Chapter 18 - 18. A Clue

"This ramen is so tasty, Monari. I love it. But... I'm still waiting to eat dumplings." Shiroken happily ate the food.

Both of them were sitting at a decent looking restaurant. It serves all kinds of food here. ​​

"What are you saying? This is bland at best. Cooks at Dama village are so much better. But I guess to you it's tasty because you rarely ate anything other than dumplings. Seriously, you need to focus on your diet more. Do you want to become fat?" She said while pulling his stuffed cheek slowly.

"But dumplings are just so tasty. I even have dreams of mountains of them." Shiroken replied and stuffed more of them.

"Hey, big sis, are you going to eat that?"

All of a sudden a voice came. Both Shiroken and Monari turned their heads to look and standing there was a chubby boy with white hair and red marks under his eyes. He looked 5 or 6 years old. His mouth was visibly watering, looking at the extra ramen bowl on the table that Shiroken had not touched as he was only interested in dumplings.

"Do you want it?" Monari asked.

The boy cutely nodded and kept on looking at the bowl. "But, it belongs to this pretty sis..."

Shiroken looked at the boy awkwardly, and the boy was staring at him too.

~Big sis?~

"Pfft... Ahahahaha... oh... Shiro... He thinks you're a girl." Monari laughed loudly, thumping on the table with her fist.

"Yes, this big sis is so pretty. Look, we have the same hair colour." The boy said now even more confidently.

"I'M A MAN," Shiroken corrected him with a heavy voice.

"WHAT?!" The boy was so shocked he fell back down on his butt.

"H-How can this be... how can a man be so pretty? This is against nature... you're lying," he argued.

"You can't have the ramen bowl now, I'm going to eat it all." Shiroken angrily took the bowl closer to himself.

The boy quickly stood up and spoke with an apologetic look, "Hehe... sorry, big brother, you are so handsome that I got confused. Look, we have the same-same hair, we are like brothers. Won't you treat your brother?"

*Sigh*

"Here, you can eat it. What's your name?" Shiroken inquired.

The boy happily sat beside him and started slurping on the ramen. He seemed so happy. "I am Jiraiya. I'm gonna be the strongest Shinobi someday."

Monari felt this was the perfect opportunity to gather information. Kids mostly hear their parents talk and also their friends, so they often know a lot about what's happening around them.

"Well, Jiraiya, I am Monari and this here is Shiroken. We are new to Konohagakure. Will you tell us about the village? What's going on around these days?" she asked.

Jiraiya suspiciously looked at her, ~Is she a spy? NO! She's too pretty to be a spy. Ah... so pretty~

*SLURP*

"Welcome to the strongest shinobi village in the five nations. Everything is the best here. The food, the school, the bathhouses hehe... Oh, our Hokage is also the strongest." He replied.

Well, this wasn't much useful information. Who wants to know about bathhouses?

"What about safety? Is living here safe?" Monari asked further.

Jiraiya nodded, "Of course, well, for the most part. Not long ago that stupid friend of Hokage betrayed us and tried to destroy the village. He even brought a huge fox-like creature out too."

As soon as he said that, Shiroken's fist tightened.

"But our Hokage was so strong, he beat both of them super easily. Big sister, can I get more Ramen?" Jiraiya asked as he had already licked his bowl clean.

Monari also turned serious, she looked at the owner of the shop and signalled him to bring another bowl.

"So what happened to the fox and this man?" She inquired.

"Hehe, he was defeated and died. But I don't know about the fox. It just went poof suddenly. I was watching the whole fight secretly. I'm sure Lord Hokage also beat the fox to death." Jiraiya replied. Just then the next bowl arrived.

Shiroken couldn't sit still anymore. "So you don't know what happened to that fox? Who might know though?"

"Why are you asking about that fox? It's gone now." Jiraiya asked him back with a lifted eyebrow.

Monari quickly intruded, "He meant to know about the fox, after all, if the fox is still around somewhere then this village is not safe to live in."

"Oh, I don't know then. I don't think anybody knows other than Lord Hokage. Maybe Lady Mito would. Also, Lord Tobirama might." Jiraiya replied honestly.

Shiroken nodded, it was time to move. It was about to turn night, perfect for infiltrating. He didn't care about anything now, the fact that Kurama was involved in something like this… it was worrying him.

~I hope you are not dead, Kurama. I don't want to wait a hundred years to see you again. But why did you fight for that man?~ He wondered.

Shiroken stood up, "Let's go, Monari. We have places to be. Thank you, Jiraiya. Here, take this money and eat as much as you want."

