Kakashi by now had realised his mistake as he looked at Danzo's changing expressions, so he panicked. But to his plight he could not find himself to bring out the right words to argue about keeping Haruto to himself against Danzo without worsening the situation.
Fortunately it seemed eventually that Danzo decided otherwise.
Danzo was about to deny Kakashi's request again, but then he paused when his eyes fell on Haruto's lack of competence as a shinobi and his dropping out of the academy.
'No… if Kakashi can train him… and make him at least a little bit competent, I can take him from him then.' Danzo decided.
Eventually Danzo looked back up at Kakashi from the files he was holding and spoke in a bold tone, "You may also include Haruto Hayashi in your team. But before you take them for your first mission, bring them to this place tomorrow."
Kakashi's eyes widened, but he knew better than to argue about it all, so he nodded. "Thank you for indulging in my wishes lord Hokage."
"Hmpf. I only do what's best for Konoha."
Kakashi nodded and with that he was out of the Hokage office for good.
***
Haruto looked at his computers in the R&D department and felt confused.
'Where do I go now to get new workers for my project?'
'If Hiruko were still alive I would've just asked him about it…'
Haruto looked around the R&D department and felt confused. Eventually he rose up from his desk and walked to the nearest receptionist.
Tok Tok Tok… "Excuse me, mam." Haruto started by knocking on the receptionist's desk.
The receptionist who was busy with files of her own, or was at least appearing to be busy looked at Haruto with a questioning look that asked him what he wanted and why he was here to disturb her.
Haruto, whose chest barely crossed the desk, spoke frankly, "I want to hire some civilians for my research project."
"Hmm…? Civilians… for your project?" The receptionist asked with a tilt of her head as her eyes looked around in search of Haruto's desk.
She didn't locate Haruto's desk in the sea of desks in front of her but her hands moved automatically and pulled out a form from her desk and slapped it in front of Haruto.
"Fill this form out with all the details and hand it over to me. It will be sent to Hokage-sama for approval and then you'll have your workers."
Haruto picked up the form and the pen that the receptionist had given him and studied it for a few seconds.
'Hmm… it just asks why I need whatever I need and the approximate cost to the village for my request.'
Haruto looked back at the receptionist who was already busying herself and sought to disturb her once again, "Excuse me mam, in what range of prices are the requests generally accepted?"
The receptionist answered him without even looking up, "Requests up to three hundred thousand ryo are generally accepted after a quick evaluation."
"I see…" Haruto nodded and brought out a pen to fill up the details of the form. He wrote down a simple explanation for why he needed people and explained how they would help him prepare the data for improving the prediction accuracy of his models.
After he was done, Haruto quickly blew on the sheet of paper to dry the ink before handing it over to the receptionist who simply stuffed it into a pile that would be delivered to the Hokage.
Haruto nodded and was about to return to his seat to make an interface for people who would eventually be hired so that they could split the scanned receipts easier by simply drawing rectangles on screen around the letters they had to split up.
It took a while, but after some work, Haruto completed the software by the end of the day.
He stepped outside the R&D department in the evening hoping to quickly go home for his first medicinal bath today. Only-
"Kakashi-san!" Haruto exclaimed as soon as he saw Kakashi standing outside.
Kakashi walked over to Haruto and gave the boy a thorough look before speaking calmly, "Haruto-kun, you're going to be assigned duties with me from now on."
Haruto's eyes widened. "What?"
'Am I going to be doing interrogations and torture?'
Seemingly reading his thoughts, Kakashi nodded. "Yes, you'll be assigned to the interrogation and torture wing with me."
"What about my research?" Haruto quickly asked, not because he was in love with producing research that robbed people of their livelihoods but because he wanted to use it as an excuse to shirk the responsibility of being a torture specialist.
Kakashi nodded again, "Your research will continue as it is, but only in the background. The Hokage has issued new orders today, all Jonin are to take up an… for the lack of a better word… an assistant that will work with them, you are on my team, picked by me."
Haruto's mouth hung loose.
"What?"
***
"WWWWWHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!?????????" Kushina shouted out loud, she turned towards Hiruzen and quickly spat out her question, "Has Danzo gone mad!!?"
Hiruzen scratched his cheeks feeling second hand embarrassment along with a dose of shock and surprise.
Seeing Hiruzen silent, Tobirama spoke up, "....it seems all my disciples are idiots."
"Ah… sensei…" Hiruzen started but Tobirama only glared at him and shut him up.
"But what is that fool doing? Does he want all the seeds of the village to die out before they even begin to sprout?" Izuna asked unhesitatingly, causing everyone to fall silent.
Even Hashirama looked slightly broken at what he'd just heard from Kakashi.
Eventually he spoke in a soft tone, "Kakashi looks like a good kid… he'll surely keep Haruto safe…"
Sakumo nodded at that, "I think Kakashi picked Haruto precisely for the reason that he didn't want anyone carelessly picking Haruto and getting him killed on a mission outside the village."
Tobirama nodded and spoke quietly at that point, "I just hope no matter what happens Danzo dies because of the curses of all the people in the village."
Kushina nodded vigorously.
***
Haruto finally sighed, "I don't have a choice do I?"
Kakashi shook his head, "Unfortunately not Haruto-kun…"
"Fine then…" Haruto nodded, "Anyone else on our team?" Haruto asked, wondering if he'd meet the Konoha twelve by luck in all this mess.
Kakashi nodded, "There's another teammate… but you'll know more about him when you meet him tomorrow."
"...eh…. It's a boy… I didn't think you had it in you to pick an all boys team Kakashi-san…"
Kakashi gave him a dubious look that screamed, 'What do you think of me!? Seriously, what sort of image do I have in that head of yours!?'
Haruto laughed softly and quickly spoke up, "I will be having a medicinal bath to improve my physical energy today Kakashi-san… that won't be a problem right?"
"Medicinal bath?" Kakashi asked confused before straightening his expression while catching his mistake and pretending to remember what Haruto was talking about and nodding, "Yeah, yeah, that, you can definitely take it, just don't be late tomorrow."
"I promise I won't be late Kakashi-san… I hope you don't get lost on the way of life though…"
Kakashi froze, nearly stumbling for a second, but then continued walking as if he hadn't heard anything all while wondering where Haruto had heard that excuse…
'The Third Hokage?'
Sigh…
***
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