Aiko took a deep breath and tried to pose her question as reasonably as possible.
"Sasuke, when the hell are you going to get out of my apartment?"
Probably could have done better, but the point remained.
He gave her a scathing look over his book. "When the likelihood that you will immediately run off to undo all my work by finding an international criminal to fight or just by banging your head against a wall drops below ninety-five percent."
"When did you get so judgmental and crabby?" she muttered dubiously. Sitting under his dark glare was getting to be unnerving, so she meandered into the kitchen and killed time by cleaning and then making mochi. It might have been a dignified retreat if she wasn't moodily banging pots and pans around as she worked. That should make it harder for him to read his stupid medical book, the rotten twat.
"You know, you're acting like a child," Sasuke called archly from the other room. "It's only been a day, and you're meant to be on leave for two weeks now. If you're going to fuss the whole time, it's not going to be pleasant."
"It would be more pleasant," she muttered, before raising her voice, "if you would get out of my house!"
"Gladly," he huffed. "Just as soon as Naruto gets here."
'They're really taking this too far.' Aiko rubbed a hand across her cheek, inadvertently smearing it with rice flour.
Granted, she suspected that there was more going on than their recently acquired paranoia. Tsunade was probably just making sure that Danzo couldn't interfere with her rest period by making sure she was never alone for him to call in for work. If someone like Sasuke was around, he could hardly risk summoning her. Naruto and Sasuke were both relatively inconspicuous—no one would think her little brother being clingy was odd, nor that his medic friend would also choose to hang around.
Granted, they probably hadn't been told that was what was happening. Sasuke might know a fair bit about Danzo being a total shitbird, but Naruto definitely didn't. She couldn't imagine that Tsunade would have risked compromising her mission by telling anyone she was meant to be infiltrating Root. So they were probably genuinely under the impression that she was likely to do something ridiculously stupid.
Still, that didn't mean she was any less crabby about being babied. Tsunade could have at least sent someone who knew enough about the situation that they wouldn't assume she needed to be watched for the wrong reasons. She knew damn well why Sai wasn't on the approved list of visitors: he was ROOT, for crap's sake. But that did inconvenience her. She'd only seen him in passing for days. She maybe sort of kind of missed him. He was an ass, but he was an ass who could relate to her stupidly complicated double life. Granted, no one wanted to treat him like a child, inside or outside of ROOT. Lucky.
"If you're going to be here, you may as well make yourself useful." Aiko flopped down on the couch and kicked at him with her heels to push him off the side in an ungainly tumble. "Change the lightbulb in the kitchen, please."
He may as well use those long legs for something other than hogging her furniture.
In another situation, it might have been fun to have a sleepover with Naruto, especially since he toted Karin and Hinata along with him. But at the moment, Aiko would really prefer to be able to detoxify in the comfort of her Cave of Solitude. With no one around. At all.
Like, for miles.
~~~
Newly sixteen, bored and alone except for several short visits from Sai when he could creep away from his duties, Aiko finished out what felt like her prison term on medical leave in sullen avoidance of humanity in general. Naruto, Sasuke, and Karin had been made into a team and sent out to work along with several other Konoha teams, among them Kakashi's. It was more than a bit frustrating to hear that four of the five major villages were forming teams to hunt Akatsuki and that she wasn't invited to the party. Sure, she'd been 'not invited' to plenty of parties before, but they were usually the dumb kind with streamers and cake. This was actually important, and she was languishing at home and missing out on the action.
But that would probably change now that she was off leave. Aiko grinned into her mirror on the morning she was free, taking the extra minute to make sure that her side-braid wasn't a hot mess for once and pinning down the hair that wanted to escape. Her good mood faded a bit as soon as she left her apartment.
It took a certain kind of person to appreciate having strangers stop and stare at them like slack-jawed idiots whenever they went outside. Aiko was not that sort of person. At best, she tolerated the attention and kindness of strangers.
'Really, it's galling,' she thought moodily, taking to the roofs in an attempt to look like she was in a hurry so no one would try to talk to her. 'They thought Naruto was a delinquent when they didn't think he was a demon, and that I was collateral damage for fifteen years, and now they suddenly find me interesting because my sperm donor has an ugly statue on the mountain? Bitch please. If they didn't have the sense to recognize that Naruto wasn't a monster when he was an adorable little toddler, I don't want anything to do with them. Lack of sense might be contagious.'
