Tipping Point

Chakra flowed heavily into coils unaccustomed to such cold, powerful energy. From the heart through the gates, the invaluable life energy thrummed with a confused might: cells were revitalized, organs worked full throttle feeling none of the strain that a lethal malady had always imposed on them, and muscle groups were fully relaxed for the first time in many years.

More than that, there was an unfamiliar peace ruling supreme in the unconscious realm of Itachi Uchiha, kinslayer, missing-nin, and worst of all, unsung hero of Konohagakure no Sato.

Itachi woke with a deep breath from the deep coma that Daiki had put him under.

He didn't try to open his eyes, he felt the cool bandages that would have prevented the action in any case, and instead chose to focus on that first action he first unconsciously took: breathing.

For the first time since when his malady was discovered, for the first time since soon after his act of genocide, air entered and left his lungs causing no tightness whatsoever in his throat, his diaphragm didn't quake while trying to push beyond the added weigh of blood and pleuric liquid oozing thought his alveoli, he didn't feel the blood push within his veins as if too much for his body.

In the darkness caused by his bandaged face, he let his other senses guide him. He distantly perceived the warmness of a sun that rested just beyond where he was, informing him that he was under a cool shade for which he was grateful, a sun that had the ethereal quality that he had grown to know into the Elephant Summons' Plane. There was the ever-encompassing rustling of a small outcrop of trees -and he could guess just who was responsible for those-, coupled with the smell of dry dirt and dried out blood with the bitter scent of herbs that had been likely refined ad hoc for his needs by the knowledgeable Daiki.

And speaking of Daiki, the chakra sensing that Itachi had unconsciously developed throughout the entirety of his career as a shinobi allowed him to tilt his head towards the not-far presence, who, immediately noticing the change in his last patient, spoke: "How is your breathing? The eyes of both you and Sasuke are settling in just fine, and a side effect of your operation apparently will allow your chakra to settle within the week, instead of the planned two."

Itachi slowly pushed himself to a seated position, his exceptional mind elaborating the news while he kept breathing consciously, studying each minute variation that he could feel within himself: "I feel... I feel..."

A hand-coated with the now familiar feel of medical chakra landed on his back, while another hovered just above his sternum: "One deep breath please."

Itachi followed the instructions with the same stoic demeanor that had characterized most of his life, and fought down the part of his mind and heart that positively howled in anguish at the now near certainty that he would get to live despite his crimes.

"Do you smell fresh blood, by any chance?" the question of the medic-nin currently tending to the Uchiha was answered by a smooth shaking of his head, while his chakra sensing tentatively moved across the immediate surroundings, soon enough landing on the almost dim presence of his younger brother.

"He's perfectly fine." Daiki answered his unasked question while he continued his examination, "Now try to hold your breath for the next 60 seconds."

As the Uchiha kinslayer complied with the last request, the Elephant Sage kept talking in the steady, reassured tone of a man dealing with an easily startled beast: "He'll need 2 weeks before we can safely uncover his eyes, but considering the situation, it's better for everyone if he remains unconscious: I've tweaked Sasori's method for jinchuriki in order to allow for a steady circulation of chakra, there will be no adverse effects."

At the running out of the 60 seconds he had been asked to hold his breath for, Itachi finally spoke: "Why is he here?"

A tired sigh was the prelude to the medic's reply while the healing chakra ran once more across the Uchiha's torso: "I prepared extensively for these operations, so there was no problem with the eyes, but dealing with your lungs straight away, while the best course of action so that I'd need to boost your chakra system through only a single cycle of almost implosion truly wiped me out."

"You told me that you'd only swap our eyes now." Itachi frowned under the bandages, and he didn't have to open his eyes to perceive the smug grin of his companion.

"I really wasn't sure about your commitment to staying alive," the Uchiha felt the shrug reverberate through the air, "I preferred taking away the temptation of finding a convenient way to die later only so that your brother could have a second pair of Eternal Mangeyko Sharingan given your warped obsession about keeping him safe."

"It was my choice."

