Chapter 45 - Déjà Vu
Kakashi didn't know why he was here because clearly, the remaining two Elders had no intention of listening to what he had to say.
"Genjutsu, Hiruzen, it has to be a genjutsu." Elder Utatane said stubbornly as the Hokage furrowed his brows. Of course, it was a genjutsu, Kakashi thought, the real question is. What are you implying? If there was one word that would unmistakably make one think of the Uchihas, it was 'genjutsu'.
"What are you implying, Koharu? There are more than one genjutsu specialist in the village, let alone the possibility of an intruder." The Sandaime asked and Kakashi silently agreed. More than once, Kakashi had thought that maybe they should just expose Danzō's theft of the Sharingan. But Maiko took no chance when it came to her brothers' safety, and Kakashi couldn't exactly just disrespect that.
"Such large scale genjutsu required full access to the village and an expert skill level. All of the registered shinobis who fit the criteria had been accounted for, except for Uchiha Maiko." Utatane shot back immediately, ignoring the Hokage's displeased expression.
The damage report had been collected. A total of one hundred and thirteen civilians had been affected; six shinobis were hurt - not by the civilians, but rather from protecting the shinobi operation centre from being burned down by the mob. The operation centre was half burned down by the homemade molotov cocktails - how these civilians knew how to make the improvised bombs was still a mystery.
"Where is Maiko, Kakashi?" Somehow, the conversation was directed back to him, which Kakashi assumed was the point of him being summoned. Missing since an hour ago, probably dead or captured by Danzō's army of Root, so why are we still talking instead of sending out a search party?
"She went to the Nara Compound to see her brother two hours ago. I haven't seen her ever since." Kakashi answered honestly simply because he had no choice. If he hid things about Maiko, it would only make her situation worse by giving the Elders more excuses to spin the lies.
"Why don't we ask for Shikaku, then," The Hokage proposed, and coincidentally, the office door was pushed open at that exact moment by none other than Nara Shikaku himself. "Ah, there you are, Shikaku. I was just about to call …"
"I'm sorry Hokage-sama, I've brought urgent news." The Jōnin Commander paused a bit to take in everyone in the room, before continuing. "Uchiha Sasuke has disappeared from the Nara Compound, he was last seen by my wife two hours ago." Well, now things couldn't get any worse.
"There you have it, Hiruzen. That girl must have run away with her brother. I suggest that you immediately issue an arrest order for both of the Uchiha remnants." The Elder said sharply, not at all considering the impact of her word choice. Remnants? We are not talking about a genocide here; or perhaps, they are. Kakashi couldn't tell anymore, not when his faith towards the Konoha council was disappearing exponentially by the seconds.
"I agree that finding them should be the first order of business, however, not as a criminal. There is much we still don't know, and in no way, shape, or form, I will be sending out a death order for a loyal shinobi." If Maiko was still here, she might be moved by the Hokage's determined words. For the hundredth time in the past week, Kakashi saw that there was no winner in this battle that Maiko was waging. Everyone was trying their best, including the Hokage and the Jōnin Commander, but they were all fighting for different things.
"A loyal shinobi? Hiruzen, you are the Hokage, can you really afford this kind of careless assumption?" The woman continued to attack mercilessly, but before the Hokage could respond, the door was once again pushed open by a shinobi from the medical division.
"Hokage-sama, Elders. The lab report for the genjutsu analysis came back. All the civilians had the same kind of disruption pattern in their brain chakra flow. Also, we found a match in our previous database for known genjutsu patterns." The woman said in a rush, only pausing to catch her breath before the Hokage waved her to continue.
"The same disruption pattern was seen in a patient from six days ago who was hospitalised for genjutsu and concussion. His name was Kishida Yūichi, he was serving in Anbu Team Kō under the codename Falcon. He was admitted by his captain at the same time as one of his teammates who also suffered some injuries." It was at that moment that everyone paused in the room. When the young medic-nin got no response, she just timidly left the report on the Hokage's desk and let herself out. A smart choice, no one wanted to stay in this mess any longer.
Just as Kakashi thought it couldn get any worse, it did. Kakashi had always prided himself in his caution against the enemy, and that included Danzō. He understood perfectly how dangerous Danzō could be, but he had never felt the fear that seemed to plague Maiko so much these days. Whenever Danzō was mentioned, she was jittery and overly paranoid. To her, every one of Danzō's movements mounted to something greater and darker, no matter how small, how big, how ambiguous, or how obvious it was.
But now, he understood that fear. No one could have imagined that something that had happened five days ago was mounting to something bigger, especially not when it was disguised so obviously as a well planned assassination.
"If I am not mistaken, Uchiha Maiko is the captain of that team. You can't tell me that it's just a coincidence that her name came up so many times. It's very likely that she tested out the genjutsu on her teammates before and forced one of them to attack the other." Once again, the Elder spinned the lies. It looked bad, really bad. Because of Kakashi's advice, Maiko never reported the truth, only disguising it as a normal mission gone bad. If there was one thing Kakashi knew about framing, it was the fact that the first one to take the initiative, controls the narrative.
"Issue the arrest order, Hiruzen. If you don't, I will call all the clans heads and override your decision." The Hokage stayed silent despite the Elder's harsh tone.
"I see that you've made your decision, Hokage-sama." That was the last thing Utatane said before she walked out with Elder Mitokado.
"What really happened, Kakashi? Why did she go to the Nara compound? She knows that she should stay clear." Immediately, the Hokage asked while rubbing his temple.
"She went to see Danzō and he tricked her." Kakashi answered accordingly, but when everyone frowned at his simplistic but true answer, he added, "It wasn't her fault." A second later, the door opened again, entering one of the secretaries.
"Hokage-sama, Elder Utatane had arranged a meeting with all the jury members. She requires your presence." The man informed the person in question before slipping out again. When the door was closed, the Hokage let out a sigh. A long, tired, and frustrated sigh that perfectly described everyone's feeling right now.
"Get your ninkens to track down her scent, Kakashi. Depending on the decision of the jury, she might be prosecuted, unless you can bring her back to clear her name." Kakashi nodded as the two other man left the room swiftly to deal with the politics. Meanwhile, the only thing he could do to help was something that he does the best: Being an effective shinobi at tracking down and procuring the target.
'If I'm not back in an hour, I'm either dead or captured.' Every sign present pointed to the fact that Maiko was better dead than alive to Danzō's carefully devised plan. Kakashi sincerely hoped that there was still something that Danzō needed from Maiko, alive. Right now, he was praying that her bones wasn't buried somewhere no one could reach, forever stripped of the voice that could tell the truth.
(づ。◕‿‿◕。)づ fuwa~fuwa~desu~~~
Usually, when one wakes up because of pain, it could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on one's perspective. On the good side, it definitely means that you are still alive; on the bad side, it's the prime indicator of a messed up situation.
I, for one, wasn't sure why I was still alive when I woke up to the throbbing pain on the side of my head.
While I was trying to return to consciousness, I felt a searing heat on my face, so I rolled my head aside trying to evade that spotlight. However, no matter how far I moved, the spotlight followed me.
"Finally awake, are we?" I snapped my eyes open at the sudden sound, only to close it immediately to avoid being blinded by the piercing light. A second later, the rays of heat disappeared from my face. Tentatively, I opened my eyes. Finally, I was able to see the speaker - a man in a gorilla animal mask.
I shook violently, trying to move my hands and feet. But they were tied up tightly with ninja wires on the armrests and the chair legs. Meanwhile, the Root agent was just standing in front of me, inspecting me with that mask made of stone.
"I thought you would have killed me when you had the chance. So, what does Danzō want with me this time?" I mumbled with a cracked voice. I had already stopped trying to break out by force since it was only making more bloody lines appearing on my wrists and ankles.
He stayed silent after I asked my question, which allowed me some time to actually get a handle on the situation I was in. Chakra restraining cuffs on both of my arms, all my weapons gone - they even took away my jacket and shoes that had mini-blades sewn in. There was nothing in this five by five room except for a chair - the same one that I was tied in.
