153 -=Tsunade's headaches=-

Konoha - Hokage office

Tsunade was in her seat while looking at Shizune with a raised eyebrow

"Can you repeat that?" She asked, not believing what she just heard

"Yes Tsunade-sama, Neji Hyuga escaped from his prison cell" Shizune replied, her tone also showing how incredulous she was

*Sigh*

Tsunade sighed

"Normally I would laugh at this, but now is really a bad timing..." Tsunade commented as she looked back at a specific paper on her table that was surprisingly devoid of papers

A letter from the Raikage, requesting a 5 Kage summit

the reason being two... and both guaranteed a headache for Tsunade

the threat of the Akatsuki, an organization that captured the two tails jinchurikki... but Tsunade knew better than that, for they have a spy on said organization, namely Itachi, so she knows that it's not only the 2 tails...

the 2 tails... 6 tails and even 3 tails are all in Akatsuki's hands... and that is a horrible thing

with the 7 tails missing, the 1 tail is in process of reappearing and no one in Konoha is aware that the nine tails is also about to reappear...

But even worst is the next reason...

God damn Uzushiogakure...

While Tsunade herself was not that worried about Uzushio, the same could not be said about Kiri, Kumo, and Iwa, the three villages already fought Uzushio before

all three of them together... and they barely won, almost losing... the sheer idea that Uzu may be coming back terrified their kages to no end

but it also lit their eyes up with greed...

having tried to loot Uzushio in the past and failing to get much out of it, the 3 villages couldn't stop themselves but wanting anything from Uzushio

and even though their spies never managed to come back, the ones that didn't get too close to Uzushio managed to send back enough information to make them afraid yet greedy

having seen the barrier around Uzushio, a girl that was improving upon it that was unmistakably an Uzumaki, and some weird technologies from afar, made them want anything they could get

Unfortunately, their spies never managed to infiltrate the village, which threw away the plan of acquiring inside knowledge about the village's defenses

but that didn't mean they weren't going to try

and that's what Tsunade also knew, which is simply horrible

Konoha had an alliance with Uzushiogakure, and while she was certain that one of the kages WILL claim that since it was with the old Uzushio it isn't valid anymore... she fears what will happen

On one side, her Uzumaki lineage (She's Mito's grandkid, she's at least 1/4 Uzumaki) wants to help Uzushio... but her logical mind knows that Rimuru is a terrifying enemy and that he will definitely be able to... well she isn't sure actually

maybe he can win, maybe he can stall the enemies enough that she can decide if she should join a side or not...

if it was either the Akatsuki or the Uzushio problem alone, it wouldn't be THAT bad, but... both at once... is just... horrible

Because of information that Itachi shared about Akatsuki with Konoha, they know that at this point, the only way to beat them is by forming an alliance between the villages...

but if they fight the Akatsuki right now, losses are to be expected, and she knows that the other villages are eyeing Uzushio, so they won't agree to fight now and will try something before that...

fighting Uzushio first is an even worse idea, losses are even more obvious if they do that, if the barrier around Uzushio is anything to go by...

this... is a problem

the way things are going is only giving both Uzushio and the Akatsuki time to prepare

since she knows that neither battle is acceptable with heavy losses, there is only one thing that can be done...

a group of elites, maybe even the kages themselves, will attack one of the two enemies, but since Uzushio has no jinchurikki (No one knows about Fuu) and Akatsuki has 3, as she will tell them during the Kage summit, she knows who they will attack first...

but how will the Akatsuki react to that?

all of this thinking only made her head hurt...

it's literally an impossible situation to plan out as it is

and to top it all off, Neji escaped

which is honestly just stupid in her opinion

It's as if he forgot that he has the cursed seal, and as much as the Hyugas may use it as their torture device, the seal was meant to protect the byakugan, and ever since a kirigakure shinobi (Ao) got hold of a byakugan, they decided to have tracker seals applied onto their clan members as well

so she is not worried about this at all, she can easily send a team to capture Neji after she is done with the whole Uzushio Akatsuki ordeal

"Shizune, call sensei and Shikaku here" Tsunade said after thinking for a while

albeit Hiruzen is old, he is still a previous Kage, and his presence will make their village be probably the only one with two Kage-level shinobi at the meeting... unless the Raikage sends Killer Bee as well, that is

and Shikaku is one of the smartest people in the village, if not the smartest, his presence is required

Tsunade is also lucky that her student just started her new justsu and will have a lot to train while she is gone

while she knows Hiruzen is training Naruto, he has the monkey clan summon, so he can train with them in any case and Shikalu isn't teaching anyone as of now

albeit he should be training Shikamaru but laziness seems to be the key to intelligence... if the Naras are anything to go by

While Tsunade saw Shizune leave her office to call Hiruzen and Shikaku, she silently cursed the Hokage position again, wondering when she will be able to just set someone up to this cursed position...

In Uzushio, Rimuru looked at the sky and thought

'I didn't appear in this chapter...'