"This here is the mission scroll for a mission that will take us out of the village."

Iruka held up a deep royal blue scroll in front of a group of six genin who were part of Iruka's genin roster that he had chosen while working on a C-rank mission as a team leader. Takuma sat among the genin, gazing at the scroll. In the two years he had been in this world, the farthest he had gone was to the rural outskirts of the village and to the nearby wilderness for camping. This mission promised to take him out of the village— the prospect of that interested him greatly.

"This is a special mission… as in, another chunin and I will be leading two teams for this mission. Moreover, because of the nature of the patron's request, this mission is classified as a quadruple C-rank mission," Iruka gazed at all six genin, "which means with both teams in charge of two C-rank missions, you will be paid twice as much, and your record will reflect another two C-rank missions."

Takuma peeked at the other genin, their glimmering eyes and straightened posture showing their interest.

"And just like every mission we do, I need a team of three genin… who I'm going to choose from you six," said Iruka. "Who all is interested?"

Five out of six hands shot up in an instant. The one person who didn't raise their hand looked nervous, but Iruka didn't question them about it. Instead, Iruka continued, "Great, let's have quick one-on-one chats with everyone right now, and by the end of them, I will have the team decided"— but then he looked at Takuma— "You're coming on the mission, Takuma. I'll be choosing the other two from the remaining four."

Takuma felt others' eyes on him, but he kept his gaze on Iruka and graciously nodded, "I won't disappoint, sir." No matter how others felt about this sudden decision, he felt great about it.

"Before we start, may I have a word with you," Iruka said to Takuma. They walked to the roof's edge, where Iruka leaned his back against the rails as he spoke, "I hope you understand why I chose you like this."

Takuma said, "I've been on all but one C-rank mission you have floated for us," that one mission was Iruka trying out a different combination, "I don't see why this mission would be any different." None of the others have been on nearly as many missions as Takuma had been with Iruka.

Iruka smiled, "You've been effective and efficient in all the missions we have done together. I would be foolish if I didn't select you for every mission… And now that you're selected, I want you to pick the other two. Give me a reason, and I'll take it into consideration… Face them while you tell me."

Takuma quirked a brow, "Do you want them to hear me, sir?"

"I want them to know that we are talking about them— if they could hear us, good for them. How would you do it?"

Interesting, Takuma thought as he, too, leaned his back against the railings and faced the other genin.

"I would read their lips," replied Takuma. He had been developing his sense of hearing for Suiton: Kirigakure Jutsu, but his training involved picking up faint noises, the direction, and speed for locating them— not precise words and inflections.

"I didn't know you could lip-read. I can't do that. That's good to know," said Iruka, surprised and impressed.

He didn't have lip-reading on his resume (list of skills) that he had shown to Iruka when they had met, as he didn't have sufficient accuracy. The process of learning how to lip-read had been interesting—he got to know that only around 30% of the language was noticeable through sight. Too many words and syllables were so similar that one couldn't tell them by lip-reading alone. The words weren't so simple, and tics, mumbling, accents, and mouth covering made straight "reading" near impossible. Much of lip-reading was an observation of visual clues, context, and a healthy dash of guesswork.

For the last year, he had watched people's facial clues like tugging of the lips, movement of the brows, creases around the edges of the eyes, head movement, and their gaze, and the nuances and subtleties of body language such as their arms' locations, the position of their shoulder and hips, strong or slouching postures, and distance between people—to better 'understand' people from a distance when he couldn't hear them.

"What's the mission?" Takuma asked first—if he was to make a recommendation, he needed to know the specifics.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Eradication of bandits terrorizing a village in the Land of Frost," said Iruka. Takuma was about to say something when Iruka continued, "but that's a front—the main mission is information trade with Hidden Frost Village shinobi."

Takuma quirked his brow. An information trade—just the sound of the mission intrigued him, and that too with another village's shinobi. He glanced at the genin, who were either sneaking glances or directly looking at them.

"Yumiko and Dai," he said.

"Why?"

"Dai knows how to follow orders, and I trust him to do his job. Yumiko is a great listener, and she collates on-point plans, which makes cooperation very comfortable."

"What about Ichimaru?"

Takuma matched eyes with Ichimaru, a genin who was only a couple of years older than Takuma, and clicked his tongue as he shook his head, "He is result-oriented and tries to lead, but he isn't willing to listen... And I personally don't like working with the fucking prick."

