PART 4.

The eyes of the Anbus remained fixed on the woman tied to the chair, her hands clasped behind her. They were the personal guardians selected by the fifth Hokage, and under their command, they had been ordered never to intervene in a battle if Tsunade was in danger.

However, they knew that their leader was more formidable than all of them combined.

From the top of the roof, hidden between the tubes and the bases, four to six Anbus watched the scene below. Although their enemy did not see them, they could feel their scrutiny without having to look up.

The young woman stood motionless, with her mask on, sitting and tied to the chair, her head tilted forward and her gaze fixed on the floor.

In the dark room, lit only by a few white lights above the target of the interrogation, stood several ninja of the Jōnin rank, familiar with every detail of the portals' situation.

Yamanaka Inoichi, leader of the aforementioned clan, was known to be the most perceptive and friendly among his people.

Although he was often mocked by his own people, he gladly accepted the challenge of verifying the veracity of what would be discussed in that interrogation, relying on his ability to gather information without the need for his specialized equipment.

Morino Ibiki, head of the Counterintelligence Department, excelled in the handling of physical and psychological torture, in contrast to Inoichi, who specialized in gathering information through escapes into the mind of the interrogated.

Hatake Kakashi, known as the Copy Ninja, differed from the other two by his experience in a specific mission that tested the veracity of scrolls and theories related to the king of Trozani. Kakashi had been to that place and had spoken to Saturo in person, which made him unique to understand the situation more closely.

"Here he comes." One of the Anbus muttered from the roof of the underground room. 

Pushing her way through the small but high prestige of the important Jōnin, the fifth Hokage stood in front of them all, her hands folded behind her back.

Behind Her back, Shizune guarded and supported her, as He was obliged to do. With a gentle face, Tsunade took the time to take a close look at Konoha's supposed Anbu.

He refused to take off his mask, and set the condition that he answer all his questions, if it remained as it was. But, even so, the blonde woman had a perfect view of what was supposed to be the woman behind the cat mask.

A young girl, about twenty-six years old. Short brown hair and tousled spiky hair, to which, the face of the princess of the Sand Village came to mind: the Kazekage's elder sister, Temari.

She was hunched forward, her attention lost on the floor. Since she was tied to this place, on no occasion did she address anyone visually or verbally towards any of those present.

It was as quiet as a tomb, and as still as a statue.

"Because of the critical situation Konoha is in, I won't let this opportunity pass me by." Tsunade began, with his well-known imposing tone, and withering gaze. "But I'll take advantage of it to warn you of one thing: If it turns out that you're lying to me, and Konoha looks bad, I won't think twice about killing you myself with my bare hands. No one takes me out of my office for fun."

Only his subordinates felt the latent tension behind the threat. Tsunade didn't need screams and weapons to issue a powerful warning that would end in the death of her target.

"I'm aware." Pulling everyone out by surprise, and causing Kakashi to open his only eye a little too wide, the Anbu woman half looked up, and had spoken for Tsunade.

Her tone was resigned, and she did not look anxious in the least. "After all things, that's the least anyone from Konoha expects of you.

The statement shook them all a little, and it would have shaken them more if it weren't for how ambiguous it was. Those closest to the subject of portals and the future, thought that, if the woman lied, she made use of imprecise answers that were to be freely interpreted, and not run the risk of getting it right or wrong.

But since the girl she had protected was in the custody of another Anbu team in one of the many rooms of Hokage Tower, there was a chance that she wasn't lying. But they had better doubt each and every one of his words.

"Answer these three simple questions quickly." Tsunade mutters, with scrutiny. The subordinate Jōnin and Shizune were expectant. "Who you are, where you come from, and why you're here."

A distinctive silence flooded them completely. Above the Anbus inspected them, especially the woman who remained tied. Kakashi, especially, frowned as he waited for the answers to the three questions.

They were simple, but the background of these was beyond the mundane.

Kakashi told Tsunade everything, including the story of King Saturo's past. So, whether or not this person is truly one of those victims of the future that Saturo-sama was referring to, depended explicitly on the answers that the Anbu can give them.