Lovely, there's nothing I can use to escape.
"What's the plan now, interrogation? Torture?" I asked again, but he was still as silent and still as a stone statue. "Come on, you've got to give me something. I'm not unreasonable, but if you don't tell me what it is that you want, how can I give it to you?"
Before I could comprehend what was happening, he dug his finger down the new wound on my stomach - the same one that my brother stabbed me with a kunai - until the freshly dried up would start to bleed again. The tearing of the flesh made me gasp in pain. It felt like my stomach was being drilled apart, sending spasms of pain everywhere, even when he had stopped the pressure.
"My order is not to torture you for anything. There is nothing that you know but we don't. However, my order is to keep you powerless until I am ordered to kill you, so therefore, pain is an option that we can use." That was the last thing he had said before he left the room and closed the door, leaving the burning light as my only consolation.
A few seconds later when the pain faded, I finally got the chance to get a clear image of the situation. One, Danzō didn't keep me alive because he wanted any information, so it meant that he could only want one thing: my eyes. Two, I had a very short window of time to get out before they would finally kill me. By the way they just blatantly kidnapped me, I would guess that a cover story was already written about my disappearance and eventual death. Three, Sasuke was missing as well.
This is bad, really bad. But out of everything, problem number three scares me the most. I rolled my head back for a moment and stared at the ceiling. Think, what can I use now? I need them to make a mistake, anything at all. Come on, there must be something they care about … They care about what Danzō cares about, and that scumbag cares about … my Sharingans.
When the door opened again after Kami knows how long, the gorilla mask walked in. However, I could tell that it was a different person just by the way he walked. Same mask, different person, creepy. He had the cup of water in one hand, a kunai it another. Glass cup, I can work with that.
"This is the last cup of water you are going to get, drink up. If you try anything, you know what's coming," he said to me as he raised the kunai threateningly. It was held at the level of my neck as he inched closer. When he was only half a feet away, I did something that I would have never done, ever.
I pushed my head forward as far as I could, until my right eye was heading directly towards the tip of his kunai. Risking my precious eyes, not very Uchiha of me. I would have lost my eye right there, if he hadn't stumbled backwards abruptly and retracted his kunai at the last moment. Hah, I was right, the only thing they were ordered to protect was my eyes. After all, fresh organ transplantation works the best.
There was a loud crash as that cup of water collided with the stone floor and shattered. Then, it was followed by a loud slap. He didn't hit me very hard, but with a slight sway, I was able tip the chair over to the side and blame it on his slap.
Just for the sake of acting, I groaned in pain when I fell along with the chair. The Root agent left, presumably to get something to clean up the mess. The door was slammed close accompanied by a very loud bang. The moment he left, I started to work.
The first thing I did was to reach for a broken glass shard and hid it in my palm. On second thought, I moved my head a little so that I could bite onto a smaller piece and hid it in my mouth. It was all the thoughts I had time for before the metal door was opened again.
"Clean this up," the Root agent who ripped open my stomach wound ordered, and the second one who slapped me obeyed. So, one is the superior and the other was probably still in training. How does the OLYMPUS like, or is every brainwashing black ops organization the same?
"Wait." Just after the trainee pulled the chair upright, he stopped and stood up straight. Tap, tap, tap. I kept my head low when the speaker approached me in solemn footsteps. My left hand shifted uncomfortably under his intense glare. The sound of the footsteps finally stopped when he was literally breathing down my neck.
"Watch and learn, this is a very old trick for prisoners." Immediately, he grabbed my left hand and squeezed hard. The glass shard was pushed into my skin, it felt like my hand was ripped into pieces. After a few seconds, he released my fist and the hidden shard fell out of my bloody hand. "See, you can't leave anything sharp in this room. Clean up the shards, close the door and never come in again until it's time."
I refrained from making any sound while the trainee swept the broken pieces away. The broom made a bloody trail of blood leading towards the door when it swiped across the speckles on the floor. He left with an extremely cautious glare, before closing the heavy door again, leaving me to complete darkness.
I waited for a few minutes. Staying so still that the only noises were the sound my own breathing. After I was sure that no one was outside, I spitted out that spare piece of glass shard. It wasn't long before the sound of breathing was joined by a light scratchy noise from the grating of sharp edges against the ninja wire.
This is going to take a while. Unfortunately, time is the least that I have.
(づ。◕‿‿◕。)づ fuwa~fuwa~desu~~~
"A verdict was reached earlier. Shikaku and Hiashi fought hard, so she is not declared a missing-nin just yet. However, they want her as a suspect, so now, the village is on a manhunt for Uchiha Maiko. All available shinobis are called for the search, and they have the order to kill should she fight back." The Hokage looked past the window and stared into the distance. For some, it might look like the man was zoning out, but Kakashi knew that he was just trying to contemplate the best solution for this situation.
"Have you tracked her down yet?" At the sound of the inquiry, Kakashi rubbed the village map in front of him uncomfortably.
"Her scent disappeared just outside the Nara forest, now I can't even find her chakra signature. She's either too far out of the village or held in some place with chakra blockage." Or she's dead, but Kakashi decided not to think about that.
"Have you gone there and checked it out yourself?" The Hokage asked again as he unsealed one of his hidden drawers.
"No. I'm waiting for Pakkun to report back on Uchiha Sasuke's track," Kakashi answered. Not even a moment later, one of his ninkens returned. Bisuke whispered something in his ears in their special canine language, before jumping out of the window again.
"His scent disappeared along with Maiko's around the Nara forest. How did they disappear so fast? The scent is still fresh, so how did they get out of the village so …" Kakashi's voice trailed off into the abyss as he traced his finger across the village map. The Nara compound was located at the north west corner of Konoha and the Nara forest extended all the way to the village border. Just a few hundred metres up, was the Northern gate. In between the forest and the gate, however, Kakashi recognised one particularly suspicious location - the small exit out of the village that was only accessible by Root.
"Hokage-sama. May I request permission for a search and rescue mission with Tenzō?" Kakashi asked as he rolled up the map and tuck the scroll in his vest. He might be worried, but he was not an idiot. He definitely needed help both getting into the Root tunnel and rescuing Maiko and who was a better choice than Tenzō?
The Hokage stayed silent for a while, staring at the giant scroll in front of him. Kakashi wasn't sure what the scroll was for, but he supposed that it wasn't something he should know. Another five seconds later, Sandaime pressed on a few figures - three, to be exact - on the scroll. Kakashi watched the familiar figures light up in a scarlet red just before the Hokage rolled the paper back up again.
"Permission granted. I'm giving you an Anbu team and before you can protest, I assure you that they are not compromised." Against the Hokage's stern words, Kakashi had no choice but to push back his thoughts. "They will be here very soon, considering that everyone in the village is awake now." There was just a hint of sarcasm in Sandaime's voice, demonstrating exactly how out of control things had come to.
"If things get any worse, I will have to expose the truth about Uchiha Shisui's stolen Sharingan to clear Maiko's name," the Hokage announced steadily as he sat down behind the desk. It took Kakashi a second to understand the implication. "Hokage-sama, you don't mean …"
"I do. Once I open this box, I will have to explain everything all the way from the Uchiha massacre to this mass genjutsu attack, to everyone in the village. As for the implication for Uchiha Itachi outside of the village … right now, I have to consider the lives that I can save." Kakashi could tell how painful it was for the Hokage to say these words. He didn't know what kind of agreement that the Hokage had with Maiko, but he was sure that they were trying to find a way to take down Danzō without revealing the truth behind the Uchiha massacre - at least, not publically.
From Maiko's perspective, telling the truth while Danzō and his network of spies were not taken care of could endanger Itachi's life. if Danzō had decided to selectively leak out information, then soon, all of the five nations would know of the truth. It was a path of mutual destruction, a path that would destroy Danzō as well as the Uchiha family, so none of them wanted to use that unless one party was desperate. However, for the village and therefore, from the Hokage's point of view, the only thing that the truth would bring was chaos.
