33. I got my results back recently and I have ten days until February and school starts. I'm still keeping to my monthly updates, don't worry. Thank you all for 400 favourites :)
Dear CoolBeansSir (Guest),
Oh my, caught your review as I just posted, I'm just wondering if this chapter brought you any new things that you like haha. I'm happy to hear that Sakura isn't too dull or too nuts, but able to hold your interest. Yes, I do need lots of ideas, please, my brain is only so much, do share any that you have!
On this note, thank you all for supporting me. Really, you all are the reason I keep writing, I hope you all enjoy reading it for as long as I write, as long as Chains exists.
ROOT bases are converted into underground bunkers and re-purposed, but there is no more news on Danzo.
The experimental setups were left in a hurry and training facilities left with discarded weapons, all documented carefully.
All classed as classified and not for those below Jonin.
Sakura reads the bulletins religiously, waits for announcements and takes to hanging around the Hokage Tower in her free time but Aburame-sama is not released.
The week following the first expose, the investigation loses steam.
Orochimaru-san's testimony is that of a former traitor against a village elder. Aburame Torune's is that of a brainwashed puppet outing its former master.
Hokage-sama could go ahead with the scheduled execution but the scale of experiments somehow seems beyond the scope of one man's work.
Tsunade-sama turns her sights upon the other two village elders and Sakura thinks that Lady Hokage is getting too far ahead of herself.
Naruto and Sannin Jiraiya are kept busy looking for more ROOT members, more evidence, concrete proof that Danzo is their man.
Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei turn to the Uchiha texts with fervour, trying to understand the usage of Sharingan and the Mangenkyo.
(Something has to turn up somewhere right? They've only just got their hands on the culprit but he's going to slip away free on a lack of concrete evidence.)
Sakura thinks the problem lies with the late Sandaime who originally sanctioned ROOT as an off-the-record segment of ANBU.
Even the ANBU have records; Their actual personas exist.
Mission records are burnt on completion, burnt on attempts to open the forcefully, burnt when the operative dies, but there are records and the memories of them.
Not for ROOT whose orders come from word of mouth and without paper transactions. Anyone should have seen that it was a problem to let a group of highly skilled ninjas be active under such a system.
Genin to Jonin have their usual ranked mission scrolls, D to S, the missions exist on record, in different archives, in code as necessary. They exist and therefore people who assign the missions and carry them out can be held accountable.
Legend says that from the day the Fire Daimyo's wife, Madam Shijimi, acquired Tora the cat more than a thousand requests for the D-rank 'Rescue Tora the Cat' have been lodged.
The only thing Sakura thinks is more stunning than how an entire shelf is dedicated to that one cat is the amount of money the Madam must have spent.
A thousand times five thousand ryo (menial labour pay, enough to sustain someone living off instant noodles) makes it five million ryo.
She supposes that the Daimyo is too rich to care, but five million is nothing to scoff at.
On the outskirts of Konoha, that kind of money could buy a small apartment, it's the kind of money that a single person could retire on and live off three square meals with a little to spare.
Perhaps the Daimyo's wife, living in a mansion with an estimated price of 250 million cannot fathom the scale of her expenditure.
Sakura notes that she herself is not much better, throwing her two million at Zabuza-san to fund his insurgency, prone to impulsive spending.
She hopes that there'll be a chance for her investment to bear fruit, a simply stable Kiri is admittedly lacking.
Mei-chan will need more time to get Kiri's act together, more to fix the system, even more to boost its economy.
She's never wanted to expand her merchant business, but now it's hers and she feels like she ought to.
Even if, and possibly because it goes to Shika-chan when she dies.
Lord Tsubaki's been pouring money into his village, that's for sure.
Sakura is quite certain that he's going about that without his usual business mindset, that man doesn't care about the money, he's just trying to fix his village.
"Kouhai?"
Her feet led her here again. What a traitor.
She smiles, asking, "Are you free?"
He looked at the pile of files in his hands and she knows he's busy, but he says, "Sure."
