You threw Sai over your shoulder and won another spar.

"Well done Sota, you're getting better," Sensei congratulated you.

"Thanks," you replied and helped the other boy up.

Towards you came Danzo rolling in his wheel-chair. What had happened? You couldn't avoid smiling, this was your chance.

"I got injured in the service of the village, so put away that smile," he said and smacked you over the head with his cane. Why was he even using that if he couldn't walk?

"Good to see you back Danzo-sama, I assume you've heard about my deal with the Hokage?" Sensei asked.

"Yes, how has he been doing?"

"He's getting better and better, I have to make the others team up to take him down now. Uchiha Shisui taught him to use the body flicker and he has used that well in his fights," Sensei said. "I think he'd be a good addition to Root if he decides to join, we talked about it after you left, and he seemed to have warmed up to the idea after I cleared up a few things with him."

"Good, do you have any issues leading the recruits alone?" Danzo asked.

"Not yet, so no need to find a replacement for Crow yet," Sensei said.

"Good," he said and turned his attention to you. "So have you made a decision yet?"

"No, not yet. I still need some time to think. Next is the Chuunin exam and I want to see how things change when I'm no longer on Raidou's team," you said. Better keep him on a friendly foot before you killed him.

"I will ask you again then," he said.

"Umm… there is one thing I want to ask about."

"Go ahead," he said.

"I want to go back to studying my seals down here. The place the Hokage found me isn't very suitable, I've to go outside the village walls every time I want to test something, as the Hokage fears an accident and it is quite inconvenient. I'm careful, mostly careful. Down here it doesn't matter if I let off an explosion or two, so..."

"You heard what he said yourself, he thinks his new arrangement is safe."

"Yeah about that, what if I arrange a little accident… Would you then argue my case that you should take back control?" You asked.

Danzo smiled at you. He probably thought he had gotten you now, but he was about to activate your trap card.

"Very well, just try to make it look like you didn't do it on purpose and I will do my part," he said.

"Thanks," you said and gave him a smile. You really had him now.

-x-

You went into the workshop you'd been given for one last time, there were some things you wanted to secure before arranging the accident. It was nicer than what you had had down at Danzo's, but it was true what you told him, it was less practical. Though you wondered if you could get Kotetsu and Izumo to keep letting you out after this little stunt, that someone would just forget to tell them.

You had already prepared your defect seal, and now it was just to set it off. While you didn't fear the explosion itself, you didn't want to get caught in the rubble so you ran out of the building with the help of the body flicker, and a moment later the house exploded and one of the wooden beams hit you in the back of your head, causing you to fall forward.

"Fuck that hurt, why didn't I think about defending myself from this," you mumbled to yourself. Though if you had, you'd very easily create damage to any wooden structure you encountered.

Several ANBU rushed to your location. "Are you okay?" One of the masked ninja asked you.

"I think so," you said.

"Let me check," they said and laid their hands on your head. "You look fine, let me just heal you up a bit and you can go home."

"Thanks," you said.

"I will have to report this to the Hokage, you know that right?" They asked.

"Yeah," you nodded.

"Good, you can go now."

Step one completed, now you just had to wait for Danzo to deliver.

-x-

This was the first time you had slept at your own place in several weeks and you had no issues at all. You wouldn't be able to sleep at Root after you killed Danzo, so it was nice that your sleeping issues were gone.

It didn't take long before someone knocked on the door. You hurried up and opened before they invited themselves in.

"Good morning," you greeted Danzo. Hopefully, he had good news for you.

"I talked to the Hokage about what happened, and he agrees with me. It is too dangerous to let you practise your fuuinjutsu in the village, so we've agreed that the best choice is to go back to our previous arrangement. You can come down whenever you want, but you're not allowed to stay overnight," he explained. He was clearly feigning any knowledge of your agreement, so how you should you react? Whatever you told him would probably be reported to the Hokage, it wouldn't be too hard for ANBU to read your lips from wherever they were hiding.

"It wasn't my fault that the place he found me was that fragile, give me another chance," you begged.

"It is either this or nothing, your choice," Danzo said and turned around to leave.

Step two completed, now you needed to communicate with Matatabi, just in case your plan went south, you needed a contingency plan. Danzo was already injured, and if he managed to get away from your trap, it wouldn't take much more to take him down, so she would be perfect.

