Return

Sakumo soon came out of the cave with Kushina and Mikoto behind him and Ryu in his arms.

Before Yukan could ask about the jonin, Sakumo shook his head, indicating Yukan not to ask anything.

"Sensei, what about Ryu? What happened to him?" Yukan changed his question.

"Nothing. He just passed out after seeing me covered in blood. He has a weak heart and may not be fit to be a shinobi if things continue like this." Sakumo replied.

Yukan then looked at the trembling Kushina and Mikoto in the back.

They were still scared, remembering the death of their team's jonin.

Yukan wanted to comfort them but he did not know what to do, so he simply went forward and patted their heads.

Sakumo could feel their pain, he had once gone through it.

Sakumo put down the unconscious Ryu on the ground and bent down, reaching the girls' height.

"Hey, you both are pretty brave, you did not faint after seeing me covered in blood. This one patting your heads right here was scared after seeing me like this."

Hearing Sakumo, both Kushina and Mikoto giggled while Yukan was embarrassed that his Sensei told them something like that.

"Well, moving on. What happened on your mission? Did you guys find out about the increase in food poisoning cases?" Sakumo asked the girls.

Kushina and Mikoto were quiet for a while and then started to speak," Our Sensei's first move was to pick the common thing out of all the cases. When we went through the cases, we found out that majority of the patients had drunk the water from the river during their training, so we went into the forests to investigate further but we were attacked by Iwa ninja on our way our sensei was injured while protecting us."

"You guys did well holding out till now, now you are safe, go back with Yukan, I will stay here a little longer to clean up some rats that may remain," Sakumo said.

He turned to look at Yukan and said, "They are your responsibility now. There should be no more shinobi on your way back."

Yukan nodded.

He carried Ryu on his back and the four went back to Konoha.

After the kids left, Sakumo tightened his grip on his blade and got ready to kill again.

Soon, Yukan and the others got to Konoha without meeting any problems.

After reaching Konoha, Yukan immediately took Kushina and Mikoto to the hospital.

-At the Hospital-

The doctor checked team 1 and gave a brief of their condition to Yukan.

"Ryu has woken up but he has developed a fear of blood and is no more fit to be a shinobi. Mikoto is mentally fine but has injuries on her body that may take a little over two weeks to heal while Kushina is mentally affected and needs someone to stay with her." The doctor told Yukan everything.

"Thank you, doctor, I will come and visit Kushina every day," Yukan replied.

Yukan then went to take Minato with him.

Minato was now allowed to leave the hospital.

In his room, Minato had finished changing his clothes back to a comfortable tracksuit.

Right when Minato was about to open the door, Yukan opened the door before him.

"Hey, you were about to leave?" Yukan asked Minato.

"Yes. I cannot give a very long break in my training after all. How about you? How was your mission?"

"It is over and it went well… Come on, I'll take you to my house, you should eat some healthy food, at least today," Yukan replied, not wanting to tell Minato about his silly mistake to ignore the enemy on the mission.

Minato and Yukan left the hospital and walked toward Yukan's house.

When they reached the door of the house, Yukan stopped Minato from going inside and went inside first.

He didn't want another 'cutie pie' incident happening this time.

After talking to his mother and ensuring that there wasn't going to be another incident, he called Minato inside.

Minato came inside, greeted Yukan's mother and sat in a room.

The rest of the day passed normally.

-At night, Hoakge's office-

It was almost midnight and Hiruzen had almost completed his work for the day.

He was about to turn off the lights and take a power nap but before he could, he sensed someone outside his door.

Before the person could knock, he said," Come in."

The door was opened and Sakumo came in.

"You are back, Sakumo!" Hiruzen exclaimed.

Sakumo had first gone to his house and washed up so now had a much cleaner appearance than before.

"Yes, Lord Hokage. This is the mission report" Sakumo said as he handed Hiruzen a sheet.

"Leave the report, you tell me what happened." Hiruzen took the paper and put it aside.

"Samba Shibo, team 1's jonin died on the mission. Around 10 squads of Iwa shinobi were in the forests and had mixed some poison into the river. Fortunately, the poison was not very potent and it did not kill anyone. All the 10 squads are now dead." (A/N: Every squad has 4 people).

Hiruzen heard Sakumo, spoke nothing and just nodded.

"Now that this mission is over, I have some more work for you…"