Author's notes: I truly find Danzo to be one of the most fascinating and complex characters in canon. Kishimoto gave us flashbacks of Danzo of when he was seven years old, and then as a young man with Tobirama's death, and it really highlights how far into the depths of depravity the man descended, the older he got. I've tried to figure out where Danzo's protectiveness towards Konoha took such a warped, desperate path, and highlight some of that in this chapter. And because this Danzo doesn't reach his canon counterpart's level of depravity, there had to be something so traumatizing that it actually makes him into a better man.

I mean, he's still very much flawed and very much cruel, choosing to make brutal sacrifices, and forcing others to make brutal sacrifices, instead of thinking up plans that require a lot less bloodshed. He is just not a man who understands the generosity of a kind human spirit.

o-o-o

o-o-o-o

o-o-o-o-o

He was unsure of exactly how he managed to extract himself from Tsume's room and leave the Palace. Danzo knew it had to be hasty – he hoped it wasn't suspiciously so. He thought, maybe, that he told Tsume he was too old and didn't have the energy when she offered a second round with an alarming eagerness, hands exploring his body with far too much familiarity. He hadn't been aroused when he left, but desire still sang through his body. He wanted to take her – mark her as his own with love bites everywhere, plow her willing body, spill his semen on her skin, shield her from the sight of anyone else, feed her, comfort her, give her all the soft pillows in the world. He knew he would never be able to control himself as well as he had the first time now that he had had the taste of this… this drug.

Danzo ignored the innkeeper who called out with a wink, "Have yerself a good time, yeah?" as he entered the inn and took the stairs two steps at a time to his room. He did everything he could not to move with unreasonable haste – everything that wouldn't mark him as a shinobi. Once in his room, he crouched low in a corner, his back pressed against the wall, and subtly sensed for life around him. He didn't perceive that he was followed – that meant no alarm had been arisen yet, or at least no one would move against him until dark. He saw dusk through the lone grimy window – he didn't have to wait long before finding out.

The stench of sex, patchouli, and cinnamon was cloying in his nostrils. He snatched the one change of clothes from his bag and hurried into the bathroom. Light flickered from the naked bulb ahead as he twisted the tap water on. He hastily stripped his shirt, and then clawed bloody tracks on his arms to see if he couldn't also strip off his skin. You've done worse, a voice told him snidely. Remember? Your cowardly hesitation allowed Senju Tobirama to die. You can never again hesitate to do what needs to be done for Konoha. You know perfectly well that there will always be those who will hesitate.

TWELVE YEARS OLD, another part of his mind screamed as he yanked his boots and socks off, then his pants. He fisted his hair and yanked, trying to pry open his head and force the voices out.

See what it wrought? The first voice continued, becoming as dark as the stains on his soul. At the small cost of one brain-injured little girl who was already undesired and undervalued by her clan, Konohagakure now has the information to crush her enemy and end this war once and for all. See?

Oh, he saw. Beneath the stark, harsh, unforgiving light, blood smeared his limp penis and thighs.

He vomited into the filthy toilet as the second voice hammered at his brain. TWELVE FUCKING YEARS OLD.

oOoOoOo

Danzo lurked in the alleyway, feeding scraps to a rather friendly dog that had left its post beside a reinforced oak door to greet him. He had been ready to kill – wanted to slate his hatred in someone's flesh and blood – if anyone ambushed him in his rented room, but as the moon rose, hidden by the dark clouds of pollution that blanketed the city, no one came. He was completely unsuspicious; deemed unthreatening by whatever powers and forces kept watch in the Palace. Just a typical bandit availing himself to the offered services.

As he waited for the night to settle further, and the crowds to leave the Palace, his thoughts stabbed at him. He should be removing all thoughts from his head, preparing himself to breech the walls, but he had time to spare. So, as he petted the friendly dog – no doubt well-behaved and somewhat tame due to Tsume's influence on wild beasts – Danzo worked through the splinters of his shattered feelings and beliefs. Better to do so now, lest they arrive unbidden during a battle. Focus was paramount, and he needed to find the center of calm that he had spent years cultivating.

It was always disturbing to look so harshly at one's self, anyway. An alley reeking of urine and vomit, the air so cold it turned to fog the moment he exhaled, seemed as appropriate a place as any to study the filth that wrapped his soul.

("It will not be easy to sleep with her, Danzo-sama.")

On the contrary, it had been very easy to sleep with Tsume. It had been one of the easiest things he had ever done, a split-decision choice made without any real regard to consequences. Perhaps there would've been fewer regards right now if Tsume had been like a broken doll, unmoving and unresponsive, accepting the fate that was so cruelly forced upon her. But she didn't. Perhaps it would've been easier if this was something he knew she had been groomed for this in the last few years, with proper training and expectations, and she was also a few years older.