The civilians would uproar even more knowing that their former police force was planning a revolt; the clans would be horrified at the cold-blooded destruction of one of their own; the shinobis, more importantly, would feel disgusted and repulsed at such a huge secret being kept. Konoha might be a military village, but it was the goal of the Shodaime Hokage that all citizens of the village get a voice. Kakashi couldn't even imagine how big of a sacrifice the Hokage was willing to make in order for justice to be served. At that moment, his back looked battle-scarred from all the responsibilities and inevitable choices he had to make.
"They are here." As soon as the Hokage's whisper woke Kakashi from his deep thoughts, three blurs appeared from the Anbu entrance. They were all kneeling in front of the Hokage, dressed in full Anbu gear, including the masks - one depicted a bear, the other one, a zebra, and the last, an otter. Kakashi finally understood why the Hokage was very adamant on waiting for the team to arrive. Now they had everyone - a sensor, a medic, and fighters. All of them had been pre-screened by Kakashi beforehand for relations with Root. If there was one team of shinobis that he trusted greatly, it was his old Team Ro. What a shame that one of them was still in the hospital for a concussion and the other kidnapped to god knows where.
"I have a top-priority, secret mission assignment for the four of you which will be lead by Hound. Before your mission captain debriefs the mission objective, I need you to forget everything you have heard tonight about the attack on Shinobi Operation Centre." With that said, the Hokage turned his face towards Kakashi. Perhaps the Hokage thought Kakashi could better explaining the situation. Perhaps, he actually could. After all, she told him to remember all that had happened no matter what.
"I'm sure that all of you have been ordered to apprehend the suspect for the most recent mass genjutsu casted on the civilians. For this mission, the target is the same person, Uchiha Maiko. But the mission objective was very different" Kakashi paused a bit as his three most trusted teammates all tensed up uncomfortably. Maybe he chose the wrong phrase, and now everyone was guessing the worst.
"The objective is to rescue the target. The Hokage and I have reasons to believe that she was kidnapped by Shimura Danzō's secret division within Anbu, called Root." Kakashi couldn't remember when exactly the Hokage was planning to release the information and the crime committed by Danzō, but by the surprised gasps in the room, it was probably still too soon for the information to go public. Especially now that the whole village's focus was shifted towards the missing Uchihas, the plan to deal with the Root agent had been suppressed to the backseat.
"Judging by the time frame of her kidnapping and her character, it's unlikely that she caused the genjutsu panic, which makes her current situation very dangerous. To be on this mission, all of you need to have complete faith in her innocence, and if you can't do that, please speak up now," Kakashi said without any regret, even if he knew that complete faith and trust was not something he should demand from anyone. However, now that he knew the truth of what happened to the Uchihas, he couldn't turn a blind eye.
Even if the world were to judge her and turn against her, he couldn't. Because he was the selected few who had the privilege of learning the truth.
"I believe in her. I do." "I do too." "Me too." It was Tenzō who had spoken up first, but Yugao and Zebra's answers followed not even a second later. At this moment, Kakashi wished that Maiko could hear this; that girl who doubted the world because the world had doubted her, he wish she could see that there are still those who believed in her.
"We are leaving right at this moment. Zebra, do you have enough medical supplies for all the emergency treatments?" Kakashi asked the medic and Zebra nodded immediately. Then, Kakashi kneeled towards the Hokage. He didn't get out up until the Hokage gave him a solemn, but encouraging nod.
Usually, the streets of Konoha would have been bathed in the darkness of the night, save for a few lit up lamp posts. However, as the four of them ran through the village, Kakashi was almost blinded by how bright everything was. Konoha had not been in such an emergency states for over a decade. The last time it happened, it was the night of the Uchiha massacre.
They passed through many patrol teams, all cautiously armed because of one shinobi - it wasn't even the right one. No one had dared to ask Kakashi why he would have an Anbu special unit running past the streets of Konoha at lightning speed. For once, he felt blessed with the loyal reputation he had garnered over the years.
It took them half and hour to locate the approximate location of that Root exit and another half an hour to actually find the exit. Kakashi was sure that it was less complicated than the dozens of earth releases he had tried in order to uncover that tunnel. Perhaps there was an algorithm somewhere that allowed Root agent to find the route quicker, but Kakashi didn't have time to chase that intellectual method.
The giant stone gate stared back at Kakashi with mockery and it made him seriously want to smack the barrier in front of him into pieces. Right, it was a Root-only exit, which meant that there was always a special seal that guarded the door. Pakkun had already scouted from the other side of the village wall and still couldn't find any scent. At this point, Kakashi was sure that she was kept somewhere underground, probably only accessible from a Root tunnel.
"Tenzō, can …" Before he could even finish the question, Tenzō had already shook his head. Kakashi narrowed his eyes at the insurmountable barrier in front of him. He reached out his hands, wanting to touch the rough stone surface, but he decided against it at the last moment. Yes, he was worried, but he was not reckless, yet. That was Maiko's patented reaction.
Kakashi studied the seal pattern carved discreetly on the wall. Seals … a combination of blood seal and hand seals sequences. This was the most he could distinguish with his limited knowledge in seals, as for the hand seal sequence … it was an uncharted territory.
Blood seal … blood of a Root agent. Suddenly, Kakashi remembered something he had long forgotten because of the hectic events recently. With the utmost care, Kakashi reached into his jacket and fished out a crumpled piece of paper. The paper did indeed have specks of blood on it, carefully hidden by all the folds. Now, Kakashi had no doubt that this was Ryuu's blood - a Root agent's blood.
Under everyone's watchful eyes, Kakashi opened the folded paper, revealing a series of kanji scribbled in an orderly fashion.
"Wait … are these study notes?" Otter pointed out beside him. It was true, the writings was about human anatomy - the areas designed for one-hit assassinations, to be exact. Every Anbu agent had to memorise these fatal spots upon initiation.
However, Kakashi recognised a few fatal spots that were in the normal Anbu curriculum. This was more detailed version that was only thoroughly studied by those specialised in Assassination, for example, Kakashi, Maiko, and apparently Ryuu - Maiko's newest protégé.
He remembered that Maiko had showed up at his door once with an old dummy marked full of red circles and detailed annotations, he had to give it to her in terms of proactiveness. The study notes looked like it was copied outright from that dummy, but Kakashi couldn't help but notice the fact there were a lot of repetitive kanji and most of the locations were concentrated above one's heart. A bit ineffective in terms of studying for assassination.
"Maybe they are codes, perhaps something only Rabbit would know," Tenzō added helpfully upon seeing Kakashi's frowns. Ah, if this kid thinks that I know Maiko very well, then he's mistaken.
All of a sudden, a spontaneous thought lit up in Kakashi's mind. Slowly, he raised his hands and started to form a series of hand seals right in front the sealing array. From the short glimpse of Maiko's training dummy, Kakashi remembered that she numbered all the fatal spots from the top to bottom for easier organization. The numbers span from one to more than fifty, but Ryuu had only written the spots marked below twenty - it corresponded perfectly with the number of universal hand seals that every shinobi knew how to make.
Three, six, fifteen, seven … Kakashi had to scrape his memory clean to remember the order of hand seals coded by the piece of paper. When he finished going through every code, he waited for a second. Nothing happened.
Refusing to give up, Kakashi pressed the blood stained paper on the sealing array until the last bit of dried blood was grated off. It was a miracle, truly, when the stone wall opened silently without making any fuss, as if mocking the effort it took Kakashi to get this far.
"They know we are here, so stay alert," Kakashi announced to his teammates as they stepped into the uncharted territory. He still couldn't feel Maiko's chakra, but there was a faint scent - a mix of Maiko and blood - that guided his hope through the dark tunnels.
"From here on, everyone you see will be an enemy, so don't hesitate to incapacitate them."
(づ。◕‿‿◕。)づ fuwa~fuwa~desu~~~
It was a pure miracle that I had managed to cut open most of my bindings without anyone noticing. For some reason, they didn't check on me for the past thirty minutes. The first ten minutes, I could understand; the next set, it was getting suspicious; but after a third ten-minute interval, it made me wonder if my luck had finally manifested when I needed it.