In an abstract way, she was a little pleased for Naruto's sake, who had been cautiously enjoying the reduced hostility. Then again, he'd never really shared her carefully maintained distance from humanity as a whole, so the comparison was moot. He'd been alone because no one wanted anything to do with him, not because he thought they sucked.
No point in dwelling on that now.
Instead, she reported to the administration office to declare her name back onto the active duty roster and see if there was a mission she could snap up or get assigned to. There seemed to be no such luck, but she was told to come back in four hours to meet with Tsunade. It wasn't exactly surprising that Tsunade had predicted she would come by as soon as she could, so Aiko didn't assume the worst. Her free time was spent on her first training session since she had gotten back from Akatsuki custody.
It didn't go well. Two weeks of nothing more athletic than walking around town had taken a toll on her conditioning. It would probably take her days to get back to speed, and she'd lost out on whatever progress she'd made towards better endurance. She had to consciously work on not pouting.
A shower and wardrobe change later, Aiko bypassed as many people as possible by knocking politely on Tsunade's window before letting herself in. She wove in between the tiny forest of potted plants to peer at her Hokage with an expectant smile.
Getting a smile in return actually threw her off a bit. She wasn't sure exactly why, but something about it put her on edge. Tsunade rolled her eyes and reverted to impassivity.
"Come in and have a seat. I have something I'd like to show you."
That might be interesting. Aiko perched on the big desk and blinked expectantly down at the older woman. When the only response was a raised eyebrow, she slowwwwly leaned in and fluttered her eyelashes beguilingly.
'Don't fight the cuteness. You know you want to give me an amazing mission. Just look at this face. Can you say no to this face?'
Tsunade snorted fondly and swatted her away. "Don't look too excited. You're probably going to hate this assignment at first."
Aiko gave a suspicious look at that wording: implying that her up-coming mission would be long enough that she would have time to change her mind on it. Still, any mission was better than sitting around all day.
"Mind, this is one that every Jounin who is remotely stable gets at one point," she continued archly, cracking her knuckles and stretching. "In some form or another. How long it lasts is up to you, after your main objective is complete."
With a sigh, Aiko rolled her eyes. "What are you talking about, crazy lady?"
Then she dodged the pen that barely whizzed over her head. Tsunade wiped the scowl off her face to innocently say, "Why, a student, of course. A Jounin's duty is to pass on what they know to the younger generation."
Aiko was struck dumb.
That gave Tsunade opportunity to carry on. "I have a girl in mind for you, of course," she continued, holding out a suspiciously thin folder.
"But I am the younger generation!" Aiko interrupted belatedly, shaking her head a bit frantically. "That's crazy talk. Is this another scheme to keep me from doing anything dumb? Just because it worked for Kakashi-"
"Uzumaki Aiko, I am your Hokage and it is not your place to talk back to me." Tsunade's eyes were narrowed in irritation. "And no, this is not all about you, despite what you may think. Although it certainly couldn't hurt your reckless tendencies to have to stop and think about how your actions directly affect others, this is actually about the student in question." She nodded impatiently at the proffered folder.
Somewhat reluctantly, Aiko took it and flipped it open to the first page. Her expression stilled.
She had never seen this child before in her life, but she didn't need to. The family name was a mystery, but the shock of slightly ruffled black hair, thin lips, and name 'Fukiko' rang a very loud bell in her mind.
"It's too risky for Sasuke to take her on himself," Tsunade murmured lowly, lowering her eyelashes as if in memory. "Sensei wouldn't have approved since she's so young, but I'm willing to be a bit unconventional. Fukiko-chan needs more supervision and guidance than the academy can provide her."
'What is she talking about?' Puzzled, Aiko glanced back down at the round face depicted in black and white in her hands.
Was this favoritism—a personal favor from Tsunade to Sasuke to make him feel safer about his little cousin? Or was there some possible danger Aiko didn't know about that meant little Fukiko needed a Jounin to help her get as strong as possible?
There was also the possibility that Fukiko was just so talented that Tsunade wanted her in the ranks as soon as possible, but that didn't seem to fit.
The expression she leveled on Tsunade must have been absolutely baffled, because Tsunade took some pity on her. "Alright, if I'm to be honest, I am hoping that giving you long-term obligations will keep your head out of the clouds, but this isn't a simple assignment. I don't think I have to tell you why it would be dangerous to send this girl out into stressful situations in less than the most controlled of situations? Even an Academy spar could… illuminate," she picked delicately, "truths that I would prefer stayed hidden. Personal attention from a Jounin, even a new one, would better ensure that all aspects of her training are carefully controlled."
