LEGACY

Dua belas

Chapter 12

Fumiko was squatting on a tree branch trees away from Kakashi and Sasuke. The said boy was panting heavily on the muddy land. Kakashi shook his head in disappointment.

"You clearly increased a lot of your stamina and chakra control." Kakashi hummed. "Yet it's not enough for you to learn this technique if you're distracted."

Sasuke grunted and sat down. He sighed and shook his head. "I... It's not enough."

"What is?"

"I'm running out of time and my power is not increasing enough."

"It is, actually." Kakashi crossed his arms. "I'm actually pretty surprised you improved this much since the last mission. What happened?"

Sasuke hesitant for a moment. "Fumiko helped me."

"Ah, was she giving you several pointers?"

"She also gave me a menu."

Kakashi nodded. "Do you really want to get really strong, Sasuke?" The said boy looked at Kakashi dead in the eyes. "Go ask Fumiko to train you. There's nobody better than an excellent Uchiha to train an Uchiha."

Sasuke was silent as he thought about what Fumiko would think about Kakashi's suggestion. "Do you think she'll train me? She hates me."

"Maybe. But you won't know until you try to ask her." Kakashi shrugged. "I've been working with Fumiko for years to know that she's more than to meet in the eye."

Sasuke went silent and thought about what Kakashi said thoroughly. Meanwhile, Fumiko scoffed and body flickered to the base. Fu was already waiting for her as she expected. He looked as stoic as ever, but she could notice that he was being tense.

"Taichou." He greeted.

"What is it, Fu?" Fumiko asked as she sat on her desk. Fu gently put down several scrolls in front of the Uchiha girl and open one of the scrolls.

"I've got into Orochimaru's lair and found several important documents. The two red scrolls contain Orochimaru's current researches, the blue ones contain the information he has, and the green one is the one you should read immediately."

Fumiko took the green one and immediately deactivate its' seal as several other documents appeared. She read the contents of each scroll with her sharingan, making her finished reading the thick scrolls within minutes. She sealed the scrolls back to the green scroll and put it in her pocket.

"Well?" Fu asked.

Fumiko hummed as she leaned back on her seat. "Orochimaru's here in the village, disguising himself as the Kazekage. He plans to attack on the third exam's day."

"What are we gonna do about that, then?"

"We should activate Konoha's defense mechanism and try to eliminate our opponents before they could actually do any harm to our villagers."

"Konoha's defense mechanism needs lots of chakra who has around the same amount as the Legendary Sannin and nobody but the Hokage knows about it."

"I'll take care of that. Just focus on the killing spree and the villagers." Fumiko answered. "Make sure no actual harm gets on any villager. Oh, and plan on the escape route for them too if anything bad were to happen."

"What about the Hokage? Should we inform him?"

Fumiko shrugged her shoulders. "Nah, he has his ANBU alright. Just make sure it stays within the ROOT and make sure all of the ROOT are present on the d-day."

"Ha'i."

"Dismiss."

Fu went away, and Fumiko started to read the other documents Fu had brought. A scowl made it to her usual stoic face. She lost in her thought when Sai knocked on her door and came in. He looked wrecked. His pale complexion looked paler than usual, his hair and clothes were messy, and he had several bloody cuts.

"Taichou."

"Sai, what happened?" Fumiko appeared in front of the boy right before he collapsed.

With the last energy he could muster, Sai whispered. "U-Uchi-ha I-ta—chi."

Sai went limp right away, forcing Fumiko to totally support his body. She sighed and body flickered away to the hospital. The nurse did not even look surprised. Ever since Fumiko became the head of ROOT, her pupils kept coming back and forth to the hospital wing for the first month. It reduced by a lot after she put intense training to her ROOT, but it did not stop some to visit the hospital.

The nurse ordered Fumiko to put Sai on the rolling bed. They took him to the emergency room, leaving Fumiko to stand outside the door. The girl sighed and leaned on the wall for some time before a nurse came out with Sai's stuffs. Fumiko took them and about to put them away in a scroll when she noticed how unusually heavy his pouch was for him. She opened the creamy colored pouch before noticed a red scroll with ROOT's logo on the top of it. Fumiko took the scroll into her own pouch, before noticing a greyish book.

The book was a sketch book with two sides of the cover being drawn. One Fumiko immediately recognized as Sai himself. The other one was who she suspected someone close to him. It made her reminded of Shisui. How the said boy used to babysit her and been treating her as his own kid sister. And it made her reminded of her very own rogue big brother. How the older sibling used to hold her hand with gentleness and love. For once in years, Fumiko's chest felt restricted. It hurt so bad that she cringed. Oh, how she missed them both.

The girl put Sai's stuffs in a scroll and decided to wait for him. It must be serious since he was all bloody like that. Fumiko was contemplating whether she should open Sai's report scroll or not when someone called her name.

"Fumiko?" A familiar ANBU stood in front of her, still with his gears on.

"Tenzo." She hummed in recognition.

"What are you doing here?" He asked, somehow irritated how smug she looked just now.

"What are you doing here?" She smirked.

"Ha-ha, very funny." Tenzo snorted before leaned onto the wall next to her. He said accusingly, "It turns out the burdens you gave me when you're the captain were not all the captain's jobs."

"It seems so." Now, Fumiko was amused. There was nothing better than making Tenzo all stressed out for nothing. "How are you holding up?"

Tenzo sighed and nodded at his casted arm. "The missions get really difficult after you left the ANBU. I don't understand how the Hokage thinks we can handle them all. I mean, we're still human and not robot!"

Fumiko sighed. "You don't, Tenzo. That's why I took the missions on my own and left you guys with the easier tasks."

Tenzo froze. "You mean... the missions were already hard this whole time?!"

Fumiko hesitated. "Danzo wanted to overthrown me. He was the reason behind our missions lately, but we still could go on. So, you should too. Talk to the Hokage about his insane missions and tell him how unreasonable he actually is."

"...I'll think about it."

Fumiko nodded, but she did not bother to talk to him as she saw the doctor came out of the room. He looked directly at Fumiko and nodded his head. "The patient's stable now. His condition will get better soon, but it's better to let him rest for sometime before asking him to work again. He is, after all, just a little boy."

Fumiko nodded and thanked him. She gave Tenzo a look before went into Sai's room. The said boy was now resting, his bare face was exposed. Fumiko sat beside him and took his hand in her own.

"It's funny how you're more a little brother to me than my own little brother within this short time." She whispered. "Stop making me worry and get well soon, Sai."

And with that, Fumiko body flickered away. Unbeknown to her, the said boy was not sleeping at all. He slowly opened his eyes and for the first time in a while, an emotion flickered in his eyes.