59. It starts

Five days later Nozomi was discharged from the hospital. For Tomoka this had been extremely good news. For starters, it meant that Nozomi was on her way to full recovery. Second and more important, it meant that protecting her would become easier. 

After multiple visits to the hospital to map it and visit Nozomi, Tomoka came to the conclusion that from the three plan Bs, B-3 is the worst possible outcome. She would need to either set a perimeter around the hospital and prevent any invasion or infiltrate the hospital herself, fight the security and set up her own. 

Neither is advisable as both would inquire about an increase in costs be it her chakra or material resources. In the end, now that Nozomi is out of the hospital Tomoka can scrap B-3. However, this also brought a few new thoughts. What if Itachi wasn’t the only one doing the killing?

‘Now I have to worry about the involvement of root in all these. If Itachi wasn’t the only one doing the killing, excluding obito of course, then it means root probably helped. This puts in jeopardy plan C and its sub-plans.’

[You have been going at this for months now. You need to relax a little or you might end up messing up just from stress] The fox had seen the girl making plans for her plans and contingencies for her contingencies. At this point not even a quarter of those would get to see the light of day and yet Tomoka still felt dissatisfied. 

‘You are right but I can’t help but worry’ If things went downhill this would be the second time she would need to fight for her life, not only hers but Nozomi’s too. With every day the pressure increased as she felt that her time to prepare was running short. 

From her clones Tomoka had been receiving information about odd movements within the Uchiha compound as well as the root bases she had already found. Spying on shinobi was hard since they could detect her clones through chakra sensing. Because of this she had to keep her clones in less important places and go by rumors. 

The current rumors as well as movement indicated that the Uchiha ninjas had stopped taking missions for one reason or another for the last week. Not only that but another rumor said that the patriarch would deliver a speech for all clan’s members in two days. Taking that into consideration. Chances were the massacre would be carried out tomorrow night. 

‘I guess I can’t do much more than what I already have. If worse comes to worst I will have to implement the more brutal and destructive plans’ Tomoka hates losing, she is the kind of girl that would flip the board, nei, the table when she is about to lose. 

‘That eye thief dares touch a single hair of my Nozomi I WILL BURN HIS FUCKING VILLAGE TO THE GROUND’ Just the thought of Danzo trying anything funny made Tomoka rage. 

[For the time being you should sleep, it’s already midnight already, you will need all your energy if they do attack tomorrow night]

‘You're right’ Tomoka calmed her raging heart and went to sleep. Tomorrow after class she will start implementing her plans.

The next day after class Tomoka approached Nozomi discreetly trying to avoid Naruto and Hinata. Plan A-1 was a go, she needed to invite Nozomi for a sleep over without alerting Naruto or Hinata. 

“Sorry Tomoka but I can’t. The patriarch wants all of us to stay at the compound since he will be giving a speech tomorrow” A expected answer, however, that doesn’t make it any less unpleasant. 

“I see, then tomorrow?” She needed to keep her cool and act normal, no alerting Nozomi or things could become worse.

“Yes, tomorrow should be fine.” With that the two went their separate ways, Nozomi to the compound and Tomoka to a nearby forest. Inside the forest Tomoka began thinking and scraping useless plans.           

‘Plan A was a failure and all its sub-plans need to be scrapped. Plan B-1 is also useless now. Alright I will need to implement plan K-1 and B-2 as well as C-1. Lets see how everything goes’ Tomoka’s tone became cold and calculative, as if all emotions had been drained from her. 

However, inside her mindscape, in the very middle of the gigantic lake, a patch of its crystal clear water became pitch black like tar, bubbling with her barely contained rage.