88 Chapter 88

"Nice to meet you Sakura. Good luck on being the proctor for the third exam." Kurenai placed her hand on my shoulder and winked at me before walking out the room with Asuma in tow, who was trying to explain what happened while stuttering. The moment the door closed, everyone in the room burst into laughter. During the laughter, the one with the bags under his eyes begun to cough.

"Sakura, come. Let me introduce you" Guy pulled me closer and pointed at the coughing figure. His familiarity with me just astounded me. "This talented young man here is Hayate Gekko." The young man in question nodded to me in greeting since he was still coughing. It was only until I heard his name did things finally click; I was surprised at myself for not noticing earlier. The lady with the purple hair that stomped out earlier was definitely Yugao Uzuki. What I did not understand was why she glared at me before leaving.

Seeing the realization and then confusion on my face, Hayate, who was done coughing, chuckled lightly before speaking, "Please do not mind what happened earlier. Yugao really is a nice girl." He explained. Apparently, she was mad because she felt the Hokage took away Hayate's job as the proctor for the third exam and gave it to me because I pulled some strings behind the scenes. Understandable. Although not the first time, a 12-year-old jounin was still rare; She did not believe my capabilities and suspected foul play.

From what I heard; she was more pissed about Hayate losing the job than anything; Of course, we were being paid for this. I just did not think a shinobi would actually be bothered about it considering the number of missions available for shinobi in a prosperous village like Konoha. I guess a job was a job; Anyone would be pissed if they suddenly lost it to someone else, regardless of the era. I nodded to him apologetically which he waved it off, indicating it was fine.

"There is someone I need to introduce you to." Kakashi spoke to me. He gave me a slight signal with his eye to indicate it was what we had discussed earlier. I gave a nod and bade farewell to Hayate. Guy left as well, saying he had to meet his team.

Kakashi led me around town as we made small talk on the way. I liked that our relationship had become such. If someone had told me a year and a half ago that I would be walking side by side with one of my favorite characters as friends and senpai, I would probably have, well, nothing really, just laughed it off; But here I was.

Seeing where we almost were, I questioned myself out loud, "Wait. Isn't this the back of the women's bath?" Looking at the direction we were taking, I had a general idea of who we were about to meet. Seeing the questioning yet realized look I was giving him, he misinterpreted it and quickly defended, "I am not the one coming here. The person we are meeting does his, uhhm, research here." The 'research' part of his statement was not spoken in a confident tone.

"So basically, a pervert." His eye twitched a little and I added, "Don't think I don't see you reading that porn in public" He was about to defend but I cut him off, "Hey, I'm not judging here. I sort of respect you. You need to be a special type of open pervert to walk in town reading porn in the open like that."

His face red from embarrassment, he tried to explain himself again when a voice interrupted us, "Would you keep your voice down; You are going to get us caught." An older man walked out of the bushes beside us. He had long white spiky hair that reached his waist with red lines from both eyes all the way down his face. Seeing who it was, I was not surprised, "Yep, definitely a pervert."

"Who the hell are you calling a pervert. I'm a super pervert." He spoke with his chest puffed out. 'Holy shit! He actually said it!' I was totally fan-girling inside at that moment until he spoke the next words, "A flat chest like you would not get it." Ah, that hit a sore spot. Every reader knows I am never getting big. That really hit a sore spot.

I looked him dead in the eyes and took a deep breath. Both men seemed to have a bad premonition with Jiraiya having an added sense of déjà vu; and they were right. "KYAA!! PEEPING TOMS!!" That set of a beautiful commotion. Kakashi had a 'Why did you include me face' as both him and Jiraiya bolted towards the other direction. The women of the bath as well as the manager came out too late with buckets and mops.

After not seeing the culprits the crowd dispersed. I followed their direction and came across them at a park bench. "You are the same young lady from last time.", were the first words he spoke to me the moment he saw me.

"Yep. Nice to meet you again. Old man." Jiraiya looked me over before bursting into a laugh. "Kakashi spoke quite about you. This is good. I did not think the village would produce another Kakashi or Itachi." Jiraiya spoke as he gave me another look.

"No, no, no. Those two are absolute monsters. Happy as I am to get such praise from one of the legendary sannin, I would not compare myself to those two." It was not me trying to be modest, but the likes of Itachi and Kakashi were two anomalies. I was fearful to even imagine what they would have become if one was not dying and the other had not been restrained by the sharingan for so long. The two men chuckled but said nothing else.

"So, you wanted to talk to me about Liberatioin?" Jiraiya changed the subject. The mood turned slightly serious. Seeing as we were about to talk business, I silently put up a silence and camouflage barrier around us; It was not only to prevent sound from leaking out, but prevent others from being able to read our lips. I did not know how it would fare against a sharingan, but seeing as there were none currently in the village, except maybe Sasuke, I was not worried.

Jiraiya lifted a brow when it was complete. He looked round before looking back at me. I had placed it silently to make sure they did not notice, however, it seemed he did. What a terrifying man. I had begun to assume he did not change like the others, seeing him peeping and all, but it seemed I was mistaken. He might even be more terrifying than canon.

I smiled at him when we locked eyes to which he nodded at me. "Your leads are just as dead as mine. Anytime I seem to come up with something, it only leads to more dead end." I nodded at him. It was same with me. No matter where I got, it was always a dead end. An empty base, an abandoned building. Sometimes I found some men; But they were nothing but small fry; Disposable. "Lately they have been quite active. Makes me think something big might happen."