Extending a hand, offering and he sheepishly gives her half.
"Thanks kouhai."
They work quietly in the hospital canteen which is deserted – it's three in the afternoon and obviously, everyone else is busy in their offices.
'Free' is an excuse to spend time together, but 'free' they are not.
Senpai finishes his half a stack first and begins stealing the files at the top of her stack.
"Given how slowly you work, it's amazing how you're free enough to come find me in the middle of the afternoon, Sakura-chan."
She grumbles, "You gave me the ones with long diagnoses and medical histories. If only each file were as simple as just signing, senpai. What if we have a half-asleep doctor that doesn't read the patient's ninety-three allergies?"
"Fair enough," he admits, raising the file to hide his little smile.
Sakura sighs and picks up the next file.
Closing that file after signing it, timing it such that she finishes her file before him, obligating her to take the thicker file on top, leaving the thin one below to him.
She gives him an unamused look and he only avoids her look, taking his file and struggling not to laugh.
"Senpai. I think it's a problem if all medics try to do their bare minimum because they're on salary. Don't you agree?"
He hums and looks through his file, "You should open a private practice with your mindset, kouhai. Then all your doctors will be more motivated to see as many patients as possible. But in public institutions, going beyond increases your chances of promotion. Underperforming means a demotion, so everyone is kept in check."
She flips open the manila folder that denotes a long-term patient and muses, "If I submit a complaint about you, senpai, do you think they'd promote me to your position?"
Kabuto pouts, "But then we wouldn't be able to go out to eat anymore, kouhai. You'd be too responsible and not leave your office if I came knocking."
"Nu-uh. You could offer to help me with my work and we'd end up doing the same thing we're doing now."
"Yes-uh, but you'd complain I don't help much and say you'll meet me later but never come."
"Would not. I work faster than you."
"Would too, look at how fast you're going now."
"Well, we'd go faster if you hadn't put off your files till the afternoon."
"I was busy doing rounds kouhai, you wound me!"
"Uh huh. Tsunade-sama wants to conduct a medical examination of Councilman Danzo?"
And her dear senpai answers without thinking, "Yeah," before his eyes widen and she blinks at him.
"You're conducting?"
"Lady Tsunade has haemophobia. I'll bring in an assistant, and I would offer you, but read finish that file first."
It's the collective file on the Uchihas who are alive.
"This is a joke, right?"
Senpai gathers up the rest of the completed files and stands, shaking his head.
Of the four Uchihas she put into stasis, one was a child, one was a teen and the other two were Konoha Police members, all very distantly related to Sasuke but not quite enough for him to build a home with them.
With the added complication that they remained in a coma because of her far poorer control then, she'd never seen them after – they were on life support with caretakers paid for by subsidies and the Uchiha fund.
No one ever thought of treating them because they should have woken up on their own. They didn't, and people just figured that they needed more time.
Sasuke didn't fuss over it, no one knew about them, Sasuke moved on and the days rolled by.
Then someone recently voiced the idea of taking them off life support and the file she was supposed to fill was supposed to state the likelihood that any of them could wake up.
The opening line was literally, "The question of whether the comatose patients of room 09-01 will wake up."
"Senpai, can you find out who suggested taking them off life support? In the meantime, I'll go to Hokage-sama to ask for her opinion. Let me have this file?"
"Hurry," he mouths at her and she strides off, she can't help but feel that senpai already knows where the order came from.
She flips to the back for the blank lines where she's supposed to decide if these people live or die and a little sticky is added, "Danzo's orders."
Officially, it's left as an ambiguous 'Council of Doctors' in the submitter box.
Naturally, Tsunade-sama is not amused and she storms right into the room to have a look.
"Sakura-san, tell me, what do you make of it if I tell you that every organ in their bodies is diseased, except their eyes."
She swallows.
"Someone wants their eyes."
The Lady Hokage is seething when she calls up the doctor-in-charge.
