"Goal Reached! Here is your bonus chapter as promised!
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At this moment, Hagoromo's inner monologue was screaming. Kushina-sensei, where do I even begin with the rebuttal?
First: Is there any other teacher in history who actively encourages their student to become a thief?
Second: I already know about this place, okay? Even with my limited knowledge of Naruto, I know exactly what that "miraculous scroll" is!
Third: You can waltz in there whenever you want and touch that scroll like it's a grocery list, but if I go, I'm liable to be executed on the spot. And after they kill me, they'll probably perform an autopsy on my brain for good measure!
But did he dare... no, was he capable of voicing these complaints? He couldn't. A person has to respect the master-disciple bond.
Actually, to be blunt, he just didn't dare provoke the Red-Hot Habanero.
Hagoromo looked at Kushina with a pitiful expression. "Sensei, can I sit this one out? My gut instinct tells me the place you're talking about is bad news."
"I may be young, but I'm incredibly superstitious. First impressions are everything to me..."
Kushina listened to his plea and slammed her hand on the table again, though with slightly less force this time.
Heh, hit it a bit too hard last time, didn't you?
She adopted an air of unstoppable momentum. "This is to help you steal... ahem, acquire new Ninjutsu. How can you not go? Stealing... I mean, properly obtaining new knowledge requires action, not excuses!"
Wait, Sensei, you definitely said 'steal,' didn't you? You said it twice!
"What are you afraid of? If anything happens, your great and powerful sensei has your back!"
"Anyway, it's settled! We move tonight!"
Kamishiro Hagoromo could not refuse. Kamishiro Hagoromo collapsed. Kamishiro Hagoromo gave up on life. Kamishiro Hagoromo was beyond saving.
As she spoke, Kushina stood up and produced a sheet of white paper from seemingly nowhere. Gripping a brush, she began sketching out the infiltration route for the Hokage's office.
"What are you standing there for? Clean the table, quickly."
"Huh? Oh! Right!" Hagoromo snapped out of it and hurriedly cleared away the dishes.
Kushina spread the large sheet of paper across the table and began drawing a floor plan of the Hokage Building.
First, she drew an old turtle in the center. Needless to say, that represented the Third Hokage.
Then, she drew a small circle around the turtle, representing the top-floor office. Next came two larger circles representing the lower floors of the building.
Finally, she drew figures inside the circles to represent the guards. As for the art style... well, as long as you could tell they were stick figures, it was enough. One should not have high expectations for the artistic talents of certain shinobi.
"There are twenty-four shinobi guarding the first floor, all Special Jonin or higher."
"The second floor has about sixteen people, all Jonin."
"And hidden inside the Hokage's office itself are elite Anbu squad leaders... Entering the office and stealing the Scroll of Seals without alerting anyone is essentially impossible."
For Kushina, knowing the layout of the Hokage Building's defenses wasn't surprising at all. What was surprising was that she was actually seriously considering the feasibility of a break-in!
"Should we create a distraction outside and slip in?... No, that won't work. The four shinobi in the office are tasked with guarding classified documents. Those blockheads won't leave their posts for anything."
"Or should we just level the building?"
Kushina immediately shook her head. "No, too much noise..."
"It's the middle of the night; it wouldn't be right to disturb the neighbors, would it?"
Is the noise the only problem here? Your priorities are seriously skewed!
"Besides, it'd be hard to find the scroll in a pile of rubble."
Of course, Kushina was just thinking out loud; she wasn't actually insane enough to blow up the Hokage Building. However, it was a fact that her imagination was running completely off the rails by this point.
[System Notice: Kamishiro Hagoromo has unlocked the title: 'Unprincipled Accomplice.']
There's a saying: if life is going to screw you over, you might as well lean into it. Since he couldn't avoid it, Hagoromo chose to actively participate in this "community service" to prevent Kushina from doing something truly catastrophic.
He had already resolved himself. If he died, he died. He was just an accomplice; Kushina was the mastermind.
"Sensei, I don't think we need to fight those shinobi at all," Hagoromo suggested, jumping straight into the role.
"What do you mean?" Kushina asked. Was there a way to enter the building peacefully?
Yes, there was. In fact, it wouldn't even be called an "intrusion."
"With your status, Sensei, we can just walk in through the front door. The guards on the lower floors won't lift a finger against us. The only real problem is the four elites inside the office."
"We need to deal with them silently before they can make a sound."
With Hagoromo's reminder, Kushina realized she had fallen into a mental trap. Right—with her identity, walking in and out of the Hokage's office was perfectly normal. She visited the place like she was dropping by a neighbor's house; why had she started acting so cautious?
In academic terms, she was suffering from a "guilty conscience."
"Go on," Kushina said, her mind spinning as she listened to his plan.
"To keep our behavior from looking suspicious, the timing can't be too late, but it can't be too early either. If it's too early, the Hokage will still be in the office..."
"And we can't take the scroll out of the room. We record as much as we can on the spot." Stealing one or two techniques was a vastly different crime from stealing the entire Scroll of Seals. Hagoromo was already busy building their legal defense.
The difficulty of this plan wasn't the entry; it was the timing. They had to master the Hokage's schedule. While challenging, it wasn't impossible; as the "Village Head," Hiruzen's activities were fairly predictable.
The second difficulty was how to silently neutralize four elite shinobi. This was something Hagoromo couldn't achieve no matter how hard he tried.
The goal was to incapacitate them without killing them... After all, they were planning a burglary, not a massacre.
If only Minato Namikaze were here. His Flying Raijin was the ultimate skill for "breaking and entering." If he were involved, neutralizing four guards in an instant would be child's play.
But then again, if Minato were here, they wouldn't even be worried about the guards. He'd just teleport the scroll and leave.
Actually, if Minato were here, he wouldn't help them at all—he'd just report the two of them to the authorities.
So, dealing with the Anbu was up to Kushina.