You put the blanket over yourself to ensure that none would hear you. You hoped they didn't listen in to your plans with your clone, but if they had, they'd probably confronted you with it already.

"Hi Mata, I hope not disturbing you. I need your help in case things go wrong. Can you promise me to lend me your power if Danzo comes after me, and not try to escape? Give me a sign if you agree, and no sign I guess if you don't," you whispered hoping she would hear you.

There was no response as first but after maybe half a minute you could feel a bit of her chakra.

"Thanks," you replied and threw the blanket away from yourself.

You couldn't strike right away, that would just be too suspicious, but if you waited to too long, Danzo would recover. So a couple of days of waiting would be perfect.

But first had to go back down underground, to make the final preparations and actually use the place you asked for.

-x-

Back underground you summoned your clone again.

"You did it!" He exclaimed and smiled.

"Yeah, now we just need to stick the landing," you said.

He just nodded. "Give me your bag," he said and you obliged.

He picked out some storage tags and activated them. Out came four clay figures about as long as your arm with big mouths and hollow eyes, as if someone had sucked the soul out of them, not that clay figures had any souls.

"And they all work?" You asked.

"Yeah, try to dodge!" He called out and activated them with his hands.

Out came kunai flying, and as you ran around the room they rotated their heads to track you. You ran up the wall to prevent them from being able to hit you and the golem quickly ran out of kunai..

"Good work. I wish they could move their heads up and down, but I don't think that matters here as he's stuck to his wheelchair. Now we just have to load them with the proper seals."

Your clone nodded and the two of you go to work.

-x-

After some tense waiting, now was the day, you had bought your clone more dango and a bowl of ramen for yourself.

"Are you ready for today?" You asked him.

"Yup," the clone said and he nibbled on his food.

"Remember to pretend to be me right?"

"Yeah, I'll try my best. We're kind of like twins you know, similar but at the same time a bit different. But I think I know how to mimic you," he said.

"Good. How do you intend to trick Danzo into falling for our trap?" You asked.

"Hmm.. I'll improvise, it's not like he suspects anything, I'll just ask to talk to him something and then get ready for it all."

"Make sure you have everything you need beforehand," you said.

"Yeah yeah yeah. I've control here. It's just as much my idea this than you, if not more. You don't need to be so…. Just trust me will you?"

"Okay, I'm sorry," you said. "I'm just a bit afraid, it's me he'll go after if this goes wrong."

"We're both in this, if he takes you, he takes me too. I know that you don't think about me as anything more than a clone, but I wish you could see me more as a brother you know," he said.

"Maybe. I'll trust you then, I'm going to go outside, I don't want to sit here and wait," you said and left your apartment.

-x-

The tension was too great, there was nothing you could do right now other than waiting for Danzo to take the bait and for your clone to launch the attack. If Danzo were to strike against you, it was best to have some witnesses. How long had you been waiting now?

You didn't have to wait for much longer as you felt something in your feet, something rumbling like a small earthquake.

You smiled to yourself, for once, things had gone your way.

Ninja started running around you, you hadn't expected your little stunt to put the village on alert.

"Sota, do you know why the ground is shaking," Shisui asked.

"Why do you ask that?" And where did he come from?

"You started smiling as the shaking started, you haven't set off lots of explosions underground have you?" He asked.

"It sounds like something I could have done yeah," you replied. You didn't really want to lie to him.

"And?" He asked.

"The village would be better off without Danzo," you said.

Shisui's kept his calm. "What are you plan now, in case he survives?"

"I'm ready to use Matatabi against him if he comes after me, and he won't do anything to me with people around."

"I guess you're right, but you won't stay safe for long. We could run, I think I'd be able to be a quite successful missing-nin," he said.

"They'll catch up to us, and I don't want to be on the run my entire life. A failed mission put him in a wheelchair, and if he survived what I threw at him, he's probably even more injured. It wouldn't take much to finish him off, maybe you could help me?"

"Come with me Sota, and we'll figure this out," he said.

"Thanks," you said and walked with him. He stopped as you arrived in a quiet back alley devoid of people.

In a puff of smoke, Shisui disappeared and in front of you sat Danzo.

