Tsunade's day between 12:23pm and 6:57pm
As the door shut behind a sullen Sasuke, garden party invitations in hand, she blew a bit of hair out of her face and settled in to think.
'What needs to be my next course of action? Assuming Choza succeeds, I just need to be in my office when the alert goes out so that I'm the medic who sees him. But if something's gone wrong…'
She puckered her lips into a pout and cleared off her desk while she worked, mindlessly filing away a letter from the Raikage in with her tax information.
'If something has gone wrong, and Danzo knows I'm onto him, I have two main concerns. First is what Danzo will do about potential traitors. The boy in the intelligence department is at the most risk, but if he suspects anyone else, they would be in danger as well. If Sai was telling the truth about Root procedure, Danzo will immediately delegate his execution. That means I need to have the department cleared of any possible bystanders, since he won't be sending Genin and Chuunin, and I need to have an elite guard I can trust on Sai.'
Well, the answer for that was obvious.
She strode out the door and bent to talk to Keiko in low tones. By this point, the secretary couldn't be surprised by any number of strange and sudden orders, so she merely took down a high-priority D-class mission and three notes and left to delegate to the appropriate parties.
One note would be going to Shizune to tell her to keep her position on Sai as a guard until further notice; one note would be going to the same department ordering them to clear out immediately until further notice, and one note would be going to the front gate ordering an immediate report to her office when a team came in.
Aiko positively had to have been involved in Sai's break with Root. She couldn't think of any other reason that he would think it important enough to mention that he suspected Kakashi and Yamato had both defected from Root at some point. It was more than a bit convenient that this whole kerfuffle had started several hours before those two were due to return to the village. Aiko thought it was important that they were present for some reason. If they were close to her, she might have time to act when she found out why.
'And hell, it might explain why we need Konohamaru involved.'
She sincerely hoped that Aiko wasn't just fucking with her head at this point, because she couldn't see the connection.
Thoughts of just how long she would be hanging an Uzumaki upside down by her toes from the Hokage monument if this was a practical joke were interrupted by the zing of a frantic chakra signature on course for her office.
'I don't think I have ever been as impressed by Choza as I am now,' Tsunade noted with satisfaction at 2:48 pm an instant before her window was flung open. She wiped a look of mild exasperation onto her features—and then traded it out for shock when a pink-faced genin breathing harshly bit out that she was needed urgently to treat Councilman Shimura Danzo.
She overtook him on the roofs, practically flying with Boar a steady presence at her left shoulder, genuinely hustling. It was important that she get there before any other medic, after all. Surely Hiashi, if no one else, could think to stall by snootily insisting that only the best medic was appropriate to treat Danzo, but the idea of letting anyone else see the initially obvious symptoms of a respiratory toxin was untenable.
As much as it burned her up inside, there was no way to publically disgrace that rotten bastard without causing internal conflict. Konoha couldn't afford division right now, and they certainly couldn't afford for people to rightfully fear their leadership. Tsunade would never do anything like what Danzo had ordered, but that wouldn't matter to everyone who had never met either shinobi personally. That was most of the villagers. Publically vilifying Danzo would drag Sensei's reputation through the mud as well, and hers would be tarnished by association.
That was why he was going to be languishing in a condition so critical that he couldn't receive visitors while she desperately worked to save him until he eventually passed on. She would have to bite her tongue through a sad ceremony mourning his passing, but at least he would be unable to cause any more problems, if he was adequately handled.
Now the largest concern was wringing as much information out of him that she could, and working to make sure his band of merry idiots didn't cause any problems. Hopefully, they wouldn't even know anything was wrong to contradict the public story. The elderly got ill, after all. It wasn't impossible. Poor Danzo was so paranoid and insistent that he was hale and hearty that he had not been in the hospital for over ten years. Risky behavior, that.
He had probably been treated by a personal medic within his root, but there wouldn't be any records for those treatments to contradict her story that he must have just had a creeping condition he hadn't known about.
Still, if she could get that medic, it would make her life a little easier. There had to have been someone, and that person would know to mobilize Root regardless of any other potential information leaks that Tsunade couldn't see.
'Awfully convenient for us that he's such a paranoid coot,' Tsunade thought, hefting his weight up after making a show of examining the coot in question. She deposited him into Inoichi's arms. He shot a questioning look for an instant, but wiped it away in favor of concern and helped her cut back across town. Hiashi was at their back, Choza to the right, and Shikaku to the left while Boar pushed apart a path directly in front of them through the gathered crowd.
About fifteen minutes later, she had to reconsider her previous assessment. Danzo wasn't just a paranoid old coot, he was justifiably insane. On the other hand, at least now she knew why he didn't visit the hospital.
The first part of the surgery was a simple matter of excising the human eyes implanted in Danzo's arms, connected to strange black veins that were definitely an augmentation of some kind. Tsunade had seen some bizarre and unpleasant things in her medical career, but this still made her a little queasy. At least it was simple. She had no interest in wasting a large amount of her chakra regenerating skin and muscle he had already adapted to function without, so instead grew a layer of scab over the gross indentations in his right arm. The pain would be excruciating when and if she allowed him to wake up, of course.
Knowing that still wasn't quite enough satisfaction when she tugged the right side of his robe down to see the aberration Hiashi had mentioned on Danzo's shoulder and upper chest. Tsunade stared. The face of her grandfather stared back, wrought grotesquely out of a white substance that was probably some form of his unique bloodline.
At that point, Hiashi was the only other person still present other than her silent guard. The thought of him knowing that she lost her temper completely at a distressing sight was the only thing that stopped her from twisting Danzo's head off like a bottle cap and flinging it at the wall.
Wasn't it enough that she now had ten Sharingan eyes sitting in glass bottles on the side table, and one left in Danzo's eye socket to take? What madness was this?
Her fingers were shaking in her fury, she dimly noticed. It would be impossible to perform any sort of surgery or make an intelligent decision in that state. So she calmly closed her eyes and briefly meditated. She tried not to notice the look of pity on Hiashi's face when she opened them again.
"Well, depending on how deeply embedded this is, he's probably going to die of shock," Tsunade grimly noted, steeling herself to run her fingers over the pain-wracked face studding Danzo's arm.
"What are the chances that he will survive long enough for interrogation?"
She couldn't help but notice that there was no trace of the former trepidation in the Hyuuga's expression. She had thought that his sympathies would be aroused by an instance of someone wronging one of Konoha's clans. It was a bittersweet thing to note that bloodline theft was even more of a trigger issue for Hiashi.
"Perhaps thirty percent?" she guessed wryly, switching out her latex gloves for another pair.
This surgery was much more difficult. Her grandfather's face was attached all the way to Danzo's bone, the hard white substance curling around his marrow from elbow to shoulder. It might have just been easier to lop off his arm, but that wouldn't pass muster in an open casket funeral. In order to avoid any appearance or accusation of foul play, they couldn't afford anything suspicious like not allowing the public to see the body. The gaping holes would have to be packed with gauze, but Danzo's habit of wrapping himself in bandage would make it easier to hide what had been done.
Sweat was forming on her forehead by the time she was done with that, but she couldn't allow herself to stop just yet. There was still one more Sharingan. The one with a place of honor in his own skull had probably been trained with extensively, and Danzo was a wily old fucker. If he had any tools at all at his disposal, he might escape to tell tales about poison, kidnapping, and brutality at her hands. She absolutely could not afford for him to escape or be rescued.
Actually.
"Hiashi-san, could I trouble you to trade places with my apprentice? Shizune-chan is in the next hallway over, monitoring the root defector who made this possible. I anticipate that there will be an attempt to silence him."
Under her supervision, Shizune performed the last extraction and carefully preserved the specimen with cool professionalism. Tsunade had moved to examine the oversized seal spiraling across Danzo's concave chest while Shizune worked, and had come to a conclusion.