Jiraiya took the few Ryo coins without saying anything. As he was busy eating it.

After that, both of them left the shop. But after they were gone, and Jiraiya had eaten his food, he noticed the number on the coins. "WOAH! They gave me a thousand Ryo. Maybe I can buy that Shuriken now."

...

"What are you planning on doing, Shiro?" Monari asked, seeing him tensed up.

"Simple, find either this Mito or Tobirama. And from the number of people I have felt following us all this time, I think we should meet Tobirama. He's the acting leader of the village." Shiroken planned.

Monari sighed, "Just don't do something too impulsive. We don't want to be seen as their enemies. We're just here for Kurama."

"But they harmed him! They hurt Kurama. I shouldn't have let him go in the first place. I was too stupid. Now I will do anything it takes to make our family whole again." Shiroken sternly replied.

To him, his family came first, everything came after that. He would only be charitable as long as his family was not harmed. And considering this was an official action of a village, he had no sympathy for it. But he was not a megalomaniac who would try to destroy it. The people did nothing wrong. The most powerful of the village did.

"So are we going to do it right now?" She asked him.

"Yes, we should hurry up as much as possible. Who knows, Kurama could still be around, waiting for our help. If this Tobirama does not know, then we will have to find the Hokage directly." He planned and sped up.

They were headed straight to the Hokage office building.

...

"They are headed to the Hokage office, call all the men on standby. Lord Tobirama has told us to stay vigilant. If these two do anything strange, strike them." A man standing on a rooftop a distance away ordered his men.

He was the vice-commander of Anbu. A special force made to safeguard the Hokage. As Hashirama was outside with the commander, now it was his job to secure the temporary Hokage.

He looked at the two outsiders running towards the office. Slowly, the two even started jumping on rooftops like ninjas. This made his belief strong that these two were far from being normal people.

"Could this be an attack from Sunagakure?" He wondered.

...

*Woosh*

"I can sense every single person around us. This place is riddled with ninjas." Shiroken informed her. The two of them stood right in front of the building.

Monari asked him, "What do you want to do? Should we go from the front door or barge in? I will always help you, no matter what you decide."

He looked at her kind face with a smile, "Thank you, but let's go through the front door. If he tries to fight us, this would turn into a battle anyway."

With this decided. They walked towards the big cylindrical red building. There was a brown door as an entrance.

Shiroken proceeded to knock on it. But, just as his hand was about to touch the door, a sudden 'Woosh' sound came and a man in a cat-like mask appeared.

"What do you want from Lord Tobirama? You cannot enter this building." The man asked. He had a kunai in his hand, held at Shiroken's neck.

The same was the case with Monari, as another person had arrived behind them. Of course, they let them do this. Otherwise, it was as easy to deal with them as yawning.

"We are looking for someone missing. And we believe that only Lord Tobirama or Lord Hokage know about his whereabouts." Shiroken replied, with a kind smile plastered on his face. But, his white hair and skin made him look very cold.

"It's very late, come tomorrow, Lord Tobirama will see you." The Anbu replied.

*CLANK*

Without anybody even realising, Shiroken's hand was already on the kunai, holding it by the blade, and soon crushing it like it was glass.

*BAM*

Now the Anbu had his neck in Shiroken's hand. It all happened so fast that nobody got a chance to react. On top of that, following Shiroken's movements was very hard through their senses because he didn't have a normal chakra.

*GAK... GAK...*

The Anbu was choking, while he tried to push Shiroken's hand away. But he only got lifted in the air by him as if he was not an adult man but a ragdoll. The Anbu was in disbelief because Shiroken looked like a teenage kid.

"How would you feel if your family was missing and someone told you to come tomorrow to look for them?" Shiroken reasoned with him.

Monari agreed with this action, they wouldn't have taken them seriously if Shiroken had not shown some real strength. At least now they will hear them out.

*CLANK*

She also destroyed the kunai that was put on her neck and said, "Look, we're not enemies of your village. We don't care about your wars or feuds. We're just desperately looking for our two family members."

*THUD*

Shiroken let the Anbu go, throwing him to the ground. "Can we enter now?"

The two Anbu looked up at the glassed window of the Hokage office. From there, they saw a silhouette of someone nodding.

*cough* "Yes, you two can go in." They said respectfully.

[You can see Jiraiya, Hokage office and Anbu on my Discord - https://discord.gg/DgHkrAn OR see them on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/mister_immortal_novel]

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Special thanks to *Douglas Flower* *Umar Latif* *Julian Rocamora* *Darrien Steely* *Franklin Walley*

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