The sentence would be given here and now.

The brown Anbu settled a little in her seat, raising the eyebrows of those present a little who expected an unexpectedly violent reaction. Ibiki, always serene and imposing, had his hands in his pockets. He didn't need them to kill someone before he realized it.

"As I said in front of your Ninjas, Tsunade-sama... my name is 'Soku'."

The woman said to the Blonde. The latter doubted her words with a frown, and Anbu knew it without having to look at her.

"My name of Anbu... more than anything." He clarified without haste, mixing it with a sigh. "I'm afraid I can't give you my real name, since, where I come from, we are loyal to the leader who was at the top in question... and his orders are clear: If we die, we will die without giving our names, unless he orders us otherwise."

While Shizune frowned nervously, breaking out a cold sweat, Kakashi stared at the brunette. The mention of a person who gave orders to an Anbu, had gained their interest.

Tsunade was focused on the questions that remained to be answered, so she didn't rush to distort the interrogation.

Woman Anbu glanced from below, not wanting to look any of them in the eye. As he did not determine signs that Tsunade would ask for 'That person', he decided to supplement his answers to answer the Hokage's three questions. She looked back at the ground, resigned.

"That Person I'm referring to... is one of their own, Tsunade-sama." Clarify, so slow; as if she wanted to never finish her words, or waiting to be interrupted by someone. Out of sight, everyone except Tsunade shifted slightly on his feet. "A Hokage was responsible for giving me the Orders to remain here, and not to move; Like, in the same way... protect that child."

Tsunade opened her eyes. Shizune clenched his fists at his sides, in bewilderment.

"A Hokage...?" He questions quietly. After recalling Kakashi's Report on King Saturus, he cast a disdainful glance at the interrogated. "There's no other Hokage here besides the one in front of you. And as far as I remember, although I have not seen your face, we do not have any more Anbus registered under your same characteristics. You're not one of us."

"I know...!" Anbu almost exclaims, but she silenced herself with a gasp.

Ibiki watched his reactions to conclude his emotions in his head, and Kakashi moved closer to Tsunade's side.

"I know... that you know exactly what I am referring to."

Tsunade's serene, disdainful expression throbbed for an instant. Likewise, the subordinate Jōnin cast sharp glances at the masked woman with her head down.

"For the last few days, I've been investigating in the distance, getting closer and closer." The masked woman replied bluntly, before Tsunade asked about it. The blonde furrowed her eyebrows, causing her nose to wrinkle a little in expectation. "Of course, it is impossible to go unnoticed in such a place, as the Hokage tower is. But that doesn't mean it's impossible."

"What are you talking about...?"

" Shizune. Stanade, firmly, silences the jet behind her." His blood was beginning to run cold because what had been feared the most since the Kakashi team returned from Trozani was being confirmed. The blonde, still firm, turned to the masked woman. "You were not clear with your previous answers. You said a Hokage sent you... Do you insist you belong here?"

"Unfortunately for you, that is the truth, Tsunade-sama." Anbu affirmed. Both Inoichi and Ibiki did not take their eyes off him, since they were the ones who spent most of their time in the Hokage tower, and they did not believe that someone unknown would sneak so easily into their noses. "The portals attracted too much attention... but I never thought that they would begin to look for living people from among those who came out of them."

"Answer concretely what I asked you! You're going from one place to another!"

The blonde Hokage exclaimed fiercely, bouncing off the walls of the underground room. None of his subordinates flinched.

"Be clear and concise: If you know what I mean, then where do you come from? Answer me that!"

The woman tied in the chair was unfazed by Tsunade's firm cries. She was crestfallen, and for the first time since she was brought to this place, Soku looked up. For Tsunade, it was impossible to see any face behind the small holes that made eyes in the cat mask.

But there was no doubt that he was looking at her. And without giving it a hint of importance, and with an enviable calmness, Soku replied without interruption:

"If you want to know whether I come from a Konoha of the future or not, let me tell you that your suspicions are correct."

