Although a Jounin-level fighter was rare, it was not impossible for these families to manage to train one after a long time.
The only notable thing would be Kozue Ichihara's age, but it's not impossible to happen.
And after his son and his team arrived safely, Hiruzen put the matter aside and never thought about the young man and the Ichihara family again.
After all, running a village wasn't easy.
What the Third Hokage did not expect was to hear from them again, and this time from the Daimyo.
Reading the Daimyo's request, Hiruzen picked up another document that contained information about the SENBON TORII stores compiled by ANBU.
The man couldn't help but be surprised.
Due to his work running the village, he hadn't been very aware of what was happening outside the Leaf Village for the past few weeks.
And since these medicines weren't really important to the ninjas, there was even less chance that he would learn about them anytime soon.
But upon seeing the numbers in the document, Hiruzen understood the Daimyo's wishes and regretted not having been more attentive to these medicines.
The reason for their surprise and regret is the enormous amount of money these drugs were generating throughout the land of fire.
Had he known, he himself would have ordered ANBU to obtain the prescriptions for these medications.
Unfortunately for him, the Daimyo had already set his sights on these medications and asked him to get them for him.
Hiruzen did not think of acting on his own.
Although the Daimyo was a weakling, he was the leader of the land of fire and the one who gave him a large amount of money each year for the upkeep of the village.
'Perhaps we could form a partnership?' the man thought.
Sighing, the Third Hokage ordered ANBU to begin preparations for the mission.
And just as he was about to move on to other things, his senses alerted him and he quickly turned around to see a crow landing on his window.
When he saw that something was tied to the leg of this crow, a name popped into his mind.
'Itachi'
.
.
.
At the same time…
"They did a good job"
"Now we'll go to lunch and then we'll return to the village."
"I saw a restaurant during the search"
"Let's see how it is"
"Awesome, and all thanks to Akamaru!"
"Right, buddy?!"
"¡Woof!"
In the city of Hiruya, 4 people came out of a 2-story house, and behind them came some samurai carrying a man and a woman, both without strength and with their heads down.
This caught the attention of the people around, but seeing the ninja headbands and swords at the samurai's waists, they wisely did not approach.
They just watched with curiosity and tried to figure out what was happening from a distance.
Behind the samurai came a fat man dressed in expensive clothes, who nodded to the group of ninjas and said goodbye before accompanying the samurai.
Seeing the man and the samurai retreat, the first group of 4 also headed in the opposite direction.
Led by a woman with red eyes, 3 young people walked with a large dog in the middle of them.
They are team 8 from the last graduating class of the Leaf Village ninja academy.
The woman with red eyes is named Kurenai Yuhi, the Jounin leader of Team 8, and her students are Kiba Inuzuka, Shino Aburame, and Hinata Hyuga.
The Inuzuka clan is a clan that specializes in battles alongside animal companions, and the large dog that walked with them is called Akamaru, Kiba Inuzuka's ninja partner.
The group had arrived in the city of Hiruya for a search mission, which they managed to complete in less than 5 hours thanks to Akamaru's help.
Team 8, thanks to the members that make up this team, specializes in tracking and capture, which makes it suitable for missions like the one they just finished.
The daughter of a wealthy merchant lost a ring, and her father hired them to help find it.
The ring itself didn't have enough monetary value to justify paying a ninja team to find it.
That's exactly what the couple who were just arrested thought.
The couple were the rich merchant's maid and gardener, who thought of secretly stealing something not so valuable from their employer's daughter's room and getting away with it because they thought the young lady of the mansion wouldn't put much effort into finding it.
Unfortunately for them, the not-so-'valuable' ring was a ring that the young woman's late mother had given her when she was a little girl, and she treasured it with all her heart.
That's why she went crazy when she lost him, and her father hired ninjas to calm her down.
Ninja matters are not usually common knowledge among ordinary people, and people like this couple only heard about their power and brutality.
Therefore, they didn't put much effort into hiding them, without considering the group's search skills.
And since the young woman carried the ring with her for a long time, it was less complicated to find it.
Akamaru was the one who searched for the young woman's scent throughout the city, which they explored for 5 hours before Akamaru pointed out a particular area and Hinata found the ring with her Byakugan.
The Byakugan is the ocular bloodline of the Hyuga family, which allows them to see through surfaces and great distances.
When Akamaru led them through this area, it was Hinata who found the ring based on a picture drawn by the client.
Therefore, they didn't have to spend unnecessary time searching house by house.
"Akamaru is amazing," said the young woman with white eyes as she rubbed the animal's head.
"Of course it's amazing!"
"He deserves a big piece of meat for lunch!" Kiba said to Akamaru's side.
Shino, the other team member alongside Kiba, nodded in agreement.
"Woof!" Akamaru barked happily at the praise.
The red-eyed woman smiled happily as she saw her team.
Although she is a Genjutsu specialist and cannot help them much with their clans' abilities, she took charge of their teamwork and they have shown promising results.
As in this mission.
Kiba and Hinata helped in the search, while Shino took charge of capturing the maid and gardener when they tried to escape.
Although they ran fast when they realized they had been discovered, Shino's insects were already in their bodies and subdued them by sucking out their low chakra reserves.
Suddenly, Team 8 fell silent.
As the four of them chatted along the way, they couldn't help but overhear a little girl talking to her mother.
Although the girl was far away, the four of them were ninjas and had much stronger senses and were able to hear her clearly.
The girl spoke and pointed towards them.
But if you follow the line, you'll realize that it was pointing to Hinata.
Specifically, her forehead.
The young woman had a bandage covering her forehead.
The girl pointed out that Hinata was hurt, but for the group it meant much more and they remained silent.
Kiba and Shino didn't know what to say, so they remained silent, uncomfortable.
Hinata also remained silent while keeping her head down, not wanting to hear her sensei and teammates say anything to encourage her.
I was already tired of hearing so many words of encouragement.
He had tried to forget everything during the last few days and had almost succeeded, only to have a random girl on the street remind him of his ordeal.
Beside Hinata, Kurenai saw her student's depressed state and couldn't help but hate the Hyuga clan.
The Hyuga clan, a noble clan from Konoha and possessor of an eye ability envied by many people in the world, had a separation between main family and branch family to 'protect' their bloodline.
As she put an arm around her favorite student's shoulders, Kurenai scoffed in her mind at this so-called 'protection'.
The main family of the Hyuga clan could say whatever they wanted about protecting their bloodline.
But the fact that only the branch family was marked with a cursed seal on their foreheads, which the main family used to punish them, was clearly slavery. No matter what excuses they offered.
Although there were exceptions in the main family who refused to use the cursed seal to abuse the branch family, they were few and Hinata was one of them.
Unfortunately for the young Hyuga, her status recently changed.
Despite being the heir to the Hyuga clan, she was ostracized from the main family after losing a fight with her younger sister.