Author's notes: In addition to the questions I have in regards to summons, I have Many Questions in regards to Sage Mode. Oh well.
For those of you who heeded the warning on Alpha Years Chapter Five and skipped over, I'll give you a brief summary of what happened. Danzo was mindraped by Tsume's siren seal into raping Tsume, and when he finally extracted himself from the brothel, realized that he had made a Huge Error. He was forced to realize that Konoha isn't an abstraction of an ideal, but is actually a home with people, and that the people themselves are Konoha. He sees Konoha in the very real, physical representation of a simple little twelve year old who deserved to be protected, not abused and used. Also, Danzo realizes that he and Orochimaru aren't so much the shadows that the roots of Konoha dwell in, but more like the fungus rot that should be removed and burned before they destroy the tree.
So then Danzo yanks Tsume out of the brothel, even though her siren seal is still very active. The author waxes at length on the geography of alpine high-desert plains and meadows geography in super-late winter as our two protagonists hotfoot it out of town, and Danzo shows that he is exactly what Sakumo labeled him in the sand dunes of Wind: emotionally-stunted misbehaving sexual deviant, in that he has absolutely no idea what a healthy sexual relationship looks like, because the only decent one he's had in his entire life was with the deceased Akimichi Torifu, although he knows enough that what's going on between him and Tsume is entirely inappropriate. Tsume, even without her siren, Isn't Helpful In This Situation, given that she's a victim/survivor of child abuse who imprints upon the one adult who rescues her from an abusive living situation (the brothel), with a siren seal blasting at full strength.
Danzo does some hasty slapdash fuuinjutsu on Tsume's siren seal to make it shut up, then evaluates just how strong her nose is, because a good ninja should always be fully aware of his weapons, and the only thing he knows is that he's got a literally fearless genin with the memory of a drunk guppy and a siren seal that was too powerful to be allowed continual existence. Danzo then learns that Tsume's sense of oflaction is so strong that from eight hundred kilometers away she can detect that the Hokage "was drinking oolong tea with two cubes of sugar and a bit of cream, and also he was eating a banana with some ink-stained sugar sprinkled on it." Oh, and also, when her oflaction isn't at full power, she can still smell a kidnapped Kushina across five countries. So, since leaving the Nine-tailed Kyuubi's jinchuuriki in the hands of Kumo nin is a Really Bad Idea, Danzo drags Tsume with him across five countries, and the author waxes as length on even more geography.
Danzo continues to struggle with the siren seal, even when he's able to sit and study it more in-depth, Tsume clearly has no concept of healthy boundaries, especially with anyone who shows her the smallest bit of kindness, and Danzo is confronted with the fact that he also has Serious Trust Issues, and this is why no one has ever gifted him with a summoning contract. Danzo makes a reasonable attempt to help Tsume recognize that her abusive great-grandmother is a toxic woman, that the sad reality of a Black Ops is that spooks spend their entire lives known as enemies by the very village they love enough to sacrifice everything for, and sometimes, it is better to be forgotten than it is to be remembered (I tilt my hat to you, Itachi), tries to give her some practical advice on being a better kunoichi where future shades of his philosophy for ROOT can be seen, and is then horrified when Tsume imprints upon him even further, like a baby bird with the world's most unfortunate bedhead of feathers.
Oh, and then Danzo randomly learns that Tsume somehow managed to get some training on healing from the brothel's residential med nin, without gaining the interest of the foreign shinobi and getting killed for it, when they approach closer to Kushina, and also to Minato, whom Tsume can't track very easily because he cloaks himself with nature chakra. So instead of heading directly for Kushina, surrounded by her captors, Danzo decides to meet up with Minato to join forces. So, I think that covers the main points.
o-o-o
o-o-o-o
o-o-o-o-o
Minato must've sensed their approach, since he waited for their arrival, standing still beside an old tree long hollowed out by termites. A kunai was in his left hand and his right hand was balanced lightly against his hip. He blended into his surroundings with his simple green long-sleeved shirt and brown ninja pants, his torso wrapped with a sleeveless multi-pocketed green and dark gray cameo vest. His face was carefully blank but he didn't smell surprised when Danzo landed in front of him.
"Hi, Minato!" There was no doubting Minato's personal scent that reminded Tsume of autumn campfires and salted apples. Tsume waved from Danzo's back, until Danzo shoved her off and she landed on the pine needle-covered ground. Unbothered by Danzo's abruptness – she knew that the intimacy they had shared in the last week was not something he wanted advertised to the entire world, and she could respect that – Tsume immediately bounced to her feet. It was the sight of Tsume that made Minato's jaw drop open and surprise color his scent. "How come you're the only one tracking Kushina-chan? Where's everyone else?"
"How did—" Minato's gaze fluttered from Danzo to Tsume, then his body tensed with a spike of fear. He dropped into a crouch and pointed his kunai at them. "Prove your identity! Neither of you are wearing your forehead protectors." Tsume's hands flew to her forehead, which was still bare. She remembered again with a resentful twinge that she never received one in the first place. She dragged her hands from her forehead to her cheeks, accurately away of how bare they always were. She didn't know what she resented most: the absence of her clan's birthright that was always denied to her, or than the absence of the forehead protector she struggled so hard to earn.
Danzo looked around. "Where's the rest of your team? It's unlike Jiraiya to let his genin wander around in enemy territory unsupervised. Unless… Ah, you were promoted to chuunin just a month ago, weren't you?"
Tsume gasped. "No way! Minato got out of the academy the same time I did and he's already chuunin? I bet there was a mistake. Had to be a mistake." She glared at Minato. "How can you be a chuunin when you just graduated a genin four months ago like me?"
Danzo shrugged. "Field promotions are not hard to come by in war." His gaze narrowed dangerously as a hard light glinted in them. "Especially when the genin is an unparalleled prodigy."
"That's not fair!" Tsume's arms spun in the air as she bounced from foot to foot. She didn't even have a forehead protector and Minato had already received a promotion? What did she get for her undercover S-rank mission, besides antibiotics last month for chlamydia? "Mooncalf is an even bigger airhead than I am!"
Minato sighed and straightened. "And there went any and all doubt that you aren't Inuzuka Tsume."
Tsume shook a fist at him. "Of course I am! Who else would I be?"
"Who would want to be her?" Danzo muttered. Then he cuffed her with the sharp command to be quiet. Tsume wondered how much trouble she'd be if she kicked Danzo in the shin.
Minato tilted his head to the side. "There's that, too, I suppose." Probably a lot less trouble than kicking Minato, who was also usually polite enough to stand still long enough for Tsume to at least aim her foot. "You must be here to assist in the rescue of Uzumaki."
"Yeah!" Tsume bounced on the balls of her feet again, feeling antsy with all her bundled up energy spilling through her arms and legs. "We were able to follow Kushina-chan's scent from Earth, but how did you find her?"
Minato pointed at a thin red strand that hung from a bramble bush. "Kushina-san has been leaving a trail. There are very few things in nature as red as her hair. I've been following the last two days, ever since I crossed the trail. There's actually thirty Konoha nin – that I know of – actively searching for Uzumaki Kushina, but so far I'm the only one who's found and followed her trail. I've been on the lookout to report if I crossed paths with other units, but the Kumo nin have been skillful in dodging Konoha allies, and I didn't want to lose the trail. I will rescue Kushina at the first viable opportunity."
At least two days of following a trail of red hair? Tsume wondered with horror if Kushina had any of her glorious hair left.
"How did she get captured?"
"My understanding is that Kushina and her team were caught in a blast zone a week prior; in the confusion, Kushina was captured and carried off by the Kumo nin. We broke through the enemy ranks on the other side of the blast zone four days ago, and search for her has been high priority, even though our forces are spread thin and weakening."
Tsume wondered what was so important that made Kushina a high priority (not that she disagreed with the importance of rescuing one of her best friends), and then felt guilty once again for the delay in getting her Intel to Orochimaru.