The objection fell on deaf ears: "We already had this discussion, haven't we? It matters not: dying won't be helping anyone now, on the other hand, it would weaken my position considerably."

"So you felt in the right when you put a new pair of lungs into me?" the displeasure seeped into the kinslayer's still unsteady and unsettled chakra, oozing into a distant echo of killing intent as he asked another question: "Who did you take my new lungs from?"

"Nothing so crude." the dismissal in Daiki's tone was clear as he bustled about the Uchiha, his hands hovering above him as he performed a battery of tests: "You may have your ravens, but Sasori is an extraordinary bioengineer, and a dissected White Zetsu clone was surprisingly receptive to being manipulated through Nature Chakra: so you are now the proud owner of the first and only pair of lungs crafted by two S-rank missing nins."

"Sasori knows!?" for the first time, urgency seeped into the voice of the kinslayer, only for the extremely dangerous medic-nin to reassuringly deny that.

"I misspoke, I simply meant that Sasori and Deidara are extremely easy to manipulate when talking about art," Daiki finished his analysis by stepping behind the Uchiha and pressing his hands between his shoulder blades: "nobody knows, of course. And I'd like to point out that any standard lung-swap, as you named it, would have bought you ten years in the best-case scenario: these beauties you've on will be a part of you like your old brain or new eyes."

Itachi lowered himself once more on his cot, his breathing coming easy and steady despite the weight that settled on his stomach, and while he parsed through the news, he turned back to focusing on the priority he had kept in his heart since he was a child: "And Sasuke?"

The question was loaded, and with only two words, he asked everything that ranged from 'what plans do you have for him?' to 'why did you allow me to know that you kept him?'.

"He's your trigger, doing anything to him that you'd see as harm will probably end up with me dead." Daiki explained openly, "Frankly, the Sharingan makes the Uchiha unstable, and even if we have success or not in our primary and secondary aims, letting him go to eventually resurrect your clan is a potential danger to the Elemental Nations. Also, given his Eternal Mangeyko and our future needs, he'd be dead useful, and he'd get to learn very quickly from the best with his fancy eyes, making him stronger and thusly safer, which is the warped logic that brought you to push him as hard as you did..."

Itachi couldn't deny the second half of Daiki's statement, even if the weight of 'your clan is a danger' hovered above the two with a surprising heaviness: "How do you plan to recruit him?"

"With the full truth." the laconic answer felt like a stab wound to the gut, but it wasn't the worst of it: "Also, I've worked with Tobirama on a variation of the Caged Bird Seal: I have no intention of letting to anyone the opportunity to steal away yours or Sasuke's Eternal Mangeyko Sharingan."

And just like that, the partial peace that had been found in the deep unconsciousness necessary for the surgery abandoned Itachi Uchiha, only to leave behind a familiar, unwavering determination.


In a dimly lit room under Konohagakure no Sato, a man sat at a desk with a heavy frown, pristine white bandages covering half of his face while even the x-shaped scar on his chin trembled at the sanguine quirk of his lips.

"Repeat the report." the order was delivered with the toneless inflection of uncaring steel, and the white-masked shinobi kneeling in front of him fractionally lowered his head even more.

The answer was given in a flat droning voice that carried no worry nor joy about the news it conveyed, only care about the facts that were being stated: "The Godaime Hokage met the Yondaime Raikage on the field of battle and as a consequence, the Unruly A is left without one functioning leg, while the Legendary Sucker is in a coma that her apprentice swears is a healing trance."

Turning his head towards the other kneeling ninja in the shadow, the apparently one-eyed man spoke once more: "It's confirmed?"

"The missing-nin Daiki and Itachi Uchiha have killed Jiraya and taken the Kyubi Jinchuriki." the news had been sung across the Elemental Nations just before A's decision to rush across Taki towards Hi no Kuni, coupled with a plethora of conflicting details.

That is a deliberate act. Danzo was experienced beyond what any other Kage currently alive could hope to conceive: he understood deeply and saw further. For decades, he had kept hidden in his role as the Shadow of the God of Sinobi, Sarutobi Hiruzen, and with his mentality, he was perfectly suited to notice what others would have only dismissed as a coincidence.