'She's worried about Fukiko getting her Sharingan in training and becoming a target,' Aiko realized dully. It made sense. If Itachi had manifested it before he hit ten, Fukiko might as well. If anyone who didn't know anything about the situation found out, the word could be spread and she would be in terrible danger.
But putting her with Aiko was hardly a guarantee of safety either. What was Tsunade thinking? She worked in close proximity to Danzo who…stole…Sharingan eyes.
Tsunade didn't know that, Aiko realized, struck pale by horror. She hadn't come out and told Tsunade that Danzo had a set of pilfered peepers implanted in his arm because there was absolutely no way she could conceivably know. She'd thought that she had time to figure out a way to point Tsunade in the right direction without resorting to a flimsy pretext that Tsunade might see through or outright lying about how she'd found out. Telling her the truth was right out, no fucking way.
But so was accepting the mission. Danzo would love to have a young, moldable Uchiha in his grasp. Theoretically, as long as she was his agent, he might be able to compel her to bring Fukiko to him or train her as a root agent in the way he preferred. Or he might just want to cut her up for spare parts.
It might have been her imagination, but her tongue was on fire and swelling up in her throat, as if to remind her of her sworn allegiance to Danzo's interests. Well, that had never been truthfully given in her part.
There was nothing for it. Aiko opened her mouth to say that she couldn't accept the assignment.
"Very well, Tsunade-sama." Without her consent, her spine bent into a respectful bow and her face was blank when she rose. No matter how she tried, her lips wouldn't obey her conscious control. Her pulse should have been racing, but it was as calm as it had been a moment before. "I understand. I will do you proud."
Tsunade gave her a genuine smile, even as Aiko screamed and raged against this, what was happening, this was wrong, wrong, wrong. "I know you will," the older woman said warmly. "Take that with you. I will leave it to you to decide how to approach her, but please don't imitate Anko-chan and worry her teachers."
With smooth leonine movement, Aiko murmured a polite goodbye and strode out of the office, down through the tower, and to a training ground. When her muscles finally slackened back into her conscious control she immediately began trembling. Anyone watching might have been startled by just how suddenly her breath turned harsh and the strange way she raised her shaking hands to stare at them almost uncomprehendingly.
It took perhaps five minutes for her to be able to lowly sum up, "That isn't good."
Obviously, Danzo's seal had interfered with her speech. She had known it could do that, but had never experienced it before. Then again… she had never talked about Root with anyone but Sai or Danzo, had never tried to pass information, and had never tried to do anything counter to Danzo's interests..
'Except destroying those papers about Fukiko and contracts from Orochimaru,' her mind protested crossly. 'And working on a counterseal. What makes those things different from this? Is speech monitored differently, more tightly, than actions are?'
Aiko was momentarily struck dumb by the possibility that the great weakness of Danzo's fuinjutsu masterpiece might be playing charades. That was just so stupid that it made her head hurt a little. She took a moment to imagine miming an old man with one eye stealing eyeballs.
'Tsunade might not get that one. Maybe I need a better plan.'
And fucking damnit, she needed a better plan now, because the cushion time she thought she had to put dealing with Danzo off in favor of more time-sensitive issues was lost. It was so frustrating and stupid: with the tumultuous state of affairs outside the capital, dramatic re-structuring and shifts in power could be a really bad idea. If she rushed this, Aiko might well be negatively impacting Konoha's short term stability at a time when they desperately needed to pull together.
Well, there was nothing for it. Aiko had never claimed to be impartial. Partiality was actually one of her defining traits, if she were to be honest about it. Not only was she not going to be responsible for subjecting some poor child to Danzo, but she was definitely not going to do so to one of Sasuke's few precious people. She would protect herself and her own people before others, even other innocents. It was a truth she had made peace with, ugly as it sounded.
There was far too high a possibility that her seal would compel her to open up about her student to Danzo if asked; or to influence Fukiko in ways she might not have otherwise. It had never forced her to speak to Danzo before when she had wanted to withhold information…
Did the seal allow for ambiguity, but strong-arm compliance when she had actually termed an action as counter to his interests? Danzo had never said, "bring back all the paper in Orochimaru's base" because he didn't want to be bothered with ten years of ramen receipts or whatever trash might be laying around. Her orders in that scenario had given her room to interpret what she thought needed to come back, what Danzo needed to see. But her thoughts in Tsunade's office about Fukiko had been straightforward: Danzo would be interested in her, so I can't be around Fukiko.