But Tsume hadn't, and she most certainly wasn't.

Yet her spirit and spine were stronger than his. Shimura Danzo had been brought down low by nothing more than a slip of a child, and the realization left bitterness in his mouth. And he knew – looking back objectively at what he had done in the last twenty-four hours – he should've made different choices and never raped her. Just like he should've made different choices with the Second Hokage the night he was killed in the First Shinobi War.

No matter how willing Tsume had been, no matter how Konoha might train her children to be (merciful, damn the Hokage, completely unprepared and blindsided) killers, she didn't have the maturity or mental capacity to objectively agree to sex at such a young age, or at least to sex as a prostitute. He suspected that Tsume had to have been coerced and threatened into accepting the mission.

("You and I are both aware that there is nothing we wouldn't do to make the mission succeed.")

And how well he had proven that. All for Konoha. He told himself that Konoha was more than the individual – even if Konoha was filled to the brim with eager, full-of-life twelve year old girls who ought to be playing with their baby nephews and dogs, pranking teachers and students alike. Danzo has spent more than the last twenty-six years remaking his image after his cowardice of so long ago – to become a leader, instead of a spineless follower, to prove to himself and to those who died that he understood the value of Konoha above his own skin, as all good Hokages must.

("Danzo-sama can always be trusted to do what needs to be done, no matter how… disturbing or difficult.")

Damn Orochimaru. Damn him to the deepest, filthiest pits of hell, where they would keep each other company for an eternity of misery. Danzo's leadership was simple – he would never ask anyone to do what he wasn't willing to do; it therefore stood to reason that he had to be and do the best, if he expected likewise from others. It was successful too, because ANBU's quality was second to none by his leadership and training. And even though the Hokage was the leader of ANBU, that all the captains answered to Sarutobi Hiruzen alone, Danzo always felt that ANBU was also his, because he was directly involved in running it from the top to the bottom, and he trained every new recruit. Hiruzen readily allowed the over-involvement because ANBU was a huge operation to run in conjunction with the rest of the village.

There had never been anything before that Danzo wasn't willing to do for Konoha, and he had fully expected the same from those under his leadership. He had willfully raped other men and women before, whatever the mission required – but never anyone so young, and never when she was one of Konoha's. He felt contaminated and vile and sick.

Could he send more twelve year old girls to experience Tsume's fate? Would he willingly send Konoha's jinchuuriki, just ten years old, into a brothel to be brutalized and raped continuously?

No. Damn Orochimaru.

Would he willingly send Kokoro, Tsume's faceless but often named friend, who recently turned eleven years old, despite the fact that he would no doubt make very potent enemies of her four older sadistic brothers and never again be able to sleep with his eye closed or eat anything that didn't first undergo rigorous taste-testing?

No. Damn Orochimaru.

Was Danzo willing to become that twelve year old girl, sent into enemy territory without backup and with no hope or expectation of it ending, to be brutalized day after day? (What was he doing when he was twelve, besides holding fiercely to the corner of his blanket while Hiruzen hogged the rest of it as they camped beside the Suna Salt Flats because Tobirama dragged them all over the fucking continent on a fucking whim and in a snit because of a fight with his lover?)

And that, he knew, was a limitation he never thought he'd face. For Konoha.

For what was Konoha, if not a place where a trio of Academy girls could innocently decorate the Hokage's Tower with a thousand sloppy paper cranes, held in place with chewing gum? What was Konoha, if not a place where an oblivious ten year old could wander into the ANBU headquarters and face down weapons with a curious light in her eyes?

What was Konoha, if it willfully brutalized its own twelve year old child?

The First, he realized with a gut-wrenching chill, (kind and jovial and full of life) never would've raped Tsume. Nor would the Second (no matter how sadistic he had been to Danzo), or the Third (so congenial and always genuine, even towards the enemies on the battlefield). And for the first time in the forty years of their friendship, Danzo finally understood why Hiruzen was so soft, so weak, so… so passionate and filled with life and love for Konoha.

What had that bumbling idiot been thinking when he approved of Tsume for this mission? With a chill, Danzo wondered if Hiruzen even knew.

It is only the leaves that get to bathe in the light, to reach eagerly for the sun. The roots are forever in the dark, toiling deeper, sundering the earth and stealing nutrients from the soil, to do what's needed so that the tree may live and thrive.

