A-Mu! I'll protect you. I definitely won't let you get a single scratch!"
Sitting in the furthest corner of the room, completely untouched by the flying limbs and shouting children, Obito Uchiha proudly patted his chest.
"I've been practicing my Sharingan control and the Uchiha Fire Release jutsu every single night," he boasted, puffing out his chest. "Even the Clan Head praised my progress yesterday."
"Obito, you're amazing! Then I'll leave my safety entirely in your capable hands." Stelle gave him a bright thumbs-up, her golden eyes shining with absolute sincerity, her tone deadpan serious.
Obito's face flushed a brilliant shade of red under her direct praise. He coughed lightly into his fist, breaking eye contact. "Ah, well, it's not that amazing, really... but to protect you, A-Mu, I'll train even harder!"
He glanced around nervously before lowering his voice, leaning closer to Stelle's ear.
"Hey, um... I noticed you really like eating shabu-shabu. I've been learning how to make the broth from scratch recently. Do you want to try it? Come over to my house after school, and I'll cook it for you."
Stelle's eyes practically turned into stars. As long as the people around her were willing to cook, it didn't matter in the slightest that she was a culinary disaster. Why bother learning? Since she had zero talent for the kitchen, why torture herself?
She was already an overpowered, world-hopping anomaly; cooking was just a trivial mundane skill, not something she absolutely had to master. Her next wave of praise was even more genuine than the last.
"Obito, you're incredible! You can even cook well? Then let's go buy groceries and make it together right after school."
Being around a natural, earnest airhead was always such a joy. Obito could easily amuse her, and more, he provided a massive, continuous stream of mood value.
Just from those few short sentences, Obito had unknowingly supplied her with another 20,000 mood value points. It was physically impossible for Stelle not to be thrilled.
`[System, Obito is really too good. If he had been born back in the Sengoku Period, I would have paid off my debt in full ages ago. I like him way too much.]`
`[Host, do you still remember your Top Donor, Black Zetsu, waiting by Daming Lake?]`
`[What Black Zetsu? Never heard of him. He's just a small fry who can't even compare to Nagato's output. My true Top Donor is clearly Uchiha Obito. He's cute, he sweet-talks me, and he cooks my favorite meals. I can't find a single flaw to dislike about him. Well, if I absolutely had to pick one flaw, it's that he's a bit too clingy.]`
`[...]` The System fell into a stunned silence. Who was the one ruthlessly exploiting the mastermind of the shinobi world back then, practically hunting Black Zetsu down every single day just to farm his misery?
Kakashi, who had just vaulted onto a desk to avoid a sweeping leg kick, overheard their little exchange and rolled his eyes so hard it hurt. He genuinely couldn't understand why the prospect of eating boiled meat and vegetables made them look so euphoric. They both looked like complete idiots.
"Kakashi, want to join us?" Obito called out, grinning widely. "Since you're A-Mu's younger brother, I'll reluctantly extend the invitation to you, too."
Obito heavily emphasized the words 'younger brother', his smile growing even more radiant, his spiky black hair practically trembling with smugness.
Kakashi almost bristled like a threatened cat.
"Obito. If my memory serves me right, I am older than you."
Obito's smug expression instantly went blank. He blinked slowly, the gears turning in his head as he realized the math. A-Mu was older than Kakashi, and Kakashi was older than him... so didn't that make him the ultimate younger brother in this dynamic?
Was his reaction time really that tragically slow?
Stelle clamped a hand over her mouth, trying desperately to hold it in, but ultimately failed, bursting into a fit of breathless laughter.
Later that night, the village of Konoha was blanketed in a heavy, quiet darkness.
Stelle was resting in her bed when a faint, nearly imperceptible shift in the air currents drifted in from the courtyard outside.
A ninja had infiltrated the Hatake compound. The subtle displacement of wind caused by their feet touching the ground was barely a whisper, but to her, it was as loud as a ringing bell.
Stelle's eyes snapped open in the dark.
Three Chunin and one Jonin. The Jonin had already bypassed the outer defenses and infiltrated Sakumo Hatake's room.
What exactly was going on here?
Leaving aside the sheer absurdity of enemy spies infiltrating Konoha and just coincidentally deciding to target the Hatake household of all places... how did a group of this level manage to penetrate so deeply into the village without tripping a single alarm? Were the Patrol Teams and the Anbu Black Ops just collectively slacking off tonight?
Just as Stelle was mentally calculating the variables of this bizarre situation, the pink curtains of her window were lifted by a sudden gust of wind. A dark figure used the Body Flicker technique to materialize silently beside her bed.
Stelle immediately shut her eyes, regulating her breathing so her chest rose and fell in the slow, rhythmic pattern of a child lost in dreamland.
The intruder reached out, a gloved hand coming to rest heavily on Stelle's shoulder. At that exact instant, Stelle opened her eyes, blinking in a bleary, dazed manner, playing the part of a civilian startled awake from a deep sleep.
Seeing a towering, masked figure looming over her bed, a mask of pure, unadulterated terror stretched across her face. She opened her mouth, drawing in a breath as if to scream bloody murder. Before she could make a sound, the intruder's hands blurred through a rapid sequence of signs, casting a simple, low-level genjutsu over her.
Stelle immediately let her body go slack, freezing in place and staring forward with a vacant, foolish expression.
Wasting no time, the intruder scooped her up, throwing her over his shoulder like a sack of rice. He swept past the window sill, landing lightly in the courtyard. He flashed a quick hand signal to the two Chunin waiting in the shadows, then leapt over the high compound wall, vanishing into the night.
Seeing their leader move, the two Chunin immediately followed in his footsteps.
However, as one of the Chunin vaulted onto the adjacent rooftop, his footing slipped. He applied just a fraction too much chakra to his soles, and with a sharp crack, a clay roof tile fractured under his weight.
In the next room, Kakashi, who had been sleeping lightly, was instantly startled awake. He threw his blankets aside, hitting the floor silently, and darted straight to the window.
He peered into the gloom, catching only the blurry silhouettes of several figures flashing rapidly across the rooftops. In the suffocating darkness, a tiny hint of a pink blanket seemed to flutter in the wind.
Kakashi's blood ran cold. He suddenly realized what that pink fabric belonged to and rushed frantically into the adjacent room. The bed was completely empty. Only a corner of a pink blanket lay discarded on the wooden floorboards.
"Damn it... A-Mu is in danger!"
Without wasting a single second to think, Kakashi grabbed his standard ninja tool pouch, strapped his short sword to his back, and threw himself out the window, rushing into the perilous night.
At that exact moment, inside the master bedroom, the situation was entirely different.
The Anbu Jonin who had infiltrated the room was currently kneeling on the floor, his head bowed low in a posture of absolute respect and underlying terror. "Lord Sakumo. Hokage-sama hopes you will not interfere in this matter, nor disrupt his carefully laid plans."
Sakumo Hatake lay perfectly motionless on his bed. He hadn't even sat up. In the pitch-black room, only his eyes were visible, gleaming with a terrifying, glacial light. The air in the room felt thick enough to choke on.
"What exactly is Lord Hiruzen planning?" Sakumo's voice was quiet, yet it carried the weight of a drawn blade.
Even though the White Fang had sealed his sword for years, choosing a quiet life, absolutely no one in the shinobi world would ever dare underestimate him.
Sensing the faint, suffocating killing intent radiating from the man on the bed, the Anbu operative swallowed hard, his tone becoming even more deferential.
"Hokage-sama's direct order to us is to take A-Mu. But please rest assured, Lord Sakumo. This is a test. Kakashi will track us and bring A-Mu back safely. Both of them will return completely unharmed."
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