Everyone present gasped when their suspicions were confirmed. Soku shrugged, as if the subject was already something easy for her to handle.

"I don't have the exact answers to answer whether the future is uncertain or not, but being someone who comes from there... I guess it's just something that happens without us noticing." Soku concluded meekly. 

The Jōnin were turning slightly pale, and their serious expressions were contorting in the utmost surprise. Shizune, on the other hand, did not dare to downplay the importance of the prompt confirmation.

"T-The future... so... So it is true...!"

"Gh!"

As pale as her subordinates, Tsunade turned loudly to her former apprentice and grunted to silence her. Shizune couldn't talk too much, because even if a word was enigmatic, the Anbu could find a way to taunt them and waste their time.

But everything was already on the table, and they couldn't just back off and report. They had only this opportunity so close.

"Hm, I see that they even already knew." At Soku's murmur, Tsunade turned to her. "Like I said, I didn't expect them to look for living people from among those who came out of the portals. The only way they have reached that movement, so quickly, may be because someone has told them something about it. Am I wrong?"

The Hokage swallowed dryly, her expression hesitant, but serene. Ibiki decided to give his word on this occasion.

"You said earlier that you snuck into the Hokage tower." He said, denoting an annoyed tone. "If you're smart, you know that—"

" It's not impossible." Soku interrupted, leaving Ibiki with the words in his mouth. She turned her face a little to try to see him, although the mask made it difficult for her. "I stand by my words: Just because it's highly difficult, doesn't mean it's impossible to sneak into Hokage Tower."

"No, it is." Inoichi joined in, just as serious. "It already is because of the constant surveillance, but since all this happened, there is only Anbus and Jōnin. It is impossible, in all factors, that you have sneaked in. If so, how do you say you did it?, he confesses."

Again, there was silence on his part. Tsunade and his men wanted to avoid fabricating any lies, and Kakashi decided to add his own words to the interrogation.

"Inoichi-san and her clan have a barrier that surrounds the village, both below ground and in the sky. No one can sneak in without being discovered in the first steps."

"I'm aware, I'm not an imbecile." Surprisingly, Soku let out a disdainful tone.

She slumped his shoulders, and sank into his chair, resigning himself to his bonds. A growing rage expanded in his verbalization.

"Unless it's someone who was born here, I could have sneaked in. But since I was born outside the village, this barrier doesn't recognize me as someone from Konoha."

"'This'..." Shizune muttered, analytically. 

Soku's mask was bathed in shadows as he lowered his gaze completely. Shizune tightened her grip on the chest of her dress, and Tsunade asserted her expression.

"I have at my disposal a technique capable of suppressing the Chakra, to the point of being undetectable." She said, resigned. "But I didn't use it in the days after the portals, since one of the many side effects of the Scroll is to get the summoned one used to their new environment, and that includes the Chakra. That made my Chakra undetectable during those days, and it wasn't until recently that I started staying around the village, not touching it's interior."

The mere mention of the Scroll caused a freeze in the huge underground room. There were only four people, plus the Anbus who stood guard on the roof. But beyond that, everyone was aware of the situation involving a scroll.

The forbidden parchment.

Finally the parchment had come to light, in a mouth that belonged to none of them. Shizune broke out in a cold sweat as her mouth opened in disbelief. Tsunade, who was an expert at keeping calm, furrowed her eyebrows even more as the look of surprise made one with her mouth half open.

Kakashi was not afraid to show the perplexity in his one eye in sight.

"A scroll..."

He didn't manage to finish, because Soku looked up at the word.

"That's right..." she said, almost as perplexed as he was. It seemed that he had not taken into account that they would get to that topic so quickly. "It was a scroll that brought me here, under the orders of the Hokage... Our Hokage."

Tsunade waved her arm tightly, as if clearing away all traces of doubt to get the clarity she wanted. With firmness in his voice, and the impact on his rejuvenated face, he pointed contemptuously at Soku.

"I-It won't be possible! How did you know we were looking for that?! How did you outwit the defenses, as you supposedly claim?!"