The man testifies under duress, he's shaking in fear but the guilt in his eyes show that he has waited long for someone to ask.
"Councilman Danzo paid me to keep them doped up. The sedatives killed their brain, prevented consciousness and slowly rotted their liver. He specified that the eyes be kept well, which was why we kept them alive via a separate cocktail of drugs."
It's a pity that the man is dead the next day – murdered obviously, but Tsunade has more evidence on Danzo, Sakura is okay with that.
"But why the eyes, Tsunade-sama?"
"The Sharingan is a doujutsu, Sakura-san, it is in high demand."
Sasuke is informed and he has just one thing to say, "If you turn off their life support, then that upgrades the Elder's crime to abetting murder, right? And if we keep them on like that, they're in pain, aren't they?"
Because it's utilitarian but at the same time if they do not have the evidence to indict Danzo, they simply need to create it.
The same day, they conduct the councilman's full physical and Sakura gets her answer.
She says it faintly, and Lady Tsunade looks deathly pale, "Hokage-sama, I guess we can add theft of clan secrets, desecration of graves, illegal experimentation on top of abetting murder."
For an elderly male, it took a large shot of morphine to subdue him long enough to get the metal brace on his right arm off.
Not only was the brace sealed with blood and chakra seals that Jiraiya-sama spent precious root-seal-breaking time on, each interlocking metal piece was like a puzzle piece to remove.
It reveals a pale, wood-grained skin pattern, with at least eight blinking eyes looking up at them.
Fully mature Sharingan integrated into the councilman's skin and chakra system.
Sasuke asks that DNA tests be run before cremating the eyes, though there's little doubt that they come from Uchiha clan members killed that night.
Tsunade-sama calls up the ANBU members which were first on site but none checked to see if the bodies had lost any eyes.
The bodies were cremated the morning after the massacre and surprise, it was again Councilman Danzo who suggested cremation.
According to the meeting minutes of that day, it was suggested because the Uchihas were well known for their fire style, that it would be most fitting for them to be cremated.
"The question now is if Danzo knew beforehand of the massacre, or if he simply took advantage of the mass deaths in that short frame of time."
Everyone present knows which explanation the Lady Hokage is leaning towards.
The Hokage gestures Kabuto forward and he digs out the eyes with a scalpel, bagging them separately.
As samples, they lose their shape, deteriorating.
After all, eyes are not meant to grow in arms.
How they managed to is another question that needs more research.
Under the bandages, what Tsunade always assumed was an empty eye socket was a mature Sharingan unlike the ones she had ever seen.
She keeps her sensei's former teammate heavily sedated and Oro hovers by her side at all times, offering new insights.
Naruto's pink-haired teammate scribbles notes as they speak, the Uchiha boy then announces, "It's a Mangenkyou Sharingan. The next level of a Sharingan that requires the sacrifice of a friend."
DNA results will be out the very next day, Tsunade has pulled out all the stops she can to identify victims of this madman.
"Uchiha-san, do you have any guesses as to who the special Sharingan belongs to?"
The child doesn't know for sure but says "The only one on par with Itachi-nii was Shisui-nii."
Of course, she can see the way Orochimaru's eyes light at the thought of new knowledge.
She is no fool to think that her precious teammate blindly followed orders.
He was the kind of scientist who would gladly obey unethical orders if he believed it to be for the good of the village.
More than being able to think that people sanction it, all Orochimaru really needs is to convince himself that his actions benefit the village.
For the village's sake, she knows that she and her team would go far and beyond moral boundaries.
She hides these thoughts behind a grim smile, thinking of the innocents harmed in the name of science, and of the many more saved by that same unethical science.
Tsunade is a Hokage and a medic.
Before all those, she is flawed and weak. When she meets the eyes of that pink-haired child she realises that Naruto's friend is watching her closely.
She watches the faint downturn of her lips, green eyes sliding over to the Snake Sannin who murmurs to himself while observing the Mangenkyou embedded in Danzo's eye socket.
Sakura's brows furrow as Tsunade crosses her arms, "Orochimaru, be respectful."
