"Hōkage-sama, please!" The young artist pleaded. His eyes seemed to glisten with determination, but they also looked as if they were wavering. It was as if one wrong word, one wrong statement, one careless retort, could break the boy.

The Hōkage studied the boy. He took mental notes on the boy's hand gestures and his eyes, jumping from different focuses, not being able to study on a certain point, or look someone straight in the eye.

"Inojin." The black-haired assistant began. "Take some time to take a breath, and rephrase your claim, it's hard to understand when you're saying it very breathy."

The blonde nodded, and while shaking, counted the long seconds of his inhale and exhale. He then closed his eyes, and slight tears started to drip from his eyes- but it was nothing like how he bawled earlier. He took another breath and then finally opened his eyes, which looked glassy, but he could now focus. "I'm sorry for my outburst."

"It's fine, as long as you are calm now." The Hōkage stated, surprisingly calm, as he has had to face these horrible situations before. "Anyways, continue."

"I am simply requesting that you take immediate action on the case involving the sudden disappearance of Himaw- your daughter."

"Simply?" Shikamaru asked. "I personally don't think it's simple at all, and believe you have another request."

Inojin took another breath. "You're smart. Yeah, I guess I do. I'm requesting that I'm on the retrieval team your most likely creating for Himawari."

"You know that's a hard request..." Naruto commented.

"I'm aware." Inojin stated, eyes sharp.

"I'll be upfront with you, Inojin. I have nothing against you being on the team. I actually believe you could be a good asset." The Hōkage started.

"R-really?" Inojin questioned.

"But... why are you so persistent on going on this mission?" Even though this tragedy happened to his beloved daughter, Naruto had to act sane, act reasonable.

"No reason..." Inojin said, staring blankly at the floor.

"There's most definitely a reason." Shikamaru interrupted cleverly.

"Why are you so worried about my beloved daughter..." The Hōkage deviously smirked, "Inojin?"

"Erm, well, Hōkage-sama, you may not be too happy to hear this..." Inojin started.

"Well, I'm not too happy right now anyways, so, what is it?" The man questioned.

"I'm madly, desperately, unexplainably in love with your daughter!!" Inojin yelled.

Dead silence. That's what the effect of Inojin's outburst was.

"I'm so in love with her that I want to save her! I want to protect her! I hate to say it, but when she's gone, it feels like a part of me has been stripped from my chest..." Inojin continued, his voice growing weaker, "So, Hōkage, please, please, please let me go on this mission."

He was desperate. Ever so desperate. He needed the last strand of hope. If someone told him she was dead, he wouldn't believe them and most likely rampage at her funeral. Not knowing what happened would drive him insane. Losing the love of his life would change him forever. He knew that, and he, somehow, wanted to avoid that.

But more than anything, he just wanted to spend another day, smiling, chatting with this girl he fell so hard for.

Naruto was so confused. So shocked. He expected Inojin to waltz in here, in his carefree attitude, his team mates by his side, requesting their next mission. Instead, he was welcomed by a stressed boy, shouting, screaming, on the verge of crying, telling him how he loved his daughter and would do anything for her.

A sight he had never expected to see from Inojin. He didn't think this would ever happen. And, now that it had, he didn't know how to respond.

"I-..." Naruto started. "Am very confused, to say the least. You love my daughter?!"

"Uh... yeah." Inojin stated, shifting uncomfortably.

"She's too perfect for anyone!" Naruto began. "She's amazing! She's one of the best people in the village!"

"I'm aware, sir." Inojin bowed, letting the man yell at him about the perfection of his daughter.

"You should be!" He lectured, "That girl's a gem!"

"Yep." Inojin looked downcast at the floor.

Naruto was going to begin questioning Inojin again, when knocking was heard on the door. It was a rather boisterous, annoying, "I deserve to be here" knock.

"Just a minute." The Hōkage sang, before shoving papers and making his desk look somewhat organized, not knowing who the interrupting person or persons was. The door was locked, as the meeting was extremely private, and if someone was attempting to barge in, that meant whatever they had to say was also extremely important.

Inojin rubbed his tears away with the bottom of his palm and braced himself for the Hōkage's visitor. Shikamaru creeped towards the door and peeped his face through, before sighing and stating, "It's just Boruto."

"Good god Boruto, you scared me!" Naruto exclaimed before letting Boruto, and the two boys that followed him, in.

Boruto walked casually in, Metal nervously, and Mitsuki slyly. Once they walked in, they made eye contact to the pale blonde.

"Inojin?! Why are you here?!" Boruto exclaimed.

"I could ask you the same thing, Boruto." The artist deadpanned.

"I'm here to ask my dad if Metal, Mitsuki and I could compose the Himawari Retrieval team." The yellow-blonde boy stared, before making direct eye contact with his father.

"Oh? What are your reasons for composing this team?" The Hōkage asked.

"Himawari's my rival! My youthful rival! Without her, my youth diminishes. I won't be much help to this village without her." Metal began.

"Hmm." Naruto looked up. "I know Boruto's reason... what about you, Mitsuki?"

Mitsuki came up with a reason on-the-dot. "Boruto isn't the same without Hima around. He's somehow less responsible and more bothersome, and I didn't know that was possible." Mitsuki continued, "He's been droopy and annoying recently, and I can't think of any other reasons why he'd be like this, unless Sarada was ignoring him, but she's been paying more attention to him. In summary, I don't really wanna see my best friend so droopy, so to maintain his happiness, I want to go on this mission."