"We rescue Uzumaki Kushina tonight," Danzo announced with a voice that was flatter than any he had used when talking to Tsume. Danzo turned to her. "How far ahead is Uzumaki?"
Kushina's personal scent of sun-warmed soil and fishcake was prevalent in Tsume's nose. The hair helped. Distance was still proving to be an elusive calculation, but hopefully Danzo was right when he said it would come with time and lots of practice. "She's about… twenty kilometers?" It helped that Danzo had taken the time to explain distance between their own stopping points, offering her a reference to match against strengths of scents. She just wasn't very good at it still, and even worse at remembering everything that Danzo had tried to teach her.
Danzo sighed, and Tsume tried not to feel like a disappointment. She desperately found herself wishing that she didn't give anyone reason to sigh when she described scent's distance. Being able to tell people the many details otherwise unknown to any other nose didn't do any good if you couldn't also tell just how far away or how old the scent was. She felt little and inadequate. "If we traveled at the speed we've been going at, and Kushina-chan and her captors don't change pace, we'd actually meet up with them in about three hours." Of that she was certain. She felt a little tension ease from her shoulders as Danzo's expression shifted. He studied the skies overhead.
"Which means we'd be upon them just as dusk is setting – about the time they're making camp. This could be to our advantage. Come closer, boy, I have an idea." They ducked their heads together, and a plan was quickly created.
oOoOoOo
A plan, Tsume thought with a resentful and impatient kick at an innocent clod of dirt, that left her beyond the perimeters, away from the fighting and Kushina-chan! Oh, the excuses Danzo and Minato had given her were pretty ones, all dressed up on reason and garnished with common sense. "You've spent so much time recovering from your wounds, you don't have the stamina or strength," Danzo had said, every bit as blunt and as cold as he had been when she was ten years old with baby Kakashi was in her arms and Kuromaru between her ankles.
"The goal is to be in and out of there as quick as possible with Kushina-san," Minato's voice was far kinder than Danzo's. "The fewer people involved, the more swiftly we can move."
"Besides, Danzo had added with a hint of humor, "you're not even wearing shoes. It's going to be hard enough for you to run away, much less fight the enemy."
She paused and wiggled her toes in thought. They did kinda ache from kicking the clod of dirt, but it wasn't like her feet were bare. She wore six pairs of socks and some bark to protect them from injury. She would've had eight pairs, if two hadn't been borrowed to double up as gloves. She supposed her stamina probably sucked right now, though. Granted, Danzo hadn't permitted her to try running since her own rescue, mainly because there was no way she would've been able to keep up with the pace he had set, even before the sedentary effect a couple of months in the brothel had on her, so she hadn't exactly had a chance to improve.
With a huff, Tsume sat on an old, broken stump that was rotted and covered with a thick layer of lichen. Danzo's pack, still on her back, creaked with her movement.
She framed her jaw with one hand, since she grasped Danzo's kunai in the other, and drew in deep breaths. It was wasn't hard to tell what Danzo and Minato were doing just by scent alone, even when they masked their chakra signatures to near invisibility. They were two or three kilometers away, hovering around the parameter of the nine Kumo nin and Kushina. The Kumo nins' scents were casual and relaxed; they had evaded discovery by enemy forces, successfully traveling through the heart of their allies' lands without notice, and expected no trouble now that they had entered their country of Lightning. Kushina smelled of worry and hunger, but that was no different from the last few days.
The scent of one Kumo nin shifted as it blundered across Danzo's path – from fresh and constant, to static, like the scent would never be regenerated. Since none of the other scents shifted, she knew Danzo's first kill had have gone unnoticed. She enjoyed Danzo's scent – still dark, but there was an added layer that sent a thrill zipping up and down her spine, the same thrill that made her throw on as many extra layers of clothes she could find when she smelled him approach the Palace a second time. She didn't tell him the extra clothes were because she felt safer if there were a thicker barrier between them that might deflect a thrown blade. Danger, she realized suddenly. She explored the feeling for a moment, turning it over in her head and heart. Nope; she wasn't scared. She was…. It wasn't quite being wary. It was more of one predator recognizing another, stronger predator.
Maybe, Tsume thought, maybe it was wariness, and she was just now able to label this particular emotion.
Minato's scent approached closer to Kushina's as another Kumo nin's went static. The wind suddenly came up, gusting hard from the south. It carried a scent of toad on it. Momentarily distracted, Tsume straightened and turned her awareness southward. The combined scent of toad and oil-stained paper was the only hint of someone coming – Jiraiya. She could catch an actual whiff of him once she searched for faint undertones. Tsume wondered how Jiraiya managed to hide his personal scent so well (didn't wonder why he would, it seemed very smart to Tsume to erase one's presence as much as possible, because the Inuzuka clan couldn't the only ninja clan out there with magnified senses), and if he hadn't also taught Minato a useful trick or two. Then again, she was only smelling at thirty percent of her allowed max. She made a mental note to ask Jiraiya if he wouldn't also teach her, because that would be a totally awesome skill if no one could track her.
The Kumo nins' scents all immediately shifted and flared – they stank of adrenaline and anger. Two more went static, and Minato and Kushina's scents were now rapidly moving in her direction. Much faster than what she could do. Grip tightening on the kunai as she felt her heart pounding hard from the sudden rush of adrenaline, Tsume leapt to her feet and immediately sprinted towards Jiraiya's scent. The pack banged heavily against her lower back with each bounding stride.
Her socks quickly became tangled with the underbrush and pine cones. After tripping once because the sock got caught, Tsume impatiently yanked everything off her feet and resumed her mad dash. Her limbs felt loose and long. Without the various layers protecting her feet, she was keenly aware of every single pine cone, rock, needle, and thorn she stepped on. She could barely see in the dark, just enough to dodge the really large obstacles. With a clench of her jaw, Tsume shifted chakra away from her nose to her legs and feet, circulating them, trying to harden the layers of skin like she coaxed skin cells together to heal a laceration.
Her olfaction abruptly dropped from thirty percent to fifteen, just as her speed gained an unexpected boost as each leaping bound carried her farther and faster. Awesome. While practicing the tree-walking with Kakashi and Kuromaru, she had figured out how to split the flow of chakra between her nose and her feet without causing a disruption to either, but she hadn't actually realized before this that the increased chakra to her lower limbs did more than just make her cling to different surfaces.
If she could make her feet and legs faster, could she see better? Tsume shifted chakra to her eyes, and her olfaction dropped down to five percent. Visual perception suddenly sharpened, lines and objects far more clear even though it didn't seem any brighter by intensity of light or color. She ducked a branch running, pleased that she could avoid being clobbered in the face.
Three Kumo scents surrounded Danzo's; a fourth followed fast behind Minato and Kushina's. Tsume readied her kunai, palm slick with sweat. Despite her increased speed, Minato managed to catch up easily. He carried Kushina bridal-style since her hands were bound tightly in front of her, and a small length of chain hung between the manacles on her ankles. The chains clanked as loudly as their harsh breathing and the crunching pine needles beneath their feet. Tsume was pleased to see that Kushina's hair was mostly intact despite being greasy and tangled.
Kushina's expression, which was already stunned (probably from her rescue), shifted into amazement as they drew up beside Tsume. "Oh! I knew you were alive!" Kushina bounced slightly in her excitement, her shifting weight unexpectedly making Minato briefly stumble. "None of us believed for a second that you were dead!"
"I'll break her bonds," Tsume told Minato as a warm, fuzzy feeling tickled the inside of her chest, "if you think you can take the Kumo nin following us."
"What about Danzo-sensei?"
Tsume suddenly wondered why it never occurred to her to attach an honorific to Danzo's name. She mentally cringed when she realized in a flash that she was probably in big trouble for not doing so, and that thought in the next moment that Danzo sure had been awfully nice to her since the brothel. Probably because there weren't any witnesses that he'd otherwise require killing. She forced more chakra into her nose, instead of shifting it from her limbs. "He's still tangled with two living shinobi. The one following us is going to catch up, because I can't run any faster, and you're probably a better fighter than I am."