I bit down on my lips as I loosen the ninja wire around my left hand. It was so wrapped so tightly around my wrist that it was painful to peel it off of my bloodied skin. After I freed my hands, I held on to the strand of ninja wires, since it was literally my only weapon other than that tiny piece of glass.
Immediately, I moved on to my legs, cutting the wires free. When I could finally stand up, my luck had run out. When I heard the loud sound of the door being slammed open, I had just managed to wriggle my feet out. Not even a second later, a gust of wind sliced through the air and headed straight for me. I jumped to the side without any hesitation as the chair crashed onto the back wall and made a small dent.
The gorilla masked shinobi didn't say anything as he lunged for me, but I could tell that he was anxious and in a rush. A kunai struck down next to my neck as I hooked onto his leg and swept him onto the ground.
The moment he faltered, I jumped on his back and pressed him to the ground. Swiftly, I placed the ninja wire around his neck and pulled with all I had. The shinobi gagged as I continued to strangle him, but before I could asphyxiate him to the point of unconsciousness, he grabbed onto the ninja wire around his neck and sent a jolt of nasty lightning down the conductive wire.
I was paralysed for a second before I was slightly aware of the fact he had thrown me off of his back and sent me flying across the room. My head hit the wall, and the impact was sending stars dancing in front of my eyes. Stupid chakra restraints.
Before I could take another breath, I felt a hand clamped around my neck, crushing down on my air ways. When I could finally open my eyes, I found myself staring right into a pair of venomous pupils, full of murderous intent. A small slit of red ran across his neck, I supposed that this was why he was more angry than his usual emotionless state.
I clawed at his right arm that was currently choking the consciousness out of me, while his left hand was holding up a sharp surgery blade. No, that my eyes, I refuse to let Danzō take away another Sharingan. Instinctively, I kicked his groin - a very mean but effective move - and he stumbled backwards. His grasp didn't really loosen much, but it was enough for me to get a breather and reach out for his other hand - the one with the sharp blade - and twist it around.
I directed his hand back at himself, aiming right for his carotid artery. His eyes widened for a second before he pushed me to the floor, causing my own control on his blade to falter. The surgery knife went into the Root agent's shoulder as he loomed over me, tightening his grip harder than before.
What's with the choking move recently? I swore that Danzō told every one of his little runts my weakness in taijutsu. If I didn't know the fact that he still needed my eyes, I could have sworn that he was planning to snap my neck in two. My hand rummaged through the ground around me, desperately searching for anything that could get me out of this bind.
My fingertip glossed over something cold and sharp and immediately, I grabbed the broken glass shard and sliced across his wrist. The blood splattered on my own neck as the gorilla hand twitched. But when he still didn't loosen his grip, my heart bled in disappointment.
I probably had a slight blank-out session when a set of kunas sailed over me. They contained so much force that one of them knocked the Root agent off of me and crashed him to the wall. The kunai went through his shoulder blade and pinned him against the wall.
I was high on adrenaline, or I was just desperate for survival. Without thinking, I got up, wrenched out a kunai that was embedded on the ground, and jammed it in the man's neck. My feet betrayed me in the process and I had to lean against the wall to keep myself steady, but the kunai in my hand sliced down as I fell, making a longer rip all the way from the top of his neck all the way to his ribcage.
The room was so silent, except for the sound of my own short and abrupt breaths. It really hurt, every time I took a breath. It took me a few seconds to realise that someone else must have thrown the kunai, so with both fear and hope, I turned around and squinted my eyes at the figures at the door.
My teammates, they were here. I swore that I could cry in happiness just by the sight of that hound mask. I opened my mouth, wanting to say something, preferably to explain the situation at hand, but all that came out was a weak wheezing sound like a dying cat.
"No, don't speak. Let me take a look at it first," Zebra said immediately when he saw my futile attempt to make a decent sound. He walked towards me and forced me to sit down on the ground, before checking my injuries in detail. His healing chakra was the warmest and most comforting thing I had felt over the past day. It soothed my sharp pains and relieved the pressure on my airway. Within a few minutes, I could breathe again.
Meanwhile, the rest of my teammates inspected the room. Kakashi stared at the mutilated body on the wall for a second before taking it down and letting Otter seal in in a scroll. No wonder they didn't check on me for so long; the Root agents were probably too busy dealing with the crowd of unexpected intruders.
"The chakra restraints, he has the key," I said quickly to Otter as soon as I could speak. It startled her for a second, but she still searched the body before sending it into the sealing scroll. After another second, I realised that I should probably say something else for the reunion.
"Thank you. Thank you for coming for me." Despite the stinging pain around my throat, I tried to say it as loud as I could.
"Yeah, yeah, we get it, Now shut up and let me heal you." Behind me, Zebra ordered me as he moved onto my head. Well, that just totally ruined the moment, but it was probably for the best. Considering how many times I had hit my head today, it was a miracle that I didn't get a concussion.
"Have you found my brother yet?" I spoke up lightly after a few seconds. Just then, Otter threw me a metallic key. I snatched it in a haste and unlocked the metal cuffs on my wrists, couldn't wait to get out of these godforsaken metals.
"He's in another room. I'll take you there once you are more or less healed." This time, it was Kakashi who had answered me. Perhaps it was because I knew his habits too well, even from behind mask, I could tell he was hiding something from me. Something more or less unpleasant.
I hesitated for a second, wondering if I should ask for the truth. Truth, for me, was a necessary thing, but now, I was scared, really scared. Before I could decide, Kakashi threw something and a cluster of items landed beside me. They were my jackets, shoes, weapon pouch, and one sword. My tantō was missing from the mix.
"Where's my tantō?" I asked with confusion. Upon hearing my inquiry, Kakashi took another look at the pile he just dumped at me, frowning slightly when he saw only one teal coloured sword sticking out of the fabric.
"They must have taken it …" he mumbled, looking as if he was deep in thoughts.
"Why would they want to take away one of my weapons, but leave the other?" Now, I was truly lost as well. But one thing was for sure, he was hiding something from me, because without answering me, he changed the topic.
"Tell me something, do you know of a jutsu that can timed the activation of a genjutsu on targets, even without chakra to activate them?" I furrowed my brows at the sudden and seemingly irrelevant question, but still, I nodded.
"Yes, there's a Sharingan specific genjutsu that can do that. One can plant a preset scenario in the target's head, and then set an activation cue - for example, the colour red, or a certain phrase. But I can't find a use for it because one, I have to have a close previous contact with them beforehand, and two, the genjutsu that one can cast is usually premature not very flexible and, a seasoned shinobi can break out of it very easily," I explained to him, remembering the scroll of secret jutsu in the Uchiha Compound detailing all the Sharingan techniques one could wish for. "Why are you asking?"
"Are you able to cast this kind of genjutsu on a hundred civilians over a period of four days?" He ignored my previous question and asked again.
"Four days? If I have access to them, I can do it in four hours. Again, why does this matter?" At this point, I wanted to scream out 'why'. Zebra and Yugao stayed silent beside me as they bandaged my bruised neck and bloodied wrists, but Kakashi and Tenzō looked like they were having a heated debate with each other.
"She has to know. She needs to be prepared for it," Tenzō pleaded desperately. His tone was scaring me. Know what, prepare for what? Kakashi stayed silently for a second, before he nodded unwillingly.
"About an hour after you left, there was an attack on the Shinobi Operation Centre, by a mob of civilians who were under genjutsu. Considering the fact that both you and your brother were missing at that time, the village branded you as the prime suspect." Kakashi paused for a second, as if giving me the time to let the words sink in, before he continued, "They are conducting a manhunt in the village; every shinobi have been given the order to arrest and incapacitate you at sight."
Just like that, the time froze around me. Not literally, but rather, it was like a feeling so cold had seeped through my body that it was stopping my movement, my blood, and my heart. I was sure that something shattered at that moment - just like how something was shattered when I had first learnt of the truth behind my clan's massacre.
