108 [The Begining of a Legend]

"...So I guess news travels fast?" as soon as I returned home I was escorted by some ANBU's to Hokage's office.

"When you leave a massive crater within the walls of Suna it does, any injuries?" Tsunade-sama asked and I shook my head and leaned against the wall, "No I checked, except for some chakra exhaustion everything else was fine..."

She nodded as Shikaku asked, "So you killed the Ichibi Jinchuriki, and managed to make Suna bow out of the next war?"

'huh, so at least the spies in Suna are doing their job...'

"How many died?" I asked instead of answering, everyone shared a look before Jiraya-sama said, "at least 2023 Suna-nin's..."

My shoulders sagged at his reply, "and the civilians?"

"...over 100,000" my head popped up staring into his eyes, trying to determine if he was joking but the grim look he gave me said it all.

'Dammit...' I wanted to punch something, '...if only Kankuro and Temari had let me take Gaara away from the village.'

"You did what you had to do kid-" Jiraya's voice broke me out of the thoughts, I looked at everyone present, almost everyone looked at me with pity, Kurenai-sensei was already standing beside me, trying to appeal to me to relax, only a single pair of eyes didn't look at me with pity, maybe something akin to recognition and understanding reflected in that blank face.

I took out the scroll Baki gave me, tossing it to Shikaku-san I leaned back on the wall and closed my eyes, the silence in the room was dreading, no one knew what to say as Shikaku opened the scroll and went through it before passing it to Tsunade-san.

'Stop with those looks...'

For the first time, I didn't like that I could sense people's emotions, the negative feeling was overflowing through the room.

"Well, I guess this is to be expected..." I heard Tsunade mutter, I opened my eyes and stared at her asking what it was, I just handed her the plan of attack, why is her emotion still grim?

"These aren't the plans about how they are going to attack us, it's just a letter written by the Suna council to me..."

'What the-'

My face twitched and some anger appeared on my face so Tsunade-sama continued, "Calm down kid, none of those plans was gonna help us anyway, as we have spies in Suna, so do the other nations, as soon as he handed this scroll to us every plan got changed. What they did give us is some information on our opponents and..." She scrambled for a scroll, "...this made more sense now."

"What's that?" My anger was stated for the moment, "it's a letter that arrived an hour ago from Sunagakure, detailing why they lied to you to make you believe that you won by a large margin so that you don't make any rash actions. I mean seriously, you were pointing a million shuriken at the entire village, they wanted you out of their borders as soon as possible."

I deflated but nodded, seeing me back down she smiled and said, "You did a brilliant job kid, I mean seriously you made an entire nation back down from the war."

I nodded keeping a blank mask on my face, I leaned back on my wall and Tsunade-sama started discussing with Shikaku and ANBU-commander.

"Tobi-kun, don't hide your feelings from me, you are all grown up but I still am your sensei..." Kurenai-sensei whispered and I leaned slightly against her shoulder, "I'm a little tired sensei, that's all." I felt Asuma-sensei coming and leaning against the wall, he took a cigarette out and presented it to me.

I could feel Kurenai-sensei glaring at me and him, I hesitated before taking it, a spark of fire chakra and it lit up. I carefully brought it to my lips, and took a huge drag, there was a burning sensation in my throat and my chest heated up. I closed my eyes and stayed still for a second before exhaling a cloud of smoke. Focusing on my chakra control to change the shape of the smoke to spell out 'Fire'.

'heh, I guess I could see the appeal...'

The toxins in the cigarette dampened my senses a little, I felt a little disoriented, I looked at the burning stick before taking another drag and blowing out 'Shadow'. I looked out and stared at the 5 faces sculpted on the Hokage monument. I looked back once again at the cigarette before pressing its burning tip to my left palm. The sudden pain that flared from my left palm helped me regain my senses as I tossed the half-lit cigarette back towards Asuma-sensei.

"Thank you, Asuma-sensei, Kurenai-sensei..." a brief vision of a Hayate-sensei appeared in my mind and I softly whispered, "Hayate-sensei"

I stepped forward and once again walked back to the centre of the room instead of standing in the background. "Tsunade-sama..." I started gaining her attention before asking, "Can I get a map of Kusa?" I asked and Shikaku threw me a blank one, I nodded to him and opened it, scanning for the border or someplace that matched what I had seen before I found the part of the border from where I infiltrated the region.

Unsealing a calligraphy brush I started marking all the area's where I saw an increased foreign shinobi activity, there is always a possibility that everyone vacated the area but some people must still be there, they couldn't vanish in the two days it took me to get back home.

"I saw Iwa and Suna shinobi, milling in those areas. Most of them might have moved away, but there is a possibility that we could get some clues, the war will be delayed giving us some time to handle this front as both Iwa and Kumo will be scattered back to renew their plans." I stopped scribbling as she took the parchment and Shikaku-san looked at it

"Maybe someone with large chakra reserves and who can use shadow clone jutsu can be helpful here..."

Everyone turned to look at Jiraya.

'Am I missing something?'