'I have no idea what this is for, but it probably isn't good news. Does this link him to his operatives, possibly? Can he remotely contact them? Is it a way for him to control them at a distance?'
Tsunade was already thinking of what she had to do next when her apprentice spoke up.
"I have a note for you, Tsunade-sama."
She furrowed her brow questioningly at her apprentice, but received only a polite smile that usually meant Shizune was hiding her thoughts. So she unfolded the single piece of paper. It took only a moment to read.
'Aiko needs to meet with me alone? …Wait, she's in the interrogation department?'
Granted, it was a large department. It had been cleared of workers, which made it seem even emptier. The prisoners were still present, of course, but none of them would be in any condition to note what was going on or escape even if the cells hadn't intentionally scattered across the facility so that there could be no collusion. But it was still mildly impressive that she hadn't noticed another human being in the area, no matter her level of distraction.
Sneaky little shit. As strange and vaguely unsettling as it was to find that the girl had already slipped in to pass a note to Shizune without her notice, she couldn't afford to put it off.
"Shizune-chan, relieve Hiashi and return to your post. Tell him that he may leave. Boar-san, consider yourself dismissed for the day as well."
There was no point in dragging him further into this nasty Root business. Her spy had specified that the meeting be alone, so this was probably something ugly or important.
Aiko slipped into the sealed interrogation chamber attached to the cell where Tsunade had performed surgery about two minutes after the others had left. Tsunade only knew because she was mourning the loss of an entire work day—it was 5:05. She had spent a good two hours working on Danzo. Glaring at him through the one- way mirror made her feel a little better.
This was the first time she had seen Aiko in what she assumed to be the Root variation on the ANBU uniform. The blank mask was expected. The black wig that washed her out to look like a kabuki ghost was not. Creepy.
Tsunade hid her discomfort behind a veneer of mild irritation. "Well, what is it you need to talk about?"
She was already feeling stressed and flustered, so Tsunade had to grit her teeth when Aiko's only response was to stick her tongue out and point at the seal that was definitely still present… and then fished her left glove off with her teeth to display an identical seal on the back of her palm. At her blank expression, the teen shook her hand slightly, as if that would somehow clear things up.
Frankly, she was a bit confused. Aiko wouldn't be winning any charades tournaments any time soon. Really, what the hell was that supposed to mean? Compare the two? Look what I can color?
That reminded her. "Danzo has a seal on his chest," Tsunade briskly informed the girl. From the blank look on her face, that wasn't ringing any bells. Well, damn. She'd hoped. "I examined it, but it means nothing to me."
That seemed to firm some resolve in the set of Aiko's jaw. The response was a non-sequitur, though.
"We should go visit Sai."
That declaration didn't clear up anything at all, but she followed along. Shizune gave them an inscrutable look when she saw the two of them approach up the hall, but Sai strode up to the bars and gave them one of those disconcerting smiles.
Aiko turned her face up to blink at Tsunade. "May I have a few moments alone with him? We need to discuss some things."
That was the last straw. She felt her face turning pink with frustration.
"What the hell is going on?"
The boy was the one to answer. "She cannot tell you, without removing that seal," he pointed out pleasantly. "If she were to remove her own seal, it would be readily apparent to an observer that it had been tampered with. But if she were to put mine back on me, we could communicate. Then I could be unsealed again and relay whatever information she has to you."
She stared blankly for a moment. "This is all unnecessarily stupid and convoluted," she sighed, pushing her bangs back. Then she shrugged carelessly and turned away. "Fine. Make it quick." She and Shizune walked down to the end of the hall just out of hearing distance to wait.
It was quick—Aiko left the cell about four minutes later without a word to either of them, gave Tsunade a nod, and then left in a blur of Hiraishin.
"I trust that this weirdness will be explained?" Shizune asked tiredly, striding up to peer back into Sai's once again locked cell.
"Aiko-chan believes that Danzo-sama will have some precaution in place in case of the event of his capture," Sai relayed calmly.
Tsunade rolled her eyes. "We already know that," she pointed out without bothering to hide her exasperation.
A flicker of irritation passed in those dark eyes. His voice as was still as ever, however, when Sai continued. "She intends to present herself to him as an ally and gain his confidence in an attempt to discern what hidden danger he has only hinted at in his orders to Root operatives."
She buried her face in her hands. "Great," she muttered thickly. "Just great. Is that what she is doing now?"
He merely shook his head no. Apparently he didn't think she needed more of an answer to that.
"Right… Shizune, get a spare mask from storage. He'll be replacing Boar in my office so we know where he is." She turned a firm expression on Shizune. "I want you posted on Danzo. If Aiko comes, make it convincing. If anyone else comes, kill them."
Her apprentice nodded placidly and hurried off to fetch the equipment while Tsunade unlocked the cell with the root ANBU in it. "Mind, I hardly trust you," she pointed out dryly. The boy didn't seem troubled.
"I understand," he agreed readily, stepping out as if the hour he'd spent in processing and the three and a half staring at the wall of a cell hadn't fazed him one bit. Perhaps they hadn't.
They left Shizune outside Danzo's cell after ensuring that he was still unconscious. At this point, it was possible that he could be woken up. She didn't bother to dose him again. If she did, he might die before he woke up, and they wouldn't be getting any information out of his whatsoever. Instead, she had chakra inhibiting cuffs attached to his wrists and ankles. It seemed overkill – what danger could he possibly pose at this point?—but better to be cautious than regretful.
"Tsunade-sama, Konohamaru-kun and his squad delivered the… items you asked for," Keiko informed her as soon as she strode through the door.
Tsunade was almost proud of her for saying that with a straight face. "Thank you," she nodded regally to her secretary, before bending to scoop up the two boxes. She tucked them under her desk out of sight, and settled in to wait. As far as the public was concerned, at this point, she had stabilized Danzo and Shizune had taken over his medical care. She couldn't be expected to sit at his bedside all day, after all.
She may as well have waited downstairs, however. It wasn't for another two hours at 6:57 that anyone showed up again, though she did get a couple of messengers.
~~~
Aiko's day, after Danzo hurriedly left
'I don't know how she did it in such short time, but Tsunade is amazing.'
Of course, the Hokage's actions did complicate things. In order for the story currently circulating to pass muster, Danzo had to die relatively quickly.
Downtown was an absolute mess. You would think that people had better things to do than gossip, but it was apparently news when one of the most respected figures in the village collapsed in a teahouse and had to be carted off by the Hokage and four clan heads. When Aiko had passed by in uniform, she had gotten subsumed into crowd control duty and had plenty of opportunity to overhear enough to piece together her own theory.
It would be far too convenient for Danzo to have just dropped dead. The idea that Tsunade had already had a plan in place to take Danzo into custody made much more sense. She had just needed an opportunity, which Aiko had inadvertently provided.
Of course, this pretty much scuppered Aiko's own plans. Was Danzo really dead? Was he going to die soon? What about the possibility that his death would mean the death of every sealed root agent? It would be an insane precaution, but less mad than creating a subversive organization and letting them disperse as they would after the death of their commander. Danzo had clearly overdosed on crazy flakes at some point, but he was loyal to Konoha in his own way. He would see that Root –essentially a domestic terrorist organization— would become a liability without a strong head.
If Aiko had been in charge, she would have solved that problem by having a clear chain of command and replacement head ready, but that was because she wasn't dangerously crazy and paranoid.
Well. At least not compared to Danzo.
In any case, the public opinion that had clearly been purposefully engineered was a pretty good hint as to how Tsunade wanted to handle this. She wasn't going to be making the Uchiha massacre's truth public at the moment, for whatever reason.
It didn't matter to Aiko, frankly. Such a smooth and admirably underhanded way of taking Danzo in custody while getting lauded for it was a better outcome than she'd even hoped for.