"So, does that mean I'm wanted now?" I asked in a trembling voice. It hurts, it hurts so much. The pain started in the heart, and like a plague it spread everywhere.
"No, you are not." He said it so firmly that I wished it could stop the pain, but it wasn't working. "Hokage-sama, the Jōnin Commander, and the Hyūga Clan head fought hard to make the others see reason―"
"And yet, I am still being treated like a criminal," I cut off his sentence mercilessly. Now, the pain had spread to my neck, cutting off my newly replenished air supply. It was suffocating.
"Once we bring you back and explain the situations, the accusation against you will be dropped immediately. Danzō is only taking advantage of the fact that you are off the grid." Despite his effort, I couldn't even look at him right now, so I brought up my hand and buried my face in my palms.
"But it's the village that so readily accepted the appearance. I have given my life to Konoha ever since I had become a genin, yet they still jumped to conclusion at the first chance." I rubbed my hand on my face harshly, because now the pain was spreading to my head. "Ah, it's really happening again, it's like no one ever learns. So what, the village is going to do the same thing that they had done to my clan, twice?"
The pain started in the heart, and like a plague it spread everywhere. It really wasn't physical, because it was hurting my soul, my very being of existence. It hurts, knowing that all your effort to make a happy ending just got flushed down the drain by one move of the villain. It hurts, realising that even the smallest and the most ridiculous thing could turn the world against you. It hurts, this betrayal.
It was like I wasn't even existing at all. Maybe this was what my clan was feeling when they were desperate to start a coup d'état.
"Not now, Maiko. We need to get back right away." Kakashi stood firmly on his ground, like a lamp post guiding the lost back to the village. It wasn't his fault, that was clear. The question was: Am I really lost?
"Oh yes, the shut your mouth speech. Don't worry, the Hokage were very clear about the 'truth will bring chaos' part of our pack," I snapped at him harshly without thinking it through. Anger, that was what came after the pain.
"Take me to my brother," I demanded, trying to shove that boiling rage down my throat. It's suffocating, so suffocating. I want to get out, and I'm taking Sasuke with me. "Please, I asked nicely," I added, full of spite. Now I was getting contradictory.
"Follow me." That was all he said after a long pause of silence. Gently, Zebra helped me get up, he even tried to help me walk out, but I told him that I can walk on my own. In fact, I didn't just want to walk, I wanted to run.
My teammates lead me to a room a few corridors away. On my way, I saw a few unconscious Root agents tied up in the corner. They didn't kill them, why? As if they had any uses.
The moment Kakashi pointed towards a door, I rushed in impatiently. My brother was lying on a metal bed, sleeping so peacefully as if he hadn't just had his world view shattered. Then, I saw the IVs sticking in his body.
How dare they?
Angrily, I grabbed the tubes and pulled it out of Sasuke's exposed arm. The IV machine tipped over by the sheer force, sending a crashing sound down the hall. I checked his vitals immediately. Heart beat, normal. Pause, strong. Breathing, leveled. I had to make sure. I had to.
"These are … body relaxant, sedatives, and," Zebra paused a bit as he tried to read the labels on the last bottle of drugs by the IV machine. "It's a hallucinogen. It's supposed to lower one's mind and make them susceptible to temporary hypnosis. It should be only be used in torture subjects, so what in the world … "
Don't you understand? Danzō is trying to brainwash him into a part of Root. Probably his personal eye container when mine goes blind. Just like that, the pain was back again. Panic, suffocation, searing pain, it all flooded my senses and I was finding it increasingly hard to breathe.
Painfully, I closed my eyes and pressed my palm against my forehead, trying to ease the headache. Vaguely, I heard Otter asking me if I was okay. I told her 'Fine', even though I was really not.
"We will take your brother to the Hokage, no detours, he won't be separated from you again." It was like Kakashi could read my mind, but everyone who knew me could. Wasn't that why Commander Nara used Sasuke to keep me in line?
"No, you are not taking him anywhere," I mumbled with so much uncertainty. Immediately, I bit my thumb and pressed it to the ground. The first time I tried the summoning jutsu, it failed because of the poor chakra control. However, the second time I tried it, a breeze of icy wind filled the room. When the white poof cleared again, Fuyuki was standing in front of me, her white fur made a sharp contrast with the muddy environment around us.
'What's wrong, little rabbit?" With just one look at me, she knew the pain, the anger, and the panic I was feeling. Without wasting any time, I carried Sasuke from the bed and placed him in front of Fuyuki, all the while as my teammates watched my audacious actions with horror.
"Can you please use reverse summon and bring my brother to your dimension. It's the only safe place," I asked, trying to keep my tone unwavering. To be fair, I wanted to go as well. Please, take me away too, I thought in my head. But I knew I couldn't, not when there were still so much loose end on my side.
"Wait, Maiko, you don't have to do this." Ah, Kakashi was pleading with me, even though there was a slight edge of warning in his tone. Maybe he thought I was planning my escape; maybe he thought I wanted to run away from the village. For a second, I wondered what my teammates would do if I were truly to do that. Kill me like they were trained to do with the defectors, or would they understand my pain.
"I agree with the shinobi. Since your brother is not my master, I cannot keep him there for longer than a day. I can tell that you are running away from something, but it's only a temporary solution," My wolf summon chimed in agreement, but I just pushed Sasuke forward, closer to the circle of summoning seals.
"You are my summon, please do as I've asked. As for whether I'm running away …" I still couldn't give her, or any of them an answer.
"Very well, then. I wish you luck, whatever you are planning." Fuyuki rubbed her soft nose on my forehead as a sign of comfort before she disappeared with Sasuke, taking a large chunk of my chakra as well.
I was kneeling on the ground when the silence ensued again. Anxiety and suspense filled the room. Internal ones, external ones, everywhere. Somewhere along the earlier fight, my hair tie broke. I brushed the strands of hair that was sticking to my face - because of blood or sweat, I couldn't tell - behind my ears, trying to keep them in place. Just like how I had tried so hard to keep everything in place.
"Hypothetically speaking, just hypothetically, if I were to leave, wait, run away from Danzō, no, Konoha, what would you do?" I asked in a light voice as I was still kneeling down like in a penance. For the longest time, no one answered me, and the silence was both relieving and terrifying.
"Please don't say that." Surprisingly, it was Zebra who had spoken up first. "Please don't say that. You are my captain, and you will still be my captain after this is all resolved. I can't have any wavering faith towards you. So please, don't say that." Now that was a response I had never envisioned. It was funny, my plan for the future sort of blacked out after the part where I took down Danzō. The future he spoke of, I didn't have the time to envision it.
"I'm sorry. That's not my intention." I really was sorry. Suddenly, I felt so guilty for using these people to test the water, just so that I could satisfy my whims.
"What answer were you expecting?" Mocking. Kakashi was mocking me. That, I was sure of. I felt like we were back to when I was still a child. He would criticise my every move, judging me like a superior being, just because he could.
"Both on a personal level, and as a Konoha shinobi, I would tell you the same thing: I will stop you from leaving, using whatever means necessary." He answered me, exactly like the way I expected him to.
"You are not Itachi," Okay, now that's not the direction I expect him to take. "Compared to him, you are an emotional mess that sucked at hiding what you want. But you started a battle he didn't have the courage to, so finish it."
Ouch, every one of his words hit right at home, but they don't hurt nearly as much as I thought they would.
"I don't … I can't … I want … Ugh, whatever. I'm not planning to leave the village, but I don't want to walk right back into a trap. I'm not going back, until I figure out exactly what Danzō is planning." Compromise, we could work with that, couldn't we? It was definitely Kakashi's captaincy effect, because everyone looked to him, including me, for confirmation. He narrowed his eye at me, as if trying to decide the legitimacy of my proposal. To my surprise, I saw a trace of confusion in his eye. Soon, I realised why he was confused.
"You don't actually think that framing me is the whole extent of his plan, do you?" I tilted my head to the side and asked as genuinely as possible. Everyone nodded.
With a sigh, I pushed myself up from the floor, walked past my Anbu coworkers, and went out of the door. I looked around for a bit, and when I saw the thing I was looking for - that unconscious Root agent, I ran to it under Kakashi's intense critical gaze.