"No 'probably' about that, Tsume-san."
She flushed red, even though Minato's voice and scent indicated that he was just being matter-of-fact without any arrogance – that was just the sort of person Minato was; forward and honest, but not arrogant. He skidded to a halt and set Kushina down on the ground with a strange gentleness. "Give me your kunai – I gave most of my weapons to Danzo and only kept one." Tsume did so without hesitation. With a kunai balanced in each hand, Minato whipped around on his heel and threw himself headlong just as the Kumo nin shunshined through the underbrush. Sparks flew from blades as Minato blocked the Kumo nin's sword with one kunai, skidded low between the nin's legs, and used his and the nin's momentum to thrust the other kunai deep and long. Intestines spilled on top of Minato and all Tsume could suddenly smell was acidic gastric fluids and blood.
Tsume made very short of the rope that tied Kushina's wrists together by biting and sawing. With claws and teeth nearly as sharp as a blade, the rope was off in three seconds – enough time that Minato jerked sideways from the Kumo nin's downward jab to avoid being skewered. Despite the entrails hanging from the Kumo nin's parted abdomen, the enemy still fought on with no loss of strength or speed, fueled by adrenaline and determination to take as many along to hell as possible.
Flooding her hands with the remaining bulk of her chakra reserves, Tsume grasped the chains between Kushina's feet and yanked with all her might. Metal links shattered beneath her unexpected strength. Once she felt the loss of tension in her grip, Tsume whirled around from Kushina and forced more chakra into her legs as she pounced across the woods to the back of the Kumo nin. She saw Minato deflect another sword swing, wincing as the force of the deflection sent shockwaves through his smaller arm. Tsume flashed across the world so quickly she didn't have time to think more than I can too fight, Danzo! Hands still flooded with chakra, Tsume instinctively punched the Kumo nin's spine open-handed with extended claws, and yanked.
Multiple thoughts exploded all at once in her mind – I'm attacking – I don't have a forehead protector – Grandmother said I'm a worthless meat shield – my body is a weapon – and the crack of splintering bone and wet tearing of flesh was horrendously loud despite the pounding in her ears. As the Kumo nin's body dropped all akimbo on top of Minato, like a Suna puppet losing its chakra strings, it took a bewildering second for Tsume to realize she was holding a bloody length of vertebrae, held together by shredded muscle, thick white tendons and ligaments, and filament nerve fibers. Minato floundered a moment before working his way free from beneath the body without losing his grip on either kunai. His head and torso were plastered with various body fluids that steamed in the cool air. His eyes were wide as he glanced between Kushina and Tsume, looking gratified that neither was injured.
Actually, he just looked horrified at Tsume. Nothing unusual about that – Minato regularly looked horrified at her at the Academy, especially before the Hokage got around to banning blows to genitalia.
Tsume stopped moving – at least she thought she did, even though her legs trembled – but the world kept spinning just like that morning when Danzo made her increase her olfaction to the allowed maximum limit. She looked away from the dead Kumo nin. "Gosh. I think he's finally dead." She looked at the bones in her hand, wondering if she should drop them or just hold on.
"That's nice," Minato said, shuddering as he tried to find a clean space on his vest and shirt.
"Is everyone all right?" Kushina asked as she joined their sides. She flinched back from the dead nin and Tsume. "Oh, yuck. That was Izu." She slapped a hand over her mouth, her next words almost too muffled to understand, "I'm going to be sick."
Tsume felt lightheaded and giddy as the world kept spinning all around her head, the ground flipping side-to-side like a seesaw on the playground back home. "This is so cool!" Tsume decided, waving the vertebrae in the air. The bones clacked as she was suddenly hit with a wave of exhaustion, and her arms dropped limp to her sides. Kushina vomited in the bushes. The pack on Tsume's back felt like someone dumped a few boulders inside of it when she wasn't looking. The strip of torn red vest was drenched and her arm was coated red. "Wait – how did I manage to do this?"
Minato reached over and grabbed the hem of one of her yukata. "Excuse my intrusion," he murmured as he swiped his face clean. "I don't want gastric fluid to get in my eyes. How's Danzo-sensei doing?"
Tsume refocused her chakra to her nose, ignoring the stabbing pain of cramping muscles in her arms and legs, and the tremor that shook her legs. The world spun faster all around her, colored dots joining the spin. Gagging at the overwhelming stink, she said, "He's still tangled with one living nin."
"We need to start running now."
Tsume pointed with the spine – her hand throbbed. Her head tilted to her left shoulder against her accord. "Go that way. I could smell Jiraiya-sensei coming."
"That's good," Minato said with a grim voice. His eyes flickered to Kushina. "Let's run."
It took a moment for Tsume to realize that she was supposed to follow after them, so she hurried to catch up, flooding her legs and feet with chakra again – she didn't seem to have a lot of chakra to do any more flooding with, though. Her arms now felt shaky and weak, and her right hand clamped tight around the vertebrae in an unrelenting, agonizing muscle spasm. She stumbled twice over different fallen logs, and nearly fell backwards from the weight of the pack even though she was running forward.
Her companions surrounded her; Minato followed behind to cover Tsume's back as Kushina ran at Tsume's left side, one hand under Tsume's armpit to right her immediately the next time Tsume stumbled. Brambles whipped against their bodies, occasionally catching the vertebrae in Tsume's right hand. She raised it above her head so it wouldn't snag. Her shoulder locked as agony lanced through it.
"That's creepy," Kushina told Tsume, whipping her face so the curtain of gloriously rich red hair remained out of her eyes. It was the same color of blood, Tsume thought. Like the blood that coated the arm and vertebrae that Kushina didn't want to touch. I have a flag! Weeee! It wasn't white or cloth, but she bet it would draw someone's eye!
The weakness in Tsume's arms seemed to move through her body. Her shoulder unlocked and her arm dropped flopping to her side, hand still clamped tight in a spasm. Each gasping breath tore at her throat as the dots became large blotches of black, gray, and red. A tugging stitch developed in her side. Her head felt like it should be rolling loosely on her neck. Tsume suddenly wanted to curl up against Kushina and sleep. But she forced herself not to slow any further, to push more chakra into her limbs, to pick her aching feet up every bit as high as they needed to go despite the screaming agony in her thighs and calves, because she wasn't just a worthless meat suit, wasn't just a warm body for a man to dip his cock into. She just wasn't.
Kushina's voice was shrill in Tsume's ear. "Dip his what?" Tsume dimly felt Kushina's fingers lock tightly around her arm. The blotches in her vision were getting awfully big, and what little ground she could see through them felt so far away, like she was falling except it was a crash forward.
"Stinks," Tsume muttered, trying to focus her thoughts. They kept spinning off in all directions, half a thought following a shard of a memory chasing the hint of a scent, round and round like the forest floor.
"Sorry." Mooncalf Weenie-san even managed to sound like he meant it.
"You too, but I… I meant the darn… toad."
"What toad?"
"Minato – it's Tsume-chan's chakra –"
Tsume's legs suddenly stopped working and she pitched forward, dragging Kushina down with her into a face full of stabbing pine needles. The pack smothered like another impossibly heavy weight. She didn't mean to – Tsume never wanted to be a weight dragging anyone down. Her legs twitched as she tried to make them behave. Stupid legs. The blotches were overtaking her vision now, filling it up until there was nothing to see but a horrendously ugly splotchy red mixed in with black and steel gray. Hands tugged at Danzo's pack and her clothes. "N-no." She wasn't ready, too soon after the last client.
"—she doesn't have any—"
Tsume wanted to scream, but couldn't. She was weak – too weak, just like Grandmother was always saying. She was good at fucking up. And fucking, good little whore, good little bitch. The world shifted violently on its axis –she overdid it again exploring the world, skipping through the Nara forest that readily opened itself up to her, sniffing out all the marvelous scents and the dark, dark man who smelled of so many different places and had pretty ruby eyes that spun fast and made the world also spin faster all around – "you know what they say about curiosity and cats" – and there was red heat in her vision, choking red in her mouth and nose and her head cracked open like a dropped melon.