"You're not the only one that can use shadow clones, so don't bother attacking me," he said before you could draw on Matatabi's chakra.

You turned around and saw a Root agent blocking the exit holding a sparking sword.

That was not the path out, being electrocuted was not something you'd want to experience again. You looked for other exit opportunities. But on the roof above you stood several other ninja also armed with similar swords.

Why hadn't you prepared for this. Should you just attack them all and run for it?

"I'm not going to kill you," Danzo said.

"How did you...?" You asked, not being able to ask the right question.

"How I figured out that you were going to try to kill me? You're the worst assassin I've ever seen. You told your old sensei that you wanted me dead. You had Genma teach you how to lock me outside, but you never used it on your door. You told him that you wanted help to assassinate someone," he said.

Why had he done that...

"Don't look at me like that, he's required to report things like that even if he thought you were joking. Combined with your attempt to get back underground, you were yelling it out for everyone to hear. You don't get at my age in my position without being able to snuff out an assassination attempt."

"Fuck," you muttered to yourself.

"Other than that you did a good job. You laid a plan to take out someone way above your level. You made sure your attack would leave me dead, you had a contingency plan. But next time make sure you've got a better exit strategy," Danzo advised.

Only Danzo would compliment someone for trying to assassinate him and then offer advice on where to improve.

"Thanks," you mumbled.

"Next time you try anything like that I will ruin you and make sure everyone will see you as a monster, even those you now call friends."

With a puff of smoke, Danzo and all the Root agents disappeared, all shadow clones apparently. He was taking no chances, what did he fear?

And could you even trust him? He'd let you go now, but he'd probably use this against you later.

What should you do? Should you tell Shisui about it? No, he would just get the wrong idea about you. You couldn't tell Mikoto, that was for sure. Genma still believed in you, so you wouldn't want to shatter that image. You could just keep it secret. No, you didn't want to give Danzo an edge over you, there was only one person who could deal with him, so you turned your gaze over the to the Hokage-tower. It was a stupid idea, but one day your stupid ideas had to work.

-x-

"You can go in now," his secretary said. It had been a long and tense wait, you just hoped that the Hokage wasn't in too bad of a mood. Why didn't you bring him some food to bribe him with?

"Sit down Uzumaki, what do you want to talk to me about?" Hiruzen asked.

"I kind of messed up… again… I tried to kill Danzo and failed," you confessed.

"This is very serious you know that right?" He asked.

"Yes, I know. Danzo caught me, but let me go. It didn't look like he intended to punish me. I'm afraid he'll use this against me later. So this is why I'm telling you this, I'm sorry," you said.

"Given what Danzo has done, I would say he was asking for it. We're two that can stretch the rules. If what you're saying is true, he should have reported this to me immediately and not use it to blackmail you later. Don't tell him that you've confessed to me. I think this can come useful later. Is there anything else you want to confess to?" The Hokage asked.

"I blew up the place you got me on purpose to get Danzo to take me back down, we planned it together."

"I thought something was fishy, thank you Sota."

"Why do you let Danzo do whatever he wants?" You asked.

"Same reason he's letting you get away with everything. He's a useful ally and vital for the safety of the village. So I've no problems see past a few things."

"I see," there was no use arguing with him. Hiruzen knew that Danzo was up to a lot of shady stuff, you didn't need to tell him.

"There is something I want to do for me in return for looking past this issue. As you might know already, we'll be hosting the Chuunin-exam in a few weeks. We will be inviting Iwagakure, and the Tsuchikage will be sending his granddaughter to compete. I want you to defeat her in the tournament."

"I'm not so sure if I can do it," you said.

"If you can make a plan to take down Danzo, you can make a plan to defeat a ten-year-old girl. I've her file here," he said and handed you a piece of paper. "If she loses to you, it will make them look bad, if she wins, she'll gain nothing from it and I've got a backup to take her down in case you fail.."

The most concerning part of this was her lava-release. Dealing with her fire was a no brainer at this point, but lava not so much. Maybe flood the arena to solidify her attacks. Any earth barriers could be destroyed with explosives. But the biggest issue you had to solve how to defeat a stronger enemy without seriously injure them.

"I'll try," you replied.

If you could just do great in the exam, maybe life would start to get better. For now, you just had to continue preparing and do your best.