Time flew by—three months had passed. Uzumaki Tō was now over ten years old and had grown to about 152 cm tall for his age.
But his greatest annoyance recently wasn't height—it was Tenten and Naruto. Tenten had started attending the Ninja Academy, and in about a year, Naruto would too. The two seemed to be in silent competition: in the mornings, Naruto challenged him; in the evenings, it was Tenten's turn.
Tenten's skill with kunai improved rapidly, and to Tō's surprise, she showed a natural talent for puppetry techniques—her chakra control was truly remarkable. If she learned Chiyo's Puppet Mastery Saber, she could graduate from the academy without difficulty. Naruto, by contrast, was troubling. The Nine-Tails' chakra was interfering more and more. Though his hand sealing speed improved with training, his Gale Palm had grown weak—sometimes not enough even to move a rotting log.
Still, Tō's taijutsu training—and Naruto's physique—gave Tō confidence: Naruto's taijutsu was strong enough that Sasuke occasionally lost to him. His kunai skills were also shaped under Tō's guidance—Naruto would not end up at the bottom of the class.
Meanwhile, Tō was researching more jutsu. To understand Naruto's sealing technique, he began studying the Four Symbols Seal and Eight Trigrams Seal—but he hadn't yet grasped or used them.
He also developed the Rasengan in his Chidori variant. Compared to learning lightning-style techniques, learning Rasengan was easier, mostly because the training method was shown in the anime. Chidori, by contrast, just mentions a change in nature. If not for viewing Kakashi's Lightning Blade with the Sharingan, Tō likely wouldn't have begun exploring Chidori. Now he could easily perform Rasengan with one hand, and Naruto admired it.
It was nearing noon. While many ninjas had missions, an elite chūnin like Tō didn't always have urgent tasks—there was downtime.
What worried him, though, was that it seemed an unspoken agreement had formed among Hiruzen, Danzo, their advisors, and the Uchiha clan: every dangerous, high-risk mission kept getting assigned to Tō. That frightened him. If he had true jōnin or even higher-level strength, maybe he'd feel safe—but what if the next mission was lethal?
Hiruzen sometimes warned him when giving dangerous missions, or asked for his opinion on Konoha. He would send him away without such missions. But the Uchiha and Danzo… they seemed to conspire to burden him.
Two such dangerous missions in a row nearly killed him—one involved tailing Orochimaru; if not for Kabuto's help, he might've been discovered. Granted, he did learn two new powerful techniques from those missions.
Suddenly, an Anbu appeared behind him: "Uzumaki Tō—Lord Hokage summons you." Then he vanished via teleport. Anbu were elite teleports, but Tō now easily could defeat ten Anbu silently. He braced himself—likely another dangerous mission.
He teleported out, praying that Sarutobi could temper Danzo and the Uchiha's demands.
In the Hokage's office, the Third stood by the window as Tō entered. His expression softened, as though pitying him.
"Old man Hokage," Tō sighed. "Another dangerous assignment again, huh?" He said it without complaint, but feeling uneasy, without a real Kage-level or beyond strength, danger was real.
Hiruzen's aged voice replied, sad in tone: "Tell me, do you bear a grudge against Konoha? Many dangerous missions have been given to you since the last incident with Kakashi… and lately, it's always you."
Tō froze, then shook his head: "It's not Konoha I hate—it's certain people. I grew up under Konoha's protection, and at least the village provided for me and my mother after we lost my father."
Indeed, years ago, the village's aid kept them fed until his mother began vending goods.
Hiruzen managed a faint smile: "Heh. Some people do act for the village. But… you may not want to hear that."
Tō nodded politely—he didn't enjoy hearing such words. He had grown cautious in recent months, using only the Akuma Beast to gather intel.
Hiruzen handed him a scroll: "This is your next mission. Be careful—it may be extremely dangerous."
Tō assumed the scroll and instantly teleported away. At that moment, Danzo and two advisors entered. They observed Hiruzen, who looked older.
Danzo said, "Sometimes you must make firm decisions, not hesitate like this. Last time, I shared evidence clearly showing that the boy may have joined some evil organization!"
He produced the evidence—a photo of Tō speaking with a rogue ninja, implying he had ties with Orochimaru's faction. Hiruzen, alarmed, reviewed it: Tō had been on that mission to Kirigakure and had been helped out by that rogue at the end.
Hiruzen drew a deep breath: "I don't care about these things now! But don't overdo it. He's still Konoha's ninja—and his mother deserves this peace."
With that, he turned away.
Danzo and the advisors smirked faintly and nodded. Something larger—a conspiracy—was unfolding quietly.