"Danzō kept me alive because he wants a live-tissue transplant of my Sharingan. Pretty sure he can't get them behind bars. So he set me up for two purposes, one, to explain my disappearance and death, and two, he would be a fool if he didn't use this time of confusion to get out of jail," I explained as I threw the Root agent against the metal bed. The collision startled him awake.
"And I'm going to find out how." Without giving one any warnings, I let my eyes bleed red. A second later, the Root agent started to scream.
"Wait, he … he can't speak about it," Tenzō yelled out from the background, but my mind was way too concentrated in waving a perfect hell for the target in front of me. Was that a trace of mercy I heard in his voice?
"Oh, I know about the curse seal, but he can find a way around it, can't he? Mouthing the word, anything, and I'll let him go. Besides, there's a time lag before the seal activation, he can say as much as he can. We have five to work with, after all." My own cold words were mixed with the continuation of screams. Cold, so cold that it matched the chilling ice that had blinded my body when I had first heard of the betrayal. Perhaps, that was the point.
"Speak, tell me as much as you can about your leader's plan." Psychological pain, physical pain, the Sharingan could simulate them all to perfection. I wondered, perhaps I just wanted to make someone feel the pain - my pain. Vendetta, that was the word I was looking for.
"Speak!" The man writhed in pain in front of me, but he still kept his silence. Why? Every one of his pain tenketsu was supposed to be exploding right now, the pain, it was absolutely blinding. The physical harm might be fake, but the pain would always be real. I was curious, whether I could make him feel that paralysis, or even death, would be better than the pain I could elicit.
"I don't know anything …" My interest was instantly piqued by his defensive plea. Once again, my eyes changed; this time, to the Mangekyou Sharingan and he was back to the vivid hell I had weaved. It didn't took me long to realise that I was pushing all the pain - both psychological and physical - that I had endured onto him.
I just want someone else to feel my pain. I want someone to know exactly how my hope got crushed by the desperation. Is that so wrong?
Yes, it was. I was walking down a very dangerous path. Someone, please stop me. And someone did.
Just as I was about to finish another series of genjutsu hand seal, someone stopped my hands from moving. "Look at him. You are going to kill him with your genjutsu." I followed Kakashi's voice and actually looked at the Root agent in front of me. He was hyperventilating; I could hear his heart beating frantically, no fast that it might just induce a heart attack. It was terrifying to watch, no wonder people tend to stay away from the torture and interrogation room.
"What good would he be even if he's alive?" I asked in an airy voice as I turned around and faced the man who had stopped me. The Mangekyou forced him to take a step back as his own exposed Sharingan evolved as well. It was the hierarchy, in terms of Mangekyou Sharingan, I was one of the two who was left in this world that legitimately owned my eyes.
"He can be used as the evidence of Danzō's action towards you," he answered.
"He won't speak, and the curse seal will fry his brain if anyone tries to forcefully extract the information."
"Then we will just remove the curse seal. With Danzō still in jail, the Hokage can force him to deactivate all the curse seals. As long as you come back with us." But would he really? I feel like Danzō is the kind of man that would rather lead us both on a path of destruction, just because he is confident that he can rise from the ashes again.
"Fine, do what you want with him. Pump him a shot of body relaxant, it should calm his heartbeat down." Very unwillingly, I closed my eyes and let it revert back to normal. "What now?" I mumbled to myself as I sat down in a corner while Zebra drugged the Root agent again to render him unconscious.
I pressed my palm on my face for what felt like eternity. Headaches, heartaches, everything ached. I should go back, I knew that I need to go back. But I was afraid, so afraid of what Danzō had planned for me.
I thought I had nothing to lose, but only after this, I realised that Danzō always managed to find something I couldn't lose. As I kept on rubbing my eyes to keep the pain away, I felt someone sitting down beside me - Otter. She placed her arm around me and pulled me over so that my head would lean on her shoulder. My teammate just stayed there silently, not rushing me to make a decision. Why were they trusting me to make the right one?
Sometimes, I wished that they would just drag me back like in any other normal situations. This way, I didn't have to make the decision myself. But hey, that kind of just defeats the whole purpose of 'free will' that Itachi talked often about.
I couldn't quite make up my mind yet when a flare of searing pain on my left shoulder. I flinched, and Otter let me go and looked at me worriedly. Damn it, not now, not him too!
"I have to go back to the village," I said with a broken sob because every word was so painful. I could hear the relief that was breathed out, but I knew that it would soon be crushed by my next sentence. "Not to the Hokage, I need to go back to see Danzō."
Now, everyone in the room was confused, but I just kept on clawing my sleeves because of the nonstop pain that just suddenly erupted on my shoulder. I had been summoned all my life, but today, it especially hurt.
Shun had once told me, 'Sometimes, affective symptoms such as anxiety and sadness can be transferred to somatic symptoms. You see, I want to help with that, because that kind of pain can't be cured with pain killers.'
"What's wrong, do you have another injury on your arm?" Zebra asked worriedly, but before I could protest, he had already ripped open my sleeve to examine for any cuts or blood. Just like that, he exposed my dark red tattoo - a colour it shouldn't be showing every since I had become an Anbu captain because a bright red was a summon from the Hokage while a dark red signified a call from the team captain.
"Ryuu is in trouble, I have to go back," I said, refusing to look at the flaring tattoo. "I asked Hokage-sama to switch his tattoo with mine, so that if anything happens, he can call me." The Anbu tattoo only had a one-way communication, other than a flare, it couldn't deliver any other message. But we had a deal, he only have one chance to signal me, but when flares, it means something awful was going to happen.
"He helped you, didn't he? Otherwise you wouldn't have reached me." Kakashi nodded and I had to refrain from smashing anything in my sight. "That stupid child! I told him to stay still and don't do anything. Doesn't he understand, why isn't he afraid? I'm afraid, I am …" My throat hurt with every breath I took, and right now, I wasn't sure whether it was caused by physiological reasons or psychological reasons.
I squeezed my eyes shut once again and let the stream of water slip down the corner of my right eye. The wetness reached my cheek before I wiped it away quickly.
"So will you help me get back to the prison? I can't get caught on my way there," I whispered to Kakashi lightly as I stood up.
"We can report to Hokage-sama first, then―" "I don't have time!" I yelled, effectively cutting off Kakashi. A desperate animal, no matter how harmless, could become a beast when trapped. Danzō was the most dangerous kind, the unpredictable, so the fear prompted me to plead, "Please, you can warn the Hokage, I just need to check on Ryuu. Once I find him, I'll bring him along to see Hokage-sama. Please. Please!"
I knew exactly what Kakashi was thinking when that flash of hesitation appeared in his eyes. I've said the same thing earlier about Sasuke, and look where it got me.
"Check the captives here one more time, make sure they are incapacitated for the next few hours," eventually, he said to our teammates and then, he turned towards me, "We are going to sneak back to Konoha. I will check the inside of the prison for you, and after that, we go straight to the Hokage, no detours. Do you understand?" I nodded immediately.
"Also, we need a way to keep your chakra hidden. You are lucky that the Hyūga Clan Head volunteered his clan to search outside of the village for greater coverage, but still, every sensor in the village is looking for your chakra signature. The moment you show up, it will be like a buzzing beacon." I scowled at Kakashi's warning, but it was so true, with my chakra currently out of control, there was no way I could suppress it well enough.
"How about this?" I turned towards the origin of the voice and saw Tenzō who was holding the distasteful metal cuff. Kakashi looked at me expectantly, and with a sigh, I grabbed the cuffs and clasped the metal back on.
The path that Kakashi had led us wasn't the shortest to the prison, but I knew without a doubt that it was the safest. It has the less patrol, less search party, and I didn't know if Kakashi was doing it on purpose, but he was really emitting that aura saying 'I'm in such a bad attitude that you don't want look at, or talk to me'. Unless it was Maito Gai, no one wanted to be near him when he was like that.
