Naruto: We Agreed on a Simulation, But They Actually Came to Life?

"Let’s go see Yahiko first and go over everything we know about Fu from the beginning."

Pakura nodded and led him quickly into the office building.

The interior was far quieter than the outside. Pakura guided him through several corridors before stopping in front of a door. After receiving a response from inside, she pushed the door open.

Yahiko sat behind his desk, flipping through a stack of personnel rosters. When he looked up, his face was etched with an unmistakable exhaustion.

"Pakura, you’re back. And this must be the support from Konoha?"

Seeing Kitahara Kaede, Yahiko immediately stood up and forced a small smile. "Jonin Kitahara, please, have a seat."

He poured a cup of hot tea and placed it on the desk in front of him.

Kaede didn’t sit immediately. Instead, his gaze swept across the room. Konan was sitting at a low table to the side, verifying reports, though her eyes drifted toward the sofa every few moments, filled with worry.

On the sofa against the wall, Nagato lay half-reclined. Thick bandages were wrapped around his eyes, and his lips were pale. Hearing Kaede’s name, Nagato shifted slightly, as if trying to push himself up using the armrest.

Kaede spoke up just in time. "There’s no need to get up. You’re in no condition for that; just stay lying down."

Nagato stopped moving, his expression a mix of apology and weakness. "I’m sorry for the trouble... coming all this way from Konoha."

"It’s just a mission. Now, let’s talk about the target," Kaede said, pulling out a chair and getting straight to the point. "Pakura gave me the gist of it on the way here, but I want every detail on Fu. How he joined, who he contacted, what he did—the more detailed, the better."

Yahiko fell silent for a moment before pulling a scroll from the pile of documents.

"Like most of us, he was a wandering ninja displaced by the war. When we first encountered him, he was recovering from injuries in an abandoned village. The organization was short on manpower at the time, so we only did a cursory background check."

Yahiko flipped a page, his brow remaining furrowed. "His village was destroyed in the war, and his family was wiped out. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. If there was anything strange, it was that he always wore a mask. When we asked, he claimed he had scarred his face in battle and didn’t want to frighten people."

Konan stopped her pen and picked up the conversation. "Fu rarely spoke of his past, but he was always the first to charge in during every operation. During the time Hanzo hunted us down, he even blocked a lethal kunai meant for Kyosuke."

Yahiko looked toward Nagato on the sofa, his expression darkening. "He was among the first to join us; he was one of the companions we spent the most time with. Who could have imagined he would do something like this to Nagato..."

There was no response from the sofa. Nagato simply turned his face toward the window, the thin blanket covering him shifting slightly.

Kaede could tell: the betrayal of a comrade was far more painful than the physical wounds.

"Is his residence still preserved?"

Yahiko nodded and closed the scroll. "It was sealed immediately after the incident. No one has entered."

"Take me there."

Pakura stepped forward immediately, volunteering. "I’ll take him. You and Konan stay here and look after Nagato."

Yahiko didn’t bother with formalities and handed the search warrants to the two of them. "Return immediately if you find anything. There might be other accomplices of Fu within the organization, so be careful."

The two left the office building and walked for about ten minutes through the back streets. Fu had lived at the far end of a row of dilapidated houses, with two Rain Ninja guarding the entrance.

Pakura presented Yahiko’s order and personally tore down the seal on the door.

*Creak—*

The door pushed open. Inside was a single bed, a wooden cabinet, and a low table. The furnishings were pitifully sparse.

Kaede began searching from the doorway, inspecting every single inch. He missed nothing: the hidden compartments of the cabinet, the underside of the bed slats, the cracks in the walls, and the joints of the ceiling beams.

Pakura also pried up two floorboards that had sounded hollow when stepped upon, only to find that the wood had simply warped due to the relentless rain.

Half an hour later, the two met again in the center of the room.

"Nothing," Pakura said. There was no relief on her face; instead, she looked more solemn. "He cleaned the place out so thoroughly; he must have been planning his escape for a long time."

Kaede didn’t respond. He turned his gaze back to the bed. The bedding was folded neatly. But the pillow... it was perfectly flat, without a single indentation from long-term use.

He walked to the wooden cabinet and pulled it open. Inside were three identical sets of clothes. But when he looked up at the top of the cabinet, he noticed a very faint hook mark on the ceiling beam.

There wasn’t a speck of used charcoal ash in the stove. The kettle on the table was empty, with a thin layer of dust settled at the bottom.

A ninja who had lived here for some time... yet there were no signs of sleep, no personal belongings, and not even a trace of cooking or drinking water.

No matter how cautious a ninja is, they still need to eat, drink, sleep, and change their clothes. Everything laid out here was designed solely to make someone believe that "a person lived here."

This man called "Fu" perhaps had no use for things belonging to "humans."

’White Zetsu.’

The name flashed instantly in Kaede’s mind. Fu was either a White Zetsu himself, or he had been replaced by one without anyone noticing.

And the Rinnegan narrowed the scope of the mastermind to the absolute minimum. Most people in the world would see it as a pair of eyes with a strange pattern; very few in the entire Shinobi World truly understood its terrifying utility.

Black Zetsu, Obito, Madara...

Kaede followed this thread, his mind racing through the deductions. Yahiko had survived, Nagato hadn’t been driven to despair, and the pawn Madara had originally prepared had slipped from his control.

Therefore, they had no choice but to forcibly reclaim the Rinnegan.

Next, the enemy would need a new vessel for the eyes to continue the plan to revive Kaguya. This process could not bypass the Ten-Tails, nor could it bypass the Jinchuriki scattered across the great ninja villages.

Searching for a perfectly disguised Black Zetsu in a sea of people would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. But the number of Tailed Beasts and Jinchuriki was fixed. As long as those targets were monitored, the enemy would eventually have to reveal themselves.

Kushina, Yagura of Kirigakure, Killer Bee of Kumogakure...

Kaede mentally cataloged the list of existing Jinchuriki.

The room gradually fell silent. Pakura stood by his side, not uttering a word to disturb him. She simply watched him—from his intense focus upon entering the room to his current pensive state.

Finally, Kaede finished his thoughts and looked back around the room.

Only then did Pakura step forward and ask softly, "Well?"

"That should be about it," Kaede exhaled.

Hearing this, Pakura’s eyes lit up, and she immediately pressed, "Do you have a lead on Fu? Do you know where he is?"

She assumed Kaede had found the enemy’s hiding spot. Instead, Kaede shook his head.

"No, but this is more important than finding his location."

Pakura blinked, not quite understanding his meaning. However, seeing the confidence in Kaede’s demeanor, she knew he had grasped the key to the situation.

Since the crisis in the Hidden Rain Village now had a clear direction... what about her?

The thought made Pakura’s heart tighten. She looked at Kaede, hesitated for a moment, and finally asked the question that mattered most to her.

"So... what are your plans for what comes next?"