"Oh, bother," Aiko grumped, laying down on the grass to cloud-gaze and think. She couldn't even just take the damn seal off, because she would be worthless as an agent after that and her mission was to throw Danzo under the bus. If she scampered off early, she might do more harm than good.
This Fukiko brat had better be worth all the fuss. If she ended up stuck with a squealing little girly girl, Aiko might just truss her up and return her to Tsunade. She hadn't really accepted the mission, after all.
She swallowed the thought that Tsunade would be very disappointed with her if she did that for more productive contemplations.
'There's a lot I can't do. I should go over what I can do, then. There's got to be something useful there. Even while I have the seal I can do all manner of conspiratorial shenanigans with a Root agent. I can remove the seal. I can.."
~~~
Tsunade stared. The blank-faced boy in front of her stared back. A bit weakly, she cleared her throat. When it came out, her voice was a bit more perplexed than she would like. "You came here to defect from Root?"
The boy known as Sai gave her an eye-crinkling grin without any sincerity. It curdled her blood just a little. "That is correct, Hokage-sama," he answered pleasantly.
What followed was madness. The details of the training Danzo inflicted on his soldiers, the extensive map of the underground tunnels and various safe-houses belonging to the organization, a claim about the numbers of the organization that far succeeded what she had guessed, and the chilling recitation of orders for different contingencies. Among them was "What we do when Danzo becomes Hokage," which Tsunade found unsettling on a professional level. She certainly didn't plan on retiring, and that old coot wasn't likely to outlive her if she died of natural causes.
One of the things that disturbed her most, however, was the calm explanation he gave for how he was able to leave the organization. Sai refused to elaborate on how, exactly, he had escaped Danzo's grasp, and deferred by saying 'I was taught to use fuinjutsu as the central component of my taijutsu'.
That didn't fit. Jiraiya and Aiko's combined efforts hadn't produced an efficient counterseal, and she would know if Sai was missing half his tongue from the seal's last ditch effort to maintain itself while being picked apart.
'But he isn't saying that he's the one who took it off,' Tsunade noted carefully, observing him in silence. 'He's deflecting, and implying that it's possible that he did. I can't guarantee that he's lying. If he was, what nefarious reason could he really have? Is he protecting someone else? Is this a trap from Danzo?'
If it was, she just couldn't see how. In what way could it possibly benefit Danzo for her to have the information she now did? Even if it was an elaborate trap, would he really risk removing the seal from his agent to tell it to her? He wasn't a trusting man, or else he wouldn't have the damn seals in the first place. What was to stop her from putting Sai in Torture and Interrogation's tender hands to wring out the real story?
Nothing, that was what.
"As an admitted member of an illicit organization within Fire Country's borders, guilty of following orders of a false authority, you will be taken to Interrogation," Tsunade informed him crisply. The boy nodded, clearly intelligent enough to have predicted that for himself. If he was lying, she would find out.
If he wasn't, however, she couldn't afford to wait for Danzo to notice that his agent was missing and tighten his organization or make her information useless. She would need him in custody as well.
Tsunade walked past her guest to her door and called Shizune. The girl was messy-haired and distracted when she came, but fell into rigid discipline when Tsunade quietly explained that she was to escort the boy waiting docilely in her office to Ibiki through one of the secured tunnels leading from the administration building to the intelligence department.
When the boy actually cocked his head in interest at that, Tsunade had to give a wry smile to the back of his head as Shizune lead him out. Where did he think Danzo had gotten the idea? There were all sorts of secret passageways in the infrastructure of Konoha's oldest sections. Some were moved, sealed and opened again periodically to prevent anyone from knowing the structure too well, but some were important enough that only the Hokage and her personal guard knew about them. That was a small list: six people, in addition to Tsunade's apprentices.
One of those people was on Tsunade's mind while she tensely pawed through her drawer for a letter that had been prepared months ago. Hopefully, her contact could think on his feet.
Aiko was probably involved in this. That was the only conclusion that fit: She had been told to fork over whatever information she could about Root, and she had ready access to Sai. It seemed more likely that Aiko had come to a breakthrough on the Root seal than that Sai had changed his mind about his allegiances independently and then proceeded to unpick his slavery seal without input from a master of the craft.
But why wasn't she the one giving this report? And why now? She hadn't seen the girl in days, but it hadn't been so long ago that Aiko couldn't have given her some kind of hint that something was coming if this was her doing.
