Standing beside them were Chiyo-hime and Ebizo, Sunagakure's two senior advisors. These two old veterans had never seen Akira in person before, and at the moment they were narrowing their eyes, quietly sizing up the room.
Before long, a tall figure stepped into the hall beside Temari, his easy laughter arriving ahead of him.
The moment he spotted the familiar faces, Akira's mouth curved upward and he greeted them with a smile. "Kakashi-sensei, Sakura, Naruto. So you still haven't left yet. Looks like I made it just in time."
Kakashi walked up with a smile so wide even the scar at the corner of his eye seemed to relax. "We were planning to rest for the night and head out tomorrow. If we want to counter Sasori's poison, we need a proper antidote. Sakura's been rushing the last batch together."
Chiyo's sharp old eyes locked onto Akira, and a storm rose in her heart.
So this is the Slug Princess's other student?
Unfathomable. I can't sense even the faintest ripple of chakra from him. This boy is a true top-tier expert.
How does that violent slug woman have this kind of luck? She somehow picked up two disciples with talent like this?
Thinking back to the Second Great Shinobi War, Chiyo had clashed with Tsunade countless times. Every poison she had painstakingly developed had been casually neutralized by that woman, helping push Tsunade all the way to the title of the greatest medical ninja in the world.
It wasn't just the poisons. Tsunade's monstrous strength was the perfect counter to Chiyo's puppets too. One punch and a puppet was scrap.
In those years, Chiyo had lost far more than she had won. That grudge had stretched from the Second War all the way to the present. It was also the real reason she had doubted Sakura's abilities earlier.
Akira turned toward Sakura, his eyes softening. "How confident are you about the antidote?"
Sakura nodded hard, her gaze resolute. "I've already broken down the poison's composition. I know how to make it now."
Then she hesitated, glancing at him. "Or... you could do it, Akira. At your level, you'd definitely be faster than me."
Sakura knew very well that Akira's medical ninjutsu had already reached a terrifying level, likely beyond even Tsunade-hime's.
But Akira only shook his head gently, encouragement in his smile. "This mission is part of your training. It's also your chance to prove yourself. Don't go embarrassing the Hokage, alright?"
Hearing that, Sakura straightened at once. "Don't worry. I won't disgrace Tsunade-sensei!"
After a few more words with Kakashi, Temari stepped aside and began the introductions.
"These two are our senior advisors in Sunagakure. They're both highly respected elders."
"This is Chiyo-hime, and this is Ebizo-sama."
Akira looked at the two elderly shinobi with clear, untroubled eyes, no hint of hostility anywhere in them, and inclined his head with a smile. "It's an honor. I've heard your names many times. Tsunade-hime mentions both of you more often than you'd think."
Chiyo froze for a moment, suspicion written all over her face. "That slug woman still talks about me?"
Akira smiled. "Of course. Back in the Second Great Shinobi War, you were one of the opponents who gave her the most trouble. Anyone who's faced an enemy as difficult as you probably never forgets it."
The moment Akira brought up the old war, Chiyo became even more certain of two things. First, this young man knew a fair amount about past history. Second, he clearly knew Tsunade's personal affairs extremely well.
That only reinforced the idea that Akira's relationship with Tsunade was far closer than Sakura's.
Watching how much trust everyone in the room placed in the boy, Chiyo couldn't help muttering to herself inwardly. How much is this young man hiding?
If no one could even gauge the depth of his chakra, then on that skill of concealment alone, he was already far beyond ordinary Kage level.
To possess this kind of unfathomable presence at just sixteen... Konoha might really have produced another prodigy comparable to the Yellow Flash.
Thinking back, even Minato, brilliant as he had been, probably hadn't carried himself with this kind of calm at the same age.
For the first time in many years, Chiyo felt a flicker of genuine curiosity about someone's true combat strength.
As the group moved, Kakashi quietly explained the situation. Because Naruto was the Nine-Tails' host, the suffering he had endured as a child was all too similar to Gaara's. That shared pain had made Naruto see Gaara as one of his closest friends long ago.
Hearing that, a trace of astonishment crossed Chiyo's old face. It wasn't just the bond between jinchuriki that surprised her, but the fact that such a friendship could exist across village lines at all.
In the ninja world she had grown up in, where every village watched the others with suspicion, treating another village's Kage as a true friend sounded absurd.
Back in the old days, the hidden villages knew almost nothing beyond war and caution. Pure feelings like that barely had room to exist.
Sakura, keeping pace along the side of the group, found her gaze drifting from time to time toward the tall figure ahead. She was still quietly mulling over Naruto's strange misunderstanding from earlier.
There was no way Akira was the kind of person who would steal someone else's love. Even if she herself had harbored those feelings, Akira probably had never thought of her that way at all.
The group pushed through the forest for a full day and night, battered by travel and dust, and still had some distance left before reaching the place where Gaara was being held.
Truth be told, with Akira's almost unbelievable Lightning Flicker, he could have reached the destination alone in an hour or two if he wanted.
But he didn't abandon the team and go ahead by himself. A group mission was still a group mission. He could move at that speed, but the others obviously couldn't.
At the same time, deep inside a dark, damp cavern, the Akatsuki had gathered around the Gedo Statue, continuing the extraction of the One-Tail, Shukaku, at a steady pace.
Then Black Zetsu rose halfway from the ground, his hoarse voice breaking the silence. He brought not only news of the approaching enemies, but also a fresh sense of urgency.
Pain's emotionless Rinnegan shifted slightly as he coldly asked who was coming.
When he heard the name Chiyo of Sunagakure, Sasori, hidden inside Hiruko, had the faintest pause in his fingers.
For all his obsession with eternal art, for all that he had once turned even the strongest Third Kazekage into a puppet and set off a chain of events that helped ignite a war, Chiyo was still his only blood relative.
And in the face of that one connection, even Sasori's long-frozen heart stirred with the faintest trace of something that might once have been called concern.
Then Zetsu continued, naming Hatake Kakashi of Konoha, the Nine-Tails jinchuriki, and finally the boy called Akira.
At those last two names, even Pain's usually unreadable face tightened slightly.
Those names had been coming up far too often in recent Akatsuki meetings. By contrast, the name Sakura had been ignored completely by these S-rank missing-nin.
The sealing process still needed time to finish.
Pain made the call immediately. Someone would have to use the Impersonation Jutsu to hold off these troublesome intruders.
Sasori clearly disliked the plan. In his view, those temporary bodies that could only draw out about thirty percent of the original user's power had no hope of stopping Konoha's elites.