The scientist bows slightly before withdrawing and the Uchiha child relaxes a tad.
"I would like to keep it, Hokage-sama."
"I would like to run a DNA test on it, Uchiha-san, if you do not mind."
He frowns deeply and nods, "I do mind, Hokage-sama. There is no value to tracing whose eye this is because I do not want the rest of the world learning of the Mangenkyou. It is not admissible to use this as evidence of the Councilman's wrongdoing."
She closes her eyes to think for a moment before directing Sakura to prepare.
"You take over, you did the nervework with that Kumo-nin years ago."
Turning away as the young medic makes the first cut, doing her best to ignore the wet rip of tissue, trying not to imagine the blood trickling down Danzo's face, only to be caught by the surgical bib in place.
"Place the eye in cold storage, Jiraiya will help seal it with the Uchiha's blood. It's delicate, so be careful while cutting, Sakura."
Orochimaru handily proffers a jar with nutrient fluid.
The eye will be placed in stasis first by the cold then by sealing, but why the young Uchiha wants to keep such a gruesome memento is beyond her.
In fifteen minutes the operation is over, Sakura and another grey-haired medic are cleaning up, wiping the blood off and bandaging the Elder.
She staunchly faces the wall, asking when she hears the clatter of surgical instruments on the tray, "Done?"
Hearing the unrolling of the cling bandage, the soft tear of masking tape, the screwing of a jar lid.
Jiraiya escorts the Uchiha to the next room to write the seals and the medics summarise for her the entire day's work.
Danzo is wheeled back to his holding cell by the ANBU on duty and Tsunade gestures for the two youngsters to follow.
"You will testify before the council today's proceedings, the Uchiha child will raise his charges and I will suggest execution as a punishment. Do not mention the eye that the young Uchiha has taken, omit it from the official record."
They tend to three ROOT ninja in the Hokage's private wing.
Entirely confidential, hidden under the pretence that ROOT has disappeared without a trace when in fact most were captured on the first surprise raid right in the middle of a briefing.
"I hope you understand why such deceit was required?"
Kabuto sets to work immediately, diagnosing the injuries and Sakura follows his directions.
"They were… mobbed, Tsunade-sama?"
He resets Aburame Torune's shoulder and Sakura heals the torn ligament.
They're fast asleep, induced to allow their body to rest.
Another is a Yamanaka with a nasty head wound and the last looks like an Uchiha.
The Uchiha-look alike has a broken wrist and a deep cut on his midriff.
Lady Tsunade already administered to them the moment they entered her custody, but she left the less life-threatening wounds along with the bruises for them to heal.
"You will testify as attending medics. In addition to these they were all in tremendous pain due to the seals that Jiraiya removed. The seals apparently reacted to Aburame's betrayal and triggered the other twos' when they did not apprehend him immediately. Then the other ROOT members found the three of them and lynched them."
Case notes show that they've all been treated for chakra burns and stab wounds, but it's mostly brute force.
The attack was not to kill but to enforce discipline and cause pain.
How far can emotionless robots be loyal?
How could they have decided hurting other agents was the way?
"Jiraiya and Orochimaru have formulated a counter seal for contact application, we'll try it out on the other two first before we do the rest."
Ah, so experimentation again.
Sakura gently opens Torune's mouth, observing the crisscrossing lines of black ink.
Like his flesh was a canvas, like his being was just another sample, the betterment of the majority at the expense of one.
Lady Tsunade crosses her arms defensively but Sakura only asks for a torchlight.
Kabuto holds it out and her chain takes it, another chain flicking the switch.
The edge of the Aburame's throat is red-raw, it's all she needs to know.
She thinks of the children Orochimaru-san killed.
"We should put him on cough syrup and pre-emptive antibiotics, his alimentary canal is compromised."
They add it on, "Patient's throat raw from screaming."
And in front of the council, they explain it as – "If a ninja was trained into a tool, what sort of torture was inflicted upon him to make his scream his throat till it bled?"