Those thoughts in her mind, Tsunade waved her hand to summon the ANBU waiting in her office to fetch her- and then thought better of it. When the Boar-faced operative appeared from the hidden alcove her private bodyguards favored, she directed him to remain visible in her office for the rest of the shift. It might be beneficial to have an obvious, aggressive presence, depending on how things played out. She had Keiko send a runner to the hospital for Sasuke, who grumpily came at her call, still wearing a medical mask hanging around his neck.
Tsunade scowled at him thoughtlessly. "Take that off, it gives the impression that you think everyone else is diseased."
He opened his mouth, probably to claim that he suspected they were, but she cut him off sharply with a swipe of her hand. "I need you to run some messages."
Sasuke looked a little outraged at being pulled away from his work, but nodded sullenly as he dropped the sanitary gear into her trash. He probably thought that she was just abusing her authority. That impression didn't seem unfounded when she pressed twenty identical invitations into his hand with a smirk. "Names are on them already," she informed him briskly.
One person would be receiving agreed upon code. But nineteen of those recipients would probably be pleasantly surprised to be invited to dine with the Hokage. They'd make a good smoke screen for her true purpose. If someone was keeping track of who she contacted, they would have to sort through a lot of dead ends.
Some of the ringers would be alarming to Danzo. He didn't like it when she had dealings with the liberal and loud factions or those sniveling twits who liked to report on the council's dealings to the Daimyo. Hopefully, Akimichi Choza would register as a comparatively minor threat and be investigated after the most suspicious categories: those who seemed the most dangerous and those who seemed the most innocuous. Danzo would be looking for all sorts of meaning in her decision to invite some sweet, newly promoted Chuunin over to mingle with the bigwigs. Paranoid old coot.
'But then, so am I,' she mused blackly, giving a sharp little smile to her ANBU guard. Better safe than sorry. For all she knew, one of Danzo's agents could come swinging in here, since Sai had blabbed. Tsunade could take care of herself, but it never hurt to have a visual reminder that she wasn't alone.
~~~
She hated this. The throbbing in her tongue had thankfully gone down so that her speech was unimpeded, but the feeling of it lolling in her throat was an unpleasant reminder that this was the exact situation she had tried to avoid.
"The Hokage must trust you." Danzo seemed amused at the thought. Perhaps rightly so, since she had sought him out on her own.
Aiko merely waited. That wasn't a question.
"Do you know why she chose to give you this student?"
Her voice was as even as humanly possible, in imitation of the careless clip of Sai's professionally blank diction. "She expressed two lines of reasoning. The first was in relation to myself. Tsunade-sama expressed the opinion that I might be better utilized within the village, and thought that keeping me occupied with a long-term assignment would be efficient." Aiko ignored his scornful scoff. She didn't entirely disagree. "The second is the student herself, Fujiwara Fukiko. Tsunade-sama expressed her belief that Fukiko-san is likely to manifest the Sharingan, and wishes to abstain from letting that occur in an uncontrolled setting. It is her belief that Fukiko should become a Chuunin before her heritage becomes public knowledge. She trusts that I can conduct any such portion of her training in secret until an appropriate time."
Danzo had become very, very still.
So Aiko closed her lips and patiently waited. She had been ordered to remove her mask, so her features were the blank canvas she was allowing her nominal superior to paint his impressions on. He wasn't really paying attention to her anyways, lost in thought as he was. She could practically see the hamster wheel spinning, and rather thought she knew where it would stop.
"You have done well, Sakura-chan. Make contact with Fujiwara as soon as possible. When you are certain you are not being observed, you will bring the girl to me."
She bowed deeply. "Of course, Danzo-sama," she murmured, letting her eyelashes rest against her cheek while her face was mostly hidden. It was less creepy than staring up at someone in that position. Keeping her gaze on him would have been a bit aggressive for her purposes. As Aiko swung upwards, her muscles jerked without her conscious control towards the opening door.
The blank mask on the Root member who had opened it almost seemed disapproving of her startle. Danzo was visibly displeased at the interruption.
"What is the meaning of this?" he growled. For a moment, Aiko was rather glad that she was not the one he was angry at.
The man only bowed deeply. "Forgive me, Danzo-sama," he murmured. "But a messenger arrived at your home not long ago with a time-sensitive missive. The small council has extended an invitation to tea. Nara Shikaku hopes that you can provide insight into a petition they must vote on tomorrow." Danzo snatched the paper out of his hand to read it for himself.
