Haruto woke up the next morning feeling slightly dimmed out by the fact that Unohana would be the one teaching him in the evening instead of Edward.
But then he quickly cheered himself up and told himself to look forward to the new intense training regime that would only make him stronger from here on out.
While showering Haruto pondered on the feasibility of stealing the ten tails from Jigen and harvesting the chakra fruit from it using his body but then quickly discarded the idea since firstly he was too weak to do anything about Jigen, and secondly but more importantly harvesting another chakra fruit would activate the Eye of the Moon plan ahead of time.
'But Obito should be dead now right?'
'Or is he still alive? Did Shisui fail to kill him but only mortally wound him?'
Stepping out of the shower, Haruto dried his hair and got dressed appropriately before heading off to the I.T department.
On his way to the I.T department, Haruto found it in himself to ask Unohana a question that he'd forgotten about yesterday.
'Unohana-san… what about issuing a mission?'
Everyone in the template inventory space looked at Unohana with sharp eyes since she was currently the strongest among all of them. If she gave Haruto a decent enough mission, Haruto would grow by leaps and bounds.
'Hmmm… I pondered a bit about what would be an appropriate mission yesterday… something that you'll be able to pull off easily enough but also tough enough to reward you with something decent and arrived at a conclusion…'
'Oh!? So you're ready to issue your mission!?'
'Yes. I just did, check it out and let me know what you think about it.'
Haruto, excited, did just that. He opened the Mission page in his mind space and looked at the fourth currently active, last assigned mission on the panel.
Mission Aim : Heal a hundred people with injuries.
Mission Assigned By : Unohana Retsu.
Mission Reward : Unohana Retsu's Knowledge About The Human Body And Soul.
Haruto's eyes shone with a bright light as he read the mission reward.
Unohana's knowledge regarding the body was infinitely valuable in the first place, but adding her knowledge about the soul on top of that made the reward seem almost unfair.
'I guess this is the advantage of having a system…!!!!'
'That's a great mission and reward Unohana-san. I'm sure having all your knowledge about the human body and the soul will let me experiment with natural energy faster.'
'Good… that was my intention. The sooner you have your own ideas to experiment on, the better it'll be for all of us.'
With that Haruto reached the I.T department.
'Hmm… Kakashi-san still hasn't reached here today… is he still caught up in the revelation of the names of the Ino Shika Cho trio from yesterday?'
'Why did Danzo want to trouble them though? Are they trying to rise up against him in secret and not supporting him well enough?'
'I would've asked Kakashi directly had there not been the cursed tongue eradication seal on me… but I doubt he'll tell me about it now even if I ask him about it.'
With Kakashi not in sight and Naruto still late, Haruto decided to check up on his office in the R&D department which he had been ignoring for the last month.
He'd still gotten his salary which was rather surprising but he didn't argue against it and quietly deposited it in his house since he still hadn't opened a bank account in the village.
Haruto walked up to his desk and found it covered in cobwebs and dust so he avoided it and sought out the receptionist. He plastered a smile on his face even though the cursed tongue eradication seal couldn't let him feel happy and then there was the Occlumency which was an even tighter cage around his emotions.
"Excuse me, miss?"
"Yes?" The busy receptionist said while going over a few documents of her own.
"I had applied for funding from the Hokage for help regarding my project, has the result been approved yet?"
"Hmmm?" The receptionist finally looked up and spoke emotionlessly, "I don't know, how should I know if the Hokage approved your funding or not? What am I? Your personal assistant? Go check that board over there, all the results from last month's round of funding are pasted there."
Haruto grumbled under his breath and sighed deeply before maintaining a smile on his face and turning around to look at the board that the receptionist had pointed out.
Almost immediately Haruto's heart sank.
He could easily see even from the distance that nearly every application was stamped with a rejected stamp.
'Hmm… it seems Danzo is saving funds by cutting down on research… is it to fund his own Hashirama Cell Experiments?'
Haruto walked closer to the board and began going through all the applications one by one. Eventually he reached his own application and a minor look of surprise came over his face.
'Oh? He accepted mine? Is this repayment for my help to him?'
Satisfied, Haruto walked back to the receptionist, "Excuse me, Miss?"
"Yes?" the receptionist asked without even looking up again.
"My application was accepted. May I know where I will be meeting the recruited candidates?"
The receptionist looked back up again and this time there was a slightly surprised expression on her face, "Accepted?" she looked back at the board and then at Haruto before smiling politely and speaking as if she wasn't just annoyed at him before.
"Congratulations sir, you will have to do the recruitment on your own. The allocated funds will be handed over to the recruited individuals based on the contract you provide them while hiring them, automatically as long as it is within the allocated budget."
"I see…" Haruto nodded, "Any idea how I can go about hiring people?"
"Ah… is this your first time doing this?" the receptionist asked politely before Haruto nodded. "Then you should head to the mission department in the Hokage building, they usually post missions for the shinobi of the village. If you finalise the details with them the hiring process will be much easier."
"I see…" Haruto nodded and asked the receptionist another question when he thought about the protesting people from earlier, "What if I want to recommend someone for the job?"
"You can sort that out with the mission department as well. As long as the two groups appear there at once, they usually create and assign the mission at once."
"Thank you very much, miss." Haruto finally smiled and nodded at the receptionist who smiled at him and went back to her work.
Haruto stepped out from the R&D department and went back to the entrance of the I.T department where he spotted Naruto.
"I'll be back in a bit, tell Kakashi-sensei that I'll be a few minutes late when he arrives."
"No need for that." Naruto said pointedly while adjusting his hold on his fish bucket, "A dog came here and told me that Kakashi-sensei won't be coming today."
Haruto gave Naruto a dubious look causing Naruto to misunderstand him and fight back, "That dog could talk!!! I swear dattebayo!!!!"
Haruto just nodded and said nothing else before walking towards the Hokage building without so much as a good bye.
Naruto looked at Haruto's back and felt his eyes water slightly but then he quickly rubbed them away and spoke under his breath, "What do I care if he lost his free will… it's not like he can kill that tyrant."
***
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