A gleam, roaring with determination, throbbed in the fifth Hokage's eyes. She was not afraid to be as direct as possible, and she addressed with imposing ferocity, the only Yamanaka in the room.

"Inoichi! You know what to do!"

"Hai, Tsunade-sama!"

Without waiting for a second shout, Inoichi made her way through the crowd and positioned herself in front of the Anbu who returned her gaze to the ground. The long-haired blond was not like the others, and he did not keep his discontent and worry to himself.

Inoichi was in a cold sweat, but like a pro, he stood his ground until the end. He managed to complete the seal that allowed him to more comfortably handle his Chakra, and while keeping it running with one hand, with the other he touched the front of the head of the Anbu who called herself Soku.

His hand covered the entire top, rolling the cat mask a little. Soku never protested, and even sat up in such a way that it was easy for Inoichi to perform his Jutsu without having to remove his mask.

Inoichi was seen by the Hokage, Kakashi, Shizune, and Ibiki, in silence. The Yamanaka was focused, directing the Chakra within him to his head, focusing on sharing direction with the hand touching Soku's head. The fifth Hokage stood by, waiting for the woman to be at least a victim, as Saturo-sama had supposed.

Kakashi, who had been the King of Trozani's first listener, took advantage of every second to repeat Soku's words in his head. With the disturbance in its expression.

parchment, portals and stay hidden. There were the three factors that the king mentioned, in Soku's answers. For him, there was no better way to confirm than that, though he was willing to hear something more definite that might tell him the real reason for opening the portals.

It is then that Inoichi lets out a gasp.

"Inoichi-san!" Shizune alerts, despite being the last in the group. 

"Hey, Inoichi!" Ibiki calls him, keeping calm. 

And finally, Tsunade, who was closest, spotted the strangest thing he had seen since he became Hokage.

Yamanaka Inoichi, best known for his decryption of mind seals and extraction of classified information, as well as the best sensory Ninja the Leaf Village could have... I was sweating.

"Inoichi! What's going on?"

But he never listened to his own. His head was deafened by what he heard, coming from Soku's scattered memories.

(~~~)

Light and darkness. Everything and nothing. Laments, screams, banal conversations. There was everything in his head, but nothing in a certain order, like in an organized library or a clothing store. The mind was a vast repository of memories, including early childhood memories, impossible to remember consciously.

For Inoichi, however, it was another scenario: tedious but common. You wouldn't find what you were looking for just by following non-existent labels or opening guide books to access a specific memory. Even he didn't know exactly what he was looking for.

But anything would do. Something that would connect this person to the portals, and he could do so if he unraveled the memories of the past few days. Analyzing a living person was more difficult than doing it with an unconscious one, as he usually does in the Internal Analysis department.

People stored a vast amount of information, even that which they would never remember. He could find in front the first memory of his first step and, in the depths, the interrogation suffered at the hands of Tsunade. Inoichi was chosen for this work, because of his speed and keen perception.

However, not even the greatest of the sensory ninjas and leader of the Yamanaka clan would be prepared to see the memories of someone who did not come from his time.

He made his way through the mental landscape, floating between memories. In a typical analysis, Inoichi would witness disordered but clear memories, give them order and connect the dots; I would repeat the process if there were things left to analyze.

Yet from the depths of the darkness of that mental landscape, a beep sounded, the closest thing to a deafened eardrum.

The sound came from below, and Inoichi, who was looking for his origin, reacted late to the sound shock. He covered his ears, choking out a scream, as blurred memories of events he could not visualize were pushed from below.

"What is this?! Why is this happening?! All the memories were intact, contrary to what an Anbu usually suffers. And this force... Sealed memories?"

Resisting the deafening torture, Inoichi raised his right hand in front. He wrinkled his face from the headache that hit him, but it did not defeat him. Although it was the first time something like this had happened, he opened the first memory, illuminating his perspective like a grimoire of memories.

"No, none of these are sealed." He thought with difficulty, frowning. His head would explode at any moment if he didn't stay calm. "So... why? What is this kind of reaction?