He visibly relaxed, though he didn't seem to know if he wanted to be pleased at the call for his advice or vexed that it had come so late. "Very well then. You are both dismissed. Sakura-chan, meet me tonight for further orders." Laboriously, he stood up.
'Faker,' Aiko thought uncharitably. 'You're in much better shape than that.'
Danzo's comparative level of feebleness aside, there was a more important issue to contemplate as she donned her mask and fled the premises. That interruption had come far sooner than she would have expected Tsunade to be able to move—was this her doing, or an instance of unfortunate timing that would fuck with what she'd hoped would happen?
Aiko assumed that Sai had sang like a beautiful, easily convinced bird for Tsunade, but he should have gone there only slightly before she went to Danzo—an hour before. The point was establishing that she was loyal as well as making it perfectly clear that she couldn't possibly have been complicit in what was going on.
But now everything was fucked up, she mused darkly. Boar should have come to report to Danzo after his shift was over. That would have given Tsunade six hours to get her shit together and call him to her office, or have him summoned in, or hell, for all Aiko cared Tsunade could ambush him on the toilet. Now the timing was all wrong—would Boar be able to report to Danzo at the right time? Shit, shit, shit.
'The best laid plans of mice and men,' Aiko thought wryly, stripping out of her Root ANBU guise and hastily tugging on shorts. She had to see what damage control could be done. The first step to that was information gathering.
It was a good thing that she was a sneaky little bastard.
~~~
"This is unconventional," Hyuuga Hiashi murmured a bit stiffly, watching the slouching Nara clan head huff and puff as if this errand was too troublesome for him. Nonetheless, he persisted in his demand.
"You must have thoughts about the proposal to expand the small council." Shikaku seemed to be mulling over the possibility himself, though Hiashi had no idea what was going on inside Nara's head. He shoved his hands into his flak jacket with a casualness that almost offended Hiashi. It would have, if he had been less aware that the other man was intentionally cultivating a certain image. It wasn't an image he saw value in, but the clans were different.
His lips thinned. Hiashi would have to be a Buddha not to be affected by the unpleasant irony that losing his daughter had given the Uzumaki the numbers of active shinobi to technically meet the requirements for membership as a clan. It was absurd and only fitting to the law as a technicality, when Clan heads and every married member of a clan was technically a reserve member of Konoha's standing forces unless they chose otherwise. The law was clearly intended to reward civilian clans for beginning the transition to shinobi families. As their children gained acclaim, so would the status of the clan rise. It was only just.
Of course, it was too late to contest that. The Uzumaki were a clan in Konoha now, and nothing but another Uchiha Itachi could change that. That didn't necessarily have to dictate that they deserved a position on the small council.
Hiashi admitted defeat and resigned himself to losing out on a quiet night at home. It was his duty to be impartial, or as close to it as possible. Part of that responsibility was taking it upon himself to be familiar with the issues he passed judgment on. Shikaku had invited him to dialogue with the Ino-Shika-Chou alliance and an elder who could hopefully parse through the convoluted logic that had meandered about the large council.
Danzo-sama had even been on the commission where the idea had originally been brought up, making him a perfect resource. He was also one of the few elders who had been involved in the diplomatic dealings with Uzushiogakure in years past. If anyone had an unbiased perspective, it was him.
He hid his resentment about the abrupt summons to a meeting, and hurried as best as he could. Still, he found that he was the last to arrive at the privately reserved room in the back of a downtown restaurant. Well. The last of the clan heads, in any case. They waited in silence for Danzo-sama to arrive.
When they were all assembled, it was with a sense of palpable relief that Hiashi accepted the tea the hostess poured and enjoyed the steam for a few quiet moments. She lit a few candles before closing the door behind her, but he had already changed focus. This was his favorite part of any of these otherwise superfluous meetings. Sitting down with an Akimichi guaranteed excellent tea.
"Thank you for your invitation," Danzo-sama wheezed, cupping his drink lightly. Hiashi took a moment to wincingly hope that he never became so infirm that his fingers ached when he tried to bend them to pick up something as simple as a cup.
Inoichi nodded gravely. "Inuzuka Tsume has already expressed her position, but we hoped to gain the benefit of your perspective before we bring the motion to a vote. Do you have an opinion? It is undeniable that the Uzumaki is an old clan, but it has never been recognized as a clan in Konoha before now. It seems hasty to immediately elevate them to the same administrative status as a clan that has been here since the year of the Shodaime."