It's not a falsehood but a misdirection, a correlation that humans love to link as cause-effect, discounting other possibilities.
Sensei's voice is bland.
"Now that we've established the depravities of the mastermind we're looking for, I would like to present the findings of both I and Aburame-sama with the aid of Hyuga-sama and Inuzuka-sama."
With a flair for dramatics, unrolling a scroll with a hand-drawn map, oh, what steady lines and beautiful words.
"Documented here is the extent of the 'Root' compounds within Konoha itself. We've sent teams, colours represent what the space was used for. Blue for experimentation where we found children. Red for battle areas where we found rolls of codenames in pairs, either name crossed. Green for supply stores, blank for residential areas. As you can see, they were all mingled, so the designer must have begun small, then expanded secretly. We have unearthed a conspiracy meant to someday toppled Konoha."
Nara-sama rests his head on a palm, having been oddly alert for the past twenty minutes.
His back finally relaxes into a slouch and sensei addresses him directly, "Nara-sama, you seem to have a question."
"I was simply wondering where Aburame-sama went. I am glad to see the accusations against him are false since he must have been bait."
The Lady Hokage knocks the table once and Kakashi-sensei sits back down.
"That is correct. Once we consolidate all the evidence, Aburame-sama will present the identity of the criminal to the village. Thanks to him we have voice tapes and evidence that can be readily verified by the Yamanakas. Maybe ironically, the official name of this organisation is ROOT."
A resigned look flashes across Nara-sama's face, his muttered, "How troublesome," in the background of Akimichi-sama's bellowed, "Danzo…"
Yamanaka-sama stands.
The look on his face, distraught and infinitely guilty.
Sakura meets his eyes even as he looks away – the tables turned on you, back when you tried so hard to read me why are you now my open book?
You're just like Aburame-sama, do you know that?
Of course, the Yamanaka clan head doesn't know that, thinks that Aburame-sama was just bait and that he was the only clan head out of everyone here who sold out a clansman.
"I've lost a kid to him."
"As have I."
"An illegitimate clan child."
They go around the table and Inoichi-sama sits back down heavily.
"We have a Yamanaka Fu in the hospital now. The rest can be identified later."
His blue eyes are so amazed that the Lady Senju is taken aback.
Kabuto-senpai helpfully elaborates, "Auburn hair, yellow eyes, male."
"And I have lost my clan."
Sasuke stands to make his case before anyone else attempts to walk out.
Right now everything is based on conjecture but it makes too much sense, it's much more convenient to pin everything on Danzo and close the case like that.
"I believe he coerced my brother and hired Akatsuki to slaughter my clan. This accusation I make on the basis that he has stolen clan secrets and implanted Sharingan into himself. Though rather unnecessary, DNA tests were done, eight eyes in his arm were matched to eight members of the Uchiha clan. Therefore, I request the council to investigate carefully and levy the heaviest punishment on the Elder. I ask for a public execution."
Sakura is surprised by the scope, every large clan has lost at least one child.
Not only surprised, but also angry and slightly horrified.
What if it was any of her friends? What if it was… she frowns, looking at Nara-sama, he's the only one who is calm.
Sasuke left earlier with an ANBU who reported the discovery of yet another hidden base for experimentation, more active Sharingan eyes were found.
Tsunade-sama takes Kabuto-senpai, Sarutobi-sama and Jiraiya-sama with her back to the hospital. Akimichi-sama supports Yamanaka-sama out of the meeting room, Inuzuka, Hyuga and Hatake-sama get together to continue discussing plans to tie up loose ends.
Maybe she should have left for the hospital, 'Painter' looked a little too pale to be healthy.
"Sakura-chan, play a game of go with me."
She should have better things to do, but 'go' is code for 'let us speak'.
After all, she's hardly even an annoyance to his winning streak.
They walk an hour from the Hokage Tower to the outskirts, speaking not a word to the other.
She picks a street, he chooses the next, they go further and further away from the city centre.