More hands grabbed at her clothes and her arms – no, Madame Kai hadn't healed her yet. She wasn't ready. Blood drenched her legs and she felt torn in half all over again, split down the middle with her insides pounded to mush because it didn't fit and he forced it to fit –"the blood makes it easier to slide."
"…not ready, sheets are too bloody."
Everything was red, all the wrong red and it was so so so hard to forgot, why did she have to remember that – "And I say this as a professional mind-reader" – to shove it all in the box. Red like ruby eyes red like her sheets red like her thighs, red everywhere except a curtain of marvelous hair, red that kept coming even though she shrieked and kicked and the man kept thrusting thrusting splitting her in half splitting the world her head red red red drenched pools blood she only smelled blood had to smell more than blood for Konoha had to remember more remember why why why her what did she ever do to deserve – "I have seen the void – it is inside of me" – fill the void and spill her insides onto the sheets red everywhere red on Madame Kai's hands red in the bucket red on the hook —
Dark, old exploding tags and rusting kunai accidentally left out in the rain. The scent of home, of being guarded, of Danzo flooded her nose, a cloying odor that she knew would protect her like no one had bothered to before, and she dragged it with her into the dark void that swallowed her whole, and that was… nice.
oOoOoOo
Tsume mercifully passed out from severe chakra exhaustion the moment Danzo scooped her out of Minato's arms. He mentally cursed himself for being unaware of how little chakra she possessed, no matter how well disguised by the seal it had been – her control was remarkably good for her age, especially to maintain a steady level at her nose every moment of her existence – so he had never really given thought to her actual levels.
Minato's face was filled with genuine concern. "You're injured, Danzo-sensei. I can carry her for you."
Danzo paused long enough to yank his pack off of Tsume's back and shove it into Kushina's arms, nearly knocking her out of breath. He made sure Tsume's limp body – limp except for her right hand, and where the hell did she manage to get a fucking spine? That was the last time he ever left her alone without adult supervision – was slung comfortably over his shoulder. He favored his right leg, where a Kumo nin had taken advantage of Danzo's blind side and managed to sunk a kunai deep in the back of his right thigh, not quite hamstringing him. "No. Because I'm wounded, I need you to be as free as possible to fight, just in case."
"Oh. Right, sir." Minato nodded his head south. "Tsume said she could smell Jiraiya-sensei from that direction."
Now there was a man Danzo would give his eyeteeth to have protecting his back and blind side right now, no matter his personal dislike for Jiraiya. "Then we know he's coming. Did she say how far away he is?"
"No, sir."
"Did she say anything about anyone following us?"
"She only said that you were still fighting with one living Kumo nin." Since Tsume hadn't made any mention of other approaching forces earlier, Danzo figured that the fallen bodies were unlikely to be discovered by other Kumo forces or their allies until at least dawning light. Still, good fortune favored the ready, and he wasn't ready.
"We run." Danzo's slapdash patch job on his hamstring would need to hold until they met up with Jiraiya.
Despite the heavy limp and the dead weight on his shoulder, he initially set a pace that kept Minato and Kushina struggling to keep up, and braced his wounded hamstring with chakra so it wouldn't rupture completely. He monitored the other adolescents' current levels of chakra without too much worry, since he had no intention of carrying another kid passed out from exhaustion. Kushina, thanks to the nine-tailed fox demon and her Uzumaki genes, was a chakra juggernaut. And, from what he could tell with Minato as the boy cloaked himself with natural chakra (what has Jiraiya been teaching that brat?) to lessen chance of detection despite the clinging stench of ruptured body fluids, Minato's reserves could put most jounin to shame.
The skies overhead were bright from the full moon, making it dangerous to navigate the woods, but not quite treacherous. Danzo's pace slowed after Kushina tripped and tweaked her ankle. Her ankle was healed and no worse for wear thirty minutes later, but he maintained the slower pace because Minato was giving Kushina an appraising look. After two hours of steady running, their paths finally crossed with Jiraiya.
Danzo didn't even blink as Jiraiya flashed to his side, his hair gray beneath the moonlight, and matched them step for step. "Are we being followed?" Danzo asked, not bothering to waste his breath on a greeting.
"No, but if you keep running in this direction, you're going to stumble on Sora shinobi camping underground. Follow me this way." Jiraiya herded them westward. "I understand that you were sent to Earth for a mission, and that Tsume was dead."
"Had to obtain Intel from a spy up there. Coming back, I came across a squad of Iwa nin who had captured Tsume and were trying to convince her to switch to their sides. I pulled her out of there and brought her along with me. Can't have an Inuzuka in the enemy hands." There, that was a quick explanation to the remaining two children on why their classmate was still alive, despite a public death declaration.
Jiraiya's smile was more teeth than anything else. "Not with a nose like that. So that's the story, huh."
"That's the story. Although at the first chance we have, you must look at a seal that was forced on Tsume. My temporary modifications aren't going to hold forever." The seal was probably the only reason Tsume was out cold from chakra exhaustion, instead of comatose from chakra depletion. The chakra that fed the seal despite the temporary modifications was instead being redirected to prevent sudden organ failure. But he had no idea if that meant his modifications had collapsed without the chakra to maintain them, and he didn't want Tsume's seal to flare awake with him and Jiraiya within its snare.
Danzo felt chakra coil like a waiting viper as Jiraiya's eyes glittered. Jiraiya's voice dropped into a whisper that wouldn't be overhead by Kushina and Minato, following at their heels. "Is that the only thing that was forced on her?"
Danzo knew that he would reach Grass alive with the Intel even if Jiraiya learned of what Danzo had done. And Jiraiya would learn with one look at the seal. But whether Danzo would be remain alive once the war ended remained to be seen. Danzo wouldn't lie to Jiraiya though, and refused to cowardly and shamefully minimize his own involvement. "I wish it was."
"Ah." Jiraiya remained silent for a while, but eventually he gave in to a different curiosity. He raised his voice to be heard by the other two children. "So, uh, just why is Tsume-chan holding someone's bloody spine in her bare hand?"
Minato volunteered the information in a voice free of inflection, as if reciting a report. "She tore it out of the Kumo nin that I was fighting. He was very persistent, even after I gutted him, but thankfully couldn't maintain without a spine."
Jiraiya recovered his surprised stumble rather well in the dark. "She… you…" He coughed. "Danzo, did I just hear correctly that our cute little gutsy shinobi disemboweled and deboned an enemy nin? What about you?" He glanced over his shoulder at Kushina. "Did you defenestrate the poor guy on top of everything else?"
Danzo felt the glare that Kushina answered with. "Don't be stupid, sensei. Where would I get the window to toss the body out of?" Kushina was quick in adding her own description of the fight, but seemed somewhat distracted.
Jiraiya whistled low. "Wow, I'm really proud of you kids." He reached behind and ruffled Minato's hair. "Squicked out of my mind, but really proud. Hold!" They all skidded to a stop at his command. Jiraiya made one set of hand seals, and a miniature waterfall suddenly drenched Minato. "You stink, and your hair is sticky."
Minato sighed and looked like a resigned, albeit drenched, puppy. "Yes, sensei."
"Can't have you alerting any enemies when they're downwind of you."
Miinato shivered violently in the cold. "No, sensei."
Minato, Danzo realized, as the boy scrubbed at his hair, vest, and hands without complaint under the multiple waterfalls that Jiraiya produced in the cold night, had the patience of a saint.
Jiraiya was silent afterwards, leading them across the darkened countryside. They crossed the border of Lightning in the dark, silently entering Bear Country. Boreal forests gave way to deciduous glades where the crunch of bright orange, red, and golden fallen leaves was slightly louder beneath their feet than red and brown needles.