His fingers shook a little as he laboriously set down his cup to fold his hands in his lap. Danzo-sama was impossible to read. "I disagree. The Uzumaki were recognized as a clan within Konoha when our alliance with Uzushiogakure was first stabilized with the marriage of Uzumaki Mito to one of our own. If they were not a clan in the eyes of our forefathers, that would..." He frowned slightly, and cleared his throat. His eyes were blinking gummily. "not have been arranged," Danzo-sama finished with a slight wheeze. His face was reddening. "I believe that if we are to respect what our founders and tradition dictate, it is nec.." He coughed wetly.
Alarmed, Hiashi sought to meet eye contact with his peers. He knew immediately that something was wrong. All three of them were steadily watching the elder shake and cough with calm, hard eyes.
"What is the meaning of this!" Hiashi stood, demanding an explanation. Danzo slumped face-forward onto the table, clearly unconscious.
"Peace, friend." Akimichi Choza raised his hands and broke his gaze to make eye contact with Hiashi. "All will be clear."
"We need to get a medic," he snapped back, aghast at their lack of professionalism. Unless... They had poisoned him? Had the drink been-
"You will be fine," Inoichi murmured, as if he knew where Hiashi's mind had gone. "The antidote was in the tea. He never drinks the tea." The blond calmly moved to blow out the candles, but didn't crack the door open.
The situation was beginning to make an awful kind of sense. "This was an ambush," Hiashi muttered, eyes on the unconscious man who was clearly struggling to breathe. "Why?"
"High treason." Shikaku's voice was distant, but his expression tight. "Maintaining a private militia and ordering the execution of several hundred of Konoha's citizens."
Hiashi slowly sat back down. He didn't want to advocate for the man before he had heard the evidence against Danzo. Those charges were serious. It became clear that this had all been planned to perfection when Inoichi took up the alarm as soon as the wax had dried in the poisoned candles to hide that evidence and they were quietly switched out for identical, partially burnt candles in Choza's hip pouch.
"Get the Hokage!" Inoichi bellowed, a moment before he tossed open the door into the quickly panicked restaurant. "Is there a medic in the building? Councilor Danzo has had a heart attack!"
He cynically wondered if it had been intentionally contrived that there was not a single iryo-nin within the premises, but played his part to perfection. If Tsunade was being summoned, than this probably was her operation. They were close enough that she came bustling in, an ANBU operative hot on her heels, only a few minutes later. Her face was convincingly concerned as she checked his vitals while Choza forced the gawkers whispering worriedly to back out and give them room.
"I need to get him to the hospital," Tsunade eventually decided. "Could I get you gentlemen- yes, thank you." Hiashi trailed behind as Inoichi carefully carried Danzo and the other two cleared a path through the crowd. They did indeed take Danzo to the hospital—and down a series of pathways that were not cleared for the public. The reason for that became clear when they re-emerged in the intelligence department. Danzo was unceremoniously dropped onto the cot of one of the reinforced stalls within, the show of concern gone from Tsunade's face.
"Hiashi, I need your eyes," she commanded briskly. "Look for any unusual variations in his tenketsu. He's known to use seals, which could cause complications. I need to know if we're going to run into any problems."
Obediently, he turned his activated eyes on one of the most respected men in Konoha, and became very still.
After a moment, Tsunade irritably prompted, "Well?"
His voice was a little strained. "By any chance, were the Konoha citizens he ordered executed Uchiha?"
The other four exchanged looks of varying confusion and trepidation. Hiashi chose to explain by action. "May I borrow that kunai, Nara-sama? Thank you." Tsunade stopped Choza's question with a raised hand and pursed lips as Hiashi delicately cut through the yards of bandage meticulously wrapped around Danzo's right arm to reveal what he had already seen.
It was a little gratifying to see the other three clan heads turn green after they had thrown him so far off balance earlier in the day. Tsunade sucked in air violently through her teeth when the first bulbous protrusion in Danzo's flesh became visible—pale skin slit through from one side to the other. Hiashi distastefully placed a finger on one to push the lid upwards and expose the activated Sharingan underneath. It stared up at them accusingly, red and swollen.