When they reach the edges where the wall appears Shikaku-sama deviates from their unspoken agreement. Sakura picks the left and he walks right instead.
The moment they step in opposite directions they stop to look at each other.
"It's Thursday, I'm sure Shikamaru would like to see you at dinner."
"It's three o'clock in the afternoon, Shikaku-san." Isn't it a bit early for dinner?
"We have a long walk ahead of us," he replies drily, "We're on the other side of a forest."
His tone tugs a smile from her and she follows.
The non-physical border they cross is a point where the trees thicken and the floor darkens.
The small dirt path from the village tapers off into nothingness and the trees seem to block further movement.
"Watch your forehead," he ducks smoothly under a branch, his spiky ponytail barely brushing the leaves.
She drops to a crouch, sees the Nara Clan head disappearing into the forest so she quickly clears the thicket.
"The border is thicker than the inside because it marks out to the deer the end of our territory. If they venture beyond their antlers will get tangled in the branches."
Sakura keeps her eye on the sky that only occasionally reappears behind the thick canopy, "What about the baby deer without antlers? Or females with short antlers?"
It's so dark here even though it's mid-afternoon
Her chains bend a branch out of her face – without which she would have walked straight into the head-level baton.
"Nah. Fawns don't venture far from their home in the middle of the forest and the does usually stay around to take care of their children. The ones with wandering problems are the stags who search out for unclaimed territory and intruders."
She steps through a patch of darkness and both her Shikamaru and Shikaku chains melt into it; She feels at home in the emptiness, like being wrapped up in a blanket in the winter.
"Is that the same for the Nara clan, Shikaku-san?"
A wry grin shifts the scar that runs diagonally across his right cheek, he looks down at her.
There's something very mellow and tender in his eyes, a poor cover for the pain and loathing inside.
"Shikamaru's been telling you stories eh?"
She regrets asking it and only smiles without looking at him.
It's physically so hard to force a smile she doesn't mean, thinking, It's a sensitive issue, why would you ask something like that?
From talking about deer she made an observation and asked a question, he provided an answer and she drew parallels and ran her mouth off.
It was a very natural, logical progression.
He is distressed yet continues to talk.
"Chouza and his wife are good for each other, Inoichi and his get along well enough. Mine was perfect for me."
A couple of deer peer out at them, Sakura can make out their eyes by the light they reflect.
Unsure of how to reply, she decides that keeping quiet is the best option.
"I think Yoshino would have liked to meet you, especially since you and Shikamaru are close."
For the first time, he explicitly mentions his late wife.
She cocks her head to avoid another branch, he seems to be leading me right into them!
"I think I too would have liked to meet her, Shikaku-san."
A deer comes up to her side and trots beside them.
"Do deer like being pet?"
His hands stuffed in his pocket come out.
"Go ahead, if he's walking happily by you he probably will let you."
She lays a palm on the deer's head, the spot right between its antlers, finger pads softly pressing.
The deer's eyes go a little squinty and Shikaku-san casually places a hand back into his pocket, pretending like he hadn't been ready to use Shadow Possession on the deer.
They are still walking, but when they reach another area with low hanging branches the deer looks at her forlornly.
It tries to bite her sleeve to keep a hold on her, but in a flash (or a shadow..?) Shikaku-san immobilises it.
"You go on ahead first, Sakura-chan."
She walks straight on as directed, acutely aware that there are many, many deer watching her.
Pausing a moment to look back for Shikaku-san and discarding the thought when the path she walked through is gone.
A deer comes out to walk with her, she pats it on the head.
Then another, and another.
Within a minute and barely twenty metres there's a mix of stags, does and fawns all meandering by her side.
From the thicket up ahead comes a snort and the deer by her side flatten their ears.
From the shadows a stag as tall as her strides out, prideful and curious.
"A world-walker in our forest…" is the low voice.
She offers the deer a bow.