Fuck that. Fuck the roots – Danzo wasn't like that. Fuck the leaves – Danzo certainly wasn't like them, either. He was the silent, creeping fungal rot that hid within the tree, slowly but surely killing it. Fuck the leadership and fuck the Hokage. Danzo wasn't worthy – didn't deserve anything he had, because he was supposed to protect and defend Konoha from all enemies, external and internal.

He stood, pressed his back against the wall, and turned to face the Palace. All the nightly activity had died down and the support staff had finished their rounds of cleanup. It was just a few short hours before dawn; it was the best time to infiltrate.

("Because she is Black Ops, you will leave her there after obtaining information. She can remain as a mole and gather information for Konoha for years to come.")

And fuck you too, Orochimaru. Danzo wasn't going to leave this comrade behind, no matter the greater good, and especially not for years of this. (Somewhere in the distance, he was sure that Sakumo was overcome with a fit of hysterical laughter. May the White Fang choke to death on his own spittle!) Because if Danzo left Tsume behind, he would leave all principles behind, and that level of corruption could not allowed to abide within the walls of Konohagakure.

oOoOoOo

Despite Madame Haori employing a miniature army of kunoichi, they weren't that good – not against him. Danzo had very little difficulty making short work of the sentries stationed outside, his mind riding the edges of Battle Mode, where nothing could touch him or disturb his focus. Not pain, fatigue, cold or heat, hunger, or thirst. His focus was as tight as his moniker implied – War Hawk. Simple sometimes really was the best way to handle matters – just a simple, quick twist of the neck, and the sentries were dead. No need to use fancy poison or flashy jutsu. Death came silently and swiftly to those who were in his way – those who were not, he ignored as he bypassed them, carefully crawling along the vaulted ceiling as he searched for Tsume. He couldn't feel her chakra signature, but it would only be a matter of time. Besides, too many dead bodies tended to attract attention and raise alarms.

In many ways, Hidden Villages did as much damage to the ninja life as it protected. To be a ninja was to be silent and deadly, undetected to the last, unsuspecting even after the end. Shinobi, secure in their home turf of the Hidden Village, explored flashier and louder techniques that broadcasted their abilities to a world interested in paying for the use of said abilities. Danzo preferred the old, subtle and silent ways over the new, flashy and loud ways.

Naturally, Tsume found him first by coming to him, nose in the air and eyes wide with surprised delight. The moment he saw her, desire punched him out of his focus. That confirmed his suspicions that there was more at work with Tsume than what met the eye, as lust curled through his body and he felt arousal tightening into an early erection – usually only powerful genjutsu could successfully disturb his focus. He couldn't decide if he was pleased that an external force was to blame for making him desire Tsume, or disgusted that he would fall for such a cheap trick. He redoubled his focus – pushed away the arousal the same way he pushed away hunger and fatigue. Pushing it away didn't cancel it out, though, especially when he had never practiced pushing away arousal as he had hunger and fatigue. This was an oversight he would need to address at another time.

Tsume must have realized his return meant her rescue. She had dressed herself in multiple layers of knee-length yukatas and shirts to keep warm, and multiple socks on her feet. She apparently couldn't find any shoes or cloak. After they studied each other for a moment, she raised a fist, and then signed. Follow me. He silently dropped from the ceiling and landed beside her. He kept one hand towards his weapons as she led him down the carpeted hallways, making multiple twists and turns and occasional backtracking. Not once did anyone see them, though they flitted close.

"They have dogs," Tsume whispered as she reached a locked door leading outside. "None of the girls can get away with escaping, because they get tracked down and dragged back. I've already told the dogs not to follow me, when I first smelled you coming, but I want them to know they can't follow you either." She started to fiddle with the lock on the door, but Danzo impatiently broke it with an effortless snap of his wrist. She shrugged. "That works." On the other side of the door was several kennels occupied by eight adult hounds, and four puppies approximately two months old. All of them stood at alert with watching eyes. Tsume approached each kennel, talking to them in a quiet voice. "It's okay. He's with me. I have to go, don't follow. Remember, I'm the alpha, and I say don't follow us. Go chase elsewhere." One by one, Danzo watched as the hounds crouched at Tsume's feet. He tried to keep his focus anywhere than on Tsume's wagging hips and bare skin.

The back of the kennel was a yard where the dogs were allowed to run for exercise; the grass was trampled and the grounds filled with various holes. Tsume led Danzo to the gate at the other end. Instead of wasting time fiddling with the lock, he grabbed Tsume and hefted her up to straddle his back, the supply pack shoved to the side. The touch of her hand against his head to help keep her balance, the weight of her body and her scent – hell if he knew how to describe her scent, except that it was Tsume's – invaded his senses. He braced one arm beneath her to prevent her from sliding off his back. Desire wanted him to run away with Tsume, away from all threats and all other distractions, so he could resume claiming her.

