Chapter 34

<p>Hiruzen looked to the village while smoking his tobacco pipe on the rooftop of the Hokage's Tower. His face was calm and relaxed but it was the opposite in the inside, it was everything but calm and relaxed. He has no time to relax now as a new big problem had arise and in no way he could be calm when the problem was going to be a threat to his village. The wind was cold as it was night. The dark sky was littered with stars and the moon shone brightly to provide some light to the world on this occasion night. The villagers were in their Yukata and Kimono oufits were happy as they enjoyed themselves like they always did every year. Colorful lights were everywhere in the village that made the village looked more inviting and addded a cheerful and joyous vibe to it. Hiruzen sighed as he knew all this happiness and beautiful things would not be happening in the near future. Well, maybe it would happen but not as joyous as this time. <br/><br/>"What's lost will always be replace with something better." Said a voice suddenly from behind Hiruzen. <br/><br/>Hiruzen was not startled at all by the voice as if expecting it. He looked back and saw Kakashi, Guy, Asuma, and Kurenai came out of the shadow in their each traditional outfits, except for Guy who have his usual green jumpsuit. Hiruzen smiled at them as he turned back to look at the village. <br/><br/>"You're right, Kakashi. If we ever lost this joyous and happy scene in the future, it will be replace with other things that will make us happy and reason to celebrate. Well, it's not like we'll never be able to celebrate New Years anymore in the future, anyway." <br/><br/>Hiruzen said jokingly as Kakashi and his friends stood near him with Kakashi and Guy on his right side while Asuma and Kurenai on his left side. They stood in silent as they enjoying the peacefulness of the moment while overlooking the cheerful and colorful village. After some times, Asuma spoke up with a cigarrate in his mouth. <br/><br/>"Did something happened?" <br/><br/>"And why do you think so?" <br/><br/>"Kakashi said the things earlier without any context, so something did happened, right?" <br/><br/>"So, Kakashi did know about it?" <br/><br/>Hiruzen asked as he looked at Kakashi with a raised eyebrow, not expecting him to know since it was not being told to others yet. Kakashi shifted on his feet as he laughed nervously. <br/><br/>"Uh...I heard about it from Shikaku-san by chance when he was talking with Inoichi-san. I didn't know the detail though." <br/><br/>Hiruzen chuckled as he shook his head at Kakashi's words. He took a breath of the nicotine before breathing out smokes from his mouth. Guy raised a questionary eyebrows at his rival since he never knew that Kakashi had this side of him. Kakashi noticed Guy's look and shrugged his shoulders with an innocent face, or eye. <br/><br/>"Well, something did happened. But it was not too bad yet, so don't worry."<br/><br/>"So...you're not going to tell us?" Asuma asked as he inched closer to his father. <br/><br/>"Asuma." Kurenai said sternly as he tried to hold back Asuma from pushing Hiruzen further. <br/><br/>Asuma stepped back at her call but Hiruzen was not bothered by it. Hiruzen did not plan to tell others about the problem yet. As of now, the only ones who knew about it were Hiashi and probably his clan elders too, Shikaku and himself. The problem may arised conflict or panic among the other shinobi presumably the genin and chunin rank, it was not a simple matter and someone may tried to solve it on their own which was not what Hiruzen want, but he certain that would happened if he tell the other shinobi's about it. <br/><br/>"Let's wait and see what become of the matter. I'll inform you about it if necessary." Hiruzen said with a sigh but still mantained his smile while smoking on his pipe. <br/><br/>The others nodded their head, not wanted to push him for further information. They seemed to understand of where Hiruzen was coming from as per his words but still as a shinobi, they couldn't contain their curiosity of knowing something they don't, or in professional word, gathering information. <br/><br/>************* <br/><br/>The village were filled with light and people walking around with a smile on their face. Sakura and Ino were walking down the street together as beautiful kimono hugged their figure, in the hands were some sort of food or candy that they surely enjoyed. Walking hand in hand, they stopped at a vendor that was selling accessories such as earings, bracelets, necklace, and even lucky charms.<br/><br/>As they were looking at the beautiful and charming bead bracelets, Ino suddenly bumped into someone beside her. She immediately apologized as to not want to anger the person but calmed down when she saw it was a boy and more so, Naruto with Shikamaru and Choji by his side, suprsingly Kiba was there too despite his dislike to Naruto. <br/><br/>"Shikamaru? What are you doing here?" Ino asked as she disregard Naruto's presence and looked straight at Shikamaru. <br/><br/>Naruto was not bothered by it as he picked up carefully an earring with his hand. Shikamaru looked at Naruto briefly before answering Ino. <br/><br/>"What do you think am I doing here? I'm enjoying the New Year's festival." <br/><br/>"Well, seems like it with your bored face and all." <br/><br/>Shikamaru sweat dropped at the sudden sarcastic remarked by Ino as Sakura giggled and Kiba was full blown laughing. Choji was casually eating a plate of takoyaki his father bought for him while saving the other food he bought in the plastic bag in his hands for later. He looked at Naruto when no one else was paying attention to him and said in curiosity. <br/><br/>"Naruto. Why are you looking at an earing? It looks peculiar too." <br/><br/>"Oh, I plan to buy it for someone I know. It's going to be good on him." <br/><br/>"Him? You want to give a guy an earing?" Came in Kiba as he walked beside Naruto and gave him a sitnky and disgusted look. <br/><br/>"So what? This is what he likes. Do I need to give him something he hate or something?" Naruto shot back as he frowned. It was no one's false that his friend liked earings, well, his friend does not wore any earings, but Naruto noticed the little hole on his ears. <br/><br/>"Is it Yoshi? I don't know he likes earings." Shikamaru