[ send power stones please]
It was around ten in the morning when Hikaru finally hauled himself out of bed.
He glanced at his hand.
The wound had basically healed.
He nodded to himself. His recovery ability really wasn't bad.
His entire palm had been pierced through—he'd even felt bone crack at the time—yet now he was already close to normal.
"Still a little stiff," he judged, flexing his fingers. "Not very nimble yet… but more than enough."
As an ANBU, Hikaru wore gloves as a matter of habit, so he wasn't worried Kakashi would notice anything.
Because what he'd done last night…
Honestly, it wasn't exactly clean.
After defeating the jōnin, Hikaru hadn't hesitated. He'd used genjutsu interrogation to rip information out of him.
His genjutsu wasn't exceptional in a battlefield sense, but interrogation techniques were different. Those, he did know.
It was professional necessity. He'd never allowed himself to fall behind on the tools of the trade.
The jōnin had tried to resist when he realized Hikaru's goal—he'd even preferred to die rather than spill the secret.
Unfortunately for him, none of that mattered.
In the end, Hikaru got what he wanted.
The first piece of intelligence was the exact location of Shouqi Castle's grave.
Hikaru's luck was decent—the grave really was inside that cemetery, just under an altered name so no one would recognize it. Clearly, Shouqi Castle had worried the Land of Fire might desecrate his tomb, so he'd arranged for these fanatics to stay behind as sentries.
And the other graves in that cemetery?
They weren't random. They were the most loyal warriors from that era—buried together with Shouqi Castle in the same place.
The second piece of intelligence was about the summoning scroll.
According to the jōnin, the scroll was not in the grave.
Because Shouqi Castle's burial had been handled by them personally—and there was nothing inside.
Hikaru treated that claim with cautious skepticism.
He trusted his interrogation genjutsu. It had never failed him over the years.
But he also knew what kind of man he'd been dealing with.
A sensor-type shinobi had excellent chakra control by default. It wasn't impossible for someone like that to feed him false information.
Maybe both pieces of intel were lies.
So Hikaru made a decision—
He wouldn't kill the jōnin yet.
First, he'd verify everything.
Reality proved his technique hadn't been wrong, and the man hadn't lied.
Hikaru dug up Shouqi Castle's grave.
The body was long reduced to bone, but ANBU had their own methods of identifying remains. Even skeletons could be checked and verified.
Based on the information he'd extracted, Hikaru already had a rough sense of Shouqi Castle's appearance. After a careful process, he could basically confirm the remains matched.
And the grave goods inside the coffin… weren't the kind of things an ordinary person could ever afford, let alone be buried with.
"Assuming there wasn't a substitution trick involved," Hikaru concluded, "it should be him."
He tidied himself up, then stepped out of his room.
As for the jōnin's final fate…
He'd followed Shouqi Castle into the ground.
After years in ANBU, Hikaru was used to the principle of eradicating loose ends. ANBU operations left no trace; once conflict erupted, they didn't hold back.
There wasn't much personal hatred between them, but Hikaru's goal was something they would never allow—
So mercy was never on the table.
"ANBU really isn't a place for humans," Hikaru thought as he walked down the inn's corridor. "It's easy to twist people."
"…Except me."
Kakashi was already waiting, fully prepared. The two of them left the inn together.
Kakashi was sharp. Even with Hikaru's hand hidden, he still sensed something.
"Your hand is injured," Kakashi said directly. "I smell blood. Are you alright?"
"I'm fine." Hikaru glanced at him. "Don't worry. It wasn't an accident—and it won't be a problem."
And it truly wasn't.
With bandaging and his unusual physical recovery, the injury looked frightening but wasn't fatal. Before fighting that jōnin, Hikaru had even taken anti-toxin medicine—just in case the kunai was poisoned.
It hadn't been.
Which meant the medicine had been wasted.
But wasting it was better than dying from carelessness.
"Alright. I understand." Kakashi nodded. "So what's the plan? We go straight in?"
"Yes." Hikaru smiled lightly. "I've already done what needed doing. Now there's only one last thing left."
"Find the scroll."
"Scroll?" Kakashi frowned, then seemed to realize something. "Captain… you mean—"
"Mhm. Exactly."
Hikaru didn't bother hiding it. There was no point.
When they returned to Konoha, he'd have to write a report anyway—and he intended to use it in the future, so secrecy here was meaningless.
"A beast like that will absolutely increase my strength," Hikaru said calmly. "And if war ever breaks out, something like that on the battlefield is a strategic asset."
Kakashi nodded.
True. A summon of that size could drastically boost a shinobi's overall power—especially during wartime. Those creatures were strategic weapons.
If Hikaru really could claim it, it would be good for Konoha as well.
The problem was obvious, though.
A summoned beast like that needed a summoning scroll as a restraint. Without it, nobody could reliably control the monster.
"Captain," Kakashi asked after a brief pause, "do you know where the scroll is? Last night… you went to investigate that, didn't you?"
"Yes." Hikaru brushed it off with a casual tone. "There was some unpleasantness, but I didn't leave traces."
Then he continued smoothly, as if talking about the weather. "From what I gathered, the scroll should be inside the castle."
"So…" Kakashi picked up the thread without asking what had happened. "Shouqi Castle put the scroll into the summoned beast's belly before he died?"
"Probably." Hikaru nodded, then grinned. "Well? Want to take a little risk with me?"
At that, Kakashi actually rolled his eyes—flat, dead-fish, full of resignation.
Hikaru blinked. It was the first time he'd ever seen that expression on Kakashi.
He laughed, patted Kakashi's shoulder, and headed out.
He didn't know exactly what would happen next…
But he was looking forward to it.
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