Shikamaru eyed all of them. A retrieval mission was complicated and twisted. They could go, but they would have no leader. Everything would be chaotic. So he asked the three, "And who would be your leader?"

Boruto boasted, "Me, of course!"

Shikamaru rolled his eyes. Boruto was too emotionally distressed with this situation to be a viable leader.

Just then, there was another knock, more laid back and carefree. Shikamaru opened the door again, only to see his son.

"I'll do it." He stated, nonchalantly.

"You were listening?" Shikamaru questioned.

"Yes." Shikadai made eye contact with Inojin. "I heard everything, and I think I'd be the best suited to lead, although I do not particularly want to."

Shikamaru's eye contact with Shikadai at that moment was one of fatherly love. Worry, but knowing. It was clear he was the only one suited to lead this ragtag group of ninja out into the wilderness.

Naruto sighed, and agreed to the odd ensemble. He normally wouldn't, but he remembered his determination to retrieve Sasuke. Nothing could have stopped him from doing so, not even the Hōkage.

•••

"I'll make them forget all about you!" The man belched.

"That'd be for the best..." Himawari looked downcast, eyes watering. "I don't want them to worry about me."

"You're okay with all of your friends forgetting you even exist?!" The man then smirked, "I might as well look at your memories then and see how I could torture you." He walked closer to the bluenette, who resisted and attempted to wiggle her way out of the post she was tied to.

As he got closer, the bluenette chowed down. Her teeth made contact with... only air. The man briskly avoided the attack. "God, you're just an annoying brat." The guy then glared, "If you try to attack me again, I will not hesitate to kill you, Himawari Uzumaki of the Hidden Leaf ANBU."

"U-understood..." She said with a stutter, terrified of the man.

"Now, stay still." The man softly touched her forehead with his palm, making Himawari feel lightheaded. "Miss Himawari, I'm going to borrow these for a bit." He whispered.

The memories quickly flooded into an orb. He had a collection of crystal balls, that he referred to as orbs, that he used like a movie projector for memories. All the villagers in which she saved, her family's secrets... he knew all of them. He was watching everything.

He smirked. More and more recent memories started to populate inside the ball, even the memory of Inojin's confession.

"Jake." The man's voice echoed.

"Y-yes, master?" He flinched at the horrible state of the bluenette he had come to see as an older sister.

Her palms, that were tied up to the wooden pole, had severe bruises. She was definitely going to be scarred.

"These are the girl's memories." The man pointed to the crystal ball. "There seems to be a blonde that she loves."

"You mean the son of the whiskered Lord Seventh?" The boy asked.

"No... although that would be an interesting thing to include." The boy looked up to the man in confusion.

"What do you mean by that, sir?"

"Go to your dimension. Make clones. One must look like this," He pointed to the familiar pale blonde, "and the other must be her mother."

"That's cruel, sir." The boy stated.

"That's never limited me before."

"O-okay..." He stuttered, he couldn't fake it. His master had to see her suffering.

"Poison I-!"

"Let me give her her memories back first."

"Alright, sir. Tell me when you're ready." The boy stated.

"Okay, now you may do it."

"Okay," The boy took a deep breath, "Poison Ivy Jutsu!" His eyes turned a more ominous neon green.

Himawari, his master and him were transported to an eerie place full of poisonous plants. He made plant clones out of these poisonous plants that surrounded him, then transformed one into Inojin and one into the Hyūga princess.

Since made out of poison, these clones were powerful, which also meant, they could intake more pain than the average clone.

He then whispered to his clones, in a very kind way, as if he was raising sheep, "Scream. You're in pain.", and then watched as his master kicked them over and over again.

Himawari woke up to this horrific sight. "N-no! Don't attack them!"

"Too late, sweetie." The master said, and then Himawari watched as some of the people she loved with all of her heart were mercilessly attacked, screaming in pain. It took about a minute for the clones to disappear, but it was long enough.

"Repeat." The man maniacally giggled. "Repeat..."  It was a simple thing to manipulate her memory. Take out the disappearance of the shadow clones, and make her experience the pain over and over again. Although under experienced in genjutsu, the man knew one powerful one that worked splendid with mind manipulation. The jutsu that made someone repeat an experience. If you could manipulate the experience, make it horrible, and then use a genjutsu to repeat it over and over again. "Okay. She's stuck in there, take us back to our original dimension."

"Whatever you say, master." The boy quickly released Poison Ivy. He didn't need to send her to another dimension to simply make plant clones, however, there's a vast variety of sickening plants to use to make the clones if he went to that world. Nobody could survive in that world. Only his annihilated family and him.

He was part of the Leafkin clan. This clan specialized in nature jutsus. It is located on the border of the leaf village, and not commonly known. Most people believed it to be just a rumor, as the village is located in the forest, covered by leaves of every shade of forest green you could ever imagine. Trees covered it, and there were very few Leafkin people, so not that much noise. There were little enough that when they sensed a disaster coming, they could all fit in a half-way-finished underground hub. But they never sensed the disaster that hit them that one day, leaving Jake as the lone survivor.

Of course, Jake doesn't know any of that. All he knows is his eternal state of being terrified and worried for his life.