Apparently, she should have had more faith in Tsunade, but she had thought that the struggle of the day would be two-fold: First, Danzo would move to eliminate the leak, which he should have found out was Sai after Boar got off his shift and was meant to be replaced by Aiko. (As galling as it had been to ensure that Danzo would be informed on the same day that Sai squealed, it had seemed riskier to send Sai in on another shift when she didn't know if any more of Tsunade's inner circle were compromised. That would stupidly deprive her of the upper hand: information control. The devil you knew was better than the one you didn't, after all).
The second issue would be that Danzo would have to eliminate or deal with anyone of Tsunade's people who knew about what Sai had communicated. He would have Boar on hand to tell him exactly what Tsunade had done in that time period, so it would have been tricky and nasty to counter him.
She still wasn't sure if she thought that he would attempt to hypnotize Tsunade to rule from the shadows or just kill and replace her as Hokage. He could have been planning to do something similar to what Tsunade had done to him: make her death look like an accident, illness, or even pin the blame on someone else he needed out of the way.
'Doesn't matter anymore,' she sighed, making her way to the main administration building. 'Danzo himself is probably neutralized as a threat, as long as the intelligence people do their jobs and Tsunade notices the eyeballs in his arm. All we have to do is keep him from getting back-up'. No one blinked twice at an ANBU flickering inside and making her way to one of the secured entrances to the Intelligence department at 3:16pm, even if her mask was blank and her uniform wasn't quite standard even without factoring in that she'd kept her regular footwear. That was how new recruits or agents who broke their masks sometimes had to go around, after all. Outsiders wouldn't know the difference.
She was sure that Tsunade would probably have brought Danzo there, but Sai definitely was ensconced inside. She should check in on him before she did anything else to assess the situation and see that he was safe. He was a major target now, after all.
Her own plan was pretty well shot, or at least needed severe revision. That was fine. She thought well on her feet, and the large issues she had already identified were probably still relevant, even if she should expect the players to act differently.
But she didn't find Tsunade near Sai. That was a mixed blessing, since she didn't want Boar to know that she was working against Root. She did nearly get skewered by Shizune, however.
Aiko skittered backwards away from a brace of senbon and dropped to her knees to avoid a purple fog of poison breath. Talk about trigger-happy.
It wasn't the most intuitive action when faced by someone who was attacking her, but Aiko yanked up her mask and showed her empty palms.
Shizune looked unpleasantly surprised. "What are you doing here?" she hissed, slipping her weapons away and pulling up to her full height. "Tsunade-sama ordered this area cleared."
"Is she with Danzo?" Aiko asked, mildly curious. The shock on Shizune's face was answer enough. "Right, can you pass her a message for me? Don't say it's from me," she clarified distractedly, rifling in her hip pouch for a pen and paper that didn't have a seal on it. "I'll sign it so she knows it's from me, but I don't want anyone else knowing…"
"I can do that," Shizune confirmed bemusedly, watching her press the paper against the wall and scrawl out a short, thoroughly uninspired missive.
"Great, thank you," she breathed, folding the paper twice and then handing it over. "Hey, Sai."
"Hello, Aiko," he replied calmly.
Something twitched in Shizune's eye. "Are you going to ask why he's in an Interrogation cell?" she asked a bit testily.
Aiko shook her head. "No, I think I'm good. I'll see you two later."
Tsunade obviously hadn't had Danzo in her custody very long, and removing the line of eyeballs in his flesh was going to take some time. Aiko was going to have to hurry, but she'd have time for one of her most critical errands. She took a moment to pat herself down, checking her equipment once more. It all looked good, so she gave the two watching a curt nod and tugged on the Hiraishin seal planted in the underground city of access tunnels used by root.
She'd almost expected that Danzo or someone would have found it. It was only about a mile and a half away from the entrance that led directly into his home, after all. What a security flaw, on both parts. Missing a seal like that was almost as irresponsible as sacrificing safety in favor of convenient access to his meeting rooms through his home.
Root was an organization of individuals. They did not have teams in the standard sense. Occasionally, Danzo would organize a group for a specific mission, but they would not bond by any means or spend time together socially.
That meant that Danzo was the only person holding them together, and it was the way he liked things. It was classic counter-infiltration to ensure that no one traitor could devastate your numbers by giving out a list of members.
It wasn't good news for poor distressed Boar, who would know that he couldn't rescue Danzo on his own (or else he would have tried already) but had very few options as to contacting reinforcements. The only place that could generally be counted on to have a root presence was Danzo's own home, where he definitely did not want outsiders snooping unobserved. That would be where Boar went as soon as he was dismissed from Tsunade's presence and could leave without arousing suspicion.
Both entrances to Danzo's home were always guarded. That meant that he could have just two Root members posted even when he was gone without them ever being entirely sure he had really left. They were far enough apart—one in the entrance hall, and one posted underground—that they could not communicate and when he left through one door, the ROOT ANBU at the other wouldn't know.
It pretty well ensured that a spy wouldn't be comfortable rifling through his home even when posted there, because it would be nearly impossible to tell if he was just doing another paranoid doubling back through his house to see if you were doing your job right.
'Does make my job easy, though.' Aiko didn't bother to nod or react to the tall woman standing silently at the bottom of the spiraling steps cut out of clay that would lead up to the aboveground portion of the house. That would have been more suspicious than anything.
Instead, she walked past her as if Aiko belonged and then whipped around to sink a kunai into the back of the guard's upper neck. If she kept it planted up to the hilt into the brainstem, it would be an instant kill and she could flicker away with the corpse before blood was spilled.
It didn't work—the woman stepped forward just in time and turned to face Aiko, already drawing the short sword off of her back.
Aiko just about rolled her eyes. In this confined space, really? She wanted a swordfight in a dinky little hallway?
'Must really not be a taijutsu specialist. All the more convenient for me, I suppose.'
She rolled her kunai to her left palm and deflected the first downward blow with it, pushing the longer blade to the outside. Her right hand dug into her equipment pouch for the first of the paralysis tags she had prepared ahead of time. Aiko didn't have time to use it before her opponent whipped her sword back and levered it forward in a quick slashing motion.
Convention dictated that Aiko should have stepped backward to avoid it. She didn't. Aiko bent her knees and ducked even as she quick-stepped to the left, where the blow had begun high and was slashing across and down. Her opponent didn't have time to correct the trajectory before Aiko swung inward and slammed the paper against the first thing she could touch. Low to the ground as she was, that ended up being a slapping motion across the other woman's right thigh.
She dropped like a rock.
That wouldn't last, of course. Paralysis seals could be overcome with practice or determination: they were mostly good as a shock tactic. The sword was still clattering to the floor when Aiko bent, palmed her opponent's temples, and twisted her head around.
The whole point had been ensuring a bloodless kill. She couldn't be certain which entrance Boar would take, but she did know that if he saw signs of foul play, he wouldn't enter.
Ironically, the situation reminded her of the conversation she had first had with Boar when he had begun feeling her out as a potential recruit. At the time, she'd said that it was less cruel to just kill people than it was to take them into custody and let them be someone else's problem. Making someone suffer for years because it was easier on your conscience was cowardly.
Still a little appealing, though.
Aiko let go, and her opponent's upper torso slumped stiffly to the floor, head colliding against the limestone with a soft thud. She crossed to the other side to grab the corpse by the ankles, and momentarily mused that she'd never thought Hiraishin would be so useful for hiding bodies. A pile of ashes and the scent of burnt flesh would raise alarms anywhere within Konoha. But fifteen miles out in the forest, it was unlikely anyone would happen upon the remains before they scattered and the stench of death fled.
The second guard was less alert.
She made her way back to the Intelligence department through their main office this time (and was privately baffled that it had merely been locked. Shizune had said that Tsunade had emptied the department, but dismissing the guards as well seemed a bit excessive).
This time, she did not make her presence known when she crept in the direction of where she had seen Shizune and Sai.
