Lost Children Arc (7) : Hooking The Bait.

Tachibana tried to perform a simple sleep divination to work out where Tsunade was living, but without any items close to her he couldn't learn much. All he could figure out was that she was staying in Tanzaku quarters currently.

Coming out of the washroom after flushing to pretend like he was doing something in there, Tachibana looked at Sakura who was working on her chakra control technique and Sasuke who was reading a book on shuriken throwing techniques and *sighed*.

"Do either of you guys wanna go visit a few stores to bring back souvenirs?" Tachibana asked his friends but both of them shook their heads.

So instead of bothering them anymore, Tachibana jumped out of the balcony window, opting to go pick up souvenirs himself. While he didn't have anyone to pass on the souvenirs to, he did want to get something for his 'parents' since he was pretty sure he'd meet them at the end of this mission to report about it all.

On the way, Tachibana thought about how he would go about involving Tsunade in the stage he was going to create and set up.

'Should I just introduce myself as a seer and stabilise my reputation with her by telling her that I know about her fear of blood?'

'No that would sound strange…I'd imagine that would set us off on the wrong foot. And if she doesn't believe me and informs other shinobi about my ability to divine their secrets it would be a huge problem, for now.'

'Then how about arranging a coincidence which causes her to come to me instead of making me go to her?'

'Hmmm...what information could do that though and how do I make her know about it?'

'...'

As Tachibana walked around the town, he kept his eyes and ears trained for any noises that involved Tsunade and Shizune, but to his bad luck, it seemed like Tsunade had stopped gambling for some reason.

'Did she already spend away all the money she had?'

'Oh? Then couldn't I meet her under the premise of giving her a loan?'

'But I doubt I could fool her with my Transformation Jutsu…'

Tachibana made sure to roam around for a while but not finding any success he returned to his Inn since it was getting late and Onizuka would probably be arriving at their destination soon.

Except-

'The heck!'

'I searched for her all day and now I find her?'

-Tsunade was apparently living in the same Inn as the one Team Seven had planned to stay in while posing as child traffickers.

Tachibana looked at Tsunade and Shizune who were waiting to get the key to their room from the receptionist and quickly walked up to them, specifically he walked up to Shizune and interrupted her as she stood beside Tsunade.

"Onee-san~! Can I pet him?" Tachibana said pointing at Tonton, the little pink pig, who was in her arms.

Shizune smiled and spoke calmly after noticing Tachibana's forehead protector.

"Aren't you on a mission?" As soon as Shizune said the word mission, Tsunade's head snapped over to Tachibana.

"Don't worry Onee-san~! I'm not the type to abandon my post! We're just relaxing for now since we have to wait for our target to appear."

Shizune smiled and then let Tonton a little closer to Tachibana who softly pinched the fat pig's cheeks and tickled its ears.

"He's cute.", Tachibana said and as if agreeing with him the little pig *oinked*.

"My mom has a cat too, but he's probably running around the village again since mom keeps feeding him too much."

"Really? I thought about getting a cat before. But Tonton felt the cutest of them all so I brought him since I could eat more food with him."

"Really?" Tachibana asked looking like he was shocked, "I mean…you don't look like someone that eats a lot."

Shizune smiled with embarrassment before lightly punching Tachibana on his shoulder and Tachibana nodded as he excused himself.

"I hope I see you again sometime later Onee~san! Need to go do my duties now! I'll probably stay in the inn for the next three days."

Shizune waved her hand and then turned around to look at Tsunade who had furrowed brows.

"What happened Tsunade-sama? Is it because he didn't greet you?" Shizune asked with a little confusion since Tsunade wasn't one to hold grudges over such things.

Tsunade on the other hand was thinking hard about something.

'That boy was from Konoha…'

'If he's just come here on a mission today…then that feeling from earlier…could it be his Jonin Sensei?'

'Hmm…I need to figure out who that person was anyway.'

"Shizune, you go ahead and wait with Tonton in the room. I'll come back after a little while, I just remembered something."

Shizune's eyes turned teary.

"Tsunade-sama! You said you won't gamble anymore from today onwards!!!!!!"

But Tsunade had already used the body flicker jutsu to flicker away.

Tachibana who had already reached his room watched as his friends were both sleeping on their chairs and on the bed at odd angles.

Without disturbing them, Tachibana sat on one of his own chairs and activated spirit vision to look around the inn.

'Oh? That was faster than I thought…I didn't think she'd be this interested in knowing who Yamato was.'

'She's standing guard on the roof, right above my room…'

'So she probably wants to figure out where Yamato is by tracking me.'

'Well at least with this, I have a reason to rope her into our team and then the mission.'

Tachibana waited for about five minutes while waiting before he looked at the time and nodded to himself as he *clapped* twice to wake up his teammates.

Sasuke's head jerked as he woke up to look around as if someone was attacking them and Sakura was doing her best to wipe away the drool on her face.

Both calmed down when they saw Tachibana looking at them with an amused gaze and then glared at him.

"What? I'm not the one who fell asleep! What would you do if someone had come in here to assassinate you? Yamato-sensei isn't here to keep watch on you too. So you guys better step up, or someone will end up assassinating you while you sleep."

Sakura and Sasuke's eyes softened and they nodded before Tachibana continued, "Better change into our personas since we'll have company soon."

Tachibana and Sakura transformed into their disguises while Sasuke left the room to tail them when they stepped out of the room and went to the forest where Naruto was 'trapped'.

Tachibana saw how Tsunade adjusted herself to always remain out of Sasuke's vision and admired her skills but he was soon forced to look back at the door when he heard a soft *knock* from the other side.

Tachibana and Sakura looked at each other before Sakura walked up to the door and opened it.

Behind it, as Tachibana saw through his spirit vision were Onizuka and his two guards. Using his spirit vision, Tachibana could see that both of them were shinobi since both had used the transformation jutsu to appear larger and bulkier than they actually were.

Seeing the quality of their transformation jutsu, Tachibana knew even Sakura knew about their trick and so they had nothing to worry about.

"Lady! Are you going to keep us waiting or can we come in-" Onizuka said in a brash tone but Tachibana interrupted him.

"No. There's no need to waste time. Let's go."

Onizuka looked at Tachibana with interest before nodding. "Boys, you heard the master. Let's go."