Jiraiya eventually led them to a cliff positioned high overhead in the sheer rock face, overlooking a roaring waterfall. Minato and Danzo scaled the cliff without problem, using chakra to climb despite the water-slick stone. Kushina had to cling to Jiraiya's back, her button nose wrinkled as she tried not to press her face against his wild white hair. She didn't have the control to stick to the slick stone.
It was nearing dawn when they finally reached the cave, the skies lighting up in rich shades of purple, pink, and orange. The air was filled with rainbows of light and color as the sun's rays danced across the floating spray from the waterfalls. The color of the cave walls in the gaining light was a slate blue with sparkling-white ribbons of quartz.
Jiraiya summoned a toad as a sentry, placed multiple layers of genjutsu on the cliff entrance to disguise it from notice, and then followed up with a technique that dulled the waterfall's deafening roar inside the cave to a distant hum.
As Danzo carried Tsume further back into the cave, Kushina stumbled after him. "D-Danzo-sensei, wait!" She pointed at Minato, who had started to follow after. "Sit still!" Minato abruptly sat, his legs folding beneath with an expression of surprise plastered on his face.
Danzo didn't wait as he carried Tsume around the corner and gently propped her limp body on the floor that was worn smooth from water over many years. "What is it?" Danzo asked as he dropped his own aching body beside Tsume's, fingers pressing against the bloody bandages that wrapped his thigh.
"I…I need to say this now, before I lose courage." Kushina stood before him, all gaunt and gangly – just like Tsume had when he first saw her, although Kushina's face was alive with fear while Tsume's had just been curious. She knotted her hands, twisting her fingers around each other. "I was never hurt with the Kumo nin. Well, they cuffed me a few times, especially when I tried to escape in the beginning, but they gave me food and water, and one even gave me his own bedroll to sleep on."
Danzo leaned his back against the cold stone, damp with condensation from the waterfall. "That was unusually kind of them, although I'm sure it was very frightening to be trapped and dragged along by the enemy, not knowing what awaited you at the end of your journey."
Kushina shook her head. She nervously undid the buckles that secured his pack to her back, and handed it to him. She clenched her hands into fists as her face burned bright red. "It's not about me though, sir. They never hurt me. I don't…. I don't know if Tsume-chan told you anything, but before you got to us and she passed out, before she started squeaking like she was trying to breathe through a straw, I heard her say…" Kushina's expression collapsed into pain and embarrassment, mingled with the earlier fear. She swallowed a few times and she blinked rapidly as moisture glimmered in her eyes. She kept looking between Danzo and Tsume. Jiraiya hovered behind her silently, arms crossed and face stern. "I heard her say…" She hesitated again, twisting her fingers, this time with more visible embarrassment.
Danzo scrubbed his face with a tired hand. He shoved the pack behind him, and leaned back against it. "You heard Tsume imply, if not say outright, that she had been raped." He kept his gaze focused on Kushina despite the sudden spike in Jiraiya's chakra.
Kushina bit her lip and nodded her head vigorously. Her shoulders hunched like she could feel the weight of Jiraiya's presence. As if Danzo's directness loosened the hold of embarrassment on her tongue, Kushina said hurriedly, "She said it was too soon to dip his… his cock in her, she wasn't ready, that her sheets were bloody." She trembled, swiped at the tears dribbling out of her eyes, and choked back a sob. "Tsume-chan… Tsume-chan was hurt, even though I never was. She was hurt really bad! What did they – how do we help her?"
Danzo pinched the bridge of his nose. It wasn't his place to tell Kushina what happened to Tsume, especially when the mission in its entirety was as classified as the demon Kushina hosted. He didn't think there was ever a place to tell a barely-turned-eleven year old girl the finer details of rape, or that Tsume would ever be willing to share her experience with the young friend she wanted desperately to save and protect – but he also couldn't just leave Kushina emotionally and mentally hanging with an abrupt order to forget what she heard.
Eleven year olds really can't be treated like ANBU when they're not ANBU.
"We can only be friends, Kushina-san," Danzo said, all too aware of how Jiraiya watched them in the dim light. "Tsume doesn't need pity and she doesn't need coddling. You wouldn't want that for yourself after being held captive by the Kumo, even though they didn't hurt you. You need to understand and accept that you may never know what happened, and it would be… unkind to ask, so don't push or pressure her. If Tsume ever volunteers anything, listen without judgment or questions, and then give her a hug and tell her how much you still love her, that you will never stop loving her." He struggled to remember the different psychiatric treatments and standard procedure dealing with ANBU recovering from rape. It wasn't his forte. There was a reason why Danzo was kept far, far away from ANBU who needed someone to respond to their trauma with a gentle kindness.
Tsume had been conscious only a moment in his arms, and he remembered her wide, unseeing eyes, the way her limbs flailed and twitched weakly as if struggling, the strangled gasps for air. No matter how normal she seemed when fully awake and not chakra-exhausted or tearing out spines with her bare hands, the scars were there. It was a hidden blessing that the terrible short term memory that Tsume suffered from her traumatic brain injury undoubtedly blunted the sharpness of such remembered experience.
"Just do all that you can," Danzo said slowly, "to welcome her back to Konoha. She told me she never wanted to be forgotten."
Kushina's expression was brave as she shook her head. "We never forgot her. Kokoro-chan and Sakumo-sensei and I always knew that Tsume-chan was out there somewhere, alive, and that we'd be together again."
Danzo held Kushina's gaze. He nodded pointedly. "Good. If she realizes how much she's still loved, remembered, and wanted at home, it will make the burden of the memories… manageable, since the hope of being remembered and wanted was all that she had to cling to through the trauma." There was only so much kindness he could handle, though. "Now go sit with Minato-san. I must speak privately with Jiraiya-sensei. Neither of you are to come back here without us calling you, or unless ordered by Jiraiya-sensei's toad sentry in case of an emergency."
Kushina nodded her head, looked at Tsume with raw sadness and uncertainty, and then retreated without touching Tsume. As she brushed passed Jiraiya, the Sannin said, "My toad will keep watch, and Minato is outside setting up traps. Eat what's available and get as much sleep as possible, since we're going to be running again before the sun sets."
Kushina's voice was a broken whisper. "Yes, sensei."
Once Kushina had turned the corner, Jiraiya's hands flashed through multiple signs before the walls flashed a deep blue, the jutsu surrounding them to prevent eavesdropping. Then another jutsu, this time lighting up the cavern in a soft, illuminating light. His expression, which had been kept mildly stern for Kushina's benefit, darkened considerably as he knelt in front of Danzo. Danzo decided to busy himself with his wound, rooting through his pack for his first aid kit.
"So," Jiraiya said, "this whole thing stinks of ANBU and Black Ops. Captured by Iwa nin my ass. What the hell is really going on?"
Danzo shrugged. "Mission is S rank. I don't have authority to read you in. If you don't know any healing techniques, could you at least sew this up?" He indicated his thigh.
"Tsunade-hime made me learn my way around a needle since I'm worthless at healing. Let me go wash my hands." Jiraiya ducked out of the area for a lengthy moment as Danzo mentally rehearsed how to explain himself and still come out alive in the end.
His carefully orchestrated explanation was disrupted with the first thing that Jiraiya said as he returned with a wet rag in hand and knelt beside Danzo. "Bullshit that you don't have authority."
"But I don't, Jiraiya." Danzo handed him the first aid kit. "I'm only read in peripherally, myself." Not to mention that Danzo would be neck deep in boiling hot water once Orochimaru and Hiruzen caught wind of his interference in removing Tsume from her assigned position, let alone reading in anyone else.
"Okay, let me put it another way – bullshit that lack of official authority has ever stopped you in being limited, since you've always done whatever the hell you wanted, however the hell you wanted. You're probably the only shinobi – hell, the only person – in all of Konoha that the Third Hokage allows to get away with as much meddling shit as you do. Probably the only reason you don't have competition is because Biwako likes to mind her own business." Jiraiya paused at the expression that Danzo couldn't prevent from crossing his face, and slapped his forehead in exasperation. "Oh – don't tell me you never before realized just how much you get away with, Danzo.
