Haruto entered training ground seven and was slightly surprised to find Kakashi teaching Naruto even today.
'Wasn't he going to receive Tsunade and hide her inside his home?'
'Will she arrive during the night when it's easier to hide herself, Shizune and her piggy Tonton?'
'Hmm…'
Kakashi looked at Haruto and asked him a simple question seemingly out of courtesy, "How did your presentation in front of Hokage-sama go?"
Haruto nodded coldly, "It went well. The Hokage-sama even rewarded me."
"I see… good for you. Let me know if you need help with anything in the future."
"Alright, Kakashi-sensei."
With that Haruto began to practice water walking, and surprisingly began walking perfectly on the water in just a few more tries.
This time, even though Naruto shouted in excitement, Haruto did not fall into the pond like he'd previously done and completed walking laps around it.
Haruto quickly walked up to Kakashi and spoke coldly, "Kakashi-sensei do you know of any advanced chakra control exercises I can do to be able to better complete my original jutsu?"
Kakashi looked up from his book for only a second before speaking while continuing to read from it, "Go look at the next exercise in the textbook, that's more than enough for your jutsu."
Haruto nodded and quickly left training ground seven to go back to his home to look through his textbook and finally came across the boss of all chakra control exercises that also had three levels to it.
Separating equally dense materials from each other.
Level one was separating sand from gravel purely using chakra.
Level two was separating salt and sugar.
And level three was separating milk from water and sugar dissolved into it.
Haruto didn't know how difficult all this would be based on his current chakra control level, but given that he'd obtained this in a reward from Grindelwald Haruto was confident it wouldn't take him long to master these exercises.
So Haruto quickly gathered some sand and gravel from outside his house and returned to the top floor of his house, his study.
Haruto placed the sand and gravel on the table and mixed them well until it was a consistent mixture between the two things.
Then Haruto read through the instructions in the textbook.
'To begin with mix your chakra evenly with the mixture until you can feel the entirety of its insides.'
"Hmm… So it's like the poison extraction jutsu? But instead of mixing it inside the blood stream I mix it into the air?"
Haruto cupped his hands over the mixture of sand and gravel and worked to spread out a little bit of his chakra into the air to begin with. Instead of releasing a stream of chakra he sprinkled out more of a spray into the air and closed his eyes, attempting to feel everything his chakra could show him.
Haruto focused a little bit and almost immediately felt it clear that he could feel each individual sand grain or gravel.
Haruto opened his eyes and peeked at the textbook for the next instructions.
'After stably mixing chakra into the mixture, you must create a circulation between the tenketsu you released the chakra from to create a suction force enough to stick just one type of element of the mixture.'
'Once that is completed, you can separate the elements of the mixture and complete the exercise.'
"Hmm… so it really is like the poison extraction jutsu… how hard can separating this be if I know the poison extraction jutsu?"
Haruto focused slightly on the task at hand and created a chakra circulation system between the tenketsu in his palms. After which he matched the least chakra density of the tenketsu in his palms and began to exert a slight suction force to suck the gravel out of the mixture.
And almost instantly, the sand and gravel covered under his palms began to separate magically.
'That was easy…' Haruto thought, but said something else outwardly, "It's going to be difficult." since he wanted to pretend that he'd failed for the ROOT watching.
***
Tsunade looked at the village walls under the cover of darkness as the full moon shone over it with a hint of nostalgia.
Shizune beside her holding Tonton looked at it with equal or even more warmth before Tsunade spoke in a whisper.
"Where's Kakashi… Shikamori said he'd be here to receive me…"
"Perhaps he got held up by the patrols, Tsunade-sama?" Shizune offered calmly.
Tsunade looked at the walls of the village with a frown and spoke quietly, "It seems the village is still the same as when I left it."
Shizune didn't say anything even after hearing the pain hidden within Tsunade's voice but she did hug Tonton closer causing the pig to oink softly.
All of a sudden Tsunade turned around to look at a particularly thick tree before shouting out loud without regard for whoever may be on patrol that night.
"Are you going to come out of there or not?"
Before Tsunade had even finished her sentence, a young man with silver white grey hair stepped out from behind the trunk.
"I was just waiting for you to give me the password Tsunade-sama…"
"Do you need a password from me too? Am I just not enough? Who dares to impersonate me?"
Kakashi was dumbfounded, but he still didn't give up his ground, "Still… could you please tell me the password Tsunade-sama."
Tsunade sighed deeply before speaking softly, "I will give up gambling."
Kakashi's eyes instantly crinkled into a smile as he nodded, "Thank you for the confirmation Tsunade-sama. We may move into my house now."
Tsunade clicked her tongue in distaste before she nodded at Kakashi, asking him to lead the way.
But Kakashi said something to her before they began, "Please make sure you have the minimum possible chakra in your body for now Tsuande-sama… I will protect you if things get difficult but Danzo has increased the sensors in patrols to keep track of Jiraya-sama and you returning to the village."
Tsunade snorted but she and Shizune did as Kakashi advised before they immediately used the body flicker jutsu to vanish from their spots, with Shizune following the two of them with some difficulty since she was only an elite jonin at most in terms of physical prowess while both Kakashi and Tsunade were Kage level shinobi.
As they passed by the various patrols skillfully with the help of Kakashi's sharingan they quickly arrived at the secret entrance to Kakashi's house in a remote part of the village.
Entering the house, even if secretly, for the first time after years when she'd previously only come here some two decades ago to celebrate Kakashi's birth under Sakumo's request, Tsunade felt rather emotional.
"When are the Uchiha planning to launch the rebellion?" Tsunade asked softly while sighing at the fact that they were forced to remain underground to prevent any ROOT shinobi from spotting them just yet.
Kakashi paused and didn't answer the question directly, instead he asked Tsunade another question, "Did Shikamori-san tell you the entire plan?"
"No… but it's not hard to guess what's going on in Shikaku's mind if he wants me to help the Hyuga kids break their seal."
"Tell that to Danzo…" Kakashi said slightly thankfully since Danzo hadn't figured out their entire plan yet. Especially since he didn't know that Tsunade had already gotten her hands on the original Cursed Tongue Eradication Seal.
***
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