"I am Kagemaru, leader of the Nara deer. And you must be the Haruno Sakura that Kuromaru told me of. Welcome to our forest. Though the Master has yet to tell you, I extend you our invitation first. If you are ever in need of protection, we are here, always guarding these grounds."
Sakura thanks him first before asking in all seriousness, "Kagemaru-san, how do you not get caught by the branches?"
The large deer folds his legs to rest on the ground, hoof tapping the area to signal Sakura to sit.
"I get one of the groundsmen to trim my antlers when they get too long to navigate. Other than that, a lot of skill is involved in avoiding branches hell-bent on slapping me."
She laughs, "The trees don't seem to like us, do they?"
He tosses his head and regales her with a story of his younger days.
"I ran head first into one I was sure wasn't there. My mother told me it must have grown just to spite me."
Though the deer may tell it like a story, she wonders if perhaps the tree was grown using Wood Release.
Then the deer's ear pricks, he gets up languidly, stretching his forelegs.
Sakura is a little slower to get up and is doubtlessly startled when Kagemaru is frozen in his stretch.
Though the deer does not speak, his eyes convey his lack of amusement.
"Why are all the deer out to get you? First Rikumaru, now Kagemaru as well. Troublesome."
Maybe Shikaku-sama doesn't know they can speak.
"Kagemaru-san was just getting up, Shikaku-san, he wasn't going to hurt me."
The shadow releases the deer, Sakura admits the loud thump as the deer's forelegs return to the land is mildly threatening.
"We'd better hurry. Shikamaru gets cranky when I'm not on time."
As Shikaku pats the deer in apology Sakura swears Kagemaru-san rolls his eyes.
"What do you like about the pink-haired girl, Shikaku?"
The clan head rubs the deer down and tends to his antlers.
"She brought home my wife, did she not?"
"You are an illogical human."
The Nara smirks.
"You're a talking deer. Now that defies logic, Kagemaru."
His companion makes a wheezing snort.
"If you say so. I still think that the pink-haired girl helped you come to terms with the fact that the mistress would never return. After all, the mistress still isn't here."
He places his hands behind his head and stretches.
Kagemaru walks him back to the clan compound.
"You better hurry, Shikaku. I should think that the little deer is upset."
Though he doesn't run, he certainly walks faster.
The take-out on the table is cold, probably has been for a while, the kids are nowhere in sight.
He warms the cartons with a quick fire jutsu.
Closing his eyes, the natural shadows designed as part of the clan compound widen his sensing range.
They're on the patio.
He feels Shikamaru tug on the shadow he's using so he releases control.
"Shika-chan?" comes her questioning tone from behind the door across the room.
"Dad's back," his boy replies and Shikaku emerges from the house.
"You felt that?"
Shikamaru arches his eyebrow like the question is ridiculous, "I nearly lost, of course I felt how resistant the shadow was."
Shikaku observes the piles of leaves just as the children sweep them off onto the garden ground.
Leaf catching again huh.
Well if he can feel me, I guess he's ready to start the next level of the clan techniques.
"I've warmed up dinner kids, let's eat."
Long chapter again this time and that's nearly the end of Danzo. I'm not fond of fumbling about with plot, so I don't usually do recurring villains, Danzo will be no different. I haven't quite set my mind on what Danzo did and did not do, but he won't be killing any more people, I will have him executed.
Someone asked me last weekend if Tsunade could be so blind, here's my answer. No, no she's not. But you know that feeling where you'd close an eye for someone, here it is.
Same with Jiraiya. (No one asked about him though hmm)
I do like Orochimaru, I think he was misunderstood, but I have no doubt in my mind that he doesn't regret experimenting on the children. On this point Sakura and Orochimaru cannot agree, but if you asked if Sakura could do it to save Naruto or Sasuke or Shikamaru… I'm tempted to say yes.
Won't spoil more, and darn this chapter is nearly 6k, need to try not to ramble so much.
Don't blame me hehe 400 favourites really motivated me to write.
;) So, if you like long chapters, drop me a review?
Yours,
Kayo.