He could work with the running away part, and pushed it into his focus. One chakra-enhanced leap took them over the fence. He darted across the street and ran up the wall of the house in front of them. His pace didn't slack as he ran along the slated rooftops, skirting smoke stacks and scaring sleeping flocks of pigeons.

"Hey." A finger poked the back of his neck. "Your hand's on my ass."

"And it's staying there to support your weight."

"Okay." Tsume was silent a moment as he took a large leap to cross the wide street below. When he landed on the rooftop across the way, she said, "Is the hand supposed to rub that way?"

He stilled the fingertips, and then curled his hand into a fist, silently cursing at the desire. At the end of the roofs, one giant bound sent them crashing into the guard post, and then an uncomfortable landing on the ground outside the wall surrounding the town. Splintered wood landed beside them. Danzo sprinted when shouts of surprise went up, and guards hurried to assess exactly what had happened. Danzo knew the guards wouldn't be following after them – they were more concerned with persons breaking into the village, not out, but it would give Madame Haori a clue of which direction her escaped whore was heading. He instantly created three other Danzo-carrying-Tsume earth clones and sent them off in different directions; there was no way he would be able to hide his footsteps in the thick frost that blanketed the ground in silver, so it was best to create multiple trails.

Danzo headed for higher ground, veering off to the northeast, which would eventually take them to Grass. West would take them far too close to Earth's Hidden Village – Iwa. Further north was already impassable with the snow. South would take them past the iron mines. But no matter where they went, there was little cover to be found in the surrounding alpine tundra – just mounds of bare boulders bleached white in the sun, stray patches of lodge pole and aspen, and occasional dipping fellfields and alpine meadows, both brown and dry since autumn came early this far north. Further north and west, where the mountains rose sharply, was snow. Dawn was starting – there was a lighting in the sky behind them – and they would be spotted easily, even from a distance, if they couldn't be out of sight be the time daylight arrived. The frost wouldn't disappear until the sun had melted it away, but that would take a few hours. But even when the frost finally melted, his footsteps would be clear in the frozen tundra.

"You know," Tsume said, squirming deliciously against his back (down boy, down – TWELVE FUCKING YEARS OLD), "I don't think I was supposed to be fetched, although I'm really glad you did. Orochimaru wanted me to stay there."

"Fuck Orochimaru."

"Well, gosh, if it makes him less angry about me not being left behind, I suppose I could."

Danzo skidded to a stop behind a tall mound of boulders and shoved Tsume off like she burned him. Then he whirled around, hoisted her to her feet by the front of her many yukatas bunched in one fist, and knelt down in front of her so they could see eye to eye. "You are twelve fucking years old."

She glared at him, looking every bit as indignant as he remembered whenever she perceived she was being insulted. "I can count, you know. I know enough of my numbers to do that."

"You never should've been given this mission. You are too damn young for it." Tsume's mouth trembled as her eyes became shiny at that statement. As she clenched and unclenched her fists, he realized that she probably felt he was belittling her success. For being such a prideful and headstrong girl, Tsume took every little criticism to heart, even if the criticism wasn't aimed at her.

Danzo threw an arm around her and pulled her close, pressing her face against his shoulder. He fought hard not to hump her at the same time. "You did good," he whispered into her wild hair, secretly pleased that she washed it free of the cloying stenches of cinnamon and patchouli. "For no back up and no training, you did good. But you would've done just as good if you were disguised as the daughter of a merchant, and had to rent a room with said merchant right next to the Palace. The mission should've been tailored to your age and your talents. You should never have been jammed into it like a square peg forced into a round hole." He ran his hands over her hips and distantly wished that they were more generous and rounded.

She sniffled a few times, and wiped her nose on his shirt. Twelve years old. "Shinobi Rule #8 – cloves and ham – a shinobi must never question their commander. I did what I was supposed to. And besides, you had no problem fucking me."

Danzo pushed her back. "No, I had no problem." And that was the problem. He stopped running his hands through her hair.

"You told me that once, you know." Danzo indulged himself in sweeping a thumb across her cheek to wipe away moisture – her face was far away from her scrawny hips. "That, uh, that a person has to do whatever it takes for the mission. They have to kill, or lie, steal, cheat, and fuck whoever or whatever is required. Shinobi Rule #4 – Yuu's old smelly socks – a shinobi must always put the mission first. So I did. Grandmother said, before she sold me, that I wasn't wanted, and so I decided that I would have to make myself wanted. Because I am a kunoichi, and I have a purpose, even if I'm not wanted." Suddenly angry, Tsume jabbed an accusing finger into his chest. "You took away my purpose, butthead!"

