Odd situation

Ren couldn't help but snort at the development of the situation.

Whoever thought that they could kill The Third successfully must have had balls of steel. Sadly, he would never be able to ask whoever did it if that was true, because they were already dead in the fighting.

Essentially, a good chunk of the Sarutobi Compound had been wasted and blown to smithereens during the chaos. The Hokage himself, was forced to lay down in a bed until Tsunade herself saw him fit to return to duty.

The dozens of ANBU operatives stationed there had been incapable of even interfering, as a seal barrier had risen from the ground and blocked them from doing anything but standing by and waiting for a miracle to happen.

This left many clans in the village in deep paranoia.

Who could be strong enough to come into their own home and bully them?

The sensors had not picked anyway, making the situation altogether even worse and weirder. How did you escape a sensor-type shinobi?!

Therefore, the two new "shinobi" Konoha had the honor of acquiring were now resting in the same house as Naruto and Ren, putting the total people living there at 4.

It still had plenty of space, thus it was not uncomfortable for any of them. Ren had also managed to get Zabuza to agree to teach him some more kenjutsu to boot.

Of course, Ren himself was not bad at kenjutsu, but the problem was that he had no one to spar with or point out flaws he himself could not see.

Zabuza's style was not really compatible with his, but at least the more experienced swordsman could pinpoint critical flaws, and to him that was what mattered the most.

There was also a delay in registering Zabuza and Haku as official Konoha Shinobi for the time being due to the whole situation right now, but Ren knew that it could be easily solved when Hiruzen was healthy… or not.

A week later, something unprecedent happened.

Tsunade succeeded the bedridden Hiruzen and became the Fifth Hokage – Naruto was very very pissed that he wouldn't be able to be the fifth.

Her becoming the Hokage meant that she was no longer eligible to act as the head of the Senju Clan, thus that responsibility was directly passed to Ren.

This also meant Naruto was now the de facto head of the Uzumaki Clan.

That was a scary thought. Ren loved Naruto like a real brother, but he knew that the man was definitely not built to be a scheming man. He'd be roasted and burnt to crisps in any meeting with other clan heads.

So, he insisted that the young genin be educated properly in the ways of leading, even if the only member of the clan was him.

Ren was no longer an Uzumaki-Senju due to the fact he had taken over the Senju Clan as the Head, so a lot of former responsibilities he had now fell on Naruto's hands.

Naturally, after a week had passed, now Ren had managed to get permission to meet the weakened and aged – and retired – shinobi.

And that was exactly what he was planning to do right now.

xXx

Hiruzen settled his frail and weakened hand down and pondered about his situation to himself. Due to his health conditions, he could no longer even smoke, leaving him to simply stare out from a window.

As much as he'd have liked to say that his situation was plain garbage, it was necessary for the future of the village. Under normal circumstances, there was no way he'd have ever managed to get Tsunade to agree to become Hokage.

All the sacrifices he had done were for the sake of the village and the village only.

If it meant the village would continue to exist beyond even his grandson's generation, then he would not mind any sort of sacrifice. He had been the one to agree to the complete genocide of the Uchiha Clan as a B-plan, and at some point it was even the first thought in his mind.

That, he would never deny. His conscience was not of a pure man; he was a vile man not in search of justice, but of continuation.

The village his teachers had built with their very bare hands, was not going to fall inside his generation.

Hiruzen knew; he listened and felt. The rumors spread by the other great Hidden Villages were not uncoverable, he knew they thought of Konoha as very weakened.

He could not even refute them.

The village was more divided than ever before, even his attempts to connect the village tightly to the core tree had been left unanswered. Danzo still lurked in the shadows, Orochimaru was unscathed by any of his attempts, Jiraiya refused the role of a Hokage and Tsunade required enormous sacrifices to give him such a role.

As such-

"Yo, old man."

A cheerful voice resonated around the room he once shared with his dear wife. His eyes easily located the source – Ren – and sighed.

The boy who was now considered a grown man, as the source of plenty of his problems; whether from the past or the near future.

Hiruzen often felt like the crimson-haired boy's actions were aimed at goading him for a purpose he could only wish to understand.

