V.2 Chapter 20

"If he was alive all this time, why didn't he appear?" Kurama said.

His anger slowly went away and he calmed down.

He sat back again, resting his head on his arms and closed his eyes again as he said," I don't sense it anymore. It must have been a mistake. No way he is alive, I saw his death myself."

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A month later

For the past whole month, Aayu has been having a steady deterioration of her health.

She is no longer able to move as easily as a month ago, her hair is completely white. She even needs someone to take care of her most of the time.

Kushina and Kiyome have been alternatively taking care of Aayu. They also wrote letters to Minato and Yukan continuously for the past month but there has been no reply, giving the three of them even more worry.

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A ninja wearing a combat outfit with a bag hanging along his shoulder was walking through the forest in Konoha.

He was the person responsible for sending and receiving letters for the ninjas who were away on long missions.

As he was walking, two ninjas with masks appeared in front of him.

"Do you have the letters?" One of the masked ninjas asked.

"Do you guys have the money?" The man with the bag asked.

One of the masked men took out a small pouch filled with notes and handed it to the man.

The man opened the pouch and checked it. After a few seconds of checking, he took off his bag and handed it to the two men.

"I have to leave in the evening, give it back to me before that." The man said and then walked away with a happy expression on his face.

"Open them, let's see which ones we have to tear." One of the two remaining said.

The other one nodded. Both of them started opening the letters and tore selective ones.

After going through all of the letters, they put back some of the letters and closed the bag.

"You go and give him the bag, I'll go and report to Danzo-Sama."

The other masked man nodded and disappeared.

The one remaining disappeared at the same time and reappeared in front of Danzo.

This time Danzo was not in the ROOT headquarters but rather in an experiment branch.

"Danzo-Sama, I have destroyed all the letters related to the two boys at all." The masked man said while kneeling.

Danzo looked at him kneeling and said," Very good. Let those boys realize what happens when they try to mess with someone like me. By the way, has Norio's health deteriorated more?"

"Yes Danzo-Sama, she seems to be very ill and frail." The kneeling man said.

"It's alright, they can't do anything even if they knew about it," Danzi said and then turned around. He looked at a large shelf full of blood vials and thought about his future experiments.

Meanwhile, inside Konoha, Kushina walked through the streets in the evening.

Her hands were full of vegetables she had just brought and was going to look after Aayu.

While walking, she saw Kakashi also going in the same direction.

"Where are you going?" Kushina asked.

Kakashi knew Kushina as she was his Sensei's girlfriend.

"Nee-San? My mother told me that Aunt Norio's health was very bad so I am going to meet her once." Kakashi said.

"You are also going there? Good thing, take one of these bags." Kushina said. She handed one of the two bags to Kakashi.

The two chatted while walking and soon reached the house.

They entered. The moment Kushina entered, she saw Aayu walking around the house with a small piece of cloth in her hand.

"Aunt, what are you doing?" Kushina said as she walked towards her and took the cloth from her hand.

"You two girls, you don't even let me get up all day. I was getting bored sitting in one place all the time." Aayu said smilingly.

"We make you rest all the time exactly so you don't do any work. By the way, is Kiyome here?" Kushina asked.

"Yes, she is in the kitchen making dinner."

"Nice. Kakashi, you take this bag too and give it to Kiyome, I'll go with aunt and make her sit down." Kushina gave Kakashi the other bag of vegetables and held Aayu's hand to take her inside the living room.

"Oh, Kakashi, nice to see you," Aayu said. She did not see Kakashi due to Kushina coming to her as soon as she entered.

"Nice to meet you too, aunt. I'll go and give these vegetables to Kiyome Nee-San in the kitchen." Kakashi said and walked inside the house towards the kitchen.

As Kushina was taking Aayu inside, Aayu asked,"Kushina, has there been a letter from any of the two?"

"No, aunt. No reply from either the two worries me a lot." Kushina said.

Aayu smiled at Kushina and tried to comfort her," Don't worry Kushina, I believe both my sons are pretty strong for nothing bad to happen to them..." (A/N: I know there may be problems during missions but, Aayu is merely trying to comfort Kushina.)

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Meanwhile, in Takigakure, A man with brown hair and very few wrinkles on his face sat with three other people.

"Wazo, how was your day today?" The man with brown hair asked. (Wazo = Ozawa)

"Today? I found two flies while doing work. I was not able to kill them because there were too many customers." The man said.

"Me too, I found three flies today but I killed them all." Another man named Daiko sitting beside him said. (Takido = Daiko)

"Whatever, I found nothing today. I think the place is almost clean." The last man named Raka said. (Raka = Kajiwara)

"Hmm. I think so too. I have not seen a fly for the previous four days. I think we should clean the place and then go back to travel in a few days." The man with brown hair said.

The other three nodded in unison. The four of them left and went to different inns.

The man with brown hair, Yukan, went forward and paid all the money for his stay in the inn he was living in.

Yukan went into his room, removed his mask, changed into night clothes and organized all his stuff lying around in the room.

'What is this bad feeling I am having?' Yukan thought as he went through his room.