"Rules." Danzo spat. "Damn the rules!" He leaned forward and froze, lips barely brushing her throat. He shoved her away and doubled over, pressing his face into the cold ground as arousal roared to the forefront of his focus. Thoughts of pressing her up against the boulder, draping her thighs over his shoulders, and exploring with lips and tongue tortured his mind. His mind flashed to memories of last night – he sunk his teeth into his wrist, trying to override pleasure with pain.

Now is a really bad time to learn I'm masochistic, he thought distantly when the pain only magnified the fires deep in his loins.

"Are you okay, Danzo?" Tsume whispered. He felt her hand touching his neck out of worry. He flinched away.

"Don't. I want to fuck you. I shouldn't want anything, damn it!" He told his body what to do and when to do it – he would not be a slave to the petty functions of body or mind.

"Oh, that's just the seal Orochimaru put on me."

Danzo found a cold center in his mind as Tsume's words echoed and ricocheted back and forth. That's just the seal that's just the seal Orochimaru that's just the seal Orochimaru Orochimaru the seal seal seal… He saw red. "Funny," he whispered, lest his voice betray the depth of his rage. "He never mentioned any seal." It seemed that Orochimaru hadn't been forthcoming on several important aspects of the Black Ops.

"He said that others would know, just by my chakra, that I was a kunoichi, and that would give me away with the Iwa shinobi. So he put the seal on me, and it converted the sense of my chakra into desire. He said that the stronger the shinobi, the more they desired me."

That was good to know. It was also really, really bad. That meant that the Iwa nin were going to want her back, for the simple fact that they desired her, and no one but they could have this favored whore. It was a wonder they hadn't already burned down the Palace after stealing Tsume from Madame Haori's and gangbanged her to death somewhere.

Danzo pulled his mind further into the cold center where he could feel bloodlust singing at the edge of his rage. Bloodlust felt good – like sexual arousal – but he could focus it better, could use it to engulf the sexual arousal so it no longer hindered him.

"Are you mad at me?"

Danzo slowly raised his head and looked hard at Tsume. Her gaze was without fear or caution, her stance unmoving in the face of his rage – he was sure the odor of such drenched his pores. "Not at you," he whispered. He crooked his finger at her in a come-hither gesture. She hesitated only a heartbeat before she stepped close. After a moment of consideration, Danzo boldly ran one hand down her clothed body – over her budding chest, down her stomach, and then cupped her sex. She watched without reaction, no telltale shift of her face or body to indicate if she found this intrusion discomforting. How much of that was training, and how much of that was just another side effect of her brain injury?

Danzo… supposed he could see the form of a woman just on the cusp – a gentle slope at her hips and waist, a minimal curve at the breast. Superimposed over the form was his memory of a scrawny hedgehog weighed down with a newborn baby and a ridiculously large diaper bag.

He also wanted her like nothing else in life, to bury himself in her heat once more, to coat his body with her fluids, to captivate her attention so he was the sole focus and center of her world. "I am a dangerous, ugly, ruthless shinobi, and I pride myself on my control. Unfortunately, my control is going to be strained until I can remove your seal." He had no idea how – seals that were etched this deeply into one's chakra were next to impossible to remove without crippling the person. "Here." Danzo dragged his hand away and withdrew a kunai from a hidden pocket. "In Konoha, your team is your life. I have your back, and you have mine. But if I lose control and come at you, that is a betrayal. Stab me if I do so." If he gave in to his desires – if he came at her in this blind lust that edged him towards madness, knowing all too well the depth of his own depravity even when he wasn't raping twelve year old girls… He didn't know if she'd survive.

Tsume eyed the kunai doubtfully. "What good is that going to do me when you're already stronger and faster?"

He opened her hand and folded it over the hilt of the kunai. "A man has two heads," he told her. "The one above his shoulders, and the one below his belt." Her eyes flickered. "In my experience, men typically follow the head below their belt, and such men are vulnerable to this." He tapped her forehead. "My strength and speed cannot be compared to your thinking, no matter how linear it is, because the head on your shoulders will always outwit a man's miniature head."

"You sure your head's below the belt there? You're bigger than any other guy I've ever seen."

Danzo glared at her. "That is a completely inappropriate topic for discussion with a twelve year old, especially when we still have a lot of ground to cover. I won't be able to look at the seal until at least tonight, and even then I won't know for sure." It was a good thing that his need to put distance between them and Tetsuzanshi was in agreement with his desire to (among other things) protect Tsume from danger. He gestured. "Climb back up on my back, now." As long as he focused on the bloodlust, then he could get past this.

