Naruto: The Shattered Eyes

Isao was rushing back to the Senju compound when he felt a familiar chakra signature appear within his field. With all its peculiarities and the rapid approach, he couldn't help but smile.

There weren't that many people who could navigate the Land of Fire's endless forests like that.

"Suguru," Stopping, Isao uttered his teammate's name, pleasantly surprised.

Suguru appeared on top of a nearby branch with his eyes as unblinking as they had always been. His face was calm, yet a small smile tugged at his lips.

"Isao..." His smile broke into a chuckle, "I saw what happened. Why do you keep rushing into danger?"

"...How much did you see? And what's going on in Konoha at the moment?" Isao was genuinely curious as to why he was attacked when he arrived.

In response to his question, however, Suguru shrugged.

"I wouldn't know."

"Huh?" Isao raised a brow. "Were you not in the village?"

Suguru gestured vaguely, "Well... I haven't been inside Konoha in a while."

"Ah... Were you on a mission?" Isao seemed to nod in understanding.

"Nope." Suguru flatly replied. "I went rogue."

"I see," Isao blinked.

"..."

For a moment, there was silence. The two old teammates looked at each other, stuck in a state of confusion.

"..."

Looking at Suguru's innocent eyes, Isao wondered what was wrong. It took a while for the latter to comprehend what the former said. When he did, his eyes almost popped out of their sockets.

"You went what!?"

***

"Suguru, you..."

The conflict in Isao's heart was like swirling stomach acid. He was unsettled for a variety of reasons, creating a vague coldness in his gut. Queasiness and a pinch of nausea weren't too far off from what he was feeling.

'What happened..?' Isao was genuinely baffled by recent events.

For one, he now had a friend who went rogue.

For another, he did not expect to interact with a missing-nin in this manner. 

Isao had always envisioned his first missing-nin hunt to be one filled with grueling battles with his life on the line. As such, traveling to his clan's compound with his former teammate who had gone rogue was what one could claim was a unique situation.

All of his expectations were thus flipped on their head.

He was not even sure if his Elders would approve of him bringing Suguru to his clan's compound.

"Yeah?" Suguru tilted his head, wondering why Isao didn't complete his sentence.

Isao shook his head. "It's nothing. I just hope that your offer will be enough to guarantee your life. I don't want to watch you get turned into a plant. It's not going to be a pleasant sight."

Hearing this, Suguru chuckled.

"Don't worry. I have a few bargaining chips."

Isao could only sigh in reply.

***

Isao and Suguru continued through the forests of the Land of Fire. They moved swiftly, like the breeze that blew through the trees. With light footsteps and an uncanny intuition, they arrived before an unassuming village.

Suguru took one look and found the initial sight to be unassuming. Simple houses were built out of wood taken from the surroundings, simple stone pathways snaked through the village, and large boulders formed the foundations of different buildings.

There was something medieval about the way everything appeared. However, other than that, Suguru noted nothing abnormal about what he was seeing.

Even the people looked like normal villagers, going about their lives as if they were not part of one of the strongest shinobi clans in the world.

None of their chakras exceeded the values that civilians were supposed to have.

'However...'

Even without activating his Shinrakugan, Suguru could feel the bountiful life force wafting about. Even though he was still a distance away, he could feel a mysterious energy vitalizing his cells.

Looking at such a mysterious ocean of raw power, Suguru fell into thought. It was a different kind of endless abyss. Peace and tranquility seemed ever-present among the people here.

"Shocked?" Isao saw the shine in Suguru's eyes and smiled.

"Definitely." Suguru's eyes were glued to the village while a myriad of thoughts swirled like a kaleidoscope through his mind.

Just staring at the Senju compound had given him a certain inspiration.

"It's like the Garden of Eden," Suguru muttered.

"The what?" Isao tilted his head at the unfamiliar words that Suguru had spoken.

Shaking his head, Suguru waved his hand. "It's nothing. It's just something I picked up in my studies."

Then, Suguru leaped down from the branches from which he stood. As a show of respect, he wanted to walk into the village instead of simply leaping over its walls.

Seeing this, Isao inwardly nodded.

'Luckily, Suguru is indeed very behaved for his age.'

Isao would always forget that Suguru was a few years younger than him. After all, Suguru's demeanor was nothing like those of his age range. Sometimes, he would even regard Suguru as an adult whenever the latter spoke.

Thus, although Suguru was a missing-nin, Isao's worries were much less than they would have been. He could walk alongside his former teammate straight into the Senju Clan's compound.

Although... it wasn't a walk filled with confidence.

Especially when dozens of suspicious gazes fell upon them in secret. Isao knew what this treatment meant.

A chill went up his spine.

However, Suguru kept a pleasant smile on his face as he walked. It seemed like he was wholly unbothered.

—Which Isao found to be absurd. Suguru's silver eyes would always notice those who gazed at him with intrigue, seemingly compelled to mirror back their stares.

***

Walking up to a beautifully crafted, circular building, Suguru marveled at the intricacies of the woodworking. Seeing such constructs gave him a few suspicions.

'Is there another user of Wood Release among the hiding Senju?'

Although Hashirama had been the only known user of Wood Release, Suguru did not constrict his thoughts to such an assumption. The mere existence of the Senju at the moment had already overturned what he knew of the world.

A Wood Release user or two wouldn't do much to change it.

After all, Senju Tsunade was Hashirama's granddaughter. This presupposes the presence of Hashirama's direct line of descendants.

Otherwise, Tsunade's mere existence would come into question. What happened to her parents? Where were they, and where had they gone?

Suguru felt that he could gain a lot from this trip.

Even without speaking a single word, he had already discovered much.

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