Chapter 280 Don't Blame Her
Standing at the village entrance, Matt Kai put his hands on his hips, his blood boiling with excitement.
"Alright everyone, let's get to Sunagakure within one day!"
As others looked at him in surprise, Rock Lee, a similarly hot-blooded young man, responded enthusiastically: "Teacher Kai, get here within half a day!"
Yamanaka Ino muttered silently, "No matter how you look at it, it should take three days."
In the prime of his life, brimming with impeccable passion, Matt Kai couldn't hear a word she said; his thick eyebrows simply rose.
"Let's go! Everyone, let's unleash our youthful energy!"
Every day, she wiped her face and thought, "How embarrassing..."
Standing next to her, Hyuga Neji, who refused to associate with the two thick eyebrows, sighed, "Give up, Tenten."
"etc--!"
Upon hearing the sweet and familiar voice, Nara Shikamaru turned around first and, sure enough, saw Haruko Hayama running towards him in a panic.
Nara Shikamaru took a few steps in her direction. "Haruko? What brings you here?"
Taking the arm he offered, Haruko caught her breath before explaining, "I applied to my master to join this mission to aid Sunagakure, so please take me with you!"
Recalling Temari's words, Nara Shikamaru frowned almost imperceptibly.
"Haruko~" Rock Lee swaggered over, "It's been so long since we went on a mission together!"
Haruko looked at him with amusement, "Yeah, let's do our best together this time!"
"Alright, let's hurry up and go," Kiba Inuzuka snapped impatiently. "If we dawdle any longer, it'll take us four days to walk there."
Kiba Inuzuka walked forward on his own, and his teammates Hinata Hyuga and Shino Aburame subconsciously followed him.
Seeing that their teacher, Kurenai Yuhi, hadn't moved, Kiba Inuzuka stopped, puzzled.
"Teacher Hong?"
Not only did Yuhi remain motionless, but the teachers from the other classes, Sarutobi Asuma and Might Guy, were also stunned, their astonished gazes all fixed on the appearing Hayama Haruko.
Deeply buried memories break through the soil, and Kurenai's eyes gradually widen, her rose-red pupils shimmering with a rich, hazy light.
“Haruko…? Uchiha Haruko?” she murmured incredulously.
Sarutobi Asuma recovered first, his narrow eagle eyes catching the confusion in Hayama Haruko's eyes, and a hint of uncertainty in his own thoughts.
How could this be...?
They look exactly the same, but the ages don't match...
Might Guy's feelings were much simpler and more direct. He rushed to Haruko Hayama with tears streaming down his face, grabbed her shoulders with his strong hands, and shook her violently.
She screamed in an extremely desperate and even distorted voice, "Haruko!"
Haruko was so dizzy from his dazzling lights that she quickly called out to him, "Stop! Stop, Mr. Kai!"
Upon hearing how she addressed him, Matt Kay's tearful expression froze, and his hands stopped moving.
Just as Sarutobi Asuma thought he had also noticed something strange, Might Guy's expression turned serious.
"Haruko, do you have a twin sister?"
"ah?"
Finally, when Tenten and Neji Hyuga could no longer bear it, they each put an arm around Might Guy, ignoring his wails and the hand he reached out to Haruko Hayama, and set off on their journey.
...
"Haruko went to Sunagakure?"
Naruto Uzumaki stared wide-eyed at his dog, completely unprepared to have been abandoned.
With Tsunade watching with amusement, Naruto suddenly clutched his head with both hands, scratching his hair and angrily questioning her.
"Aaaaaah—why? Why can't I go!"
"I can tell it's because of your special status." Kakashi Hatake's tone was calm, sounding no different from usual.
Unexpectedly, it was his special identity that tripped up his pursuit of Haruko, and Naruto's howls became even more pitiful.
Having found the culprit, Uchiha Sasuke clicked his tongue impatiently.
He stepped forward and pleaded with Tsunade, "Then he can stay, right? I should be able to go, right?"
As soon as the golden retriever stopped crying, anger flashed in its moist sapphire eyes as it pointed at the wicked guy who had betrayed it and cursed him.
"Sasuke, you've gone too far! How dare you even think of abandoning me to go find Haruko!"
"Ha, it's not me who's banned from traveling."
"What?! Don't you have any team spirit, you tomato-head?!"
Unable to bear watching the two of them arguing in her office, Tsunade slammed her hand on the table.
Ignoring Shizune's tearful plea for her to take it easy, Tsunade's eyes sharpened.
"You two, do you think this is a ninja academy? It's so noisy! If you want to argue, go argue with the Hokage!"
Sensing the wild and terrifying aura surrounding her, Naruto's arrogance vanished instantly. He said, with a mix of grievance and stubbornness, "Fine, I'll go," and ran off.
Kakashi Hatake silently mourned for Minato Namikaze for a second while he comforted the child, then looked at Tsunade.
"The senior must have called us here for more than just this, right?"
Tsunade glanced at the other two people in the room, waved for Shizune and Sasuke to leave, and then met Kakashi Hatake's calm and unfazed eyes.
She propped her hand up on the table. "You remember now, right?"
Kakashi Hatake's expression remained unchanged, but he forced himself to relax his tightly held breathing.
"What did you say, senior?"
Tsunade chuckled, ignoring his carefully constructed disguise, and began to attend to her own affairs.
As he watched, he said, "Lin is back, and I've given this task to her."
Kakashi Hatake, who was trying to maintain his composure, became somewhat unsteady and pressed for an answer: "When did she get back?"
"It's today." Tsunade raised her eyelids and glanced at him. "Judging by the time, she should be able to meet up with them tomorrow."
"..." Kakashi Hatake remained silent.
Tsunade, in stark contrast to her previous demeanor, gave a businesslike order: "Akatsuki is making quite a stir. They've been collecting tailed beasts for the past few years, as if they're afraid others won't know they're up to something."
"The Hokage has given instructions to strengthen security within Konoha. He will probably assign you a new job soon. After you leave, he will assign new team leaders to the three of them."
“So…” Tsunade paused, softening her voice, “consider it a forced cooling-off period to process your emotions.”
After she finished speaking, the room fell silent, with only the chirping of birds coming and going outside the window.
Kakashi Hatake did not respond, lowered his eyelashes, and turned to leave.
"Kakashi."
He heard Tsunade call out to him, and just a second before he was about to open the door, a light yet heavy sentence drove him to desperately want to leave.
"Don't blame her."
The door closed, and Tsunade put down the documents in her hand.
After a long while, she raised one hand and placed it on her neck.
Her hands didn't touch anything, but they kept clenching into fists, as if gripping the jade necklace that had been hanging around her neck for many years.
Those who leave suffer, but those who stay suffer the most.
They are forced to accept the choices made by the other party, and also forced to bear the consequences they pay.
Before Haruko remembers, their longing will remain dormant.
It was precisely because Tsunade had once been trapped in painful self-torture that she wanted to comfort this taciturn boy from back then.
However, the emotions accumulated over sixteen years are not so easily released.
Outside the door, Kakashi Hatake, leaning against it, took a deep breath; his dark circles under his eyes made him look even more exhausted.
Compared to him, who stayed by Haruko Uchiha's side until the very end, Rin Nohara lost her silently without ever knowing anything about it.
Rin Nohara's feelings were no less intense than his feelings for Obito Uchiha.
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