He hoped that Iwa nin followed him. He really wanted to bathe in the blood of his enemies. As he ran, they heard the echo of barking dogs, which faded away. Tsume giggled. "The dogs are taking them south-east. I knew it was worth the loss of my lunch every day to make friends with them."

oOoOoOo

No enemies had found them by the time the sun set. Danzo found a steady running pace that he could maintain for days on end, even with a burden as slight as the one he carried on his back, and yet as heavy as the guilt churning in his gut. Their path would take them out of the way to Grass for at least a week if his impromptu plan went without a hitch, but there was nothing that could be done about that. His bloodlust slowly died down as the kilometers passed, as they skirted the mountain range but kept to the stretching alpine tundra. They passed several herders with their herds of sheep and llamas, but were unseen and undetected. They paused only for quick bathroom breaks, and Tsume's dinner was a raw turnip. Danzo ate nothing and drank the water sparingly.

Tsume spent most of the run asleep and uncomfortably braced beside his pack. Danzo's mind went into a half-there stage, where he could focus internally while his body reacted mechanically to his surroundings. It kept the focus away from Tsume, and the seal-induced desire, and the slack in arousal meant not having an uncomfortable run with an erection – not all the time, at least. Danzo recalled every scene with Orochimaru; every word that was said, every movement of body. He scrutinized all that he knew of this Ops – past attempts made by other kunoichi, Tsume's death declaration several weeks ago ("killed on a mission while with her great-grandmother", and the only thing that came to Danzo's mind upon hearing the declaration was that Shinzou probably did the killing instead of an actual enemy), why she was chosen, the importance of her information – and didn't like the slowly-forming realizations.

He turned his fear and horror elsewhere – he looked hard at himself, at his philosophy, and at emotions, like love, trust, loyalty, and lust. He compared his emotions with Tsume's, and wondered if these things could ever truly serve a purpose in the life of a shinobi.

It was the bane of his life – emotions. You could tell the head (on one's shoulder) all the truth and facts in the world, but the heart will always try to override and confuse. The heart was shortsighted in its interference, making a person react half-cocked at ideas and make stupid (deadly) mistakes. And the heart hurt, worse than any broken bone or damaged organ.

He had been a passionate man in his youth – and the passion had led him astray, into choices that he wouldn't have made if he had only been calm and rational. And Konoha suffered for it, such as the loss of the Second Hokage. The same could be said for other decisions where the consequences demanded an expensive payment – he knew that Orochimaru chafed at the lack of success with past reconnaissance against Iwa, was impatient with the war. Between the wounded pride and the impatience, Orochimaru made a rash decision with Tsume. Logic dictated that Tsume could just as easily have sniffed out the information outside of the brothel, without ever having to be seen or noticed by the visiting Iwa nin.

Logic also dictated that it was completely unnecessary for Danzo to rape Tsume. Were it not for the seal influencing him beyond the normal parameters of his control, Danzo would've been able to strategize a new plan – one that would not have cost Tsume or him their dignity. He could've waited while she was outside the gate, feeding the stray dogs, and snatching her. It would've been completely unnecessary to spend money on her rendered services.

Ultimately, Danzo knew he was responsible for his own actions, but the seal was like a drug that burrowed its way into his mind, soul, and body. Even if he had pulled her through the gate and run, would he have stayed his lust once he had removed her from any semblance of civilization?

The most important question though, was this: Why did Orochimaru send him on this mission without any information on the seal, or Tsume's identity?

The only answer Danzo could conclude, once he stopped for the night at a copse of barren aspen trees, was that Orochimaru wanted to Danzo to be publicly shamed, or killed on this mission.

Tsume was awake but silent as she slid off his back. "The light is waning," Danzo said, crouching. He pointed at the ground. "Sit. Show me where the seal is at." He tried ignoring his arousal as she sprawled in front of him and lifted her right leg to pull off at least eight socks. He had the sudden urge to lick every one of her wiggling toes as she stuck her foot in his face.

"Orochimaru said he put it on my big toe."

Danzo's visual inspection of her foot turned into a lengthy physical caress as he contemplated the purple toenail. Then he coaxed the seal to bloom with his chakra, calling it to unwind and show itself – it spread across her body. He traced the shining purple characters past her knee and up her thigh.

He stopped. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against her kneecap, trembling as the arousal throbbed. "Are you okay?" Tsume asked, sounding bewildered. "I don't really remember any of the Iwa shinobi acting like this."

"What do you remember?"

"It hurt a lot. And there was usually a lot of blood on me and the sheets, especially the first few times – I was just drenched. But Madame Haori had this really nifty old medic, Madame Kai, who always got me healed me up, right as rain."