"Hiruzen-sensei's own sons don't even get half the leeway you have, and they've got their mother on their side. Look, even the Head of Internal Affairs is always looking in the other direction when it comes to you! Oh, Kagami-san could probably get away with as much as you, but the man picked up all the ethics you've dropped over the years, so he wouldn't bother trying. And when I say stinking of Black Ops, I mean infiltration into Tetsuzanshi. I've already been read in centrally with the ongoing operation – or I was, up until last year." Jiraiya shrugged. "Hey, since no one's told me different, let's just assume I still am."
"Ah." Danzo didn't bother hiding his grim smile as he carefully arranged Tsume so she was laying comfortably with her head propped up on his pack. Her vitals were stable, and she seemed to be recovering her chakra stores slowly. He unwound the bandages, undid his pants, and shoved his clothes down to his knees before rolling over on his stomach. He felt Jiraiya's hands, large and cool and nimble, against his flesh as Jiraiya carefully cleaned the area with the wet rag. It had been far too long since he had exposed his bare backside to another man – not since Torifu's death. And he didn't particularly care for it then any more than he did now. "So you know about Tetsuzanshi."
"It was my idea to use Tsume's talented nose."
Danzo's breath hitched in surprise. He briefly wondered if he had the strength to bury Orochimaru and Jiraiya. Probably not. Which one did Danzo want dead the most?
Jiraiya continued his explanation, ignorant or uncaring of Danzo's roiling emotions. "I tested Tsume when she was eleven and failed to graduate from the Academy the first time. She was able to get more information off of Yamanaka Rai's bloody sleeve than any other Inuzuka nose that I presented it to, even though it was more than a month old and had been contaminated with different persons and environments. Up until then, Orochimaru didn't believe me that her nose was as good as all that. But I didn't want anything done until Tsume was at least thirteen years old, and not without someone like me or Sakumo being with her every moment on the mission. She could easily sniff the information outside of city limit and wouldn't need to be anywhere near the targets."
Orochimaru, Danzo decided then. Jiraiya had the decency to be left alive. Jiraiya was as good a man as Danzo suspected.
Danzo propped himself upright on his elbows, knotting his hands together. He felt iodine sting the wound. The cave floor was damp, lumpy, and uncomfortable; he could feel his joints ache in anticipation of sleeping on it. "It's good to know," he said, voice soft and considering, "that at least one person thought Tsume needed adult supervision and protection."
Jiraiya's hands paused a moment. "Something tells me you weren't meant to be either one. I thought you were her handler there and maybe the two of you got into trouble and were separated… Well, that's probably more of a wish than a thought, given her public death declaration."
"She didn't have any adult looking out for her personal best interests, not for a single moment when the mission was assigned. Inuzuka Shinzou told Tsume that she'd bury her in an unmarked grave if Tsume didn't agree to the mission, and Orochimaru told Tsume she was going in without backup."
Pain lanced through Danzo's leg as Jiraiya's hands jerked unexpectedly. "Shit. That bastard… maybe I don't want to be read in."
"You'll need to know, given the seal you have to look at. My temporary modifications aren't going to last long, especially once Tsume's chakra recovers." Better to warn Jiraiya what could potentially manipulate him. It nearly destroyed Danzo's psyche, which was already long rooted in the darkness of the sordid underworld. The siren seal's snare would utterly defeat someone who thrived in the bright sunlight like Jiraiya. "Long story short, seventeen weeks ago, Orochimaru assigned Tsume with the mission of gathering as much Intel on enemy forces from Iwa as possible. He placed a seal on her that would redirect any attention that her chakra signature would garner into desire, and then had Inuzuka Shinzou sell Tsume to Madame Haori's House of Pleasure."
"He sent her where with what seal?"
Danzo felt his anger flare as his hands curled into fists. "A very effective seal. I can barely make heads or tails of it. I was read into the mission about two weeks ago and told to obtain the required information from her. I was also told that she was supposed to stay there for years to come – standard procedure for a mole."
"And you didn't think it was odd that Tsume-chan had no backup or was stuck in a brothel?"
Danzo hesitated a moment. Then the moment seemed to drag on awkwardly… dangerously. He swallowed. "Orochimaru refused to give me the identity of the mole."
"…what?" Danzo felt Jiraiya's rage wash over him and tensed at it, even though it wasn't aimed at him – yet. "And as soon as you saw her, you yanked her out of the operation."
Danzo suddenly didn't like talking to Jiraiya. "No, that's merely a clone because I feel like pissing off Orochimaru. Of course I yanked Tsume out of the operation. Stop interrupting!"
Jiraiya's answering sharp jab with the suture needle was entirely unnecessary, Danzo decided with a wince.
"I removed her from the brothel the night I initiated contact, once all the crowds had died down and everyone settled for bed. We eluded shinobi sent to track us down, and the next morning following our escape, Tsume caught Kushina's scent."
Jiraiya paused. "Wait – what? All the way here from Tetsuzanshi? You had to be at least two hundred kilometers away at the time! I knew Tsume-chan was good, but holy shit!"
Danzo's laugh was brief and hollow. "Tell me, Jiraiya, do green bananas with sugar sprinkled on them upset the Hokage's stomach?"
"I…what?"
He studied the cave floor. It was a boring floor, given that it had long worn smooth from an underground stream of water, which was eventually diverted into what was now the waterfalls beside the case. He wished he could see and study Jiraiya's face. "Sarutobi Hiruzen is your sensei; do you know whether green bananas give him an upset stomach or not?"
"How this is relevant I don't even know, but you're obviously leading up to something, so I'll play along. Me and Tsunade-hime, we always suspected that Hiruzen-sensei's love of bananas was influenced by his monkey summon – especially green ones, because he preferred the texture, and he'd enhance the flavor with sugar. So, what are you going with this?"
"Tsume told me, Jiraiya. The same morning she caught Kushina's scent, when we were forty kilometers northeast of Tetsuzanshi, Sarutobi Hiruzen had oolong tea with a dash of cream, two lumps of sugar, and a green banana with sugar sprinkled on it for breakfast. She even knew that the sugar was ink stained. We were eight hundred fucking kilometers away and she fucking knew what the Hokage was having for breakfast at his office, and what the three Uchiha assembled in his office also had for breakfast before arriving at his office!"
Jiraiya's hands stilled. Danzo knew he was staring wide-eyed at Tsume's prone figure. Danzo wondered if Tsume would hunch in embarrassment from the attention, or preen in delight. "Eight hundred… why the hell did she even need to be in the flippin' country? That's like having the Byakugen stuffed up your nostrils and pumped up on steroids and soldier pills. Oh man. Can you imagine the blackmail that kid could dig up on every single person in existence? We've got to keep her far away from the Fire Daimyo." After a pause, Jiraiya added, "And Orochimaru too, apparently. With a nose like that – that's S rank right there, no doubt. Beyond S rank, even!"
Danzo tasted bitterness in his mouth again. "With a nose like that, she never had to be left alone in that brothel for a single moment, much less with such a seal in place. To do that to a twelve year old…" (TWELVE FUCKING YEARS OLD, his mind screamed at him) "That's a level of cruelty even I can't fathom."
"That…" Jiraiya's voice fell silent, almost as if he stopped himself from voicing a protest on behalf of his teammate. "If you can't fathom it, there's no hope for the rest of us. Although, honestly, I don't think Orochimaru knew her nose was that good."
"Indeed not." They were quiet, each buried in his own thoughts as Jiraiya finished suturing and dressing the wound.
"Be careful with that," Jiraiya said as he replaced the supplies in Danzo's first aid. "You're this close to rupturing the tendon and crippling yourself." He pinched his forefinger and thumb tightly together, no space in between, as Danzo looked over his shoulder.
