A/N: We're in the ROOT arc proper now! :)
Before we start, I think I should give you all a general heads up. We all know that ROOT is a terrible place even in canon. Hence, some of the subsequent chapters will be elaborating upon various kinds of abuse, e.g. emotional/psychological abuse, human rights abuse, etc. Even though this is rated M, there will be nothing sexually explicit, no rape/non-con, and no underage. There will however be mature themes.
I will put in additional warnings for each chapter, but if you have any concerns, or if you think I'm depicting things in an unhealthy/irresponsible way, please do drop me a message!
Okay that sounds kinda scary but I thought it'd be better to over-warn than under-warn. I don't how well I'd handle this since I've never written something like this before. Maybe it'll end up not gritty enough, or too gritty, I'm not sure. But I'll be trying my best! :)
The sunset has faded by the time Kakashi reaches the gate, leaving the sky a cloudless, midnight blue. He spares only enough time at the guard post to check in with the guards, turning for the Shimura estate the moment he is out of the guards' sight. The Shimura clan is one of the founding shinobi clans and possesses an ancestral land that lies on the side of Konoha opposite of the Hatakes. Tucked along the circumference of the village walls like most clans prefer their lands to be, the estate enjoys a wonderful amount of privacy; privacy that Danzou clearly needs in order to run that backyard militia of his.
The wards ripple in delicate silver waves when Kakashi nears the unmarked border, but before he can touch it, a ROOT agent steps out from a shadowed copse of trees. He bows to Kakashi, his hooded cloak rustling around him. When he straightens, he offers his arm in a surprisingly solicitous gesture. "I will guide you through the wards," he offers without explanation or greeting.
Visible eye narrowed, Kakashi places his hand on the other's forearm and they pass through the wards together. Sakumo quickly steps through the wards as well, flinching at the abrasive scratch of chakra. He looks down and almost expects to find lines of red across his skin.
The ROOT agent drops his arm as soon as they're through and Kakashi withdraws his hand. "Straight ahead," the man says, pointing into the darkness. Bowing again, he steps away and melds back into the shadows easily, the flash of his white mask disappearing under his hood again.
Kakashi fist clenches before relaxing again, slowly, and he begins to walk.
It is silent. The crickets are dead or dying, having mated and laid their eggs somewhere safe from the frost that has begun to thicken every night. The new generation won't appear until the winter passes, but for now, it is quiet, frozen graveyard.
In the distance, the muted glow of a traditional building's wax-paper windows seeps between the black bars of pine-forest. A neat gravel path lit by decorative stone lanterns leads up to the front door, where another ROOT agent greets Kakashi with a silent bow, her purple-marked mask glowing in the low light.
The house itself is well-kept. The exposed wooden beams under the eaves are free of dust and age-worn floorboards are polished to a slippery shine. In contrast, Kakashi looks like he has been through hell. His hair is greasy and unkempt, his hitai-ate knotted carelessly, and his clothes mud-stained and stiff with dried blood. He is covered in the dust of the road and he hasn't washed in days.
Frankly speaking, it is nothing unexpected for a post-mission shinobi. Yet, the difference is too stark to be anything but pointedly uncomfortable.
"Danzou-sama is expecting you," she says, her mask tilting as she looks him over. "Would you like to change first?"
Kakashi just stares at the young woman stonily until she relents and disappears to fetch a wet towel. She lays it on the ground before him. "Please take off you sandals and wipe your feet."
Satisfied that Kakashi won't be tracking dirt through the house like an untrained puppy, the ROOT agent escorts him through the living room, her long ponytail of blue-black hair swaying by her waist like a tail to her cat-like mask. Sakumo blinks at her red pearl earrings; none of the other ROOT agents they had met in Ame, or the few in Konoha, had accessories like that.
From the map that Sakumo is building in his head, they are being led towards the centre of the building's rather conservative and predictable layout. "There must be some other base for ROOT," Sakumo muses, his footsteps stuttering as they pass an alcove* displaying a bright Ikebana arrangement. It's a woman's touch — courtesy of Danzou's sister or niece, perhaps, even though they are both Naras by marriage and by birth, respectively. Otherwise, the house reflects the austere simplicity of a military man, unfrivolous and unsentimental.