And was confused.
'What the hell is Hyuuga-san doing here?'
He didn't seem entirely certain as to why he was present either. Aiko crept backwards and lingered uncertainly, craning her neck to try to gauge Sai's body language to see if he felt threatened.
'It's probably fine. Danzo does not have the head of a clan in root. But still… maybe I should see what's going on.'
Aiko backed away and silently picked through the facility. She didn't know it that well, to be frank, but she found her way around well enough that she wouldn't get lost. A half an hour of wandering was enough to discover the locations of three different prisoners, one of whom was behind a sealed door but probably Danzo, judging by the fact that there were faint noises coming from the room that indicated multiple people were inside.
Him she left alone. If he knew she'd seen him and hadn't tried to help, he would know she was a traitor.
The other two she marked as possible witnesses or problems. She didn't see a way to take Danzo out without passing by one of them, although to be fair there probably was a route she didn't know.
Two familiar chakra signatures flickered into notice as the muffling door opened. Startled, Aiko flickered back a hallway, and peered out to see Shizune and a tall ANBU who had to be Boar leaving. That left Tsunade unaccounted for. Was this her chance to speak to her alone?
She shut the door behind her quietly, and tugged her mask off. Aiko still had to keep her features blank, because Tsunade probably would not appreciate being nonverbally informed that she looked positively dreadful. The conversation that followed proved that Hokage was testy too, and not any good at charades. Aiko fought not to roll her eyes at the poorly hidden irritation when she gave up on explaining anything to Tsunade directly. Brilliant she might be, but she wasn't at her best right now.
It would probably be for the best if she communicated as concisely as possible. Even if Boar sprinted all the way across town, it would take him perhaps ten minutes to reach Danzo's home by either route. And the seal she had on him from that team practice so long ago was indicating that he was still attempting to keep cover by acting naturally.
That need for hurry would be no excuse for sloppiness here, however. It wasn't perfect, but the only way Aiko could think of to make sure Tsunade got updated properly was through using Sai as a medium. His seal was already contaminated with her chakra, but hers was purely Danzo's. She didn't know if he had a way to check the seal's purity, but it would be a stupid risk. Sai's seal was still something like 85% Danzo's essence and his design, so it should work to let them communicate.
'Weird that a few eyeballs would really mess with her head this much, though,' Aiko mused, rustling purposefully toward the only guarded cell she'd identified in her forays through the detention center. 'Tsunade looks like she's completely worn ragged.'
As soon as the older kunoichi gave them enough distance, she gave Sai an apologetic shrug and held out the hand with the seal she'd stripped from him that morning. He allowed himself to make a slight grimace, but obediently opened his mouth.
"Sorry about this," she mumbled, lifting it off her skin and pressing the construction to his tongue (in a more accessible position than Danzo had used). It eagerly latched onto him again. He blinked furiously, eyes watering a little, but eventually managed,
"I understand. Has something gone wrong?"
Aiko winced a little. He sounded like he had a bad head cold. Luckily, that seemed to become less pronounced as they talked.
"I don't know if it's wrong, exactly, but Tsunade didn't do what we expected at all," she grimly shared, running a hand through her hair (even though it was a wig). His eyes sharpened, so she clarified, "She must have already been prepared to take him in, because she had Danzo in custody under the guise of providing medical assistance after he collapsed in public something like an hour and a half after you were going to report to her."
There was a hint of a question in that. "My appointment was pushed up, and I did not feel it was wise to attempt to explain to the secretary that the timing was crucial," Sai explained without a hint of apology. "I instead attempted to draw out the meeting as long as possible by providing superfluous information, but Hokage-sama decided that she would prefer testimony that had been influenced by Ibiki-san. However, not long after I was brought here, he was ordered to leave and I was left under guard."
Aiko merely nodded. "Okay, I see. Well, now we hardly have to worry about fighting Danzo, but I think Tsunade just dismissed Boar. Since he knows he can't report to Danzo…"
"He will attempt to destroy evidence of his actions or acquire back up for a retrieval mission," Sai suggested.
She stared for a moment. "You know, I honestly hadn't thought about that first option," Aiko confessed sheepishly. "I was thinking in terms that assumed Danzo's life would be Boar's first concern, not his reputation."
"If Hokage-sama has had him in custody, no doubt she discovered the eye under his bandages." Sai seemed to shrug slightly. "The visceral reaction when she realized what he had done may well have caused her to become set on his death. Boar may know Danzo's death is inevitable due to poison or Tsunade's direct actions while he was in her custody. If that is the case, he will know such retrieval would be without purpose."
"Right." Aiko sighed, vexed. "Either way, there's only one response."
Sai nodded. "I take it that I should share your theory about the dangers of letting Danzo die before the seal has been removed from your person?"
"Yes, please," Aiko confirmed dryly. "And for-"
"Kakashi-senpai and Yamato, I am aware," he cut her off.
Playfully, she rolled her eyes at him. "Smartass. Is that it, you think?" At his nod, she snapped her fingers, silently ordering him to open his mouth again and braced herself for that awful stinging sensation on the back of her hand. The second seal didn't really do anything to her- it was meant to primarily affect speech, and being so far away from her mouth reduced its effectiveness. But it still stung. As soon as she had stowed Sai's seal away, she silently inclined her head to the rather testy looking Hokage at the end of the hallway and took a moment to evaluate just how close together the seal humming on Boar and the one below Danzo's home were.
Close enough, she determined.
'Today is turning out to be a stupidly long day,' she noted a little mournfully, tugging herself through Konoha to that same spiraling staircase where she had murdered an unsuspecting Chuunin level shinobi guarding Danzo's home earlier that day.
The fact that what she had done didn't disturb her made Aiko feel a bit uncomfortable, ironically. Shouldn't she feel something about sacrificing someone who had been systematically taught to adhere to a certain standard of behavior? That woman hadn't been from an enemy nation, and probably hadn't been a bad person. She'd just been in the way, and the man at the front door hadn't been any more deserving.
She caught where her thoughts were going, and snorted. It lacked any amusement.
'I'm having second thoughts about killing Boar,' Aiko realized, a little irritated with her own folly. She knew perfectly well why it was necessary. From a logical standpoint, he couldn't be allowed to live if she wanted to protect her own interests: ending Root as a problem, keeping Fukiko safe and Sasuke happy, among other things. He knew far too much, and could mobilize Root.
Aiko wasn't going to lie to herself that he was a bad man and that was why she was going to put him down. Boar… no, he was just someone who genuinely felt that Tsunade wasn't capable of doing what needed to be done to protect Konoha. Dissent wasn't a crime worth death.
Nor would she allow herself the pleasant delusion that Danzo's followers weren't really people to make this easier. That was Danzo's mistake: treating his soldiers as polished automatons and outsiders as subhuman enemies not deserving of consideration. Boar was a human being whose life had value beyond what use could be drawn from him. He deserved to live.
'Maybe the fact that I recognize that makes this even worse. I know that what I do is awful, and I don't lose any sleep over it.'
Well, that was why Tsunade talked about 'healthy' compartmentalization being a requirement for ANBU members, she supposed. Aiko just couldn't be the same person she was off the clock when dealing with threats to national security. There was a reason operations like this were hidden from public knowledge.
A bit melancholy, she traced her fingers along the wall as she stepped up towards the house. Second-guessing herself was pointless. Aiko would soak Konoha in a river of blood if it kept the few people she cared about safe and happy, and she knew that perfectly well.
There was no point in trying to be someone she wasn't. Aiko was the type of person who would ambush a teammate of over a year when he ran to the closest thing Root had to a base for safety.
'And the type of person who is cold enough to take advantage of the fact that Danzo's home is sound-proofed to keep Root secret,' she noted wryly. Convenient that Danzo himself had made it easy to mop up his agents.