It must be a new experience for all of us, the fact that we had to sneak around in our own village. Eventually, we arrived at the alley way besides the prison and Kakashi signalled us to stop. Against my better judgement, I peeked past the corner. When I saw nothing but the giant metal gates with no guards in sight, a sense of suspicion rose inside of me.
"Why are there no guards?" I asked in a hushed voice.
"The individual cells of the prison operates on an automatic barrier system that's controlled from the inside, but the main sealing barrier that covered the whole building premise is controlled from the operation building of the sealing corps. Therefore, it's relatively safe even if no one is guarding the outside. Actually, it's safer if no one can be taken hostage from the outside. If we are lucky, they might only have five or six shinobi patrolling the insides." Recently, I felt like Kakashi was more and more of an encyclopedia. He stared the scene for another few seconds before he finally ordered, "Wait here, I'll go get the boy."
He walked up to the prison gate and pressed the scroll that I gave him to the sealing array like nothing ever happened. I watched the scene anxiously because I just couldn't shake off that awful taste in my mouth, telling me that something was happening, no, Danzō did something horrifying.
It turned out, when the gate opened without any noise, something horrifying had indeed happened.
The pungent smell of blood flooded my sense, it brought back the exact same memory three years ago when my clan was massacred.
That instant, I rushed inside the gate and my teammate had no choice but to follow me. When I stopped just behind Kakashi and saw the inside, I felt my blood run cold. My teammates gasped behind me, but I just stood there like a frozen statue as the prison gate closed slowly, sealing all the obnoxious taste of blood inside.
There was truly no one alive in here. Three years ago, bodies littered on the streets of the Uchiha Compound. Now, inside of all cells were covered in scarlet red blood and the two shinobi guards that used to stood at the door, now lay slain on the ground.
"Are they all … they are all …" Zebra muttered behind me, but he couldn't finish the sentence, so I finished it for him. "Dead, they are all dead. No, not just that, they are massacred."
Every corpse that was in the level one cell, used to belong to a shinobi who had committed a minor crime. Petty theft, drunken violence … crimes that didn't deserve death. Yet, their blood flowed like a river, painting the whole floor red.
"They were killed with a clean slash at the carotid artery. All of them were," Kakashi said as he bend down to examine the body of the two guards. Somehow, he was the first one to be able to move and actually get a grip of the situation. Wait, a clean slash across the neck …
"They were killed by my sword." It wasn't a guess, it was a statement. Every kind of weapon leaves a distinct mark. Katana, chokutō, ninjatō, tantō … every one of them has a unique slicing pattern, let alone the fact that metallic swords leaves traces on the wound. I had brought back dozens of bodies back to Konoha for the past year, and over half of them had a mark like the ones on this room full of corpses.
I reached out my hand - shaking because of the heavy handcuffs - and tried to see who exactly it was that had died under my weapon. However, before I could touch the body, Kakashi stopped my hand and yelled harshly, "Don't touch the body, don't touch anything. The bodies are fresh, can't be over five minutes. In fact, you need to get out of here, now. It's a mistake coming here, no one can see you on the scene."
Without any warning, he started to drag me away. But before we even got to the door, I heard a loud collision coming from down stairs. Then, I remembered why I had come here.
"No, Ryuu is still in here," and he may suffer from the same fate as all of these people. I pulled away and started to run towards the end of the hall. I heard Kakashi cursing with frustration, but he and my teammates still followed me as I rushed down the stairs.
level was filled with the same red painting, the same lifeless bodies, and the same horror. I have never thought that Danzō would be willingly to sacrifice this many shinobi to destroy me. Alas, he did. He painted me a bloody massacre. If we change the setting from the prison to the streets of Uchiha Compound, this looks exactly the same from before. Everyone was killed by a single strike - precise and merciless.
Perhaps, he thought it would be poetic, but it was the cruelest thing he could have done.
I guess that when I jumped off of the stairs to the third level, I really shouldn't be surprised by the aura of death that filled the cells. Compared to the first two level, the cells in level three was much more empty, so in comparison, it was less bloody.
However, my breath was caught in my throat simply because of one thing - I recognised one of the two fallen bodies. I ran to Ryuu as he gasped for air, all because of the sword that was stuck in his gut - my tantō.
I heard him coughing in pain and it filled me with a sense of relief, because it meant that he was still alive. Immediately, I pressed down on his stomach wound, trying to restrict the bleeding. When he was actually conscious of his surroundings, he startled to tug my sleeve frantically. He looked at me with eyes full of panic and frustration, like he was trying to warn me of something. But when he opened his mouth, there was no sound coming out.
"It's okay, I know it was Danzō. Please, just stop moving, I've brought help." I tried to comfort the boy as Zebra kneeled beside me with the medical kit ready to go, but Ryuu just kept on pulling my sleeves.
"Keep applying the pressure, don't pull the sword out until I tell you to," Zebra ordered briefly as he threw me a few cotton pads to absorb the blood. Immediately, I did what he asked.
"Watch out! He's not dead yet!" Otter's shout both startled and confused me. However, it soon became clear with regards to what she had meant when I felt a cold killing intent coming from behind me.
Instantly, I grabbed Zebra's vest and pulled his body down as a blade sailed over our heads. The sharp edge cleaved off a few strands of Zebra's hair and without thinking, I grabbed Ryuu's katana from his hand and slashed behind me in an arc.
I had definitely felt the sensation of the blade cutting into something - not just something, fabric and human flesh to be exact. That sensation disappeared when the attacker jumped back at the first contact, so I turned around and raised the katana in an attacking stance.
There were two things that were different from before. One, the other dead guard which was sprawling on the ground a second earlier was gone. Two, a man was standing near the end of the hallway, just a few metres away from us, with a sword in his hand as well as a long slash on his chest.
Realising that his surprise attack had failed, he immediately started to make a series of hand seals for a ninjutsu. But before I could attack him, three shuriken flew past me. One slashed the tendons in his wrist, and the other two wretched themselves into his body and pushed him back onto the wall.
"You are not supposed to be here," the man muttered with a trace of fanaticism in the stone-cold voice that was so typical of an Root agent. I kept the katana pointed at him as he clutched onto the holes in his body.
The sudden burst of killing intent earlier cleared my thoughts, and it allowed me to actually assess my surroundings in full. I had missed it before, but from the corner of my eyes, I could see that the barrier seals on Danzō's cell were nowhere to be found. Inside, unlike so many other prison cells before, Danzō's body wasn't in there.
Instead, every inch of the cell was covered with crimson. In the middle of it, ceremoniously stood a single finger. Initially, I was very confused as to why Danzō would decorate his cell so carefully. But when I reverted my eyes to the stone wall at the end of the hallway, I suddenly understood.
'Revenge'
A single word, along with a Uchiha fan, both painted in blood. Danzō even made sure that the canvas didn't get a single of drop unnecessary blood other than the main attraction. Unfortunately, that was ruined when the Root agent crashed onto it.
I even told Danzō that I would make sure there wouldn't be a single shard of his existence left right in front of Kakashi's face. The worst part is, I actually do have the ability to do that with Amaterasu.
"You are not supposed to be here," he repeated like a automaton, and then, he turned his gaze towards Ryuu. "You snitched. Snitches don't get to talk." He looked like he wanted to spat out another line on repeat, but before he could do that, Kakashi flickered in front of him and left a clean incision across his neck.
"And traitors don't get to live." Kakashi sounded angry, much more angry than I had ever seen him to be. Blood splattered over the wall behind the dead man, covering the declaration of vengeance and the Uchiha insignia, making the symbols unrecognisable.
He had to die. Danzō left him here to finish the job, therefore, it was likely that he was ordered to kill himself after leaving the final words, all for the sake of consolidating my crime. I stared at the now-blood covered canvas for another second, before my attention was brought back to the short, abrupt breaths right behind me.
"How is he?" I asked Zebra. One of his hand was emitting a cloud of healing chakra over Ryuu's wound, while the other was replacing the cotton pads continuously. I was a expert of being stabbed in the stomach, but for a stomach wound, Ryuu was losing way too much blood.