chimed in as he had enough with the girls on the other side. <br/><br/>"Well, I don't know too. It is a wild guess." Naruto said casually as he decided to buy the earing no matter what others said with little money he saved over the years that he brought with him. <br/><br/>"Speaking of him. Where is Yoshi?" Sakura interrupted the boys as she walked with Ino passed the boys. <br/><br/>As soon as the question was asked, all of them minus the girls looked at Naruto, he was the only one that almost always with him, so he was the only one to have the answer.....or not. Naturo shrugged his shoulders while shaking his head nonchalantly. <br/><br/>"He's probably at home. Yoshi didn't like festival, I guess." Naruto said, a little bit unsure with his answer but he knew Yoshi was at home if not here since Yoshi doesn't like to go somewhere unnecassary. <br/><br/>On the other side of the village, in the forest of a training ground, Yoshi was sitting on a tree while reading the small book he got from Shikaku early this morning. His face was serious as a 9 year old could be. The pages of the book were blank except for two pages of the middle part. It was a clever trick to trick people into thinking that it was just a blank book, because most people tended to assume it as nothing just by opening the first page. The words on the two pages was not too long or too short but it was enough for you to read in seconds, but for Yoshi it was like hours. He reread the words again and again as if doesn't want to accept everything. <br/><br/>"Well, this spells trouble. Looks like I need to leave here early then. Wonder how they got this." Yoshi said with a calm anger in his voice as his eyes was sharp. <br/><br/>He scracthed his bandaged neck a little bit hard out of stress, causing the bandage to came loose and him ended up scracthing his scars. This was the first time that someone was successsfully making him angry since most of the time he was unbothered by anything. There were millions questions in his mind right now as he went into his thinking mode. <br/><br/>'Who told them about it? Who did I make contact with in the past? It must be an adult since a child was too dumb to understand this, if so, who is the adult? Someone important? Must be if the Hokage trusted them. An Anbu? Clan shinobi? Who is it? Is it them?' <br/><br/>Yoshi jumped down from the tree as he ran towards his house, wanting to write down all the ideas he had in his mind before they disappeared. But as always, when you're in a hurry, someone would suddenly appeared in front of you to waste your time, and that's what literally happened to Yoshi. <br/><br/>"Yoshi! I finally found you. I went to your house but you're not there so-" <br/><br/>"Naruto. What is it?" Yoshi cut off Naruto's words as he asked annoyingly. His 'good friend' acts was gone as he was not in the mood to play pretend. <br/><br/>Naruto stopped speaking as his face lose the smile. His blue eyes darted around nervously as he tried to speak of his purpose but failed as if sensing Yoshi's annoyance towards him. Shikamaru, Choji, and Kiba who were by Naruto's side were silent. They never expected Yoshi to talk like that with Naruto or ever showed his annoyance openly like that, and towards Naruto too. Shikamaru quirked an eyebrow at that. As his father ordered him to keep an eye on Yoshi, he had been observing him everyday since his first day here, whether it was at the academy or around the village. <br/><br/>He witnessed the first meeting of Naruto and Yoshi at a ramen shop a year ago. He saw Yoshi and Naruto talking with each other with a smile like good friends. The day Shikamaru and Yoshi met, the day Yoshi asked for his help to find a book store, that day was not a coincidience. It was plan by himself to observe Yoshi closely, but Yoshi was good at concealing his true self back then, so no new information was obtain that time. Now, he was seeing some of the real Yoshi. <br/><br/>'Interesting. Something got him mad or what?' Shikamaru thought to himself as he looked silently at the annoyed Yoshi with sllight amusement. <br/><br/>"Yoshi, I just want to give you this. Nothing else." Naruto said with a nervous smile as he scratched the back of his head and handed Yoshi a small plastic bag. <br/><br/>Yoshi frowned before breathing out and his face went back to a neutral one as he took the plastic bag from Naruto's hand. Yoshi was about to check of what's in it, but stopped halfway then looked at Naruto. <br/><br/>"Whatever this thing is, thank you, Naruto. I'll open it at home later." Yoshi said as he recollected himself and put a small smile on his face. Naruto smiled back in relief after he saw the smile on Yoshi's face. <br/><br/>Silence engulfed them for a few minutes before Yoshi spoke up. <br/><br/>"Naruto. I'm sorry, but I think I need to go home now. I'm a little bit tired, you see." <br/><br/>"Ah, okay. Make sure you get a good rest, Yoshi." <br/><br/>Yoshi nodded with a smile as he bid the others goodbye then started walking away calmly. Naruto and the others looked at Yoshi's figure getting farther away but one of them had a suspicion in his eyes towards Yoshi.<br/><br/>************<br/>Yoshi got back home without any other obstacles got in his way. He locked the door of his house, locked all the windows and drew the curtains off. He hurriedly went to his bedroom then grabbed a notebook from inside his bedside drawer and started reading on it's content in urgency, as if trying to find something. He turned pages after pages until he arrived at the particular page.<br/><br/>'Kakashi was the first contact upon arriving in this world. Ibiki was the second contact during interrogation. Hiruzen and Shikaku was next in the same time right after Ibiki. Some Anbu's knew about me in the first place but never came in contact. Naruto was next came in contact at the Icihiraku Ramen. Then, Shikamaru and Choji in the same time at the hospital. Asuma, Guy, and Kurenai were introduced at Yakiniku Q and conversation was established (no crucial information's was reveal). Came in contact for the first time with Iruka at the academy (he knew about the suicide case)'<br/><br/>Yoshi picked up a stray blank paper on the floor then set it on his desk. He grabbed his pen and dipped it in the ink before started writing.</p>