She knew Boar well enough to know that she wouldn't necessarily win a head-on fight against him. He wasn't just some random Chuunin house guard. They had sparred together for a year: he knew her weaknesses as well as she knew his.
Which was why she was going to blow him up with the seal she'd planted on him during practice. Really, she only had to be here to confirm a kill. Remotely detonating someone was all well and good if she was truly desperate, but when their unexpected survival might fuck with her ability to plan, it was critical to actually know that they were neutralized.
He came in through the front door. Aiko favored him with a silent glance, and then looked back down. Boar slowly entered the living room. Perhaps he was considering asking why she was sitting on Danzo's couch as if she owned it.
"Hello, Shou," she greeted quietly.
He pushed his mask up, exposing the grotesque burns across his face and an inquisitive expression. "Butterfly?" At her nod, relief seemed to flood his features. "Danzo-sama has been taken captive. We need..." His voice trailed off, and his eyes widened in what might be betrayal when she made no reaction.
"Goodbye, Shou," Aiko sighed, tugging violently on the explosive Hiraishin seal on her teammate. Less than an instant later, hot blood splattered across her mask and plate armor, leaving a clean outline of her body on the dripping couch.
She sat quietly for a moment.
'Naruto would be fucking ashamed of me. Traitor or not, Shou trusted me.'
Her first destination was her apartment, to wipe the worst of the blood off her equipment. Just looking at it made her feel ill, which was downright unprofessional but couldn't be helped. Wistfully, she checked the time: 6:51pm. Kakashi and Yamato were practically outside the village… That meant that there wasn't really time to change, but it would be a bit rude to drip all over the Hokage's office, so she did what she could.
Tsunade favored her with a short glance when she came in. As far as Aiko could tell, she didn't pick up on the scent of blood, because there was no reaction. Silently, she pushed her mask up onto the top of her head and raised an eyebrow at the two stretchers on either side of Tsunade's desk.
"Took you long enough," Tsunade said sourly. With a sigh, the older woman twisted to stare out her window. "If I'm not mistaken, that scruffy captain of yours should be back at any time now. I know that you can't talk." She trailed off a little hopefully, as if thinking that the situation might have changed in the two hours they had been apart. When Aiko just blinked at her, Tsunade puffed her cheeks out for an instant and twitched her nose. The effect was surprisingly adorable. "Great, just fantastic," she muttered resentfully, before raising her voice. "There's no reason that you can't stand there and listen to me talk, though, is there?"
Aiko gave her a small smile. That certainly was a viable information transfer strategy.
"Your co-conspirator is being watched by Maito Gai," Tsunade mused thoughtfully. Her lips barely twitched in amusement.
'How the fuck did that happen?' Aiko wondered vaguely. It just sounded like there was more of a story there. No explanation was forthcoming, however.
"I do have the items you required, and I completely expect an explanation as soon as humanly possible," Tsunade continued dryly, giving her a little glare. "If you hadn't run off so quickly earlier, you would know that the situation with Danzo was far worse than anticipated. I discovered twelve instances of bloodline theft in his person."
Her confusion was real. Twelve? She'd thought there were eleven eyes.
"I removed them, and it is highly unlikely that he will survive the night." At Aiko's flinch, she seemed to shrug. "It couldn't be helped," Tsunade defended tiredly. "And at the time, I didn't know that there was a possibility that his death would have repercussions for those with his seals."
Fair enough. That just meant that she'd have to hurry.
"That means you'll have to do whatever you need to do as soon as possible." Tsunade began poking through her desk absentmindedly. She pulled out what appeared to be a bottle of glitter nail polish, a paper knife, a scalpel, and then a stale looking cookie. "I don't know how much time I can really give you. Shizune sent notice that he woke up a while ago, but-" She raised her head, suddenly alert. "Hide."
That was all Aiko needed. She darted into the ANBU alcove and held her breath, waiting to see what Tsunade had already sensed. A moment's concentration made it obvious.
'Kakashi and Yamato didn't spend much time at the gates,' she mused, shuffling silently out to the very edge so that her view was as good as possible.
About four seconds later, there was a rustle at the window. It opened to admit first Kakashi, then a surprisingly curious looking Yamato.
He also had a bit of dirt smudged on his nose. D'awww.
The two had barely cleared Sasuke's houseplant jungle before Tsunade clipped out, "Good, you're here." She tilted her head forwards. "Lay down on those stretchers."
Aiko saw the exact moment that trepidation hit Kakashi like a ton of bricks. Yamato blinked trusting doe eyes at Tsunade, but Kakashi's visible gray eye was wide open in shock.
She winced, closing her eyes and biting her lower lip. Tsunade was still holding the paperknife in her fist and was gesturing with it while she talked. That didn't look good.
"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."
'That was a little harsh.' With disapproval, Aiko scanned Tsunade's expression as the two Jounin obediently hopped up onto their cots. It was… too stern, actually. She knew the older woman didn't actually blame either of them for being taken advantage of.
"Don't panic now, but you're going to have to be out for the procedure"
'She's probably distracting them,' Aiko theorized, feeling a bit melancholy. 'She doesn't want them thinking too much about what's going on. Information control, I suppose.'
Being the reason that they were put under extra stress was unpleasant.
"It's for your own good," Tsunade cajoled, crossing the room and lighting up her palms with medical chakra to put them both to sleep.
Aiko consoled herself with the thought that it really was for their benefit. She didn't want to risk either of them for Danzo's sake.
~~~
A most unladylike snort broke the silence, and quickly turned into soft, mildly ironic laughter. "Did you see their faces?" Tsunade huffed as Aiko stepped out of the hidden room and aimed a disapproving look at her Hokage.
"That was just mean, Tsunade-sama," she uttered blandly, peeling off her gloves and tucking them into her hip pouch. "Why did you do that?"
The amusement slipped off her face, and the Hokage heaved a tired sigh. "Same reason I had you hide," Tsunade replied dryly, rubbing at her temple. "I think it might be for the best if we keep your involvement in taking down Root quiet. You hardly need more attention, and it'll help Sai more than it would help you to be associated with this mess. I suppose that you could tell them later that you were involved if you absolutely must, but I didn't have time to allow you to consider it. A mission like this…" She trailed off uncomfortably. "It can change the way people think about you," Tsunade finished quietly. Her eyes trailed downwards to examine Yamato, sleeping quietly.
'Maybe it should.'
She couldn't say the last part, so instead she said nothing. "The specimens?" Aiko asked.
The older woman seemed to latch onto the change of subject gratefully and loose a bit of her depressed air. Gravely, Tsunade reached under her desk for two small cages.
Aiko wrinkled her nose in regret for what she was about to do, but there was little choice. Danzo's curse seal was sturdy enough that she could pick it up and move it, but she couldn't dissolve it, and it wouldn't take to anything other than a living being. Otherwise, she'd just stick it to a piece of paper.
But hell, she was tired of making sacrifices of other lives today.
"Sorry bunny," Aiko apologized, turning away as she hugged the first little animal to her chest so that she didn't have to see Tsunade roll her eyes as the soft-heartedness.
There was a good possibility that Danzo's seal was rigged so that everyone who carried it died when he did, or could be remotely controlled or killed if he willed it. Or, hell, he might able to tug on the seals of the most likely traitors. Sai was already safe and she had an alibi, but Kakashi and Yamato might also come up as possibilities. Aiko was certain that they'd both left Root. They had to. It just didn't fit with what she knew of them. That assumed chain of events fit for Danzo, too. He would know that Konoha would continue to get use out of them in the ranks, even if he wasn't the one directing them.
Speaking of problematic seals… What was the array Tsunade hadn't been able to identify? Jiraiya wasn't going to hurry back to look at a half-naked geriatric, and it was far too important for Aiko to feel comfortable trying to disarm it.