Ichimaru had his arms crossed and furrowed brows, but from the looks of it, he didn't look like he heard what Takuma said.

"Strong words," said Iruka, "unexpected from you."

Takuma shrugged, "I was trained to work with anyone," Maruboshi had been adamant about flexibility as an important trait for a shinobi, "but if I can influence the team structure, I will choose Dai and Yumiko—I work well with them."

"Anything else?" asked Iruka.

Takuma shook his head.

"Good," Iruka stepped away from the railings, "now, wave them all goodbye and get out of there. I don't want them to talk to you about what we discussed here."

Takuma peered at his chunin team lead, surprised. Today's Iruka was different. The Iruka he knew was a straight arrow, which Takuma found refreshing because a lot of people he talked to these days were all devious bastards — but the young chunin had a faint glimmer of trickery behind his eyes.

"As you wish, sir."

Takuma waved at the rest of the Iruka roster before falling backward over the roof railing and disappearing into the streets away from everyone's view.

———

.

Shisui flickered onto the top of Fourth Hokage's monument on the Hokage Rock, landing on one of the Fourth Hokage's hair spikes, and immediately stilled on the spot to let the ANBU guards hidden all around him take his presence in and relax so they wouldn't jump at him.

"Lord Hokage," he knelt down and announced his presence.

The Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, gazed down at the village as it was being bathed by the red light from the sun falling from the sky. "The Fourth stood right here that night, facing the Nine-Tails attack, all alone. If that day he had let that ball of vicious hatred hit, we would've lost many more lives than we already lost," said Hiruzen. "He died saving the village that I had spent my entire life protecting... To this day, I regret that he died and an old man like me somehow continued to live."

Shisui continued to kneel as he silently listened. He remembered the day Nine-Tail had descended upon the village as if it were yesterday. The uncontrolled palpitations of his heart as he felt the heavy chakra and pure hatred bearing down on everyone and everything in the air were forever etched into his mind.

Hiruzen breathed deeply. "The conversation with Fugaku... didn't go well."

Shisui pursed his lips. Everyone across the village knew that the Hokage met with the Uchiha Clan Head today. He wasn't part of that meeting, but he did participate in the clan meeting that happened afterward.

The sentiment was shared by the Uchiha clan. The only thing the Uchiha had been remotely pleased about was that the Hokage had promised the Leaf Military Police Force an infusion of shinobi that would solely be controlled by the Police Force — and thus controlled by the Uchiha.

Did that mean that there was no choice but to do something extreme?

"Lord Third —"

"This village has taken so much from me." Hiruzen's words shocked Shisui. "This village robbed my mother's husband away from her... It made my wife wait uncountable nights all alone, worrying about her husband when he should've been with her... It stole away precious time that my children deserved with their father as they grew up... It took my wife from me... It took my sensei away from me... It took so many of my friends away... Because of this village, my youngest doesn't talk to me anymore... This village.... I have given my life to this village... Some days I wonder if all of it was worth it — and yet, for some reason, I love this village more than most things in my life," Hiruzen paused to take a breath. "I will not see this village fall on my watch. I will protect this village until my dying breath..."

He turned to Shisui, "And the Uchiha Clan is part of this village, Shisui. Today might not have gone well, but worry not, I will do everything in my power to keep this village intact and the Will of Fire burning strong—even if it's the last thing I do. So, do not worry, Shisui, we will find a way."

Shisui stared up at Sarutobi Hiruzen and couldn't remember the last time he had seen the man not in the traditional Hokage attire. Even now, Shisui could tell that the man in front of him, at his age, was ready for battle under that attire. In that moment, he became cognizant of the fact that this man had fought in three shinobi wars for the village.

He wondered if he could continue to serve the village for such a long time... He didn't have an answer for it.

Shisui opened his mouth, wanting to continue what he was trying to say before, but closed it after a thought. He stood up, "I'll provide any support from myself to make that come true, Lord Hokage. Please don't hesitate to ask."

The man in front of him had spent too long worrying about the village and was still doing it right now. Right now, he would support all efforts towards peace.

And, in case everything failed and things didn't improve for the better—

'I'm going to make peace, even if it means that I have to force it on this village.'