"He's abdominal cavity is pierced through and through. I can feel multiple organ damage and signs of blood collecting in the abdominal cavity. His best bet is to get to the hospital, let me find all the spots of bleeding and start a blood transfusion before he goes into hemorrhagic shock," he explained using the simplest words as he could, so I sort of got the gist. "Pulling the sword out now might cause more damage and bleeding spots." Following his words, I looked at my missing tantō that was sticking out of his stomach - now a murder weapon used in a massacre, apparently.
"People actually believe this?" I muttered quietly, but because of the impending silence, it seemed as loud as a scream. "How can Konoha believe this? Why? It's so absurd!"
How could Konoha believe that I would kill another hundred people just for the sake of revenge? How could they believe that I was stupid and insane enough to recreate another massacre? I supposed that they must be able to believe it, because Danzō tried so hard to make this fucking masterpiece.
"It has happened before, so if it happens again, people will believe it. I'm sorry, I know you've worked hard to make people see the Uchiha clan in a different light other than the massacre. I'm sorry," Kakashi comforted in a gentler voice. He sounded genuine, and very very tragic for me.
Massacre causes outrage, and outrage blinds logic. It didn't matter if a few people know the truth, compared to the population of Konoha, the minority didn't count - not even the Hokage. They would see the blood and assume I had caused the massacre; they would see Danzō empty cell save for that artistic display of colour and a finger, and assume that I had obliterated him; they would look at my sword that had struck a hole in a shinobi's gut and assumed that I had fled. Any attempts of justification would only sow the seeds of doubt and strife even more.
I wanted to cry, I really did. Danzō, what he did had not only crushed my reputation and innocence, it had also crushed my hope. In a sense, he was the one who had really erased my existence.
The one who controls the narrative controls the truth. And right now, I have no voice.
"Someone's here … a hundred metres away, heading towards this direction. A Shinobi search party by the size of it," Otter warned out of the blue, and it broke me out of my trance.
"Okay, you need to go, right now. The Hokage can―" "The Hokage won't be able to keep the riots down once they've seen this." I interjected his sentence as calmly as I could. This was the third time that I had cut him off, and normally, he would have probably been so annoyed with me already. But this time, I beat him into silence, because he knew that it was true.
"Danzō is the root of the problem. He is not dead, not even for a bit. So if I can find him and bring him back, all of this would unravel itself," I said in a steady voice, trying to convince him as well of myself.
"Then we need to hurry." I snapped my head up at the unbelievable words, but Kakashi just continued to explain, "He has connections with many foreign countries. Once he's too far gone, we will never find him." Wait, what? Did he just agree on a probably illegal expedition to hunt down a 'dead' man with me - apparently a wanted suspect, and soon to be murderer. Before I had the chance to ask for a clarification, Kakashi had already started to issue commands to the rest of my teammates.
"Otter, do you recognise the signals, are they trustworthy?" Otter closed her eyes in concentration for a second, before she answered with relief, "Hayate and Anko are in there. They will listen to us and follow the official protocol, I'm sure."
"Good, stay here with Zebra, help him with the boy. Make sure that you get an audience with Hokage-sama and fill him in." Kakashi paused for a second before he continued, "Ask Hokage-sama to lead an investigation on the earlier Root bases we found. Maiko's blood is on the chair as well as the bindings, which should get her cleared of the first problem. As for the second one …" he looked around the bloodbath and furrowed his brow, "Make sure that the Hokage is prepared for the outcome, we will bring the evidence back."
He didn't sound very confident, but the uncertainty was buried by the strong presence he had always held. Sometimes, I looked at the way he handled trouble - like this one - and I thought, Yep, I still have so much more to learn.
"Pull the tantō out, now," he ordered me. I eyed the tantō, but I hesitated. For the first time in my life, I was afraid to touch Hyakkiyakō.
"Okay, pull when I tell you to. It has to be clean and fast." Nevertheless, I listened to Zebra's words and placed my hand on the hilt. On the count of three, I pulled the bloody sword out of Ryuu's blood and Zebra immediately started the rigorous healing jutsu to stop the bleeding.
After one last look at the blood on the blade - both wet and dry - I returned it back to its sheath. In the background, Kakashi gave Otter the all-purpose scroll that got us in the prison and spun her a story about how the Hokage sent her on a mission to check all public buildings and stuff. When he was done, he returned his attention to me.
"Can I assume that you will finish this audacious battle that you've waged?" And return to Konoha no matter what? I knew he wanted to ask the second question, but he didn't. I nodded to his first question because I knew that at this point, no matter the implication, I would definitely kill Danzō.
Without a single word, I ran towards the prison entrance with Kakashi and Tenzō beside me. We got out of there and hid in the alley way only a minute before the patrol found the bloody prison. After that, their attention was completely drawn by the horror hidden from them for so long.
Danzō was a hard man to track, with his scent so dim that Kakashi had to summon his ninkens to branch out on the search. In the meantime, I hid and hid and hid. It took us twenty minutes to narrow down the general direction of where he had exited the village. He used a different exit this time - a bit east from the Northern gate.
"Halt! Which patrol team are you from?" A chill went down my spine when I saw the two-man patrol in front of me. Kakashi had given me an ambiguous Anbu mask, and since I never changed out of work clothes anyway, I blended in perfectly. Damn it, what great timing. Why can't you be here earlier when Danzō was exiting the village?
"Identify yourself, now," one shinobi ordered again. Behind my back, I was trying hard to get the chakra restraining cuffs off my wrists.
"Get the signal flare ready, we might have a problem." His companion fumbled in his pouch the shinobi, trying to take out the signal flare. I made it just in time to unlock the chakra restriction.
However, before I could drop the chakra cuffs fully, they were strike on the neck at the same time. They fell down like noodles, revealing Kakashi standing behind them, holding up a kunai at one hand and the hilt of his Anbu sword the other.
"I've got this," I scowled at him as I clasped the chakra cuffs again. We were not out of Konoha yet, therefore it was better not to risk it until the last possible moment.
"Right, you mean a genjutsu? You may want to lay off of them for now in the village," he retorted mockingly.
"Like striking them unconscious is any better." Don't get fooled, sarcasm can be a mechanism for helplessness. This sounded like the start of a great argument, but before it could get any further, Tenzō put an end to it.
"Stop it. I get it, both of you are captains and therefore cannot stop that need of authority and dominance for control." He said all that in one go as he stood over the exit's stone cover, but then, he looked a bit guilty for lashing out, so he added with frustration, "Can we please get out first?"
With that being said, both of us walked up to the exit and saw the familiar sealing array. A sequence of hand seals, check. A root agent's blood - I eyed Kakashi's blood-covered sword - check. In less than a minute, we all scurried into the secret tunnels that leads to the outside of this suffocating village.
"I thought you said that you won't do any illegal things for me," I asked Kakashi as we waited for Tenzō to seal the tunnel.
"Let's just say that for this one day, you have Hokage-sama's immunity. I trust that you won't abuse it." Now that was just unfair, trying to evoke my sense of loyalty and trust when he knew that I was feeling guilty.
I don't know if I will be able to come back; to stop myself from leaving forever. This place, Konoha, really broke my heart.
When Tenzō closed the tunnel and snuffed the light out, I unclasped the chakra restriction and threw it on the ground. Then, we ran towards the other side without looking back.
A/N: so uh, this chapter is awkward. I can't fix it by too much at this point. It's a little dramatic lol, but ya know, this is an emotional event. Like what I wrote in this Chapter, Maiko is not Itachi and she will never be. They are good at different things, and they get affected by things differently. Maiko tried to pretend that she's not emotional, but she is, particularly on the Uchiha Massacre, seeing that it is her personal demon for years.
I know that this whole Danzo confrontation might be confusion, but i promise I have a whole page of notes on why I think Danzo will do what he does at each point of the event. I'm not great at presenting that with my writing, especially since the majority of this story is from a very biased narrator. So if you're really confused, you're free to message me and I'll try to explain what logical brainstorm I was thinking about three years ago lol.