If push came to shove she could lift it, but it was almost certainly too big to put on a damn bunny. Aiko wasn't about to volunteer herself for that. If there was no other option they could probably wrangle one of the gigantic tigers from the forest of death, but… well, it would be a waste of a tiger.
One quivering grey rabbit tucked under her left arm, she pulled down Yamato's jaw with her right hand and delicately prodded around inside to touch the seal. It was installed so close to the back of the neck that she might set off his gag reflex if she wasn't careful. (A sensible precaution when trying to avoid having the seal show in normal circumstances, but an inconvenient placement now). There was no chance in hell she was paid enough to wallow up to her wrist in vomit, so Aiko was meticulously careful. She scrunched up her nose in concentration as she oh-so-carefully lifted the seal up and out of his mouth without touching his teeth or palette. It was eager to adhere to another surface and… sticky, was the best way that she could describe.
Hot damn, was that excellent seal work.
"You will be my first agent, ANBU Bunny," Aiko gravely informed the trapped rodent. "I expect great things from you. Failure is not an option." (Tsunade snorted in the background.) She didn't bother to pry open his jaw and risk getting bit by an unhappy animal. Instead, she gently tapped it onto the edge of his nose and watched it stretch and unfold like a flower before fading under the fur.
'Well, I'm already not going to win 'pet owner of the month' anytime soon,' Aiko observed, and hurriedly peeled off the seal on her hand as well. That one went on the bunny's little cheek.
ANBU Bunny sneezed rather pathetically. "I'm sorry, love," Aiko whispered, planting a kiss between his ears before she gave him back to Tsunade (who abruptly tossed it back into the cage it had come from. Konohamaru might have been pleased to know that his latest D-rank mission actually was critical to village security).
It was really only a little bit of a shame, but having had to silence her conscience about Boar and the two Root guards perhaps had her a bit more emotional than usual. It was safe to hug and apologize to bunnies. Not so much to members of a subversive assassination and covert operation unit that would have wanted her dead if they'd known she was an infiltrator.
'Now is not really the time for that.'
Feeling rather like a doctor performing a tense operation, she sterilized her hands before walking over to Kakashi. There, she wavered uncertainly. She could do the procedure blind—it was essentially blind in the first place— but she could hardly put her hands through the fabric over his mouth.
It wasn't that she didn't want to see his face, but under circumstances like these? It felt even more like invading his privacy than allowing Tsunade to convince him that the older woman had been the one to remove his seal. They were lying to him, yes, but… But for a reason. Gaping at his face like an idiot would only be self-indulgence or laziness.
If she ever saw his face, it was going to be because he didn't mind her seeing it.
Tsunade rolled her eyes, but obligingly forked over her haori when asked. Aiko carefully draped it over Kakashi's face in the area his mask covered before tugging his mask down and tried her best not to notice that he needed a bit of a shave as her hand brushed a cheek she'd never seen. If she let herself wonder, it would only get worse.
The charade might be more convincing anyways if he smelt that Tsunade had been near him. He might be a little disturbed that she'd apparently leaned her chest directly onto his face (or disappointed to have been unconscious, now that she thought about it) but would hopefully be preoccupied by other issues.
"Bunny?" Aiko asked seriously, wishing she had other tools to ask for. Tsunade handed it over with a prompt professionalism that perhaps implied that her thoughts were in a similar vein. Her lips twitched as the teen carefully trailed her fingers down the inside of her captain's mouth to tug out his own seal. It was even older than Yamato's (the design was obviously an early prototype), and again she wondered how the hell the two of them had gotten involved in Root in the first place. Her theory was vague at best.
This bunny was black and white spotted, and its fur hid the new 'tattoo' even better than Mr. Grey's had. Aiko held it out across from her face and seriously rubbed her nose against the little creature's and made eye contact. "You shall be Agent Tigress," she gravely informed. Tsunade ceremonially held up ANBU Agent Tigress's cage and tucked it away with the other as soon as Aiko was done.
Aiko quickly sanitized her hands again and straightened her uniform. "What's going to happen to the bunnies?" She was morbidly curious.
Tsunade just shrugged. "I don't really know yet. We should probably keep an eye on them to see if anything changes in the seal after Danzo dies. Maybe I'll make those two keep them as pets."
There wasn't enough time to stop the snicker. As soon as possible, Aiko jerked her features back into solemnity. "I think that they might make connections," she pointed out a little regretfully. Two seals disappear, and two mysterious bunnies with high chakra levels appear… Then again, did she really care? They could wonder 'til the end of their days how the hell Tsunade had done it. Tsunade was probably right that she didn't want to share this.
It wasn't exactly that Tsunade had forbidden that she tell anyone, but secrecy was a shinobi's lifeblood. Even if it wasn't habit to suppress information, Aiko was getting a reputation as a front-line fighter type. Since she had originally been pegged as an infiltrator and trained as a tracker… Well. There was no point to spreading those skill-sets around as public knowledge. And she hardly wanted to talk about Root anyways.
"Yes, but it would be so therapeutic," Tsunade sighed. At Aiko's blank stare, she helpfully clarified, "For me. It would be therapeutic for me to watch those two try to complete an A class mission to care for very important rodents. Can't you just picture it?"
'Yes, especially if they really do drop dead when Danzo does,' Aiko mused. 'What would Kakashi and Yamato even do? Hide the bodies and get replacement bunnies? Apologize and admit they couldn't keep rodents alive for a couple of days? There is just no good option there.'
That promised to be good entertainment.
"You're a bad woman," Aiko informed her kage levelly, stepping to the stretch of genjutsu that substituted for a wall. She lingered for just a moment to grin at Tsunade, letting the expression come across through her tone since it couldn't through the mask. "I admire that about you. Would you mind moving to the back of the room and make them turn around so I can see their faces when you tell them they're caring for your bunnies?"
Tsunade nodded her pig-tailed head austerely. "Will do."
"And hurry, I have places to be," Aiko half-joked. The older woman turned to glare at her as her hand skimmed over Yamato's temples.
'Well, I do,' she sighed quietly, watching Tsunade frown down at Yamato.
"Actually, I think that we should wait to wake them up." Tsunade abruptly pulled her hand back and pinned Aiko with a serious look. "If we want them to think that I somehow surgically removed the seals, they'll have to be unconscious for more than five minutes."
"Couldn't hurt," Aiko agreed mildly, stepping back out into the room proper. "Then, what do you-"
"Go take care of whatever errand you have," Tsunade interrupted with a dismissive wave. "I'll be here when you get back. Actually, I probably won't wait for you. No point in risking one of them noticing you."
Aiko snorted rudely and fought the urge to ask if Sai could do some of the dirty work since he was getting the credit for it. That was both immature and unworkable, however, so she shut her mouth. Instead, she gave a loose salute and set off in a blur of speed. The closest route was only a floor away, so she easily slipped into the intelligence department.
She picked through the same route she had learned earlier. The sound of quiet voices arrested her. So did the fact that one of the prisoners she had noticed earlier was awake.
'I was right,' Aiko noted grimly. 'Witnesses are going to be a problem. No one can know that Danzo is down here. If I have to actually take him out to keep up the charade, I can't let him be seen.'
"Hey, ANBU." The witness in question, a hard-faced man of middling age gestured at her. "Have you fucks decided you're just not feeding me anymore? I did what you wanted, sadistic bitch."
Charming.
But it did give her an idea. "Back up, prisoner," she commanded briskly. He obeyed. Probably because he knew that disobedience would prompt consequences far more harsh than insulting her would. She keyed it open with a fifteen part sequence of handsigns attuned to chakra pulses.
And then proceeded to wrap her hand around his forehead and use the full force she could muster with her elbow and bodyweight to slam the back of his head into the concrete wall with enough force to knock him out. Numb to the violence that paled in comparison to what she had already done today, Aiko curled her fingers into the fabric on his shoulders to brace him up—and then blinked as he slumped to the ground, leaving her holding loose fabric.
