The Hero I Love (Naruto)

The Mask From 9 Years Ago

"Sorry to summon you all here on such short notice." The Forth Hokage chuckled slightly and rubbed the back of his head.

Tsunade, Jiraya, The Third Hokage and Minato were in the hospital room with the three anbu. He had sent them all a message earlier that morning to all meet in room 112 to discuss about the rouge ninja that attacked the three jonin that were now all recovering in the same exact room. Minato was glad to see that Yamato was now conscious with his other two teammates.

Minato took a deep breath as he collected his thoughts. "Well the reason I wanted to talk to you six was because of the incident of the rouge ninjas... more specifically on what we can do to find and stop them."

Kakashi looked up at his former Sensei. "But Minato Sensei. What is there that we could do? These are rouge ninjas that will always on the move. So wouldn't it be very difficult to track them down, especially as we likely dont have any idea who they could be?" Minato was about to interrupt but Kakashi continued with his questions. "Also, why are we six the ones you want to talk to it about? Shouldn't you inform the Mizukage to try to identify these individuals instead?"

Minato put his hand up to stop Kakashi. "Kakashi...I will explain, just give me the chance." He smiled reassuringly to his former student. "Now to begin with..." The Yellow Flash revealed a scroll. "This was given to me about 5 days ago from the Hidden Sand Village. It says that three rouge ninja attacked a four man squad from their village near the borders of our two lands." Minato glanced at Itachi. "The ninja who were attacked couldn't remember much of the rouge ninjas other than two having swords as their main weapon and at least to of them had Hidden Mist headbands."

Minato continued with all the information that he had that could possibly be linked to the rouge ninjas. The information came from various different villages and even though there wasn't much of it there was enough to connect them together and suggest that the the rouge ninja that attacked the anbu were no ordinary, low life attackers.

"Now... The reason I wanted to talk to you six." Minato turned to Jiraya. "Jiraya Sensei. You're infiltration and information gathering skills surpass anyones I know. It's a lot to ask for but could I set you up on a mission to track down any information you can obtain about these three ninja?"

Jiraya chuckled and folded his arms. "Normally I wouldn't even consider going on a mission like this where I could possibly encounter ninja that could ambush me and have me cornered in an instance." He looked into the blue eyes that belonged to The Yellow Flash. "But since you are now the Hokage and my former student... I guess I'll make an exception. Besides, you never ask for something like this unless you're convinced on something. So I'll trust your reasoning behind it."

Minato grinned back at him and then turned to the other Legendary Sanin in the room. "Tsunade. You're medical ninjutsu is the best in the Leaf Village. Is it possible for you to do a test on the wounds these anbu received to see if there's any traces of any specific metal or other material from a possible sword attack?"

Tsunade nodded and closes her eyes, only replying with: "Of course Lord Forth."

Minato looked over at the white haired boy. "Kakashi. You still follow the way your father did, just as Obito does today: to keep your comrades in first priority and the mission second. However, whilst being an anbu, this can be quite a difficult thing to keep. So I would like to give you the opportunity to be a leader of a four man squad... For genin. The new generation of ninja."

Kakashi looked up at the Forth Hokage dumbfounded. "Minato Sensei... Why a jonin teacher? Even though it's hard to keep comrades in first priority in anbu missions but I still manage to do so."

Minato walked over to the window in the room. "And that is exactly why i think you'd be better suired as a jonin leader. I think that your skills could effectively teach the new generation that there is things more important than making sure a mission is completed. That teaching is crucial for teamwork to work successfully."

Kakashi sighed. He found it difficult to say no to his former Sensei who was now the Hokage. He slowly began to think. Being a Jonin leader for a bunch of new genin would be a nice change in pace for him. "Well... If you think it's for the best, I have no reason to argue with you Sensei."

The Third Hokage coughed. "Minato. I know you want to make sure that these rouge ninja do not hurt anyone else but..." Minato turned around the look at his predecessor talk. "Isn't what your doing dangerous and time costly? Jiraya will be in grave danger whilst looking for information and Tsunade, even with her advanced skills, will take hours, possibly days to try and find traces of a sword attack. Also, I'm sure you have tasks for Itachi, Yamato and I. So why? Why go to such extreme measures to try to capture these rouge ninjas? They're not from our village, it's not our responsibility."

Minato looked back out of the window. "As you all know, 9 years ago the Nine Tails attacked the village. The cause of this was becuase a masked ninja extracted the beast from Kushina straight after Naruto was born, when the seal keeping the Kyubi in was at its weakest." He took a deep breath, remembering the traumatising event. "Many people that lived in our village died that day and so many people were close to being killed. If it wasn't for the ninja of our village's help to restrain the 9 Tails and help me get it away from the village then I could have never sealed half the 9 Tails inside of Kushina and the other half in Naruto."

Kakashi looked over at The Forth Hokage confused. Why was he talking about this event? "But what has that got to do with these rouge ninja?"

Minato slowly looked back at the six ninja in the room. "I fear that the masked ninja belonging to that group of rouge ninja may also be the same ninja as the one that attacked our village 9 years ago." The Yellow Flash slowly walked around the room. "The reports on a rouge ninja with the same mask and fighting skills could all be linked to that group of rouge ninja and also be linked to the masked man that almost killed my family." Minato sighed and there was silence for a couple of minutes before Minato began to smile slightly. "Or maybe I'm just being to superstitious and worrying so much."

Jiraya put a hand on his student's right shoulder. "Minato. You're not worrying too much. This really could be the same masked man. And if it is we can finally find out his motives for that day. But, if it's not him these rouge ninjas will still have to be restrained."

The Third Hokage sighed. "Normally I wouldn't bother with more than a notice to the Hidden Mist about rouge ninja that only attacked our anbu once. However, if what you believe is true and that same masked man from that night is part of these rouge ninja, then that's a completely different case. I will help you as much as I can to track these ninja down and I'm sure everyone else here will help with their will of fire as well."

Minato sighed and smiled widely. "Thank you... I'm truly greatful. To all of you." He rubbed the back of his head. He was glad that his predecessor and teacher were willing to help him try and find out who these rouge ninjas really were.

After about another hour the meeting was over, Minato had explained to everyone what they would be doing. He wanted to keep this a secret to everyone else in the village though since he didn't want to create mass panic from the possibility that the masked man was still roaming the world. He slowly looked up at the faces of the Hokage carved into the rock after he left the hospital. He will find that masked man one day and he will find out the motives that lead to the loss of countless of lives as well as almost taking the life of his wife and new born son on that dreadful day. He would avenge his village.