That was good. No – it was bad. Very bad. The thought of blood-stained sheets and hurting Tsume actually managed to bring the arousal down to a more tolerable level, now that his desire decided it wanted to wrap Tsume up in layers of silk and hide her from the rest of the world in the shelter of his arms, even if she liked being the center of attention in the forefront of the world – alphas always had the worst personality for being a kunoichi. Danzo resumed studying the seal. He sighed. "This goes up pretty far. I'm going to have to look under your clothes more."

"That's okay." She sounded far too cheerful for the situation. "You've already seen me naked."

Danzo gritted his teeth and clamped his eye shut. He took several deep breaths to bring his control back as he thought of last night, of her beneath him, squirming and moaning. "Please stop… inferring to what we did. Every time you do, I think–" He thought of blood smearing his thighs and penis. Twelve years old – TWELVE FUCKING YEARS OLD.

"Oh. Sorry."

Taking another deep breath, he pushed her onto her back and carefully peeled back the layers of clothes, including her pink underwear with silly little bows. She shivered in the chilly air, skin prickling and bumping. The seal's purple characters spread across her pelvis and abdomen (which he dearly wanted to kiss and caress), ends curling just above breasts that tightened and looked more mature in the chilly air. Danzo didn't like the story that the characters told… He yanked his hands from where they had been kneading her breasts. He dropped her clothes back in place and scooted back, head dropping to his hands. He grabbed handfuls of hair and pulled. "Fuck. Fuck. I can't think – there's no on or off switch. Fuck." He heard the rustle of her clothes. "Stay back!"

Tsume froze, her breath hitching. Danzo rose unsteadily to his feet. "Stay there," he told her. "I'm – I'm going over there, and taking care of this damn problem so it's out of my way and I can think, and you are going to stay here, and let me know if anyone comes close." He stumbled off to the end of the copse, sinking down behind a broad tree trunk where she couldn't see him.

Danzo couldn't believe he was actually giving in to the demands of his body. Sex was not a basic function of life. If it were sleep, food, even shelter, he could eventually forgive himself of his temporary physical weakness. But Danzo always thought a man never died if he couldn't get an orgasm – until this moment, at least. Deeply resentful that his hand was being forced (and even more resentful with the puns his mind kept devising), Danzo unzipped his fly and pulled himself free. Desire and arousal sang inside of him, the thought of Tsume less than ten meters from him – he slammed a wall up to that line of thought. Then he tried to think of nothing as he wrapped a dry right hand around the shaft and pumped vigorously.

Ah man. I fucking hate friction burns.

I deserve worse.

He tightened his grip as his right hand slid up and down, and then rubbed the head with his left hand. The stimulation was more painful than pleasurable, but he could feel the orgasm building much quicker now. His short pants left clouds of fog drifting in his blurring vision. He remembered Tsume leaning before him, the feel of her tongue – another mental wall slammed upward.

He cast his mind back to his first sexual experience with another person. He was fifteen and bathing in a creek with one of his teammates, Akamichi Torifu. Torifu had asked him if he were a grow-er or a show-er. Danzo hadn't understood the question until Torifu reached between his own legs and demonstrated. Which then led to Torifu reaching between Danzo's legs despite it being clear by then what Danzo was, with a hand that was deft and sure, followed by a willing mouth and an eagerness to please that more than made up for the fumbling lack of experience. Much like how Tsume reached and kissed and–

Fuck. His climax was stalling, despite just being within his reach. Danzo gripped his knee with his left hand and eased up some of the pressure as he stroked with his right. Perhaps a gentle touch would bring him over the edge. He thought of the first time he ever had sex with a woman. He couldn't remember her name, but she had been a blonde Kumo kunoichi sent to seduce information out of him. He had been seventeen, and curious enough to be seduced by her perky breasts and velvety folds, so different from the jutting planes of Torifu's body, so much more like Natsumi's – and that foreign kunoichi was never successful, since he strangled her violently during copulation, watching her face grow blue and her tongue bloated as he pumped his hips against her thrashing pelvis. It was also the first time in his life that lust rode the edges of bloodlust, and his orgasm amidst the kunoichi's death throes had been magnificent and incomparable to anything else… except for last night, when he slid into the hot, sweet core of a willing twelve year old—

"Fuck!" Danzo slammed the back of his head against the tree trunk. Stars burst and faded like fireworks through his vision, but his cock remained hard and the pleasure stunted. He felt blood trickle down the back of his neck. He viciously imagined tearing Orochimaru's head off, and then ramming his cock down the bloody stump of a throat – no, no, the thought of sliding into a warm, wet orifice didn't help the arousal. (He actually thought that Orochimaru was attractive, a strange androgynous mix of masculine and feminine, but had never before allowed himself to fantasize what it would be like to seduce his old teammate's student…)

"You sure you don't need a hand—hey!"