"Oh, that's right," she realized dimly, tilting her head in thought. "He's… going to be heavy."
Well, shit. Laboriously, Aiko pulled his arm over her shoulder and dragged him down the hallway. His feet scraped sadly behind her. The voices she'd heard earlier only got louder as she approached Danzo's cell, so she stashed him against the wall and crept around the corner. If she needed to use him, he was close. If not, he could always be returned to his cell none the wiser as to what had really happened.
Shizune was grimly attempting to ignore Danzo. He was seated on his cot, propped awkwardly against a pile of his pillow and crumpled blanket to support his body weight.
"I must speak with the Hokage," he insisted in a wheeze.
Shizune's jaw tightened slightly. It seemed pretty clear that she wasn't about to listen to Danzo.
'Well, this is going to suck,' Aiko noted mournfully. 'How am I going to knock Shizune out convincingly without hurting her?'
Honestly, it was getting to be incredibly depressing. After a moment, she could only conclude that she would have to do it quickly, and apologize later. A drawn-out fight with Shizune might not end in her favor.
Aiko took a deep breath and began internally composing her note to Shizune after this all was over. Then she flickered down the hallway and collided with Shizune, forcing her face-first into the wall with enough force that something audibly broke.
"Ahh!" Shizune shrieked in what seemed to be genuine surprise, twisting around reflexively to elbow into Aiko's gut.
Aiko dry-heaved, but was too disciplined to curl over in shock. Her left hand shot up to curl around Shizune's now exposed neck, and she squeezed, keeping the older girl pushed into the wall by the front of her hips and her left shoulder, awkwardly contorted. Shizune gargled, jerking around Aiko's hand. The redhead danced around the violent kick that lashed out at her, and then moved to pin the brunette with her hip and elbow.
Watching Shizune jerk and struggle as she lost consciousness was painful. Aiko did it anyway. The scuffle had moved them out of Danzo's line of sight, so she gently lowered the older girl to the floor and checked her pulse. It was going steadily, so she didn't feel too guilty about rising up and darting to Danzo's cell.
He hadn't moved to the bars, which was her first sign that he really was in poor condition. You know, aside from the face that the bandages around his right arm were soaked with blood and he appeared to be missing a massive chunk out of his shoulder. His eye was alert, however, when she began racing through the hand sequence that would unlock the cell.
"Sakura?"
He seemed genuinely confused. In a nod to his habitual order to bare her face, she pushed her mask up and kneeled as soon as she had opened the cell. "Danzo-sama," she murmured. "Forgive me, but we must hurry. I have retrieved a prisoner to leave as a decoy, but I do not know how long it will be until the switch is noticed."
There was a moment of silence. His tone was oddly raspy and weak when Danzo finally spoke. "Would you show me your seal, my child?"
Her jaw dropped as low as she could manage and she pushed her tongue out, wishing there was a less undignified way of doing this.
"I see." Danzo slowly shook his head, and gestured for her to stand. Was he—he was crying, Aiko noticed, mildly astonished. "I misjudged you. Do you know who the traitor is?"
Her eyes hardened. 'You're the traitor,' she thought. "The agent codenamed Sai."
Weakly, he tried and failed to bring a hand up to his cheek. She actually felt a bit uncomfortable as slow tears trailed down his wrinkled face. "Your loyalty does you credit," he finally managed, sounding choked up. "Alas, I will not be going anywhere with you, my girl. I am too weak." His head bowed so that she couldn't see his expression. "Even if that were not true, Konoha is my home, and I will not flee like a thief in the night. My life has been dedicated to its protection. I can only provide one last service. You must get the Hokage to listen to me," he pleaded.
"Danzo-sama?" The question came out a bit more childlike than she would have preferred. This was wrong. He wasn't supposed to be a pitiable old man.
"I know that Jiraiya of the Sannin will be in Konoha within days. He must come while I still live to neutralize the explosive seal on my chest, or else I must be allowed to alter it myself. It was intended as a last precaution. I never thought that I would die in any way other than in battle." His voice broke. A few seconds later, he finished a little more steadily, "The blast would cause significant damage within city limits."
'Oh, god damnit.' Aiko forced her eyes closed, and tried to think on that.
There was absolutely no chance that Tsunade would allow Danzo to access his chakra and ink. She wouldn't let her sympathy for a sad old man outweigh the possibility that he was bluffing to get a chance to attack. Nor would he live long enough for Jiraiya to show up.
"Danzo-sama? What will happen to us if you die?" The meekness in her tone was feigned, but he didn't seem to catch on.
Gravely, he looked up at her. "I have no successor, child. You will all pass when I do."
'Oh hell no. I know I already said that he's crazy, but did he not recognize that he's seventy years old? Of course he was going to die soon, even if this hadn't happened.'
"The same seal that was meant to ensure my body could not be used against Konoha contains the formula that ties all of you to my person."
'You are such an asshole, old man,' she thought bitterly. Remarkably, her sympathy had fled.
That didn't leave her a lot of options. He was going to die. She wasn't. No matter what happened, she could remove her own seal, but she didn't want to leave every other root member to die. They didn't deserve it just because it would be slightly more convenient for her. Three innocents had been enough blood on her hands for the day.
She must have been still a moment too long, because he sighed. "I am sorry, child."
"I'm not."
His head swiveled up at that just in time to see her stick her fingers in her jaw and delicately extract her seal. It flickered on her fingertips for a second and she favored him with a hard look. The shock on his face was most satisfying. "I was never loyal to you," Aiko said gently. He recoiled as she let it waft away into nothingness (a trick: she actually just let it fade from visibility) and deliberately kneeled in front of him one last time. She held eye contact and pressed her palm against his neck to deposit the root seal and then trailed to the center of his chest, examining the much larger mystery seal. Aiko kept her tone steady and confidential. "I was Tsunade's from the start. I might have had sympathy for you, until I found you had me under a genjutsu."
Danzo tried to jerk away from her hand on his seal, but he was weak, and old, and already had his back to the wall. The fingers of her left hand curled into his shoulder with painful force, keeping him pinned in place.
Confidentially, she added, "I don't like being controlled." She continued her work calmly, sinking her chakra into his chest to claim the seal for her own. It fought, rejecting the new energy, so she siphoned out his essence and forced it to obey her will. "Even for Konoha's sake." The old man let out a choked sob, but she was relentless.
"Goodbye, Danzo-sama." The seal on his chest lit up with a blinding teal light, spotted with the dark purple ooze of his essence like liver spots. The light over came them and pushed them out. Waveringly, she pulled the entire construction off of his chest and carefully flipped her palm parallel to her own chest.
This part, she wasn't looking forward to. But Aiko braced herself and pushed the nasty thing through the porcelain of her armor, through the fabric underneath, and let it latch greedily onto her flesh, suckling and biting. It settled over her heart with a prickling sensation like drops of acid at the edges.
It burned. She hit her knees on the ground and panted, blinded by pain. When it faded, she pushed herself up to stand above the cot dispassionately.
"It's a good thing that worked," Aiko noted dryly, rubbing a hand unconsciously against her chest plate in an ill-conceived attempt to soothe the lingering pain. "It looks like removing that was stressful on his body."
An understatement, gauging by the silent scream on his still features and fingers impotently hooked into claws pointed at his chest. Somehow, she wasn't particularly anxious to try taking it off herself now.
Of course, it was anyone's guess as to whether Danzo had suddenly keeled over from his previous medical condition or if she really had killed him by stealing his seal, but she was pretty sure it was her fault.
She favored the body, crumpled and diminished looking, with one final glance before she steeled herself to glide out of the cell and close the door behind her. Danzo had not been a kind man, but he'd had the best of intentions. Aiko bent over Shizune and then thought better of it, seating herself beside the older girl and pulled the tousled black head onto her lap. In that position, she pulled on Kakashi's seal to place the two of them in Tsunade's office.
