SHIMMERING MIST : HATAKE SI (Naruto)

Part 33

Chapter 33

TSUANDE SENJU

Tsunade Senju sat in the Council room as she got ready to make what she believed to be the most critical decision since becoming Hokage. And so she had felt that it was necessary to involve all the associated parties for this, and that was why she found herself sitting in the Council Room along with Konoha's strongest shinobi.

There were her two teammates. She had called back Orochimaru from the rice country, and as per the conditions of their contract he had returned without any fuss. Her sensei sat opposite to her. His battle with the Third Raikage had cost him his, yet any shinobi would be an idiot to underestimate him even now.

Minato and Kushina were present as well, along with the Fugaku and Mikoto Uchiha, as she decided to lay all the cards on the table.

"Ohashi Hatake is alive," she spoke up, and the atmosphere in the room shifted. And saw that everyone apart from herself and her two teammates was surprised by her words.

Mikoto Uchiha gasped at her words as everyone in the room glanced towards her as she pushed forward the folder sitting infront of her and motioned for them to read it.

"Through a kinjutsu, Orochimaru was able to confirm this," she wouldn't tell them of his discretion, especially since their sensei was already wroth with him and her over his departure from the village. She didn't need more strife, especially in these tense times.

"Over the last month, two times Konoha forces, namely Jiraiya and Mikoto and her teams, have come in contact with this man," she said as she raised the sketch of the infamous man who had taken an arm off of the Toad Sage.

"And I have reason to suspect that this man, who holds one of Konoha's most prestigious bloodlines and associates himself with Madara Uchiha, is somehow related to Ohashi," and she saw the atmosphere in the room shift as everyone got a look of the folder containing each and everything they currently held on the strange newcomer. Comparisons had been drawn with Ohashi.

She leaned back in her chair as all of them read the report before her sensei spoke up first, his tone grave and serious.

"Their chakra signatures are different. And though I can see the resemblance, he does not look like Ohashi. And, of course, we cannot ignore the Sharingan, as well as his actions, which I don't believe anyone in this room would associate with Hatake," her sensei reasoned as she saw his eyes move towards Jiraiya and his lost arm.

"But he also saved me," Mikoto Uchiha cut in. and the whole room turned towards the Uchiha matriarch. She had also read the mission report, and truthfully, that was the biggest factor for Tsunade connecting the strange man to Ohashi.

"Yes, but he also killed the Iwa jinchuriki. We do not know which one of these two actions was his primary goal," Minato added, and Mikoto shrugged.

"Yet he did save me. He used iryo-ninjutsu, to heal me. Without which I would have died, and no matter his actions, I am fairly certain that this person is Ohashi," she repeated the words she had written in her report.

And that brought them to the conundrum.

"If this is Hatake, then there must be a reason to explain his actions," Orochimaru spoke up from behind. He stood near the door, leaning against the wall.

And at that, everyone in the room turned towards the Uzumaki and the leader of the Uchiha clan, for there were only two ways through which a man could be controlled. For none would associate these actions with the Ohashi they knew, and so that left only one option. That he was being controlled.