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Shuichi was ready to intercept the moment Sasuke moved his kunai.

But next moment, his kunai fell "I won't walk in the path of my brother. I can't kill my best friend for the sake of power. I will walk on my own path".

Then, when he turned back, Shuichi was looking at him calmly and he immediately activated Sharingan and was ready to fight him.

"I'm not here to fight you. I'm here to bring Naruto back". he slowly walked towards Naruto and picked him up. Then he looked at Sasuke "Your life is your own. you can go to wherever you wish or whoever you want to learn from. unlike Naruto, we have nothing to do with each other. That is one of the reasons, I'm sparing you now.

Hokage sama hasn't declared you a traitor. she also told me to leave you to Naruto. So, I will do that. As for you, you can train hard and focus on your revenge but remember the moment you turn against the village or try to hurt the people I care about....".

He looked into his sharingan coldly and activate his dojutsu making Sasuke flinched for a moment. "believe me, you'll wish for your death".

He disappeared with Naruto after warning Sasuke.

Unknown to him a mysterious member of the Akatsuki had watched the entire fight unfold from Underground. A whisper came from him "A perfect Hybrid. A potential host".

After Shuichi has gone, Sasuke gritted his teeth in frustration "Dammit, I gained 3 tomoe Sharingan and yet why was I so afraid of him?. Once I complete my training, He'll be the first person I'll go look for. After defeating him, I'll go and kill Itachi".

Then, slowly he started travelling towards the hideout those four Sound Ninja spoke to him.

After a while, while everyone gathered, Shuichi appeared with Naruto and said: "Our Mission is a failure".

While Shikamaru understood, Lee asked, "Shuichi san, where is Sasuke ?". He replied "I'm not sure. By the time, I reached there, Naruto was already in this condition".

Gaara slowly spoke, "Even Naruto wasn't able to stop him huh".

Shuichi didn't reply but looked at Shikamaru "Are you sure you can carry that thing to Konoha?".

Temari frowned "thing? What thing?". Shuichi pointed to Choji on Shikamaru's back "that pumpkin". Shikamaru sighed "don't bother to ask anymore. He tends to call people who he doesn't acknowledge with weird things like that".

Kiba sighed "I can't believe we worked hard for nothing". While they were walking together, Kakashi with his dog Pakkun met them and after finding out everything, He carried away Naruto.

Briefly coming to on Kakashi's back as the rest of the Sasuke Retrieval Team is brought back to the Hidden Leaf to make full recovery, Naruto learns that Sasuke escaped. Once fully recovered in his hospital bed, Naruto talks to Shikamaru Nara of how he failed to get Sasuke.

Eavesdropping on them and reluctant to enter until Tsunade arrived to check up on Naruto, Sakura resolves to hide her sadness to cheer her teammate up as he apologizes to her for not keeping his promise.

But Sakura tells him that they'll get Sasuke back together when another chance comes. Jiraiya offers Naruto a chance to leave with him for three years to train to defend himself against Orochimaru and the Akatsuki.

Naruto rebukes his offer, saying that he needs to focus on saving his friend first. Though Jiraiya tries to convince him that Sasuke is beyond the point of return, Naruto refuses to accept it and vows to become strong enough to get Sasuke back. Though seeing the boy's intent foolish, Jiraiya decides to help Naruto and agrees to train him when he is ready.

Elsewhere, as Sasuke arrives at Orochimaru's lair to become his apprentice, the Akatsuki assemble to discuss the new turn of events while their leader tells them that their mission is more vital.

One month later,

Team 15 were eliminating Bandits After the leader is down, Sai was about to exterminate the target. Just then, Yakumo shouted, "wait". Shuichi looked at her "again?". She immediately came near him. hold him down properly.

She performed a various number of hand seals "Chakra capture".

Instantly the chakra from the Bandit forcibly began to transfer to a chakra scroll. After a while, she stopped and wiped her sweat "phew, I improved. Now I can extract genin's worth of chakra".

Shuichi thought "well, I don't want to admit it but Danzo is a capable teacher".

After learning from Danzo and training with Sai, Yakumo is now being helpful, unlike her past self. She only knows three seals.

Chakra draining seal; which can drain the chakra from the opponent and replenish hers

Chakra transfer seal; which can transfer chakra from one person to another provided they were willing to accept it.

Chakra capture seal; which can forcibly extract chakra from the opponent and capturing it into a chakra scroll. She hasn't mastered it yet.

Of course, the first and the third one need Enemy staying still in the process. The best way is to knock them out and extract the chakra while they were unconscious. If it's in middle of the battle, Shuichi would just hypnotise the opponent while Yakumo would do her job. their combo made their mission so easy.

With just three jutsu, Shuichi and Sai never ran out of chakra. now, instead of being an Anchor for the ship which may fall anytime, She became fuel for the ship which will make it sail endlessly.

The only downside part is that she became a bit too obsessed with gathering chakra from fallen opponents. Although she keeps saying it's for increasing her mastery, Shuichi can tell that she was just excited to help him and trying to make up for the time she was just baggage to the team.

As for her battle, She didn't just stay on the side and let them do all the work. She stored Shuichi's various Water jutsus in a scroll whenever they were training and used them in a battle from time to time. Well, at least her usefulness was enough to get praise from Danzo.

Meanwhile, Naruto and others started to move towards Sand to save Gaara from Takumi village ninja who targets Shukaku for their founder, Seimei's revival.

One week later,

Naruto heads off for his two and a half years of training with Jiraya. Meanwhile, Ino requests to become Tsunade's student and started to train with Sakura who was already learning from Tsunade for a month.

A few months later,

Shuichi was in a disguise at the Land of Sand. He sighed "Why am I here again?".

One week ago, Shuichi during an A-rank mission, He accidentally summoned a blue fire orb which is just the size of his palm when he was battling a Jonin and his teammates were heavily injured.

But the strange thing about this blue fire orb is that he didn't exhale it. he summoned it from his hand. while It was floating around him, he was able to control it for an instant.

this blue fire orb was so strong that when it hit that Jonin, who was a missing-nin from Iwa, He was completely vapourised in an instant. With his Dojutsu, He found that the water, blood inside him were completely vapourised, in front of him, only dried flesh remained.

It hit him heavily. For the next couple of days, He didn't even fight Sai or root members fearing that he may accidentally mummify them. He didn't inform Danzo. who knows whether Danzo decides he would be a potential threat to the village.