Chapter 85: Rabbit Holes and Marital Disasters
The tension from Naruto's hare-brained (literally) kunai throw dissipated into the mist, replaced by the quieter, more enduring tension of Kakashi's scrutiny and the ever-present, unseen threat. The Pure Land commentary, however, had pivoted to a more domestic, and far more entertaining, crisis.
[Tobirama Senju: Fourth, what is wrong with your progeny? No situational awareness, poor judgment, and a desperate need for validation. It's pathetic.]
[Minato Namikaze: He just... wants to be seen! To contribute! It's a cry for help!]
[Uchiha Izuna: A cry for help that's going to get him killed. With the Ren brat around, trying to 'act cool' is like bringing a kunai to a Susano'o fight.]
[Tobirama Senju: I believe I've diagnosed the root cause of his intellectual decline.]
[Minato Namikaze: Oh? Enlighten me.]
[Tobirama Senju: Observe. Sakumo's son administers cranial percussive maintenance to your son with alarming frequency. Repetitive traumatic impacts to the developing frontal lobe. The evidence is conclusive.]
[Sakumo Hatake: Whoa! I object! That's Kakashi's teaching method! Don't drag me into your pseudo-medical slander!]
[Minato Namikaze: That Kakashi! Hitting my boy! He has no respect for his sensei!]
Ren, walking point a few meters ahead, decided to interject mentally. Why should he respect you?
[Minato Namikaze: I was his teacher! I guided him!]
You're the one who tricked him into the Anbu, Ren shot back, the mental equivalent of dropping a conversational grenade.
[Minato Namikaze: That was... a miscalculation! I pulled him out immediately!]
Pulled him out and stuck him on what, exactly? Ren pressed, a wicked smile touching his lips. What was his next assignment?
[Minato Namikaze: Well... Kushina was pregnant. I wanted Kakashi to witness the miracle of new life! To heal his heart! I put a lot of thought into that mission!]
There was a beat of dead air in the psychic stream.
[Sakumo Hatake: ...You did what?]
[Tobirama Senju: Let me get this straight. Your student, who had recently lost his father, his best friend, and then accidentally killed the girl he loved—a cascade of trauma that would break most men—you assigned him to... covertly watch your pregnant wife?]
[Minato Namikaze: It was protective surveillance! And love is healing!]
Ren delivered the coup de grâce. So you made the emotionally shattered orphan watch the happy, expecting family he could never have. You had him lurk in the shadows while you and Kushina had quiet dinners, felt the baby kick, built the nursery. 'Look, Kakashi! See this warmth? This belonging? You can't have it, but isn't it nice to watch?'
The psychic silence was absolute.
[Sakumo Hatake: MINATO NAMIKAZE, YOU SADISTIC SON OF A—! ARENA! NOW!]
[Kushina Uzumaki: ...Minato. You had Kakashi. Spy. On. Me.] Her text seemed to vibrate with incandescent rage.
[Minato Namikaze: Honey! It wasn't spying! It was protection!]
Protection from what? Ren mused aloud in the chat. The Third Hokage had her confined to the village. What, were you afraid a rogue leaf would attack her? And more importantly... He let the implication hang. Kushina-san, did you know about this?
[Kushina Uzumaki: NO. I. DID. NOT.]
[Minato Namikaze: It was a sensitive time! Jiraiya-sensei said pregnant women have hormonal mood swings daily! I didn't want to worry you!]
[Kushina Uzumaki: JIRAIYA?! THAT PERVERTED DEADBEAT?! YOU TOOK PARENTING ADVICE FROM A MAN WHO WRITES SMUT AND SPIES ON HOT SPRINGS?! DIVORCE!]
[Tobirama Senju: Of course. Jiraiya's involvement explains the catastrophic lack of judgment.]
[Uchiha Mikoto: Minato-kun... to not trust your own wife, but to trust that... that author... I am disappointed.]
[Minato Namikaze: I'M SORRY! HONEY, PLEASE!]
[Kushina Uzumaki: YOU CAN APOLOGIZE TO THE BUSINESS END OF MY ADAMANTINE SEALING CHAINS! DIVORCE PAPERS ARE BEING DRAWN UP IN THE AFTERLIFE AS WE SPEAK!]
[Third Raikage: Don't stop them! This is better than any play!]
[Yagura Karatachi: Munching psychic peanuts This is premium drama.]
[Hōzuki Gengetsu: Front row seat!]
[Fū: I don't understand most of it, but it sounds serious!]
[Tobirama Senju: You are all a disgrace to the dignity of the deceased! ...But do continue.]
Back in the tangible world, the drama was significantly smaller and furrier.
"Whoa! Look at this fat rabbit!" Naruto had scampered over to retrieve his errant kunai and found the trembling snow hare cowering in the ferns. He scooped it up, holding it out. "Dinner! And hey, it's a girl rabbit!"
Before he could contemplate rabbit stew, Sakura snatched the creature from his hands, cradling it against her chest. "Naruto! How could you think of eating something so adorable?" She cooed, stroking its pristine white fur. "Poor thing, you're so scared..."
Kakashi's visible eye narrowed, his professional instincts overriding the domestic tragedy unfolding in his head (courtesy of the live stream he couldn't hear). "Wait. The fur."
"The color is wrong," Ren said, stepping closer. His voice was flat, analytical.
Kakashi glanced at him, surprise cutting through his concern. "You noticed?"
"Snow hares develop pure white pelts in winter, when daylight is short. The Land of Waves has long, coastal daylight year-round. A wild hare here would be brown or grey, mottled for camouflage." Ren reached out, not touching the rabbit, but examining it. "This one is laboratory-perfect white. No stains, no wear. It's been... placed."
"A substitution vessel," Kakashi concluded, his voice dropping. "Released to wander. For a tracker, or a sensor. Or for someone who needs a quick escape route."
Sakura's face paled. She held the rabbit away from her body as if it had suddenly turned venomous.
Naruto looked between the rabbit and Ren, confusion warring with dawning horror. "So... it's a spy rabbit?"
"More like a beacon," Ren said. "Or a trapdoor. If I were a paranoid missing-nin with a reputation for silent killing in heavy mist, I'd seed my territory with a few living scrolls. See who reacts to them, who ignores them, who... picks them up."
He looked from the rabbit in Sakura's hands to the thickening, silent fog surrounding them. The mist felt heavier now, charged with intent. The domestic comedy in the Pure Land, the clumsy genin, the nervous client—it all faded into background noise against one stark, simple fact.
They had just triggered the alarm.
Somewhere in that grey oblivion, Zabuza Momochi now knew exactly where they were. And he knew at least one of them was kind enough, or foolish enough, to pick up a lost, white rabbit.
"Drop it, Sakura," Kakashi ordered, his voice deadly serious. "Now. And fan out. Defensive formation. Ren, with me."
Sakura let the rabbit go. It didn't bolt. It just sat there, its pink eyes seeming to watch them for a moment before it hopped slowly, deliberately, back into the mist, leaving a faint trail in the damp earth.
A trail that led not deeper into the woods, but paralleled their own path.
It was leading something to them.
Or someone.
The mission was no longer about escorting a bridge builder. The playful testing was over.
The hunt had officially begun.