***
Kushina's mouth was opened as were the mouths of all the other enigmatic space inhabitants.
"What the hell!!!!!" Kushina screamed out loud. "How did he do that!? He split his soul off from his body!!! How!!! Even I never experienced that, and Minato probably only when he used the Death Reaper seal!"
Minato nodded eagerly.
"How… is this possible?" Izuna asked with a stunned expression.
Only Tobirama was somewhat calm, or rather somewhat controlled. He opened his mouth and spoke in a rather strained tone, "There is a jutsu I created…"
"Of course Sensei recognised the jutsu at first glance! As expected of Sensei…" Hiruzen praised Tobirama unconditionally as everyone looked at him, even Hashirama since he was particularly curious about a jutsu that let someone mess with souls and seemingly put Haruto out of sight of everyone else in the real world.
Hiruzen, taking the center of everyone's attention, responded appropriately, "It is the Spirit transformation jutsu. It was made by Tobirama Sensei and was learnt by a Konoha shinobi in the past named Kato Dan."
"Kato-san?" Kushina immediately recognised the name of the person who she'd seen visit Tsunade several times before the second shinobi war truly began in full swing, right when she arrived in the Senju household. The person who Tsunade had fallen for but also the person who died leaving Tsunade forever alone. "But what's Kato-san got to do with Haruto? Didn't he die during the second Shinobi war?"
"That's what I would like to know as well…" Hiruzen said, "It's not as if he would've had the opportunity to teach Haruto this jutsu before he died…"
Minato's eyes widened slightly as he proposed an idea that came to his mind at that moment, "Perhaps…" Just that one word was enough for Tobirama to know that Minato was thinking along the same lines as him.
Seeing Tobirama agreeing with him, Minato spoke up with some confidence, "Perhaps Kato-san is in the other room we suspect holding dead souls like ours?"
Everyone's eyes widened simultaneously.
***
Haruto floated over the night life of Konoha. The streets were mostly silent since Danzo had taken over, especially during the night, but Haruto still spotted the brave shionbi stepping out of an izakaya.
Haruto looked at the shinobi for a second before his eyes widened in shock and surprise.
'Wait a second… isn't that Kakashi!?'
'Holy sheet… what's he doing out so late?!'
Haruto followed Kakashi after that but Kakashi seemed to be walking aimlessly.
'What is he doing…? Is he really drunk? But why would Kakashi drink on such an important day… right before I present my research's culmination results to the Hokage?'
Kakashi stumbled along the road, hiccuping along the way until he reached a rather simple old samurai style house with a rather large courtyard.
Haruto following from above noticed nothing particularly off about Kakashi's movements since he really did seem like someone drunk enough to stumble their way throughout.
'He entered his house… is he about to just crash on his bed and fall asleep?' Haruto predicted rather confusedly.
However, just to be sure, Haruto followed Kakashi into the house, silently like an ever present companion since Kakashi couldn't see or hear him in any way.
Only, as soon as Kakashi closed the door behind him, he dropped the act. His eyes became clear and his fingers came together to form the single hand seal necessary for a master of what Haruto recognised was the shadow clone jutsu.
The clone nodded in Kakashi's direction before stumbling around the house, making a show of its drunkenness as it walked by the windows before collapsing onto the bed in the far end of the room.
'...is he worried about people following him? So he's being so thorough?'
'Is ROOT also following him… because they too suspect he'll do something after learning that I'm going to be finishing my research?'
Haruto continued to follow the real Kakashi as he walked to a wall inside his house where he pressed a particular plank on the wall and caused a secret door to slide open, it was a crawl space that Kakashi entered lying down before sliding down a slope to arrive at a rather open underground cavern.
'A secret entrance inside his house?'
'Is this even legal?' Haruto wondered blankly, while also wondering if it was Sakumo that built this secret space or if it was Kakashi who fitted it later down the line.
'Sakumo wouldn't have built a secret entrance in his house given his samurai like behaviour in all the fanfics of Naruto that I've read… but he was indeed a treacherous shinobi in this world… I wonder if he didn't trust the village and inevitably built a secret entrance to his house when the Hatake clan moved to Konoha…'
Kakashi meanwhile followed a narrow path out of the secret entrance and slowly arrived at a deserted alleyway at the edges of Konoha.
Haruto quickly followed Kakashi, but soon it started proving to become difficult to keep track of Kakashi since he began using the body flicker jutsu to move at high speeds.
'I can only barely keep track of him because of training with Unohana… if he keeps moving so quickly and making such random turns so often I'm bound to lose him sooner rather than later…'
Luckily however Kakashi soon entered a forest which caused him to slow down.
It wasn't the cursed forest of death from the original show, but a rather tame looking forest with no great predators inside it. Even the trees were thinner with more grass spread out around the ground as if it were traditionally maintained like so for the animals living inside it.
'Is this the Nara deer forest? Or the Aburame insect forest?'
Kakashi walked through a few thick bushes and finally arrived at a soft clearing inside the forest. In the clearing was a small wooden house that could barely be called a hut. It was more of a hunting cabin but Haruto didn't let that distract him.
Haruto followed Kakashi into the cabin and was slightly surprised to see someone else already present there, the light falling off his soul body illuminated a person standing in a dark corner covered by shadows.
'Shikaku Nara?'
'So this is the Nara forest…'
'But what's Shikaku Nara doing here right now? Are they about to plan something for tomorrow?'
"When the tree leaves dance, one shall find flames." Kakashi said and Shikaku immediately responded with, "The fire's shadow will illuminate the village, and once again, tree leaves shall bud anew.
'...there's something wrong with Shikaku's voice… why is it so restrained and… so cold?'
Kakashi nodded and informed Shikaku of the reason he was here. "Haruto's research project will end tomorrow, he'll be revealing the successful result to Danzo tomorrow."
"I already know that… Danzo got a message this evening about it. He was quite gleeful about it. He even informed me about it and asked me to analyze if you could use this event against me in some way."
"And? What did you say?" Kakashi asked eagerly.
'Wait a second… Danzo asked Shikaku to analyse this? Why would he do that? Why would Danzo trust Shikaku's analysis in any way?'
'Unless… he's branded Shikaku with the cursed tongue eradication seal!'
'Wait! Is that why his voice is so thin and stressed? Is it because he's fighting the seal!?'
'But wouldn't this be considered betraying Danzo!? How is he still alive if he was doing that?'
Haruto frowned in thought but only for a second as his gaze fell on Kakashi and he remembered their short exchange only a few weeks ago!
'No way! Shikaku learnt the technique I taught Kakashi and split his mind to escape the effects of the seal temporarily!?'
Out of Haruto's mind the conversation carried on causing him to have to focus back there and put a pause to the revelation he'd just uncovered.
***
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