Removing the hand off of Chiba's head, Tanshi opened his eyes to reveal that they suddenly gained a hollow look to them.
The man had only touched Chibas head for just a 5 minutes, which confused the others and made them think Tanshi was slacking. While they didn't use the technique, it was well known that it took atleast thirty minutes to find the memory they were looking for.
"He's fine.... Their memories check out...." Tanshi said to the others in a robotic voice before walking back to his small office that was carved out with earth jutsu.
Those were the last words he would ever say as he immediately bit off his entire tongue when he had privacy, removing the cursed seal from himself as he remained completely stone face. Despite doing an act that would make other shriek in pain, the man barely felt it as he experienced a much stronger pain for much longer.
Taking out a piece of paper, the man wrote a letter and stuck it in an envelope. Tanshi took off his leaf headband and looked at it longingly, before performing hand signs and disappearing into the ground.
The konoha official would latter declare Tanshi as a rouge deserter, not realizing he immediately took his life the first chance he got.
Back in the made room of the underground base, Chiba was incredibly confused by the situation, all he remembered was the man touching his head before it suddenly went black and when he came to, the root ninja said he was fine.
Chiba looked at Hanbi, who slowly took his hands out of his pockets as his tensed body started relaxing in relief. Walking over to Hanbi, they nodded to each other and sat together on the floor, watching each other's back and resting.
'If the three tailed Jinchuriki is on the move, that means that Rin is going to become the Jinchuriki soon and have Kakashi kill her..... Thats goods, that means the war is soon to be over.' unbeknownst to Chiba, he was slowly becoming more and more accustomed to deaths.
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[Two weeks later, In Konoha]
Elders from from every clans and multiple representatives if the civilian ninja were in the Hokages meeting room, discussing the war with the Hokage and his council men and advisors.
In the modern world, the rich and powerful were the ones that gained from wars but not in the world of Naruto.
Unlike in the modern world where wars are fought with weapons that cost millions of dollars to manufacture, here they are fought by ninja who dont cost much to raise, just time and talent. There was no incentive or profit motive to prolong a war in hopes of milking more money, here every death of a powerful ninja was an immense loss.
Even the riches clans and the most powerful figures in the world were reeling from the affects of the war, losing the majority of their talented clansmen while gaining very little wasnt something most could stomache.
The war was coming to a standstill as Kirigakure was feeling the heavy loss of losing their Jinchuriki and having achieving nothing in return from it.
The group of Konoha figures had been discussing for hours before the Hokage opened his mouth and spoke for the first time during the meeting.
"This war has gone on for too long...I shall sign a peace treaty and end this" Hiruzen said as he emotionless toked on his pipe.
"We've lost thousands of genin and hundreds of chunin to a war we didn't start! We can't sign a peace treaty without forcing them to pay us back heavily for our losses!" Danzo yelled angrily, getting a few nods from the elders
"Hiruzen, if we accept Sunagakures proposition to become allies, We'll have enough power to take Kirigakure out and plunder their Kekkai Genkai and jutsu! We'd not only aquire those resources, but we'd have wiped out a powerful enemy and made a new Ally" another councilman added.
"If we sign a peace treaty now, all of our Shinobi's deaths would have been for noth-" *BANG*
Hiruzen slammed his fist through his desks as he yelled at the old men who sought to further the war.
"I have already sent out a delegate of Anbu with my peace proposal letter to Iwagakure and Kirigakure, I expect them to accept my letter within the next few days! This meeting is dismissed!" Hiruzen walks out of the meeting room despite the protest of Council members.
Hiruzen had lived and breathed on the battlefield when he was younger, participating in the first and second great ninja war and killed thousands of shinobi with no remorse, but this war was different.
He was getting old and while he could fight like Onoki, doing so would put the entirety of Konoha at risk by losing it's figure head. This war was the first in which Hiruzen wasnt personally fighting, he was instead just sitting back in the safety of his village giving out orders.
Iwagakure was incredibly weak at the moment and had to use their symbol of power, a sixty year old ninja as a fighting force just to keep up with other villages rising talents.
Meanwhile, Hiruzen sat back on his cozy office chair and sent his ninja off onto suicide missions that achieved nothing. It all felt wrong to him, prolonging a war that he himself wasnt even participating in.
He just wanted it to end. This old man no longer wished for war.
---------------
Kneeling In a field of concrete tombstone, Chiba and Koizumi we're praying for her parents as they put flowers and incents on their graves. Chiba use to be an atheist, but that was before he found out there was more to death than just nothingness.
He didn't believe in God as he hadn't seen any proof, but he know knew for a fact that there was more to life and death. Not to mention this world definition had an afterlife with the Purelands.
Shutting off his observation Haki, Chiba immediately felt better when he couldn't feel the thousands of grieving family members but he could still heard their mournful cries.
While Koizumi was stifling a cry, she refused to let a single tear fall from her eyes as a determined look of hatred was frozen on her face.
"I'm gonna be in Uchiha training field three brother, please send a shadow clone to help train me when you have the time" Koizumi's left without letting Chiba answer.
Turning his observation Haki on, Chiba looked at his retreating sister.
'That child.... She's not allowing herself the opportunity to grieve for her parents, she's too caught up in revenge... Id try to talk her put of it, but if mere words could influence the stubborn and determined mindset of an Uchiha, I wouldn't have spent years slowly changing Itachi's mind. All I can do is take the place of her parents to raise her and make sure she doesn't stray from the right path.'
Aside from Koizumi, Chiba's observation Haki swept over the cemetery and saw a lone child who emotionless stood Infront of a memorial, people seemed to avoid him like the plague.
'This child aswell, he has to endure such sadness and grief just because of the violent nature of the human heart.' With a cast around his leg, Chiba used his cane to limp over to the grey haired boy.
He silently put a flower before the grave and gave a moment of silence before speaking to him.
"....They are calling you by a new nickname now.....Kakashi the friend killer." Chiba ripped off the band-aid immediately and talked about the rumor about Kakashi.
Two missions in a row had ended with Kakashi losing a teammate. The first one ended with an uchiha teamate dying and him gaining a Sharingan, the second one ended with multiple eye witnesses seeing the boy kill his teamate with his own hands.
It made sense that everyone misunderstood that the boy had done it on purposes, the news of the three tailed beast was being kepted as an S ranked secret after all.
"...." Kakashi's lips quivered through his mask as he held on with everything he had to not cry.
Chiba wordlessly put a hand on his shoulders and spoke.
"I know that isn't true, I can sense the great love and sorrow you have for your teamates, I'm sorry for your loss" Chiba knew that Kakashi's would eventually get over it, but he wanted to reassure the boy.
The idea of a child being labeled a friend killer after witnessing the death of his two friends a year after his father had commit suicide hurt Chiba's heart as he wanted Kakashi to know someone believe him.
"They may be gone but they are here in spirit and in your memories, dont let them down " Chiba said before leaving to give the boy privacy.
With tears streaming down his face, Kakashi wept silently in sea of hundred's of other grieving humans.