Unchecked for order, Inoichi witnessed a chain reaction of blurry and cutting memories, which came and went constantly:

"You must be crazy! I won't do that crazy thing!!"

Soku's voice passed through Inoichi's ears. This was one of his memories, and he saw the world as if it were the aforementioned Anbu. He was in front of a larger man, equally masked. Another Anbu, with a monkey mask.

"Only a coward would choose that path... I'm not going to steal a place from some child!!" The woman Anbu exclaimed fiercely. Inoichi swore he could feel his own throat tearing at the scream. 

The man in front of her grabbed her by the shoulders to stop her. Inoichi's ears heard the heavy breaths of Soku, who gritted his teeth to calm himself. It took Inoichi a while to realize that, unlike the Anbu in front of him, Soku wasn't wearing his mask at the moment.

"What's wrong with you?! You're not like that! Accept orders and act without asking!" The man shouted. He squeezed Anbu's shoulders firmly and muttered, despair simmering in his voice. "They trusted us and that's how it's going to be. If to save a few I have to sacrifice my arm to that scroll so that they will survive longer... And there's no way I'll let you ruin it!"

"Again, the parchment!" Inoichi thought. "They mentioned it again. The scroll needs sacrifices to work... Did this girl refuse to use it at first?"

Monkey's mask took Inoichi by surprise, even if it wasn't him he was addressing. The man behind the mask whispered with trembling determination, and the edges of his mask, as well as the underside, were moistened with tiny drops of water seeping in from within.

"Let's do this crazy thing together... Hinoko."

Inoichi repeated, reflectively.

"The girl's name seems to be Hinoko. He wasn't lying when he said that 'Soku' was his name Anbu." In the true nothingness, without a physical body. Inoichi frowned slightly. "Why the need to hide his name from Tsunade-sama? If you really need your help, it would be best to give you all the information without hesitation."

The memory faded, and his consciousness was blurred between memories without context. He went from seeing the girl's feet running, the ground receding with furious speed.

The girl panted as she ran, and although Inoichi heard cries for help behind her, she never turned around.

Then, he spotted a fierce battle between people, or at least, what appeared to be people. Soku ran and jumped to avoid them, using only his Kunai to hinder the movements of the pale men who attacked her in groups in a stormy and lightless rain.

At one point, when she jumped up and waved with her hand, raising her thumb and pointing her index finger at one of them, an orange spark shot out of her finger, hitting those below.

Landing on a tree that was about to fall, Soku was struggling to catch his breath. The rain made it impossible to see more than a few meters, and amid the dust and mud, Inoichi turned pale as he caught a better eye on Soku's opponents.

They were taller than an average person and had tails. They were pale, with black areas covering their eyes and entire spine. Its limbs were human-like, except for the feet, which were more like giant bird legs.

But what left him most stunned were their mouths. One of them, noticing Soku's position, tasted it from afar and walked toward it, hunched over.

"W-What are those things?! Inoichi exclaimed to no one. " They're big, and they seem to be too many... What are they?!"

Again, the memory was interrupted by another, and then another. Like the previous ones, they had no orders, and Inoichi found them with a chill running down his spine.

Many of those memories showed Soku arguing with who, apparently, was his partner. Unfortunately for Inoichi, who didn't want to believe in stories from the future, these people did come from Konoha. Exactly, the same Konoha in which he himself had been born.

In those memories, the Anbu woman ran across the rooftops or hid in the shadows of the oldest places in the village, which Inoichi found to be an extreme wonder.

There were buildings the size of watchtowers, but even larger, with enough space to house families inside.

Restaurants had soft lights at night, and when Soku jumped through the trees lifting dirt from the parks, Inoichi didn't miss any detail of the squares that he knew didn't exist in the Konoha he knew.

He recognized many places, but many other things seemed new to him. The Hokage tower was cleaner and less rustic, the offices were more enclosed and had oversized air conditioning...

And most importantly...

"The stone faces..." He said to himself, completely lost in all the information that had come in at once. " There are more faces than there are supposed to be."

