Haruto stepped out of the Senju compound and began walking through the village as he usually did.
Soon however he realised something peculiar.
'Why are people looking at me so much?'
Haruto put on a confused expression and walked a few more steps, trying to ignore the heated looks everyone was giving him before a little girl rushed up to him with her friends.
She was even younger than him, and a good foot shorter, about four years old.
"Onii-chan~ Onii-chan~" The little girl started at the urging of her two friends causing Haruto to pause and look at her suspiciously.
The girl then pulled out a letter out of her pocket and along with a small soft cloth pouch handed it to Haruto!
"Huh?"
Before Haruto could say anything else, the girl simply turned around and rushed away, her face as ripe as a tomato.
'Wait! FBI don't break my door! I'm innocent! I swear!' Haruto screamed in his mind as he looked at the chocolates and the letter.
Suddenly the looks and gazes of everyone on the streets seemed mean spirited to him.
'What did I do!?'
'These things were pushed into my hand without my permission!' Haruto complained.
As Haruto tried rushing towards the Yamanaka compound where he had to go give his demo in front of the Hokage and Inoichi, Haruto suddenly found a tall, bulky well built man stepping in front of him to block him.
Haruto had to crane his neck just to get a good look at the man's head.
"Wha-" Haruto was about to complain but the man simply placed his giant hand on Haruto's shoulders and spoke in a deep voice.
"Good job."
The giant man patted Haruto's shoulder twice and thrust into his hand a cover that looked particularly tiny in the giant man's hands but quite large in Haruto's.
Haruto peeked into the cover and found it contained slabs of tofu.
Haruto was beyond confused at this point.
He continued rushing towards the Yamanaka compound with a forming suspicion in his heart that he dared not confirm by reading everyone's minds.
But Haruto had no choice.
When he matched gazes with a random pedestrian who was looking at him with a glowing expression, Haruto peeked into his thoughts and instantly wished he hadn't.
'No way! No way! No way!'
'That can't be the case!'
'Absolutely not!'
'Which loose lipped idiot revealed all the top secret information about me!?'
'Shouldn't the village be protecting me now that Tsunade and Jiraiya are gone!? Shouldn't it give me time to grow up slowly and steadily!?'
'What's with this sudden unwanted pressure by releasing information about me destroying the meteorite?'
'God damn it! Who'll keep me protected!?'
'ANBU?'
'Who'll they kill? They couldn't even get rid of Orochimaru's lackeys in the Chunin Exam to get rid of the barrier that had trapped Hiruzen!'
'Is Fugaku brain dead!?'
'Wait… Fugaku is an Uchiha…'
'Shisui?'
'Is it because Shisui is guarding me and not the Daimyo now?!'
'Damn it… I need to learn sensing and I need to do it fast.'
'I doubt I can sense Shisui with basic sensing… I need to learn Sage Mode… I've got the chakra for it… I just need to get to a holy land.'
'With Jiraiya and Tsunade gone… there's only Orochimaru who can help me at this point.'
'How do I get to Orochimaru though?'
'The Black Market? Bait him with some information? Like Black Zetsu's weakness for revenge?'
'...No… that's a risky bet… if Black Zetsu finds out that I know about his plan to revive Kaguya… he'll simply have me killed through some convoluted way.'
'Should I secretly summon Hashirama and ask him to teach me Sage Mode?'
'Yeah that seems like the better option.'
With his mind set, Haruto continued walking towards the Yamanaka compound as he was frequently interrupted by people showering him with gifts and praises such that when he finally reached his destination he was forty five minutes late and holding two arms full of presents.
"Hahaha~ the youth are quite energetic." Inoichi said while standing beside Fugaku and looking at Haruto's gifts which included letters from several female admirers, chocolates, tofu, soup, broth, ninjutsu scrolls and even an expensive 'art' album signed by Jiraiya.
Haruto frowned in displeasure causing Fugaku to cough slightly before he spoke up, "This was done for your safety Haruto-kun."
"How?" Haruto asked, clearly confused.
Fugaku stayed silent for a few seconds and spoke calmly, "It was because the will of fire, of sacrifice, burns bright in all of us Haruto-kun."
Seeing the cryptic answer, Haruto didn't hesitate and directly pried into Fugaku's mind with a simple gaze.
'I see…' Haruto nodded mentally.
It looked like Fugaku had plotted to use Haruto as bait. He wanted the enemy nations to try and take out Haruto, such that he could take out as many geniuses sent to take him out as possible with the help of Shisui to weaken the enemy nations.
It seemed like the enemy shinobi nations had, according to intel, started to band together after the recent explosion that destroyed the meteorite and deemed Konoha as a bigger threat than they had expected.
They were planning for war.
And without Tsunade, and Jiraiya in Konoha, the village was at its weakest. So drastic measures had to be taken to rid the enemy shinobi nations of their combatants.
After all, according to what Fugaku knew, Haruto had only been able to destroy the meteorite because of Tsunade's chakra. So while he had potential to grow strong, he wasn't currently strong.
Which meant he could be used to exchange for pieces that were stronger than him on the board while the others thought that they were taking out a major threat.
'But I don't like this one bit!' Haruto exclaimed in his mind. 'I shall have my revenge! I'll leave this damn village after Madara is dead!'
Haruto looked at Inoichi and began the demonstration that was bound to change the next century with a smile on his face as if he hadn't just discovered that he was the next sacrificial child pawn in Konoha's ever growing list.
"Our beloved Anko has just drawn a portrait of a criminal that she got from torturing information out of a target in the I.T department. This criminal is currently trying to escape the border between the Fire Nation and the Wind Nation…
But how do we alert the border guards about this person?" Haruto said, proposing the question to Inoichi and Fugaku causing the former to smile softly as he spoke, "You have a solution I presume?"
"Of course." Haruto said before opening a program that looked suspiciously like a modern web browser, into whose search bar he typed, 'KonohaIT.gov'
The browser page loaded for a few seconds before it displayed a scanned drawing of a human face.
"Isn't that just a picture you pulled up from the computer?" Fugaku asked, slightly confused by what he was being shown, causing Haruto to smile softly.
"Well, if you think so, why don't we ask Anko if there are any other people involved in this covert operation, helping this spy? She's currently at the I.T department, in the interrogation chambers."
Fugaku nodded and turned to the ANBU behind him.
"Go ask Anko about this-"
"No Hokage-sama, that won't be necessary." Haruto said softly.
"Huh?" Fugaku asked with a slightly dumb expression, "Then what do you want me to do? I see… will Inoichi communicate with her?"
Inoichi with a mysterious smile shook his head, "No Hokage-sama, it will be the computer which will communicate with her."
"Huh?"
Haruto moved the mouse in front of his audience, and clicked on a small chat icon at the corner of the page.
It caused a chat to pop up where Haruto began typing a simple question for everyone to see.
'Anko, you there?'
The chat stayed blank for a few seconds before a new message popped up from the left side.
'Yes, Haruto. What do you need?'
Fugaku's eyes instantly widened. "What!?"
***
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