Danzo shrugged languidly as he rolled onto his back and arched to pull his clothes up and over his hips. "Wouldn't be any worse than losing an eye."
"Yeah, well, an eye doesn't carry you from place to place like a leg does. I ain't packing you on my back, man. You don't have the right parts to be riding me."
Danzo grunted as he secured his fly. "I've ridden worse."
"Hey!" Jiraiya blushed scarlet as Danzo straightened upward and raked his gaze up and down Jiraiya's body.
"Hmm. Mind out of the gutter, Jiraiya, even if you have permanent residence there." Jiraiya was more to Danzo's taste than women generally were, but that was better left unsaid. "You have got to look at the seal before Tsume wakes up. I'm serious. Orochimaru's work was diabolical, and my patchwork isn't going to last long."
Jiraiya's gaze flickered to Tsume. He hunched his shoulders and looked like a gigantic moping puppy with an unfortunate sunburn. "Give me a moment to recover – I'm not used to old dudes casually flirting with me. Last time that happened, I was fourteen and had to cross-dress with Orochimaru for a mission that I swear Hiruzen-sensei came up with just so he'd have an excuse to surround himself with young, cute girls."
Danzo thought of the unintended consequences of thumping Jiraiya. And then thought he'd probably get an even more amusing reaction out of Jiraiya if he were to trail a hand along Jiraiya's jaw. "That wasn't flirting."
"Yeah, well, if you were a woman, it would so qualify in my book. Not that I blame you for wanting to flirt with me – I'd flirt with me if I was inclined that way. Besides, I don't want to think about… Orochimaru and what he did, because I have to trust the man to watch my back."
"I'm sorry." And Danzo truly was, because he knew he could theoretically trust his old teammates, even those who were still alive. He didn't want to imagine what it was like to have his understanding and worldview of such a companion torn asunder in betrayal, especially in the midst of war.
Heaving a great sigh, Jiraiya carefully arranged Tsume flat on the floor. Tsume's right hand still tightly clenched the vertebrae she had yanked out of the Kumo nin.
"That's disturbing," Jiraiya said in a very unhelpful manner, pointing. "Can't we pry it loose?"
"You feel like prying these bones from a sleeping dog?"
Jiraiya frowned thoughtfully as his hands flashed through another set of hand seals; light glimmered all around them, filling the cave they were hidden in and chasing away shadows. The scarlet color receded from his face. "Touché, Danzo. Touché."
"The seal covers a lot of skin," Danzo warned as he leaned forward and grasped the hems of Tsume's multiple yukata. "You'll need to slide her panties around. Thankfully she isn't wearing a bra we have to remove."
Jiraiya heaved another great sigh as he carefully removed a brush and a sealed pot of chakra ink from his hip pouch. "Ah, man. She's not over eighteen. I haven't looked at anyone under eighteen since I turned eighteen." The silence that followed was awkward as Jiraiya wrestled with the lid on his pot. "Or least I try really hard not to when I learn they aren't eighteen yet, Danzo – don't look at me like that!" Jiraiya pointed at Tsume with the pot. "She doesn't even qualify as a mature sixteen-year-old!"
That didn't even deserve the dignity of a response. Danzo yanked Tsume's clothes up and around her armpits, revealing her bare torso and breasts. Jiraiya squirmed, his expression exceedingly uncomfortable as he set aside the brush and opened ink pot. They stared down together at Tsume, who remained unconscious through it all. "I've already told Tsume that you would be looking at her seal."
Wonder of wonders, Jiraiya's face burned bright red again. "I still feel like I deserve to have my eyes gouged out of my head, man. Looking at a mostly-naked twelve year old girl when you're twenty-seven is entirely different from when you're also twelve and going through the combined hell of curiosity and puberty."
Danzo sighed as he coaxed the seal from where it lay hidden and folded beneath her purple toenail. As the seal's scrollwork bloomed bright and shimmering in the light, from the delicate dip of her ankle to the gentle swells of her breasts, Danzo heard Jiraiya's breath catch in his throat. "And how do you think I feel, when I'm almost twice your age?" Danzo shuffled on his knees until he was above Tsume's resting head, his back pressed against the wall again.
"Decrepit?" Jiraiya's voice squeaked and broke like he was twelve. His eyes were wide as he studied the seal. Then his eyes narrowed dangerously as he translated the seal and the purposes of its many layers. "This is an exceedingly complex siren seal." One fingernail scratched at a deteriorating temporary modification that was black as sin and just as ugly with its clunky lines. "There's a layer I can't see." Danzo felt the sudden rise of killing intent, and winced as its crushing pressure rushed at him. "To understand this seal, I need to look at it in five dimensions. I'll have to go into sage mode." Jiraiya formed a triangle with his hands as his eyes fluttered shut and his body went completely still. Another wave of pressure crested the killing intent, and Danzo fought the temptation to bury a kunai into Jiraiya's heart while his eyes were still closed.
Danzo vaguely knew enough about senjutsu to realize it was rare and powerful. He hadn't heard that it changed one's physical appearance, though. Nor would he have ever suspected that someone like Jiraiya could've achieved senjutsu. He watched as the color of Jiraiya's skin gained a greenish tint, warts popped up, nose enlarged, and facial hair sprouted off his chin. Danzo wondered if it was an added benefit to look hideous – not that Danzo himself was a prime candidate for Kunoichi Kalender: Shirtless Edition!
With a sigh, Jiraiya's eyes opened – they were blocky and square, like a toad's. He impatiently tugged his newly-formed goatee. "I hate this. It's just not cool with the ladies."
Danzo shrugged. "The ladies probably wouldn't mind the goatee as much as they would the warts."
Horrified, Jiraiya's hands flew to his nose and felt around. Then he dropped his hands with a groan. "Okay. Let's get this show on the road." He turned his toad-eyes on Tsume's seal. Danzo felt another dark wave stir as the hairs on the back of his neck rose in warning – and then Jiraiya raised his eyes from the seal and fixed them on Danzo. His expression was flat, but the looming deadliness in Jiraiya's eyes made Danzo feel like he was staring into an empty sarcophagus that wasn't going to remain empty for long.
"Don't." Danzo struggled to keep his voice even, to not feed Jiraiya's tremendous anger. "You have no fucking idea what happened, what it's like when that damn thing ensnares you."
Jiraiya's silence was deliberate as he pointedly turned his attention back to Tsume. He carefully eased Tsume's pink panties around, never pulling them off completely, so he could fully read and study the scrollwork hidden beneath the scrap of cloth and still give her some modicum of privacy. "A five dimensional gaze allows its user to read the past, Danzo. Unfortunately, I know precisely what happened to the bearer of this seal every moment that it's been active."
"I am not the one who put it on her."
Jiraiya drew back for a moment, hands dangerously slack as they rested lightly on his knees. "You gave in, though."
"Do you think—" Danzo forced himself to close his eye and draw in a deep breath despite the crushing force that surrounded him, a wave of fury-enhanced chakra that he couldn't even match in his prime. Every sense screamed danger at him. Then he opened his eye and stared straight into Jiraiya's. He hated dealing with emotions – Orochimaru, with his cold, cruel logic, was far more tolerable than a passionate Jiraiya. "I know you're protective of children – I'm grateful, truly, because someone needs to look out for them – and I know that you're fond of Tsume. I know that you, acting as a responsible adult – and I can't even believe I'd ever say that about you – are angry on her behalf for the atrocious evils you've… just witnessed. But the only person in this damn cave who has the right to demand her pound of flesh is Tsume. Not you. Not me. Not Kushina or anyone else. Only Tsume."
"The only time a twelve year old girl should have another person rolling around in her sheets is if that person is her two year old nephew or a cute little girlfriend invited over for a sleepover." Jiraiya's voice was flat and his face slack, nearly impossible for Danzo to read. "The worst is how she had to respond in an open, inviting manner, drawing men into her bed when she never wanted to."
That warned him more than any display of emotion could.