Danzo was on Tsume in a flash, pinning her to the ground with her hands forced above her head, her face pressed against his shoulder and his hips sliding against hers. "Don't move," he whispered as she struggled beneath him. Please move. Yes, like that. "Stop. I don't want to hurt you."

She glared at him. "You know," she said, her voice muffled by his shirt, her finger wagging at him from where he had them clenched in his, "I do sort of have experience in this, and it is my fault. I should help."

"It is not your fault."

"But the seal—"

"Does not make it your fault!" He forced his body to relax, to release her hands and sit upright. He supposed he should be dismayed with the way his cock jutted upward, far too hard and high for a man of his age, really. Down, boy.

"Maybe if I just touched?" Tsume's expression looked stricken. Her clothes were bunched up around her knees, and he could see the scrolling purple seal, still blooming on her leg. Her expression wasn't sexy, but her body was so warm and so soft. "You say it's the seal's fault and not mine, but the seal is part and partial to me. It's like saying it's not my fault that Kuromaru chewed up the rug, except that it really is because he's my responsibility. And you can't help me like this, so let me help you so you can help me."

Ah, to have the simple linear thinking of Inuzuka Tsume. It didn't get one trapped and entangled like the thinking of a spiral leaf. "I will not hurt you again. Not like last night." He didn't want any more bloody smears on his body. He didn't want to think of how she probably looked, with blood dribbling from the apex of her thighs and purple bruises blooming across her labia.

Tsume's knees gently clamped together. "Well, yeah. That's why I offered a hand, not my vagina. I'm all right now, because I get patched up each time I service someone. Besides…" Her bare toes curled. She looked a bit shy. He tried very hard not to think of how many more men had raped Tsume after he had had his way with her. Of how many men raped her in those months before he had his way with her. "Besides, I didn't think sex was supposed to feel good for us younger girls. You were the only one who ever made it feel good."

Danzo was on her again, once again sliding his body against hers as he bunched her yukatas up around her armpits. "Shh. Shh. Don't… don't say things like that, in the future." He found her words less reassuring and more horrifying. He caressed her face and rolled her about so that she was tucked close to his side, facing him. He gyrated against her closed thighs, the head of his cock brushing her bare pelvis. "Maybe, if there's just a hand." The arousal and desire was making him desperate; shame whispered at the edges of his mind. If he could just think – and then he felt her stroking his erection, her hand caught between their bodies. Lightning zipped through his spine. Danzo's hips jerked as her grip tightened and her strokes slid the entire length of his shaft, up and down, fingers tightly pressing beneath the head before easing down once again. The last slide up – the tiniest scrape of her claws against his sensitive flesh – brought the world crashing around his head. Fire flashed through his body and pleasure seared his nerves. The moment lasted for minutes – hours? – time stopped still.

He panted against her hair, feeling spent and boneless and hazy with pleasure. Then he sat upright. "Don't move," he told her again. He carefully rolled Tsume flat on her back, clothes still shoved up by her armpits, leaving her bare before his eye. His semen had splashed onto her body, and he carefully pooled the tacky substance together. "I don't have any chakra ink, but this will do as a temporary replacement." Blood, charcoal, water – they held life. So did semen – the most potent source of life, outside of blood. He swept a hand across the back of his head, coating his fingers with blood from where he had slammed it into the tree. He mixed the blood, semen, and the dark flow of his chakra together until the mixture glimmered an ugly rust-red under the moonlight. Then he drew added characters to the end of the trailing seal across her abdomen, sliding them down her pelvis, and finishing them as he traced the crease where thigh met hip. She arched against him and moaned as the seal flipped off. Desire immediately left him – the slow trail of arousal still floated through his hazy mind and blood vessels, weighing down his limbs.

It was tolerable though, and he was exhausted. He drew away from her and tucked himself back into his pants. He gently pulled all her clothes back into place, including her socks and panties (after finding and fetching them from across the copse). Then he pulled his blanket from his pack, Tsume into his arms, and wrapped them in the blanket. "May as well share body heat," he murmured against her ridiculous hedgehog hair.

He felt her curl up against him. Her feet were cold, even though eight layers of socks. "Why not?" she asked with a yawn and a wiggle that was suspiciously similar to snuggling. "We've already shared body fluids."

"I'd tell you to put a sock in it, but you need them for your feet."

"How 'bout I just keep my nose open?"

"That'll do…"