"I imagine that his chakra expenditure when these are exposed is considerably worse than what Hatake Kakashi is infamous for," Hiashi said dryly. "There is one more in his actual eye socket, and…" Here he trailed off uncertainly, eyes focused, though on what it was impossible to tell. That was the problem with trying to follow the gaze of someone without a pupil. Eventually, he finished, "There is another source of foreign genetic material in his chest, but I am not familiar with it. Perhaps it would become clearer if we could see it unexposed. I am not as familiar with the chakra type I am seeing here as I am with the signature of an activated Sharingan. There also appears to be one seal, but I cannot tell you any useful information about that."
Choza shook his head slowly, lip curled up in disgust. Tsunade was businesslike, however, and already stripping out of her long sleeves. "Well, it looks like it's time for some surgery," she pronounced grimly. "Hiashi, could I trouble you to stay? You other boys can leave if you would like, with my thanks. Remember that what you have seen here today is classified." She gave an unpleasant smirk. "The Councilor's medical condition is critical, and I will likely be working to save his life for hours."
"So I see," Inoichi commented dryly, giving her a dutiful nod on his way out. "Good luck. I wish the Councilor only the best."
~~~
When Kakashi stepped through the gates at twilight, it was to a subdued, but gossipy village. He immediately noticed the atmosphere, but wasn't overly interested in involving himself in the situation.
"What's happened?" Tenzou half-whispered to the Chuunin checking their papers, gesturing at the unusually solemn crowds in the marketplace visible in the distance.
'Damnit, Tenzou,' Kakashi thought irritably. He didn't want to get caught up in the latest soap. He honestly tried his best to stay as far away as possible from the drama that inevitably generated when a large group of people lived in one confined area.
"Didn't you hear?" The Chuunin wasn't one that Kakashi knew. If he'd known his name, he might have reported him for the obvious glee he took in spreading gossip. Genma, shameless hooligan that he was, leaned forward to catch the overly dramatic exposition. Unfortunately, Kakashi's hearing was exquisitely perfect, and he couldn't have avoided it if he'd tried. "Councilman Shimura Danzo had a heart attack in Ryo's, and the Hokage has been locked up for hours trying to save him. That was six hours back or so."
It was as if a weight had been lifted off his chest. Even as his face contorted into solemnity, Kakashi felt like offering up a quick thanks to whatever kami wanted to welcome that wizened lunatic into the afterlife. Good. It was about time that the reptile finally stopped clinging to life. Maybe, if Danzo really did… self-consciously, he touched his tongue to the roof of his mouth and twisted it. He was a little old for optimism, but it would be nice to be rid of that.
"Hatake Kakashi and Yamato, you are to report to the Hokage's office immediately," the Chuunin's partner cut in, with an irritated glance at his unprofessional partner.
Kakashi shrugged. His mood was bright enough that he supposed he wouldn't mind going to see Tsunade right away. Maybe she would have more information.
"Good, you're here," Tsunade noted dryly when they came in through her window. Kakashi couldn't help but note that she was definitely not treating an aging Counselor. There was something odd about the office, however.
"Lay down on those stretchers."
Ah, yes. That was what he had noted was off. There were stretchers extended on the fl-
His back stiffened. Wait, what?
Tsunade finally looked up. Her expression wasn't especially kind. "I have reason to believe that you two have seals that may cause problems in the coming days. They need to be examined. Lay down, shut up, and maybe when I'm done I'll be so tired that I won't shake you until the fluff comes out of your ears, you wretched imbeciles."
Sullenly and shocked, Kakashi and Tenzou did as they were told.
"Don't panic now, but you're going to have to be out for the procedure," Tsunade said grimly, pulling—oh god, what kind of medieval torture device was that? Was she going to cut out their tongues? Protectively, Kakashi pushed it to the roof of his mouth for a moment, about to leap out the window and make a break for it.
His conscience stopped him. If his Hokage preferred him as a mute, then at least she thought he was loyal. Better to be even further broken and continue to serve Konoha than to save his vanity. On the bright side, his hands were whole and he could communicate with anyone above Chuunin in Konoha's secondary sign languages. He'd answered Gai's obscene yodeling challenges for the last time. He'd never accidentally make an embarrassing squeal again when he got to a really excellent part of Icha Icha, either. It wouldn't be so bad.
How pathetic was it that he was unsuccessfully reassuring himself?
His heart was pumping unpleasantly in his chest as she approached, a foreign blade in hand. He could swear he saw a hint of sympathy in Tsunade's eyes, but her free hand reached for his temples nonetheless with a hum of green light.
"It's for your own good," was the last thing he heard before he was out like a light.