Danzo's anger and shame burned in the pit of his stomach, churning like poison. "I will gladly and without delay carve that pound of flesh from myself the moment Tsume even hints towards wanting it. You do not have ownership, and you do not have the right or place to demand that pound of flesh on her behalf. The moment you think or act as if you do, that you have the right, you will also be a monster. She is not an object for you to be possessive and on whose behalf to be offended. She's already been nothing more than an object to be used and abused for personal pleasure. She was thrown into this because the adults who were supposed to be responsible gave no consideration of what she wanted or thought. Don't do that to her, Jiraiya. Not when she looks up to you."
"That argument would work if Tsume was an adult." Jiraiya's body was loose, his voice languid and hypnotic. He still hadn't blinked yet. "She's not. An adult has the responsibility to protect and guard – and she is the responsibility, therefore she cannot demand anything that contradicts the responsibility we have as adults, and you can't make those demands either, especially when you are notorious for seeing people as nothing more than weapons to be used. You and Shinzou have both forfeited your responsibility, so if not me – who?"
"Don't you dare compare me—" Danzo choked on his words, and then redirected his thoughts against the looming cold. Prior to Tsume, he didn't know if he could honestly say he would never sell a kunoichi into sex slavery if it meant Konoha's survival. "Her sensei then, because Sakumo is the closest thing to an acknowledged father figure in her life and it's his responsibility to safely shape her into a capable kunoichi. Her Hokage also has the right and responsibility. No matter how much you think Sarutobi Hiruzen lets me get away with in life – this will not be one of them."
Jiraiya lifted his chin. Did toad sages never blink? "Tell me why I shouldn't kill you right now."
A little voice – a voice that Danzo had spent the last few decades trying to smother and kill, and would never admit to any living soul – whispered, I don't want to die. With long practiced ease, he ruthlessly shoved it away. "Because that would be the easy way out, Jiraiya. There are fates worse than death, and I do not deserve that mercy. And despite abdicating my responsibility, I've still tried to make right.
"I wasn't even fucking told…" No. He would make no excuses for his actions. "I yanked Tsume the first night we made contact, once I got away from the seal's manipulation and could think. I modified the damn thing twice already even when it was actively prying its way into my brain. The only reason I haven't castrated myself yet is because I was the only one who could pull Tsume out and get her to safety. Wallowing in my own guilt was a luxury that wasn't going to rescue her!"
Danzo stuffed a fist in his mouth when he became aware of shouting. He bit down as a red mist settled in his vision. He couldn't remember ever being this angry before. Everything came roaring to the forefront – his shame, embarrassment, frustration, rage, fear and bewilderment. He felt raw and exposed, strung out because he had been ignoring his emotional intensity in the last four days, an unending regret of the likes he had refused to suffer since the last time he saw Senju Tobirama alive… and in the aftermath, when Danzo beheld his sensei's lifeless body. He tasted blood in his mouth as his teeth scraped the inside of his bottom lip. All the feelings that he had been running from and trying to deny for nearly a quarter-century were making up for lost time.
Spitting out the blood, Danzo said, "You fucking brought her to Orochimaru's attention in the first place. Because of that – you abdicated your own responsibility! You are the fucking catalyst, I'm the one who has had to clean up other people's messes, and Tsume has to pay the price. Let the blame roost on my shoulders – I know I've earned my fair share – but just don't do anything that's going to hurt her further." Danzo scrubbed his face, feeling old and weary. "I'm not anything like Shinzou – and neither are you, because you're going to make it right by fixing the seal that Orochimaru forced on her. That is the only right you have."
Jiraiya's toad-eyes glittered dangerously, still unblinking. There was another pressure behind the killing intent, as if the entire mountain could be brought down upon Danzo's head without ever touching Tsume's or the other children's. A heartbeat passed. And then another. The pressure eased back as Jiraiya finally blinked. "You're right, Danzo. Were it not for my actions, Tsume never would've been noticed, never would've been assigned the mission, and never would've suffered this seal. And now I know you to be a better man than me. If I were in your shoes, I doubt I'd have the same strength of character to own my actions and rectify my mistakes." Jiraiya bowed deeply at the waist then, his forehead nearly brushing the cave's floor. "Forgive me."
Danzo's mind whirled as Jiraiya remained bowed and contrite. Then he lightly kicked the man's shoulder dismissively. "Don't… My character is weak and deplorable, and you did nothing I have the right to forgive. Besides, our fighting is not fixing Tsume's seal."
Jiraiya's smile was genuine but tense as he straightened. "It takes a great man to admit he's not great."
Danzo tried to stuff down the clawing ache and ripping agony of emotions. He felt weak and pathetic. "What kind of Zen shit is that?"
"The good shit, man. When a man says he's great, everyone knows he not. When a man says he's not great, everyone knows that he is probably great, or is at least honest, and that's hard to come by in any case. So, here's the bad news." Jiraiya crossed his arms in front of himself, almost defensively. The stance and attitude change shifted his appearance from terrifying to just ridiculous. "I can't remove the seal."
Danzo winced. He thought quickly of the kind of life that Tsume would have to live and survive with the seal. "Well, I know of a few shrines that only take mikos…" Sakumo and Kushina would forgive him, eventually, especially if he arranged Kuromaru to always be with Sister Tsume.
"The good news," Jiraiya continued, one hand tracing the flaking modifications on Tsume's exposed ribcage, eyes carefully not glancing at her breasts, "is that I can make a permanent modification that will mute the seal completely."
That sounded only slightly better than being forcefully made into a miko. "That's the good news? How?"
"Well, I can't add an off and on switch to this mess." Jiraiya swung his hands wide in a circle to encompass all of Tsume. "The original seal is designed to prevent it, and I may never gain the skill to remove a seal that's buried this deep in someone's chakra system. However, since the seal would still be alive and active on mute, it won't be affected by the suicide stop that Orochimaru attached, and it's not going to affect men the way it has been."
Danzo figured that the suicide stop was the character that deteriorated any attempts to remove or turn off the original seal. "Which would be the same as off, for all intents and purposes."
"Indeed. Ach. This mode always makes me hot." Jiraiya peeled off his jacket and shirt, stripping to the waist. Danzo could see the sweat that coated still-green skin stretching tight over bulky muscles. After ridding himself of excess layers, Jiraiya grabbed his brush and the pot of ink. "I'll apply it on top of your temporary modifications so it'll kick in once those collapse completely." With a flurry of the brush, Jiraiya began his work.
Danzo felt only a little tension and ache ease as beautiful swirls were brought to life, midnight blue and soft as velvet, side-by-side with glimmering purple. They covered the hideous slapdash of Danzo's desperate work. Beneath Jiraiya's brush, Tsume stirred.
Author's notes
Let us hearken back to the article I quoted in regards to how strong a dog's sense of smell is. In canon, Hatake Kakashi is said to have a nose 1000x stronger than a ninken's. If we understood that in light of the scientist explaining that a dog is able to see from three thousand miles what a human being can see from a third of a mile, then Kakashi could track the entirety of the continent. Therefore, Tsume's oflaction, in this story and based on the scale established by the scientists and Kishomoto himself, is actually weaker than Kakashi's's canon oflaction. However, oflaction has been so greatly underplayed in canon (until it came time for Kiba to be tracking down Team Taka), that the descriptions I've created on Tsume's skills will just have to stand. In some ways, I have written 300k words just to highlight why having the oflaction of a dog is an amazing ninja skill.
Now, in this story, is Kakashi's oflaction still insanely powerful? Yes, yes, it is. When you look at the statistics and data of Kakashi as a shinobi - good grief, he was a fully graduated genin at the age of five, and a chuunin by the age of six - his skill level, natural talent, and intelligence are abnormally strong, and I try to highlight that randomly, between Kakashi using his own chakra to create a henge when he's not even a week old, to tree-walking before most toddlers can string a coherent sentence together. But in the great grand scheme of things, oflaction is so invisible compared to his other skills that it's not even registering as a blip on other people's radars.