It was in moments like this he wished he still had his tabaco pipe with him – not that he could even use it, that pink-haired apprentice of Tsunade and Dan's niece were pretty adamant and unyielding when it came to that.

xXx

He found himself humming a familiar tune as he walked around the halls of the Sarutobi Compound. He found the compound rather fancy, despite the 'ancient' vibe it had to it.

Earning himself access to the compounds was easier than breathing. The current Sarutobi Clan had declined almost as hard as the Uzumaki's or Senju's, their only active shinobi as of this moment was Sarutobi's younger son.

Not that Ryu really cared, after all the main reason Uzushio had fallen was partially under Hiruzen's hands, and the sole reason the Senju Clan was in such a bad spot was due to Hiruzen's bad management of the village.

The sole reason he had even visited the old man had been to take what originally belonged to the Uzumaki Clan back.

A key.

A key with the strangest shape, that little Ren could guarantee. Truthfully speaking, it looked more like a casual necklace you might see a noble put on to flaunt their wealth in one of their little feasts, but it was far stranger than that.

This "necklace" had a circular shape, with golden corners and the rest being a well-carved green gem that Ren supposed was Emerald, even if it felt far sturdier and tougher than any other gem he had seen before – which to no one's surprise, wasn't that many to speak of.

What did the necklace open?

Back when Mito Uzumaki had still been alive but marred, she had grown tired of having to be on the look out for assassins which wanted to get rid of the young Uzumaki – Kushina -.

She had furloughed any sort of activity in the village she might've had and started to work on a tightly-sealed barrier inside of the Uzumaki Compound, which by itself was already tiny in comparison to other.

Originally it had served as a place of peace and tranquility in her late years, but it had not taken long for her to start racking seals upon seals inside the barrier. God knew how many parchments she had settled down there; filled with knowledge of seals which could not be found elsewhere in the modern shinobi history.

It all felt ensnaring to young Ren, and he was certainly ready to throw jibes at anyone who found his enthusiasm childish or unnecessary. As a fuinjutsu enthusiast, exploring all Konoha had to offer him while it still could, was absolutely delightful.

A dim light escaped the necklace as his hand played with it.

There were two events Ren wanted to prepare for as best as possible. First, due to his 'unique' circumstances, he was already aware that the Chunin Exams were going to be held in Konoha and quite soon at that too.

Ren dallied around the compound, trying to find if there was any corner he had left untouched, before calling it quits and leaving with a thin smile.

Becoming a Chunin this year was quite vital to his future; he could wait one more year, that was true, but he preferred to do it this year.

He knew that his combat capability was well beyond the limits of a genin, and he was not ignorant or filled with humility to say that he was not worthy of such a title.

The exam would be vapid, unless during the time he hadn't kept an eye on the other villages, they had produced some sort of insanely-talented prodigy – but that seemed more and more impossible the more he thought about it.

Ren continued to walk away from the village, unconsciously focusing his attention on other issues, such as the stability of his clan and practicing. The opening of Mito's treasure trove could wait for another day.

Rome was not built in a single day.

And – the most important of the two reasons

Before he could even continue his though process, he was forced to halt, lest the kunai thrown at that location could have killed him.

The kunai whirled past him and stabbed at the ground – a moment later and he'd have been dead.

Yet, Ren felt frazzled. It didn't take him long to notice why.

The kunai had a talisman attached it, and a fuinjutsu enthusiast like him recognized it instantly.

'A seal meant to tire whoever is inside a radius of it as much as possible. So their goal is not to kill, but to apprehend and capture.'

Dozens of thoughts flashed through his mind at that silver of a second. His body although slightly inexperienced, was trained to have the pinnacle of reaction speed he could achieve, so even while being slightly unfocused, it acted on its own.

'Three shinobis, one middle-aged, the other two of the female gender and of relatively young age.'

His sensory abilities shone the brightest in this moment of "weakness". He was quite a long distance away from Konoha, in fact you could say the chances of reinforcement arriving soon were quite low.

After all, if they had managed to bypass Konoha's many alarms, who knew what else they could do?

The thought that maybe they had slain the Anbu's during their shift was not something that crossed his mind at all.

Ren's hands entwined with each other and wove hand-seal after hand-seal. If they were so adamant in trying to capture him, then he'd do them the pleasure of being captured.