A Mother's Knight

Part 27

Konoha

Tsunade frowned as she stared at the message from Suna again.

She had received it about an hour ago and had acted immediately but she was still looking at it because it represented a major shift in how things would move on from this day onward. It was a major problem that would not just need Konoha to handle but also other villages, but who was going to help her in this quest?

The Akatsuki had attacked Sunagakure and managed to take Gaara away from the village. This only meant that they were now moving towards their agenda.

They were surely going to act again, this was just the start. To think that just two of them could get into the Hidden Village and take away the leader, a Kage for that matter. Gaara might be young, be was still a Kage and a Jinchuriki of the One-tailed beast.

The Slug Princess looked up as Shikaku walked into the office. "Is there something, wrong, Hokage-sama?" The Nara asked before he even sat down.

He could assume that something was indeed wrong. It wasn't often that Tsunade summoned his presence with as much firmness as she had on this occasion. It was safe to say something major had happened for her to call him in such a manner. Well, he was here to serve, so he had no complains whatsoever.

Tsunade folded the message from Suna and leaned back against her chair–her eyes didn't stray away from the Nara clan head as he settled down in front of her desk. "The Akatsuki have started moving. They attacked Suna and managed to get Gaara."

"That is unsettling." Shikaku said. "But now we can say it without any doubt that the organization is after the Bijuu. All Jinchuriki will be targeted and we can use Suna's case as means to prove that the threat we are talking about is real..."

It was hard convincing other villages of the threat the Akatsuki posed when you had no tangible proof that the organization was as dangerous as you said it was. Other villages had not been so keen to join in the party thinking that they could handle a bunch of criminals and no one really wanted to believe that the organization was really after the Jinchuriki.

Of course, this didn't mean that the other villages would heed the warning, but at least they could move with a clear conscious knowing that they had warned the villages about the threat.

They would take steps to correct the problem.

Shikaku was sure that Tsunade would not just wait for the organization to make another attack before going after them. They would take the attack to them. They had to if they were going to stop them from achieving whatever they were planning to achieve through gathering the Bijuus.

"I have sent a team led by Kakashi to handle the situation. The success depends on them, but I picked the strongest team I could. Suna is our ally and Gaara has been honest in his dealings with us. If possible, I want to save him, but also stop the Akatsuki from doing whatever they want to do." the Godaime said in a firm tone.

Shikaku nodded in understanding. "If things have happened in this way, it means we didn't know about it." The Nara said.

If they had known beforehand, they would have warned Gaara and even sent of their men to help guard the village. But they didn't know neither did Suna know about it, because if it had, it would have told them about it since they have been cooperating with regards to the Akatsuki.

"There was no warning." Tsunade said. "I'm surprised that Naruto didn't do anything against the threat though. It would certainly be naïve of me to think that Naruto had nothing to do with Gaara's ascension. Considering that he speaks highly of him, I thought that Naruto would take steps against it."