Break [Part-56]

Minato had taken up the hat again. Naruto finally met his father, and Sasuke was moved out of the old haunted compound and now lived with Naruto. The village was not treating Naruto as badly anymore. The people who had been ordered to stay away from Naruto, which were people who Minato and Kushina were close to, could finally shower him with love and affection he deserved.

Tenzo had been asked to move into the Akimichi compound, seeing how they were so friendly and welcoming with everyone and Naruto and Sasuke had the shock of their lives when they saw them being completely normal with them, and could finally attend therapy. He was also tasked to interact with the children saved from ROOT and give his insight and advice to the therapists, who were all either Yamanaka recommended by Inoichi or they were all very talented to be comparable with the Yamanaka, to help them.

The academy had a new and updated curriculum. One of the most welcoming rules, by the higher level ninja, had been that no one was to graduate below the age of 10.

All of the children rescued from ROOT, who weren't civilian born, were given to their respective clans. The adults were given 5 months to try and adjust to a civilian life and were given extensive therapy sessions. Some of them were absorbed into the ANBU.

Overall, the changes were good, right?

Team 7 would happily train and take mission with Kakashi and sometimes have joint training sessions with the other teams. Team Gai would always be found running laps in the village and doing some sort of training. Shikamaru would laze around but still train with his team. Hinata would be found with her two teammates, or her teacher, taking up a variety of missions. Sometimes, Temari or Kankuro would come from Suna to visit, or be on some sort business with the Hokage, and they would be found with the Genin.

Everything was fine.

Everybody thought everything was fine.

"Just how the hell can someone leave the village without alerting any of the ninja on patrol, the sensory team which is always on watch and leave no trace at all? Not even their chakra?"-Shikaku

Shikaku gave a long suffering sigh as he muttered something about this all being so troublesome.

Veronica's teammate, the Aburame, had been found to be a part of ROOT. Her teacher had stated to have not known about this, and it wasn't a surprise considering the fact that the boy had managed to fool the third as well whenever he came to report. They hadn't found anything with the other teammate as well, Tanaka saying that although he had thought something was off he hadn't noticed anything else.

But that might not have been the most weirdest thing to have been found, considering that ROOT agents were also found in the ANBU.

Inoichi, his long time friend, sighed either from worrying about his daughter, who was worried about Veronica and the rest of her friends, or about Veronica disappearing out of nowhere. It was probably both now that he thought about it.

The last time something happened to her, the Hatake boy had slammed the doors open and stormed in the Hokage's office rage radiating off of him. The council had been extremely displeased, which the boy- man, had ignored and demanded the Hokage to search for Veronica.

The Genin teams, and much to his surprise Shikamaru was there as well, had supported this as well. Sasuke bringing up him being his clan head to help their demand be approved as quickly as possible. Shikaku was sure the other kids would've brought up their clans as well if the need arose and he was a bit proud of them for being smart and using their brains instead of being too brash about it. The Third had accepted the request without much hesitation and appointed Kakashi to be the one to lead the search.

He knew that they had been lucky that Kakashi was a shinobi of Konoha but, seeing him rage in front of the Hokage with no fear made him sure that he did not want Kakashi as an enemy.

And now, the one person who had managed to keep the Hatake grounded was gone. She had disappeared as if she had never even existed.

If it hadn't been for Minato then he was almost positive that Kakashi would've torn the whole world apart in searching for her by now. Although his calmness was astonishing. He was calmer than Shikaku would've thought. He was still, trying, to teach his Genin team and hadn't locked himself in his house.

He almost suspected that the man knew something.

But then he saw him standing in front of his old team's graves for a day without moving.

In the future, Shikamaru would've called his dad an idiot for not realizing that Kakashi obviously knew something while the said man would laugh at them.

Sighing, Shikaku focused back on his ever growing paperwork and wondered why he accepted to be Minato's advisor while being not only just a clan head but also the Jonin commander. At least he wasn't alone. He smirked in amusement when Chouza and Inoichi both groaned at being handed more paper work.

--- --- --- --- ---

Sakura tightened her hold on the ninja wire in her hands, which was coated with chakra, as she waited for Sasuke and Naruto to fall in her trap.

The three had been sparring, and she knew she would at a very big disadvantage against the two. Naruto had an unlimited amount of chakra, after he somehow managed to befriend a bijuu which she still had trouble wrapping her head around, so she could not beat him in a long lasting match. Sasuke had more precise techniques and if he managed to lock her in a genjutsu then she was done for.

However, they both were hot headed, especially when they faced each other.

Tenten, her big sister in anything but blood, had been kind enough to teach her many things about weapons and multiple tricks which she had learned from missions. In Sakura's opinion, she and Shino were much better teachers than Kakashi-sensei but she wouldn't tell him that.

Who would teach her how to use low chakra consuming jutsu if he got mad at her? After all, he was the only one who knew the most ridiculous jutsu but ones that always seemed to work to get out of trouble.

She hid her chakra and watched as the two boys went from arguing to fighting in under 30 seconds and completely forget that there was another enemy they needed to watch out for. Slightly sighing at their foolishness, she quickly moved to the bushes under the tree in which she'd hidden to avoid getting hit by a wind jutsu.

She mentally noted to remind Naruto to not waste so much chakra in such low rank jutsus.

Making a shadow clone, she poured more chakra into the wires.

A water jutsu almost hit Sasuke, as he jumped sideways to avoid it, only to get his arm hurt from the landing. Groaning, he found Sakura smirking at him. He glared at her and watched as she quickly ran to fight Naruto. Which was kind of stupid in his opinion but maybe she had a plan. She had been the only sensible one in team 7 from what Minato-san had told him.

Turns out, she did. She had used Naruto to tire out Sasuke and the place where he landed was coated in a paralyzing poison. Naruto had not been easy to be led into a trap, considering how he used them all the time to prank every ninja and civilian in the village but he still couldn't break a strong genjutsu.

Grinning wildly, she soon fell down unconscious. She had exhausted all her chakra.

Kakashi shook his head at all of his knocked out Genin. In his opinion, all of them were idiots.