Chapter 63: Culprit

"Eiji listen, calm down. We don't know the situation, maybe he mistook him and it isn't Hayate...we should first check the situation out. So let him go, or else he won't be able to lead the way..." - Anko

"But Lady Anko, I don't know if he is authorized to come al-"

'Tsk, this idiot!' - while Anko was lamenting that this Shinobi couldn't read the situation at all, Eiji kicked him in his stomach.

When he landed on his on the ground and started to grunt from the pain, Eiji already started to approach him slowly with his sword drawn:" Listen here now, you will tell me everything or el-" - but he was interrupted by Anko, who threw a kunai from behind at him.

Despite not even looking, he dodged it without any difficulties, but Anko used the time to get herself between those two.

Eiji stopped in his approach to look at Anko, while she was taking out two kunais which she held in a cross stance in front of her chest.

Anko smiled while saying: "Do you really want to start a fight now? While your sensei's murder uses the time, we are wasting here, to escape?"

"!"

Eiji realized that her words made sense, so, amidst his furious and confused state, he tried his best to calm down.

His head was filled with thoughts like: 'He was supposed to die at another time...is this a joke? Am I dreaming?'

But through his willpower, he managed to quieten those thoughts to a level where he could think rationally.

He let his sword glide back into the sheath and signaled her with his head to let the shinobi lead the way.

'Thank god this worked out...' - Anko sighed and helped the shinobi to get back up.

The shinobi was still holding his stomach in pain, so Anko shouted: "WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? DIDN'T YOU SAY YOURSELF IT'S URGENT?!"

"YES!! I'm sorry Lady Anko!"

Hiruzen was standing with a bunch of Anbu and Ibiki while looking at Hayate's corpse when Anko arrived with Eiji.

"You are finally here Anko..."

"Sorry, I was held back..."

While she was saying that, Hiruzen looked briefly at Eiji but didn't say anything.

"Anyway, Ibiki, what do you think?" - Hiruzen

"I have never seen an injury like that: his cut on the neck looks like a highly skilled surgeon amputated it..." - Ibiki

"That is indeed an unusual technique the culprit used...but more importantly is the question who the culprit is and why did he kill him. But the thing which bothers me the most is, why did the culprit just leave the body behind, which may give us clues leading to exposing him..." - Hiruzen

Ibiki and Hiruzen continued to discuss.

Meanwhile, Anko was surprised that Eiji kept silent the whole time and didn't start crying or charge to hug Hayate's body, but Eiji didn't have any place left to feel any sadness.

Instead, he was full of wrath.

After seeing the cut on Hayate's neck, he knew who killed him.

He also could guess why Kabuto left the body behind like that.

Kabuto was in a rush to try to kill Sasuke before he was stopped by Kakashi, so he just didn't have time to deal with his body.

Unfortunately, Kakashi wasn't here right now to report what happened at his side with Sasuke, so they were still all clueless except for Eiji.

But he wasn't in the mood to talk, instead, he kept all the rage silently inside him and thought about the various ways he would kill Kabuto.

Anyway, Hiruzen couldn't do anything else currently, so he said: "Sigh...Anko, you go and inform the guards to not let anyone out of Konoha while the investigation is going on! Ibiki, you go and look through everyone's profile who was at this tower today and look for anything suspicious! The rest of you, clean here up!"

He looked at Eiji and tried to think of words to comfort him, but when he saw the rage in his gaze, he decided it would be better to leave him alone for the time being.

Meanwhile, Kabuto who just escaped from Kakashi smiled amused while thinking: 'Looks like I really made a scene today, those Konoha folks will probably heighten their security. Well, it's not like they will ever catch me hehehe...'