"Danzou-sama, Hatake Kakashi to see you."
"Come in!"
The ROOT agent slides back the shouji door and waits for Kakashi to enter before closing it behind her, the silencing wards snapping up together with the clap of the doorframes. In a swift movement, she backs off to the corner of the room and fades away behind a jutsu.
"Looks like your hunting dog brought you a little something," Orochimaru rasps with a smirk, leaning back against his legless chair. He and Danzou are seated at the low table, one on each side of a corner with an open bottle of sake between them.
"Orochimaru," Danzou says reprovingly before turning back to Kakashi with a friendly expression. "Just back from your mission?"
Kakashi bows stiffly. "Yes, Danzou-sama." He ignores the snake Sannin in favour of retrieving his scroll and that golden-eyed gaze narrows. "Shall I release the seal here?" Danzou nods in an unconcerned manner, as if the young ANBU was about to produce teacakes instead of corpses.
The pocket dimension that the body-storage seal opens into is timeless, like the inside of the Shinigami's stomach, so anything placed within it is preserved near perfectly. As the body bags pop into existence, the heavy copper scent of fresh blood begins to mingle with sweet traces of sake in the air.
"Let me have a look."
Kakashi stills as Orochimaru rises, his hand on the nearest body bag's zip. "Just look," he replies, careful to keep his tone neutral. "The guards already know I'm back. I cannot delay my report to the Hokage."
"Well, it shouldn't take too long," Danzou murmurs. "Orochimaru just needs to confirm her identity. We can leave Hawk alone." Orochimaru gives Danzou a strange look, then, but the elder doesn't react.
As the scientist approaches Kakashi, Sakumo's attention is caught by the harsh slash of his mouth and the hardness in those golden orbs. Between this man and the bright-eyed child genius Sakumo remembers back in the classroom, only superficial similarities remain. Lose track of the man for a war and decade, and suddenly here he is, having shed his skin and grown up into someone that Sakumo doesn't recognise.
It is not unusual for Orochimaru to go missing in his labs for weeks at a time, even though he can be seen at the hospital when things get gory. That, at least, has always been a constant. What's unusual is that Orochimaru is associating with a man like Danzou, who is the furthest thing from a scientist or a med-nin. But at the same time, it makes sense. Orochimaru wants the science and Danzou wants the results; neither of them care about the ethics. "No," Sakumo sighs to himself, "these are their ethics: the furtherance of an end that justifies everything." The part of him that remembers his old Academy rival with fondness and faint admiration still rebels at the suggestion that Orochimaru could be the one making use of those Ame children, but it is a part of him that is quickly losing it's voice.
Kakashi stays silent as he unzips the body bag and allows Orochimaru to collect a few strands of Snake's hair. They go into a small plastic bag and disappear into his flak jacket. Her mask stays on, but Orochimaru's eyebrow quirks at the scars on her arms.
With efficient movements, Kakashi closes the body bag and returns it into the scroll. "Will that be all, Danzou-sama?"
"Yes, yes." The elder smiles benevolently. "Come back tomorrow night and we'll talk about ROOT."
A little more life seems to light Kakashi's single eye as he bows deeply. "Understood. Goodnight." He leaves by himself, both of them expecting him to remember the way and knowing well that the walls have both eyes and ears.
"What do you think of the young Hatake?" Danzou asks once the silencing jutsus are wrapped around them again. The most interesting things are said after the fact, so Sakumo has stayed in hopes of catching something useful.
"Weak," Orochimaru scoffs. "Brittle. He'll break quickly and easily under the right pressure. I wonder what he was thinking when he killed his captain. He seems awfully protective of her." The sannin cocks his head, a sly glint in his eyes. "Do you really believe in his loyalty?"
