The realization sent Renjiro's mind spiralling into a vortex of self-deprecation.
"Wait… hold on. These two know it? And here I was, acting like some master thief, going through all the trouble to keep it a secret. Like a dumbass."
He resisted the urge to slap his own forehead.
"I've been sneaking around, making sure no one ever caught me using it. And for what? These two learned it casually, like picking up a new hobby!"
He exhaled sharply through his nose, trying to regain his composure.
No. No, this wasn't a loss.
He could still use this.
If people ever found out he could use the Yamanaka technique, he needed a solid cover story. A believable excuse. And what better way to frame it than as a practical necessity?
Crossing his arms, he turned to Hiruzen with an expression of feigned curiosity.
"So… is this jutsu free to learn?" he asked, his tone casual. "I mean, it's useful in situations like these, and you can't always have a Yamanaka clan member on your team during a mission, right?"
'Perfect. That way, if anyone ever asks, I can say I just learned it like they did. Boom—flawless cover story.'
Hiruzen gave him a long, knowing glance.
Renjiro immediately did not like that look.
The Third Hokage's lips twitched slightly before he responded.
"The Mind-Reading Jutsu is a speciality of the Yamanaka clan," he explained. "Much like the Sharingan is to the Uchiha. The Yamanaka are quite… possessive about it."
Renjiro frowned. "If that's the case, how do you know it?"
Hiruzen chuckled, but there was something a little too amused in his tone.
"I'm the Hokage," he said simply, waving his hand as if that explained everything.
Renjiro squinted suspiciously.
'Well, that did not help.'
Something about the way Hiruzen deflected that question reeked of secrecy.
And Renjiro was very familiar with secrecy.
He wanted to believe that as the Hokage Hiruzen definitely did not steal that jutsu but his guts were telling him otherwise.
He glanced at Minato, tilting his head.
"And what about you?"
Minato blinked, then immediately turned to Hiruzen.
"Hokage-sama," he said smoothly, "should we begin the memory reading now?"
Renjiro narrowed his eyes.
'Oh, he dodged that question so fast. There's no way he learned it the proper way either. He pirated it just like I did.'
But fine. He'd let it slide.
Hiruzen stepped forward, standing over the unconscious Kumo shinobi, then knelt down. His movements were deliberate—unhurried but precise—as if he had done this countless times before.
His fingers formed a half-ram seal before he placed his palm against the enemy's forehead.
For a brief moment, nothing happened.
Then—
The shinobi's eyes snapped open.
His body seized violently, muscles spasming as if he had been struck by a bolt of lightning. A tremor wracked through him, his jaw clenching so hard that the tendons in his neck bulged. His lips parted as though to scream—his throat working, breath stuttering—
But then—
Silence.
Not a sound.
Only the subtle shudder of his fingers, the flickering tension in his limbs, before—
His eyes fluttered shut.
His body slumped.
Hiruzen remained motionless, his face impassive, even as his consciousness dived into the shinobi's mind.
Renjiro watched closely.
The technique wasn't flashy. It wasn't loud or explosive like a battle-casting of Genjutsu. But it was invasive.
Deeper than Genjutsu.
Instead of fabricating an illusion to manipulate the target's perception, it ripped information directly from their mind.
Raw. Unfiltered. Untainted by deception.
It was ruthless.
It was absolute.
And that was what made it so dangerous.
No falsehoods. No twisting of reality. No half-truths buried beneath layers of misdirection.
Only the cold, brutal truth.
Renjiro exhaled softly, keeping his focus steady.
A lesser shinobi would have flinched at the sight. Would have looked away from the sheer mercilessness of it all.
But this was war or rather a stretched foreplay of one.
And it had no patience for weakness.
The process stretched on. Seconds turned to minutes. The Kumo shinobi's breathing had already stopped, but Hiruzen remained still, his expression blank, his mind burrowing deeper into whatever secrets lay within.
Then, finally—
A sharp exhale.
Hiruzen withdrew his hand.
A dull thud echoed through the clearing as the shinobi's lifeless body collapsed to the ground.
Dead.
Whether from the jutsu or the sheer mental strain of resisting it—if he had even resisted at all—Renjiro wasn't sure.
Not that it mattered.
What mattered was what the Hokage had learned.
Hiruzen took a breath and rose to his feet, his movements fluid despite his age. He dusted off his robe in a practised motion before lifting his gaze. His face remained unreadable.
But his silence…
It was heavy. And Loud.
Minato's brows furrowed. "Hokage-sama?"
Hiruzen's eyes flickered toward him, and for a moment, Renjiro thought he saw something there. Not surprise. Not concern.
Certainty.
And then the words came, slow and deliberate:
"It seems the Raikage did indeed send this squad,"
Renjiro tensed.
Minato frowned, his features darkening with concern as he glanced from Hiruzen to Renjiro. "But not for the reason we thought?" he asked, his tone low and edged with disapproval.
Hiruzen shook his head.
"They were stationed here," he revealed, "because Kumo is already making their war plans."
The words resonated like a death knell.
The air shifted.
Renjiro felt a cold weight settle in his stomach. 'So it's confirmed. War is coming.' The thought echoed in his mind, bouncing around like a relentless drumbeat.
He exhaled sharply, shaking his head in disbelief.
"Then why the hell do we even need to attend?" he asked, his voice low but brimming with raw, unfiltered frustration.
He wasn't joking—this wasn't a simple bureaucratic meeting. What was the point of sitting around a table discussing diplomatic nonsense when one of the major villages had already made its decision to go to war regardless of the outcome?
It was, in his eyes, nothing more than pointless posturing. His analytical mind craved decisive action, the kind that would crush the enemy and clear the path forward. But in this world, in the intricate dance of shinobi politics, the hard truth was that appearances still mattered.
Hiruzen hummed, his gaze shifting toward him.
"Because, Renjiro, appearances still matter," he said. His voice was calm, but there was something sharper beneath it—something measured. "Even if war is inevitable, we must ensure that Konoha remains politically sound."
Renjiro sighed heavily.
Politics.
The very word made his stomach churn. He had never been one for the endless machinations of power—he preferred the certainty of battle, the clarity of a well-aimed attack that left no room for ambiguity.
If it were up to him, he'd rather just crush the enemy and move on. But that wasn't how the world worked, and deep down, he knew that.
There was a certain, bitter truth in that realization, one that made his pulse quicken with both anger and regret.
As if to punctuate the conversation, Hiruzen's lips curled into a sudden, sharp smirk—a smile that was both knowing and foreboding. "But don't worry," the old man said, his eyes glinting with a dangerous light, "I know exactly how to handle Kumo."
Renjiro arched an eyebrow at that, his mind churning with conflicting emotions.
That smile… that smile was not a good sign. It held within it the promise of devastation and retribution, a reminder that Hiruzen was still a living force whose power could reshape the very world around him.
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