Team 10

{Main Gate, Konohagakure}

{8:37 PM, 27 March 78 Yrs}

{Hiroshi's POV}

Hiroshi knew his plan got fucked up a little, now he can't ditch the caravan in the middle until they arrive at their destination, or at least stay at a village overnight then he could think about slipping through. The thing was that he didn't want to perform the jutsu again, his physique was already down to B- from B any less and it would be detrimental to his growth.

Thankfully his trait made it so that his stat limit was still above 100 so there was room for improvement before the next simulation, right now though his immediate escape plan needed to be changed. He observed the three genin, the famous Ino-Shika-Cho combinations, their personalities still polar apart from each other. Choji was eating some chips while Shikamaru was looking at the caravan most likely looking for the most comfortable place to sleep.

Ino was the only one who walked behind Asuma listening to their conversation with an over-excited expression, this was probably team 10's first or second C-Rank. They talked for a few moments and it was already dark, the two sides argued for a bit before the owner of the caravan came towards Hiroshi and Ryoko and motioned for them to sit in the back. The storage area was like a trolley with a piece of tarp thrown over a metal frame to hide the contents from view and keep them away from the sun.

Hiroshi quickly climbed into the back behind Ryoko who went to the side and pulled out a roll of cloth to place before he curled to rest. Hiroshi shrugged as he soon followed and repeated his actions, an identical piece of cloth was tucked behind his head for support as he started his rest. In a few minutes, the caravan started moving and he closed his eyes, he enhanced his hearing as he listen to Ino whine about the boring mission, Hiroshi was tired from a full day of training and then his partially successful escape from Konoha, as the caravan rocked slowly he stopped chakra flowing towards his ears and welcomed the bliss of ignorance as he went to sleep.

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{Earlier today}

{Root Base 001, Konohagakure}

{7:11 PM, 27 March 78 Yrs}

{Danzo's POV}

Danzo frowned as he looked at Koi who Body Flickered into the room, he was supposed to keep an eye on the kid and make sure he doesn't do anything stupid, but even though Koi's face was blank Danzo could tell that something was wrong.

"What Happened?" Danzo asked, he put aside the report he was reading for now.

"Hiroshi escaped, Danzo-sama..."

...

...

It took a few seconds for Danzo to clock what Koi just said, it was something that he didn't even consider to be in the realm of possibility.

"Explain!" Danzo's voice rose sharply, he suppressed his anger as he glared at Koi.

"Ye Danzo-Sama, after you left Hiroshi went back to his physical conditioning training and then ninjutsu practice. He stayed at Training Ground 21 till about 6:30 in the evening before he went to have dinner at Yakiniku Q for half an hour, after that, he started browsing through various shops while buying 10 sets of fuinjutsu supplies before he kept walking through the commercial district. At one point he bumped into a drunk guy and they got into an argument, he kept repeating the same sentence over and over again like a pre-programmed illusion, I used my Byakugan and found out that he was just a clone with no chakra network."

...

Danzo pondered over Koi's explanation, there were server inconsistencies that he immediately could point out, why did it take them so long to notice that Hiroshi was a clone, when was the last time Koi had scanned Hiroshi with his Byakugan, just how could a genin slip under the notice of a ROOT team.

"What was the time interval between your Byakugan scans," Danzo asked, normally when tracking someone with the Byakugan if the target is not deemed a threat, then the Byakugan user normally scans the target every couple of minutes as a standard procedure to maintain vigilance while also conserving chakra.

"3 Minutes," Koi answer his face as blank as ever.

"Why," Danzo asked, it was a little longer than he would have liked but still within acceptable margins considering the target was a genin.

"Due to training Jutsu through the evening, Hiroshi was out of chakra, and thus his threat level was reduced, along with his potential flight risk chance became negligible, plus along the crowded street he kept bumping into people, and as someone who doesn't have knowledge of the Shadow Clone Jutsu, while I was away for a short mandatory break, Kiroi and Kinta both concluded that the clone was Hiroshi" Koi replied, his actions were based on the ROOT's protocols for tracking someone inside Konoha, it was just a bit of an anomaly of how Hiroshi was able to vanish under Koi's supervision.

"When did you last scan him before he vanished, and did his clone keep bumping into people and interacting with the physical world, what kind of clone was it?" Danzo asked, there was no information of Hiroshi having access to any clone techniques except the normal Bunshin no Jutsu.

"Right after he left Yakiniku Q, I scanned him before taking a short break, Kiroi contacted me to come since the clone apparently got into trouble with a drunk and his response had several inconsistencies, his clone didn't match any of the jutsu from the archive," Koi answered further deepening the frown on Hiroshi's face. If he didn't have Hiroshi's entire life in the file then he would suspect him of being a spy, or a sleeper agent. The boy had been outside Konoha walls just 4-5 times, right now though the important thing was finding Hiroshi, he could get his answers after he was captured.

'The secrets that the kid is hiding keep on increasing... I should get the device ready to extract whatever information we can before his mind breaks.'

"And you didn't find a trail?" Danzo asked.

"No Danzo-sama" Koi replied, it was astonishing that even though Koi could see 500m around him in either direction after being duped Koi couldn't even find a trace of Hiroshi.

"Take Squad 6 with you, scour every inch around the Yakiniku Q, he most likely made a clone and substituted with it somewhere between the place where you killed his clone and Yakiniku Q," Danzo spoke and Koi vanished from the room, Danzo looked to the scroll that he was reading before he set it aside and placed his hands on a seal matrix and waited for his assistant to arrive.

'A clone jutsu that isn't in the archive...'

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{Hiroshi's POV}

Hiroshi felt like he was moving in the darkness, everything around him was mudded as he felt a strong pressure acting on his body, he turned around only to be surrounded by a never-ending void, as he tried to walk he notice something coming towards him, it was a small dot at first, but as it started coming closer Hiroshi could easily make out his own face rushing towards him. It was kilometers away in one moment before it was almost in front of him the next, his face was 4m tall, it was just his head from neck above, with a kunai piercing through the base of his jaw through the top of his head, his eyes blood red as a faint hint of madness danced in them, and his tongue wiggling out of his mouth, bisected into two by the kunai.

As the floating head smashed into him he found himself waking up with a start, his body damp with sweat as he took a lot of deep breaths to calm himself.

"Are you okay?" He almost jumped back at the sudden voice before he turned to see Ino peering into the caravan, the caravan was still shaking slightly as he saw a few trees moving away from him.

"Yeah ummm, I'm okay" Hiroshi spoke before he rubbed the back of his head, his hair was damp so he quickly ignored the action and looked into her light blue eyes, she had a worried expression before she hesitantly nodded and her head disappeared.

Hiroshi enhanced his hearing again as he tried to hear if anyone else was around, they must have traveled for quite some time as he looked to see if Ryoko was awake and if he was, did he witness his little freakout? Luckily though it seems that only Ino noticed his nightmare and maybe Asuma was aware. As his initial worries of his cover being broken subsided the image that he saw in the dream popped into his head.

Hiroshi has killed people before, it wasn't the first time he had taken a life and it probably won't be the last, just 'Jun Fujimura' wasn't a mission to be fulfilled, he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and Hiroshi did what he had to to survive, still it was the first life he had taken for a purely selfish reason maybe that's why it affected him soo much.

'...where can I get a psychiatrist in Elemental Nations who won't try to read my memories?'

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