Everything inside Sakumo tenses up. So it really was too much to hope for that Danzou would simply trust Kakashi. Should he have protested more? Not killed Snake at all? Or would everything have been wrong?
Danzou runs his thumb along the rim of the sake dish, his single eye dark. "It'd be useful to have his loyalty, but lack of it isn't fatal. Just his attempts to convince me should be enough. No matter what his goal is, the fact that he has killed Snake shows that he is open to suggestion and willing to make sacrifices on the way. If he had been a ROOT agent, he would have passed "graduation" test."
"Are you hoping that he'll end up persuading himself?" Orochimaru laughs lowly.
"It is like you said. With the right kind of convincing, he'll come around."
"You are going to put the seal on him, right?"
"Of course."
Sakumo's blood runs cold. Snake and Kakashi had tried to prepare for that, of course, but their method of removing the seal remains woefully incomplete. The little research that they managed to conduct during the mission in Ame yielded some understanding about the seal's workings, but it is still far too complex for the two of them to reverse engineer completely. Orochimaru is a genius in his own right, after all, and Danzou is no amateur at fuinjutsu himself. Kakashi will have to take a closer look at the sealing process before he can figure out what to try next, and he'll probably have to convince someone to help him too. Snake had suggested Yakushi Nonou, but they haven't met yet.
The seal is one of the biggest problems Kakashi will be facing, along with figuring out how to convince ROOT agents to abandon Danzou. Even if Kakashi manages to convince Danzou not to put the seal on him, Kakashi will still have to unravel the seal before he can safely bring other ROOT members out of the organisation.
"Do you want me to change anything or is the old sealing array still fine?"
Danzou waves his hand. "It's fine. As far as I recall, Minato and Kushina hadn't had the time to teach Kakashi much fuinjutsu."
Orochimaru shrugs, already making to stand. "Well, goodnight, Danzou-san. If you change your mind, I'll be in the lab."
"Goodnight."
The door clicks closed. With a sigh, Danzou begins to clear the table. With only one arm, it is slow-going. "I'll do that, sir," the ROOT agent who had been hiding in the room appears once more, saying.
Danzou lets her and watches as she piles the sake bottle and dishes away on a tray. "You sound quite pleased, Hinoto."
She freezes at his assessment, her eyes flickering quickly to his face. "Ah..."
He looks more amused than displeased so she relaxes and cocks her head to the side, her eyes glimmering behind her mask. "I'm just glad my predecessor is gone."
She still sounds so impassive that Sakumo honestly can't tell that she's happy, but Danzou seems to think so. "I would say jealousy is unbecoming, but I find that I don't quite mind how it looks on you."
"Danzou-sama..."
The hint of flattered embarrassment in her voice, coupled with the way the ROOT leader smiles faintly, his gaze tracing over her mask, makes Sakumo's hair stand on end. The moment ends when Danzou gestures at the door. "Go on. I have reports to look through."
Hesitating only briefly, she bows and leaves, silent as she had appeared.
*called a tokonoma in Japanese.
A/N: Sorry if any of you needed brain bleach after that bit. Cat-girl is the current Hinoto while her "predecessor" is Snake, who held the name Hinoto last.
Even though ROOT is big on killing emotions, Danzou also recognises that emotions are useful for manipulating people (see Yakushi Nonou). Hence, I think he allows and encourages certain emotions such as loyalty towards ROOT/himself. Some ROOT members will be dead inside, but some will be Danzou-fanatics.
Recently on tumblr, narutoheretic made a hilarious comparison between fanfic!Danzou and canon!Danzou. Fanfic!Danzou is all like, you shall be tortured for failing! While canon!Danzou seems to be a pretty decent and reasonable person as long as his ROOT agents obey him and try their best. And lol, it's pretty true y'know. When Yamanaka Fuu failed to retrieve the Byakugan from Ao, Danzou just said "It can't be helped" even though it was obviously important. He only got shouty at Kinoe during the Kakashi ANBU filler arc because Kinoe lied and started talking back.
Not to say that Danzou isn't a villain. Just that I'm not going to make him a total maniac XD