The war room smelled like too much old parchment and too little sleep, and Tsunade was fairly certain both problems were only getting worse the longer this meeting dragged on.
Jiraiya stood near the map table, arms crossed, looking about as tired as she felt. Tsume had barely sat down since arriving, still half in motion from being pulled straight off the front lines. Hiashi remained composed as ever, though even his usual stillness carried an edge of tension today. That might or might not have something to do with his clan elders raising hell over Neji's sudden uprising.
Shibi Aburame said little, as always, though his kikaichū buzzed faintly beneath his coat in a way that suggested even his bugs were on edge. The elders sat further back, silent for now, though Tsunade knew that silence wouldn't last. If anything, she didn't want them to speak, period.
'Who the hell invited them anyway?' She almost wished to complain to Shizune for letting these old fogies enter, but knew that her poor little disciple had nothing to do with these two old goats.
They somehow found out she was holding the meeting, and from what she found out, they were sitting on that sofa before even she herself arrived inside the room.
She gritted her teeth but, for the time being, said nothing.
"Let's not waste time," Tsunade said, spreading the incident report across the table. "Gaara of the Sand was taken from our hospital ward two nights ago. Two guards dead. The culprits were identified — Itachi Uchiha, and a missing-nin matching descriptions of Kisame Hoshigaki."
"Both S-rank," Hiashi said, more statement than question.
"Both S-rank," Tsunade confirmed. "And both wearing matching cloaks. Black, red clouds."
That last detail seemed to land harder than the rest, at least for Jiraiya, whose expression shifted from tired to something sharper.
"You know something," Tsunade said, catching it immediately.
"Maybe." Jiraiya rubbed the back of his neck. "I've had reports trickling in for a while now, nothing concrete enough to act on. An organization operating in the shadows, mostly S-rank missing-nin, no clear village affiliation. Whispers only, mostly from contacts in smaller countries getting caught in the crossfire of whatever this group's been doing."
"And you didn't think to mention this earlier?" one of the elders cut in, tone already accusing.
"Because until now it was rumor," Jiraiya said, not backing down. "I don't bring half-formed intelligence to the Hokage's desk and waste her time on it."
"Apparently that policy just cost us a jinchūriki," the elder shot back.
"Enough," Tsunade said, sharp enough to cut the argument off before it went further. She didn't have the patience for elders sniping at Jiraiya today, not with everything else piled on her plate. "Jiraiya. What's your actual read on this?"
Jiraiya exhaled. "If I had to guess, based on the little I've heard — this organization's after jinchūriki specifically. I wasn't certain before. As I said, they were nothing but rumors. A piece of tips I hear all day around, almost none of it turns out to be real, most of the time. This one just happened to be that one time that it's not just a rumor, it seems."
"Why jinchūriki?" Tsume asked, arms crossed.
"Well, besides basically collecting the world's most dangerous weapons under a single organization and making enemies of almost all the big nations, I don't know why."
Tsunade's jaw tightened. "Then find out why, goddamnit." She almost roared and destroyed the table in front of her. But she calmed herself down, knowing that getting angry right now wouldn't help her case.
"Find out who they are. How many. What they actually want with the tailed beasts."
Tsunade's tone hardened. "And figure out if any of our other shinobi are at risk. We too have a Jinchūriki to look after, after all..."
That single sentence was enough to make half the room shift uncomfortably, because everyone in it knew exactly who she meant.
"Naruto," one of the elders said immediately, leaning forward. "He needs to be recalled from the front. Now."
"He's doing fine on the front," Tsunade said, though even she could hear how thin that argument sounded given the current circumstances.
"He was doing fine before an organization capable of infiltrating this village and extracting a jinchūriki from under our noses existed," the elder pressed. "If they're hunting jinchūriki, Naruto is a target the moment they learn what he is. Leaving him exposed on an active battlefield is reckless."
"He's exposed either way," Tsume said. "Recalling him doesn't make him safer if this organization decides to come looking, if our previous record was anything to go by."
That stiffened some of the people there, that basically taking a jab at Tsunade's inability to keep a foreign Jinchūriki under her custody.
Tsunade's face darkened, though she couldn't actually say anything in retort. Tsume was right in her accusation. And she wasn't even trying to accuse Tsunade, she knew that. She was just pointing out the obvious.
Even the village wasn't the safest place currently, with Konoha's defensive strength depleted.
"If it's on me, I'll say let that pup stay on the front line. He's among the finest shinobi the Leaf has to offer. Taking him from a war camp would be much harder than inside the village, not to mention, perhaps Naruto is safe because this Akatsuki didn't know he was on the front line. Otherwise, what is the guarantee that they would have only stopped at Suna's Jinchūriki? They could have taken the Uzumaki brat as well," Tsume stated, and that logic actually made sense to a few people.
"If it's on me, I'll say let the brat stay there, don't let him take any mission and make him a high-priority target to protect."
"That's not your call to make, Inuzuka."
"No, it's the Hokage's," Tsume said flatly, glancing toward Tsunade. "I'm just pointing out the flaw in your plan."
Tsunade pinched the bridge of her nose. This was going to be one of those meetings, she just knew it.
"We'll discuss Naruto separately," she said, cutting off whatever the elder was about to say next. "Right now, I want intelligence gathered. Jiraiya, I want everything you can dig up on this organization — numbers, members, motives, anything. Hiashi, Shibi, Tsume — I want your clans' tracking resources coordinated on finding Gaara's trail before it goes cold entirely. He may already be beyond saving, but I'm not writing him off without trying."
"Understood," Hiashi said simply, and Shibi gave a small nod beside him.
"There's another problem," Jiraiya added, tone shifting. "Kumo."
Tsunade's eyes flicked toward him sharply. "What about them?"
"Their movements have gotten strange the past several days. Increased patrols, tighter security around their command structure, more secrecy than usual even for wartime." Jiraiya frowned, clearly turning the pieces over without quite landing on the right conclusion. "Could be they're planning something bigger on the front. Could be they've caught wind of this Akatsuki business too and are reacting to it independently. Hard to say without better intel."
Tsunade said nothing to that, mind briefly running through everything she'd learned recently about a certain reckless special jōnin currently stationed at that very front, and the report of an entire enemy camp destroyed by his hand not too long ago. She had no proof connecting that to Kumo's sudden secrecy, no reason to think the two were related at all.
Still, something about the timing nagged at her.
"Keep watching them," she said instead, deciding it wasn't worth raising an unfounded suspicion in front of the entire room. "If Kumo's planning something, I want warning before it happens, not after."
"Already on it," Jiraiya said.
Tsunade looked around the room once more — tired faces, quiet tension, elders still visibly unsatisfied by the lack of an immediate decision on Naruto — and allowed herself exactly one long breath before continuing.
And then suddenly something struck her mind.
"Send a message to the front lines, to that annoying brat. Tell him I got a mission for him."
xXx
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