The Fourth Ninja War had until recently brought a plethora of successes to Konoha, and even the recent assault on Kumo was confirmed as successful despite the still unconfirmed list of fallen leaf-nin: Kaminari no Kuni was crippled, Iwa too weak under the rule of Onoki's successor to represent a threat -even if their two jinchuriki would need to be acquired sooner rather than later-, while the newly minted Kazekage lacked both the clout and the might to stand up to his title, not to mention the quaking mess that was Kiri, despite the effective leading skills of Mei Terumi.

The Seven Swordsmen of the Mist were being instated once more, even if not all the blades were accounted for, while none of the minor villages had suddenly presented a single character worthy of Danzo's full focus. Once more, his lone dark eye landed on the many papers neatly organized on his desk, and he took in the less urgent reports about the missing Jinchuriki across the entirety of all the Elemental Nations.

The reports were jarring: Danzo didn't doubt them, after all, he had forged the network of undercover agents spamming across the entirety of the Elemental Nations in the course of decades, and wavering now wouldn't help him save Konoha, still, even while his next moves would simply be the enactment of a plan that had been in the works for decades, he should still cover the apparently meaningless basis.

After all, war was perfect for generating a plethora of potential Root-recruits, and while the numbers of the organizations would undoubtedly take a dive with the orders he was about to deliver, he'd soon recover.

"Send these missives to Koharu and Homura." two sealed scrolls were quickly handled towards the nearest white-masked shinobi, and another order was delivered to the next kunoichi.

Daiki had proved himself to be far too well informed for it to be comfortable, and far too dangerous to be faced openly: but he had also been observed before in the company of an Uzumaki, and he had suspiciously appeared right as his plan to lead that kunoichi into the arms of Jiraya and the Kyubi vessel was about to be completed.

S-rank shinobi liked to think they were untouchable if not met by an equal force on the battlefield, and they were all wrong. Instead of the assassination of Konoha's last missing-nin, Danzo would simply need to acquire the opportune leverage: "Capture Uzumaki Karin alive, crippling is allowed."

Without a sound, the Root operative disappeared from the premises.


AN

Finally EMS for Itachi and Sasuke: there was really no way to spin this as a surprise for Sasuke, but I hope that the lung thing (I didn't find a way to make interesting the organ building without adding 20k words to the fic) will spark some interest.

I tried to avoid a conversation that comes off as floating heads talking to each other, but with Itachi blindfolded, I was somewhat forced to be concise and limited in my description of what was going on.

A slow chapter when compared to the previous two ones, but while I showed the results of a well-thought-out plan before, with this chapter I'm showing a bit of that preparation. Apparently, I've graduated from needing 5k words for a single chapter in order to push the plot forward, and given that it took me roughly 45 minutes to write the last chapter, I'm trying to dedicate half an hour each day to Revolution, to finally end this crucible (seriously, I like how I've managed to recover the story itself, but there is still 0 characterization (or almost), the first 15 chapters are more or less shit, and I've got many other problems with this fic, ugh).

So, this chapter is to remind everyone that Danzo is still kicking (I had actually forgotten about him), and to give some background to the recent events performed by the MC. Also, I meant to make sure that Karin hadn't been forgotten: she'll have her part to play, I assure you.

Even so, I've reworked the plotline, and we're roughly 10 to 15 chapters from the end, I should have accounted for everything and kept track of each otherwise loose end.

Opinions? I know I've skipped the fight between A and Tsunade, but I never dedicated any meaningful screentime to either of them, and the fight itself would be a constant taijutsu in which Tsunade keeps healing and A keeps dodging, it wouldn't be a very interesting fight: so I've simply deemed the end of the battle a draw of sorts, with Tsunade being the one more heavily incapacitated, even if A without a leg has his entire style crippled.

Following a -for once- realistic canonic event, Danzo aims for Hokagedoom.

Opinions, hopes?