As she tried to peer into Hokage's faces from the point of view of someone who, being used to it, never paid so much attention to them, messy conversations crept in one after another, and Inoichi spotted memories that didn't match others that manifested themselves in her ear.

"You did very well in there." He heard Hinoko's voice say, the same one who called herself Soku.

"It seems that they survived less than they did..." I had planned... curse." Hinoko's partner growled, frustrated.

"Why can't you go too, if you want us to run away so badly?!"

"I'm not necessary. My presence would hinder everything, and more people would die as a result." A hoarse and spiritless voice replied to Soku's scandal.

"She's too young for the command and the world back then! You can't give her a whole squad! And that's how you say you want her?!"

"I want to go home..."

"Waa~"

"Soku! Rho! We leave Sumire-chan in your hands!"

"Himawari-san!!"

"That girl..."

Inoichi noticed. In the memory, a lot of children, full of mud and dust, were piling up. They were not even twelve years old, when, among those few children, one stood out.

"That's the girl you have in custody... Apparently, it was true that he was with her. But...!"

Before Inoichi could conclude what was feared, another wave of memories came.

Soku was carrying one of the children, saving him from being crushed by the earth that had risen from the ground. A vision of Soku's hands, on an old wooden table, being alone with the girl from before and her companion Anbu.

A cataclysmic scenario, with portals opening in every corner and swallowing everything in the way, and Inoichi swallowed it dry as he linked it to his own experience.

Soku shouting his partner's name: "Ro, idiot!", while firing another of those strange beams towards the mutant enemies.

And then, at Soku's call, all the children, along with her, entered a portal that seemed to be larger than the others.

The last thing he saw of that moment was a group of uniformed Shinobi, apparently wearing what would one day be Konoha's uniform. Gathered in front of the shrinking portal, deep within the training grounds inside Konoha.

And the rest came without the slightest effort, as if those memories could not wait to come out and never return.

Everything that had been unleashed in front of his eyes was rewound again, but this time, instead of being another messy memory, Inoichi could perceive Soku's feelings wandering through those memories.

The Hokage faces took shape.

"I like 'Hinoko' better. It looks cuter on you than Soku!"

"I can only entrust this task to the two of you, who personify my own hands."

"Under no circumstances allow Sumire to die. Pretend that by allowing it, you see my face and want to hit me."

"You are Anbu from Konoha, never forget that. That place will always be their home, and they have to preserve it."

Inoichi pursed his lips as he vividly felt the sunlight blinding him for a few moments. His hand, which was actually not his, but Soku's, was raised to block out the glare.

It was a quiet moment, apparently a fond memory. Looking at the Hokage faces that, from left to right, went in order of generation, one last memory revealed a blurred face, the last sculpted in the stone faces.

Impossible for him to distinguish, since, for some reason, his sight was hesitant and the man's face could not be recognized. That figure crossed his fingers, resting his chin on them, just as he had seen the third Hokage do; just as he saw Minato and Tsunade-sama do it.

But his smile was even brighter than the sun, complicit in secrecy, blinding Inoichi so that he could not look that person in the eye. A young man, with a half-layered cloak draped over his shoulders, was smiling brightly at a smaller, thinner Soku.

That man bowed his head, and his voice, though deep, was recognized by Inoichi from some corner of his memory, and his heart pumped in despair, adamantly refusing to name it.

"I've been told great things about you, Hinoko-chan." Inoichi felt the memory raw, and the woman stifled a grunt as the person next to the man looked back at the window. The smiling person blinded Inoichi, leaving him speechless. "I hope to count on you from now on too!"

Inoichi's heart was pounding, his mind enveloped in a mixture of awe and terror. The familiarity of that sentence that slept on the lips of the unknown person, thanks to the fact that Inoichi heard nothing but an interference; But the energy of that voice, everything indicated something that he did not want to accept.

Future and past converged in a reality that overwhelmed him, where Soku's memories and Hokage faces revealed more than any mental analysis could have anticipated.