"Team 8 reporting, mission complete Hokage-sama."
Hiruzen wished Kurenai wouldn't be so formal with him all the time. She was a dutiful young lass no doubt, but sometime in the future, there was a good chance of her becoming his daughter in law if the amount of rendezvous she and Asuma had together over the past year since he returned from the Guardian Ninja was anything to go by.
Then again, his days would be much more enjoyable if people in general were a lot less formal around him, sadly, that only applied to boisterous rascals like Naruto-kun.
"Splendid work." he praised the rookie Genin lightly, idly reading over the report Kurenai handed to him of their delivery mission, favouring the three young ninja with a warm smile.
Young Shino inclined his head in acceptance of the praise, while Kiba-kun grinned widely, thumping his nose proudly.
His eyes landed on the Hyuga Heiress and rested on her for a moment. My, how quickly youths could change indeed.
Only a few weeks ago would the timid girl have ducked her head down after meeting his eyes shyly, but now she held his gaze and smiled back politely.
'Daiki-kun's work.' he mused, according to Kakashi at least. Apparently, the young Genin who's ethic had caught his eye recently, had came across her watching over Naruto.
The young girls infatuation with the boy was well known to him, she was always watching the boy and he saw her frequently not far away when he was checking on the boy himself.
The boy had wrought quite the change in the Hyuga girl, it was almost like looking at another girl entirely. While not a tall girl by any stretch, she always seemed so much more tiny with the way she shrunk in on herself and hid away in baggy clothing. Now, her spine was straight, there was some pride to the girl now, he idly wondered what Daiki said to her to bring about a change quite .
And that wasn't even going into her physical changes. She'd swapped out her general attire for a new outfit, switching from blue pants to black and replacing her baggy white jacket with a lavender and white zipper.
And in just a few weeks, her hair had grown massively, reaching all the way down to her midback. Not a natural hair growth of course, most likely a salon run by a former shinobi or kunoichi with medic nin training, he knew that the Mystical Palm Jutsu could be used to massively increase the speed at which hair grew at, a few sessions in a salon like that would account for her hair growth.
Just then, there was a puff of smoke beside his arm on the table he was sitting beside, a small green toad appearing from within it, a scroll strapped to his back.
"Eh, a frog!?" young Kiba cried in shock.
"A toad actually," Hiruzen corrected gently, reaching over to pluck the scroll from the toads back, at which point it promptly disappeared, "One of my students summons to be exact."
"A message from Jiraiya-sama?" Kurenai noted.
"Indeed." Hiruzen nodded, unfurling the scroll. He wondered why Jiraiya was sending him a message now, it was only the other day they corresponded on the matter of him coming back to the village.
Naruto had used the Kyuubi's chakra for the first time during Team 7's mission to wave, and his student was a much more able user of Fuinjutsu than him, so he wanted him to check the Eight Trigram Seal and make sure there was no damage to it.
One could never be too careful with the Kyuubi after all.
Quickly, he began glancing over the scroll reading the contents. And his mouth open, eyes widening ever so slightly, only to gradually, bit by bit, get progressively wider.
The Sanbi, a newly discovered doujutsu, a plot against the village, a member of the seven ninja swordsmen of the Mist village, chakra weapons that could rival the weapons of the seven legendary weapons of the Mist.
And in the middle of it all, young Daiki, leaping in to action to protect the village from such a possible threat, in the process, becoming a Jinchuuriki, no, by all accounts a Perfect Jinchuuriki, gaining possession of a new doujutsu and claiming the legendary Kiba Blades for his own, on top of killing not only a known A-rank shinobi, but multiple other powerful shinobi as well, at least all of Chunin rank.
For a moment, Hiruzen felt the urge to laugh, it was quite the tall tale after all.
Except, he never found anything remotely hinting at 'haha, got you good!'
He circulated his chakra through his system quickly, just to make sure there wasn't some form of genjutsu woven into the scroll that caught him without him noticing it upon unrolling it.
'To think the Sanbi was so close by with none the wiser.' his thoughts raced. That was a disaster waiting to happen.
And to think, the Village of Artisan nobles had teamed up with a missing ninja to capture it!
'All to revive Seimi.' he grimaced. He himself was a but a young lad when his sensei killed the man, but he well remembered the arrogance and contemptuous ease in which the man ripped the lives of those weaker than him and tormented those he ruled above. He was a tyrant with delusions of grandeur far above his station, and when he set his sights upon the Leaf Village, he and his followers were put down like dogs by the Nidame Hokage.
In of themselves, Raiga Kurosaki and the 'Four Celestials' as they were called by Seimi, were no match for the Leaf, even with this Doujutsu user with them.
Having a Bijuu unleashed within their midst though, which they apparently planned to do after using the Bijuu for all it was worth, was a different matter entirely.
Oh, he was sure they'd be able to suppress the Sanbi, there was no doubt, but even with Kakashi and Danzo backing him up, Hiruzen knew it would not be an easy or quick fight, especially if they weren't expecting it. The loss of life in the village would be massive, the only reason the casualties during the time the Kyuubi got loose from Kushina weren't much larger, was because he got lucky, that was all and was able to push it out of the village.
That same tactic would not work with the Sanbi, not with its massively armoured shell. Far from the strongest of the Bijuu, the Sanbi was nonetheless, the most durable of them all.
It was a scenario he did definitely did not want taking place in the village. And thankfully, apparently according to the efforts of Young Daiki, they wouldn't need to.
…It was a lot to process so suddenly.