Changes!

{Hokage's Office, Administrative building, Konohagakure}

{6:12 PM, 3rd July 13 Yrs ANB}

{3rd Person POV}

Hiruzen stared at everyone who was present in the meeting room, everything was happening too fast, the last time something like this happened a giant 9-tailed monster was ripping through Konoha.

Hiruzen was getting an ominous feeling, somewhere at the back of his mind he knew that this situation wouldn't be as simple to resolve as he thought. With Orochimaru involved along with Suna's aggression, facts would start piling up against Konoha soon.

He looked at the people gathered in the room, he knew why Hiashi and Kakashi were there, even Hayate being here made some sense form of sense because he was with Kakashi when they found Hinata and Sasuke.

'Why is Inoichi here though, did he get some information from their memories?'

"Inoichi?" Hiruzen asked, his puzzled tone caused the blond man to be embarrassed for a moment but he finally took the courage to ask.

"Hokage-sama, pardon my intrusion, my daughter Ino is a friend of Ren, the genin Konoha declared a missing-nin today." Inoichi began and Hiruzen somewhat understood the crux of the situation, to be honest, he had forgotten about that completely, Ino's friendship with Ino and the Yamanaka plan was raised in the meeting almost a year ago.

"Yes, Ren ran away from Konoha yesterday during the second portion of the exam, we are not sure but 3 Konoha and 3 grass genin were found murdered close to his last known location. Along with that, he stole an important weapon from the restricted section, and hadn't responded to any summons..." Hiruzen spoke. Since the Kubikiribōchō was with Ren, Shikaku thought it served as a good enough distraction and a legitimate reason for Ren to defect.

'Although it would mean some people would target Ren because of the sword as well. But by the time this particular information leaks, he should be back in a safehouse that Kakashi should have told him about.'

"I see..." Inoichi spoke, he wanted to speak more but he hesitated and he looked at Haishi and Kakashi before he bowed, "I'm sorry for the intrusion, I will take my leave now Hokage-sama." 

Inoichi knew that Ino would not believe the explanation as even he thought it was absurd. The explanation given by Hokage-sama did reveal a planned intent to hide facts though so he didn't question it. Unless Ino talked to Ren himself she would not believe Hokage-sama's words, and to be honest, even he hadn't considered Ren a flight risk.

Hayate looked at Inoichi leaving the room, he then turned to Hiruzen and asked, "Is it really okay to leave Ino in the dark, Ren wanted to talk to her before leaving, it was because we were trying to find Ino's team that we found Hinata and Sasuke so quickly. This could be an opportunity to clear any misunderstandings that might hurt both of them later."

Hiashi's eyes sharpened as he found some more clues about the situation, he was in panic mode right now. No matter how harshly he treated Hinata she was his daughter, and the improvement she had been showing was enough to legitimately for him to keep her as the heir to the Hyuga clan, but this incident destroyed any hope he had for that dream.

Hiruzen sighed, "The first rule of being undercover is that no one should know you are undercover. Everyone here including Shikaku are already too many people who know about this mission. The more people know about this, the chances of information leaking increase as well. One wrong move could put Ren's cover in jeopardy"

"But why so big of a ploy, Hizashi gave his life to stop the fourth shinobi world war from breaking out early..." Hiashi almost lashed out but he took a deep breath to calm himself down, the pressure was a bit too much on him, so he calmed himself down and spoke.

"The Hyuga Clan puts forth a request for the return of Tsunade Senju," Hiashi spoke, his main reason for coming here was this.

Hayate was a little angry at the harsh words Hiashi spoke but upon seeing Hokage-sama's glance in his direction he stopped himself from speaking.

"Jiraiya is supposed to come back in another couple of days, with at least a short war on the horizon it would be wise to recall Tsunade back." Hiruzen nodded at Hiashi who finally calmed down.

After a brief moment of silence, Hiruzen asked, "So how are young Sasuke-kun and Hinata-chan?"

Kakashi stopped leaning against the wall as he came out of his self-loathing, "They are both okay, thanks to Ren's insight the doctors were quickly able to suppress the infiltration of the Juinjutsu in their bodies. However, they were not able to remove the seal, they didn't have enough knowledge or confidence to touch their tainted chakra networks. Both the cursed seals have been suppressed by the Evil Sealing Method..." Kakashi spoke.

Hiruzen nodded, 'It seems like recalling Tsunade would be the only option, the problem is that I don't think she would listen to my orders...'

He was distracted as in a flurry, a messenger hawk directly arrived in his office, it stood on his desk and turned to give him access to its pouch. Hiashi's mood changed as he stared at the hawk with a grave look on his face.

While Kakashi and Hayate were too young to understand what this signified he was perfectly aware as to what was happening. Hiruzen opened the scroll attached to the hawk and read it silently.

'''...Outpost #132 and Outpost #711 were attacked by wind elements jutsu, 2 Jonin were injured in the battle trying to make sure everyone survived. After the skirmish the attackers swiftly retreated back to the Land of Wind...'''

...

'This doesn't make sense, this was all happening too quickly. How would Rasa even know about Gaara's death this quickly, his brother and sister left just yesterday from Konoha. It should still take them 2 days to reach Suna... was this all an act, and they sent Gaara to act as a suicide bomber and die.'

Hiruzen thought, his mind brought forth a memory of Hayate telling him that he heard Gaara and his sibling talking about invading Konoha.

"Hayate, what exactly did Ren warn you about, can you repeat it exactly?" Hiruzen asked.

Hayate nodded and he thought back, it was the moment that Ren turned to escape Konoha, "He spoke, 'I nearly forgot, I didn't know that they were the Kazekage's kids, but they were talking about a plan to invade Konoha during the third portion of the exams.' " Hayate repeated.

'That doesn't make sense as well if their plan was to attack Konoha during the third exam then was this just a backup plan because Gaara their trump card got killed...'

"Is it happening then, Hokage-sama?" Hiashi asked.

"Yes, Suna just attacked two of our outposts... get your clan ready, Kakashi call a war meeting. Hayate dismissed..."

...

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AN- An army of Zetsu clones begins to mess things up! With the Timeline heading toward disaster, what would be the most out-of-pocket thing for Ren to do?

P.S- Read 21 Chapters ahead at Pàtreon.com/Version_401.

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