Tsunade gave a start and a curse. "Don't surprise me like- Shizune?" The Hokage practically leapt over her desk and bent to examine her first apprentice, genuine concern showing openly.
"She should just be unconscious," Aiko informed her dispassionately. "Danzo is dead, however. The seal on his chest was two-fold. An explosive device; and the array that linked Root to him."
Tsunade's hand curled into a fist. "Then… did you take him outside city limits before you killed him?" Her tone was flat.
Aiko scowled. "No," she clipped out. "I stole the seal. It's on me now, to buy time to pick it apart. I didn't want to let kami knows how many people drop over dead. It wasn't my intention, but he died in the process."
Slowly, the Hokage raised her head to look Aiko in the eye. Her expression was inscrutable. "You… stole it," she repeated numbly. "How? I saw, earlier, but only realized what you'd done after you'd gone."
A shrug was all the explanation Aiko felt she had to give. "I can't put it into words," she deflected. "I just pick them up."
Tsunade took a deep breath. Unsteadily, she mused, "You know, I've only ever seen one person do that before. My grandmother. I thought it was something unique to her."
Uzumaki Mito, the first jinchuuriki? Interesting, but not important right now. "Danzo seemed to think Jiraiya would be here in a few days?"
The subject change seemed to wake Tsunade up a bit. "Ah, yes. I believe so." She gave a bitter little laugh, shaking her head. "I suppose there's no point in asking how he knew that. He certainly wasn't supposed to."
"What are we going to do about Root?" Aiko pushed.
"Let's wait and see what Jiraiya has to say about that seal," Tsunade sighed. She turned her face down and ran a gentle swipe of medical chakra down Shizune's forehead and circled around her temples before trailing down her neck. "You really banged her up, didn't you?" The question didn't seem to require an answer.
It was only a matter of minute before Shizune was back on her feet, had groggily accepted Aiko's apology, and then toddled off to go have a lie down.
"Aiko…" Tsunade began thoughtfully, still watching the closed door. "I'm impressed that you were willing to put that on yourself for the sake of root agents. You think they can be saved, then?"
'Some of them? Depending on what they try to do when it becomes clear that Danzo is dead. Sai can't have been the only one who wanted out.'
Uncomfortable, she shrugged. "Mostly I was worried about the bunnies," Aiko deflected vaguely, clasping her hands and wishing she could escape from this emotional conversation.
Honey colored eyes narrowed in thought and what might have been pity. "Of course you were," Tsunade said gently. Aiko broke eye contact to look down. A sigh broke the still air. "Is there anything I need to know now?"
Ashamed, Aiko clenched one hand into a fist against the side of her leg. "I killed three Konoha shinobi today," she shared quietly. "First two ROOT guards at Danzo's house so that when Boar came looking for reinforcements, I could ambush him relatively safely."
There was a cracking sound. She didn't look up to see what it was.
"Boar was a root agent?" Tsunade's tone was odd. "Your ANBU teammate?"
Aiko could hardly blame her. "Yes."
They stood in silence for a full minute, until Tsunade swallowed. "I see. Aiko…" She tried again, voice even softer. "Go home. Get some sleep. Don't think about it. I'll postpone your debriefing until tomorrow."
She started out walking home. Until she felt the curious stares of passersby and remembered that she was still covered in Shou's blood. Then Aiko ran, feet and heart pounding as if she could drown out the look on his face when he'd realized that she was about to kill him. He hadn't even made a move to fight her.
She stripped her outer clothing almost violently as soon as she was inside her door, leaving it piled in the genkan. Dried blood was flaking off her boots already, but the rest of it had been close to her body and was still damp. The first thing she did was step in the shower, still in her breast bindings and shorts. Aiko scrubbed at every bit of uncovered skin, realized she was still wearing the black wig, and then tugged it off to hit the floor with a wet plop. It meandered over to block the drain. Water began to accumulate up to her ankles, so she turned the faucet off and stepped out.
Idly, she noted that she was still wearing her sodden clothes. She didn't bother to take them off or dry at all, letting puddles accumulate when she wandered out of the bathroom.
It hadn't helped. She didn't really feel any cleaner. She still felt empty inside, too, but maybe eating would rectify that. The last time she'd eaten had been breakfast.
Aiko pulled open the fridge and immediately felt nauseous at the bright light it gave off. She let the door shut quietly and opened the pantry instead. Nothing really looked good. There were two bottles of sake for cooking staring at her though in their green packaging. So she took them both out, sat on the floor with her back to the cupboard, and silently opened the first.
~~~
'My apartment doesn't smell like blood. Where am I?'
Warily, Kakashi tensed his muscles and kept his eye shut to assess the situation. Judging by the light falling across his face, he wasn't in his apartment at all. What had-
Oh, he realized grimly, prying his eye open and sitting up. Experimentally, he rubbed his tongue against the roof of his mouth. It didn't… feel any different.
"Don't hurt yourself," Tsunade huffed, looking considerably more worn-out than she had been the last time he had been conscious. Tenzou was also sitting up. His kohai was cross-eyed in an attempt to examine the tongue hanging out of his mouth.
Obviously, Tenzou couldn't see it, but Kakashi was well aware that there was now no seal on the boy's tongue. The implications of that took a moment to sink in.
That meant he didn't have one either. That was good news.
The stench of blood said otherwise, however. That definitely hadn't been present in the office when last he had been conscious. But it wasn't his or Tenzou's, he was certain of it. Confused, he took a few shallow sniffs, turning his head around to pinpoint the source.
"Kakashi, pay attention. I have a mission for the two of you." Gravely, she met their eyes, and then scooted her chair back and bent to reach under her desk. "Yamato, you will be responsible for the care of Bunny. Kakashi, you have Tigress."
They stared blankly, united momentarily in a "what the fuck" sort of camaraderie.
She seemed to be serious. "It's important that you keep these animals alive," she imparted, shaking Tigress' cage slightly. The bunny skidded to one side of the cage, quivering. "This is a long-term, A class intelligence mission. That's all you need to know."
'How does one care for a rabbit' was warring with 'why would she want to keep food alive?'
But he took the damn cage obediently. It was only once he was out of the office that the sheer impact of the situation hit him.
"This has been a surreally long and confusing day," Kakashi thought aloud. He was doing his level best not to notice that the secretary was doing a poor job of hiding her grin at their expense behind a hand. "I need to go home now."
"Me too," Tenzou added, lifting his cage to stare a bit helplessly at his rabbit. He tilted his head, brown eyes clearly conveying distress. "How do I keep a rabbit alive?"
Kakashi honestly didn't know. They ate fruit, right? Like a bat? "Didn't Naruto used to have a rabbit?" He vaguely remembered Naruto talking about rabbits.
"For what good that would do us," Tenzou noted sourly, letting his rabbit cage fall down by his hip. "He's out of town. D'you think Aiko would have paid any attention to how he kept it alive?"
"It's worth a try," Kakashi sighed, scratching at his neck with his free hand and beginning to saunter down the spiraling stairs. "Tell me if she has anything useful?"
"Will do," came the glum acknowledgement. "Good night, senpai."
Despite his frustration with the rabbit situation, it was a relatively minor indignity to have to suffer in exchange for having that seal removed. They weren't likely to talk about their feelings, but he was certain Tenzou felt much the same way.
He, at least, had been fourteen when he'd been tricked into Danzo's service, and had only spent one dark year there. Tenzou had been snapped up by Danzo's program as a small child. Kakashi would never forget seeing a preteen in that armor and disobeying his mission directive to eliminate any interference. He wouldn't regret it either.
Things were starting to look up, he noted. Gently, he opened the little cage and let the rabbit named Tigress loose into his bathroom. It was a temporary solution at best, but it seemed cruel to leave the little thing trapped.