*Chapter 29*: Interlude: Requiem

Interlude Two: Requiem

"So. After all this time, all this distraction. It was you all along."

Sarutobi smiled thinly past the trio of Root ANBU at Danzou. "Danzou, for all your years of service to Konoha, first as ANBU, then afterwards as Councilman, as well as all the... benefit Konoha has derived from the same, it is my duty and priviledge to announce- and enact- your retirement."

"A kind and thoughtful gesture, Hokage sama." Danzou replied drily. "Although I cannot but help wonder if you can afford my retirement package." A snide reference to the shinobi who stood prepared to give their lives to protect him.

"Fear not in that regard." Answered Sarutobi, drawing Enkoo Enma in his staff form and levelling him at the line of ANBU. "I thought to plan ahead for it, and have brought it here with me."

Enma allowed his head to extrude briefly to glare at Sarutobi. "You are wasting time." He snapped. "And you don't have much to begin with."

"On the contrary, Enma sama." Danzou replied, as numerous members of Root appeared around them. "I too was prepared, and he has no time at all." Danzou nodded. "Kill him."

(Flashback)

"I am old, my friend."

Enkoo Enma said nothing, merely eyeing Sarutobi as he spoke. The two of them simply sat on the stone head of the Shodaime, overlooking the waterfall, here, at the Valley of the End. Sarutobi was quiet for a few minutes, but Enma was patient. Sarutobi hadn't called him here to fight, obviously, so he must need someone to talk to, and Enma counted Sarutobi Hiruzen as one of the few beings, spirit or human, that was truly worthy of his friendship. So he waited.

Finally, Sarutobi picked up the thought where he'd left off, turning his eyes away from the waters below to look at Enma again. "It is true... three shinobi wars I have lived through, three times I have watched ninja go to war with one another, and leave destruction in their wake. Certainly my age is nothing to you... but then, you and your folk only grow stronger with time." Sarutobi chuckled mirthlessly, as he turned his head back to face the waters below. "But we only get some few short decades... from the dawn of our lives to our nightfall. Most of us live fewer decades than we have fingers between our hands, many... fewer than even fingers on one. And I have to ask you, Enma, my old friend... how can you stand us?" Sarutobi turned his head to the sky, and his eyes reflected pain and bewliderment and fear. "We with our mayfly lifespans and our endless struggles... how we never seem to learn from the mistakes of our fathers, how can you stand to be tied to such short sighted, hopeless creatures?"

Sarutobi fell silent. Enma waited a few more moments before he spoke. "Hiruzen. This isn't like you. Always when we have spoken in the past, you've seemed so full of hope for your village, for the young ones growing up around you. What's wrong?"

(End flashback)

Sarutobi dropped a smoke bomb and leaped straight up, adhering to the ceiling as he drew a cluster of shuriken, spare hand flashing seals before he'd even touched the stucco. The shuriken adhered to the end of Enma in his staff form, as Enma gave a mild magnetic field to assist. "Kinzokuton: Hagane Kagebunshin Bakuha!"

For a moment, the shuriken adhering to the end of the staff seemed to hover, then, shuriken appeared in successive layers, before a double pulse of magnetic force first temporarily magnetized then repulsed the deadly throwing stars in all directions. There were a number of short cries that accompanied the impact of razor sharp steel finding a home in fragile flesh; the cloned shuriken dissipated, leaving behind only blood, pain, and corpses.

"Foolish." Sarutobi murmured, hopping down to the ground- Root was a subdivision of ANBU, is this all the warmongers could manage?

The smoke dissipated, and Sarutobi discovered things were not as he'd imagined... and that Konoha's troubles went far deeper than corruption.

(Flashback)

"Everything is wrong." Sarutobi answered. "I accepted the position of Hokage from the Nidaime- and I did it because I believed I could protect the village. But that was before I signed the Monkey contract." He fell silent again.

Enma propped his chin up on folded hands in a gesture too human to be casual or accidental. "True enough- I wasn't there to see or know you during the war. So tell me."

The Sandaime gave a deep sigh. "It was... a war to end all wars. We had lost the stones- only a few of us in ANBU and the Hokage himself knew what the war was really about. We'd sought to use the stones to enhance our own prowess, but the techniques we'd created had become a double edged sword. It all came undone, you know, shortly before I became a genin. I was still in the training program when a classmate of mine- Hiroshi Hongo- first arrived. This was before the establishment of the academies and training and indoctrination of the shinobi to be was not uniform.

"You see, he was a captured nin. A hopeful who one of the jonin captains had captured alive, that had displayed a rare talent for shuriken combat, had even managed to seriously wound a chunin despite not even being a fully trained genin, due to his ability to instinctively calculate trajectories and arcs of motion to a milimeter. After his adoption into the Mitsurugi clan- they were powerful then, although only one of them is left, now- he was analyzed by the Nidaime to see if his talent for spatial mathematics could be incorporated into a new Kekkei Genkai. We had no idea of it at the time, but the boy had a piece of metal lodged in his body, one that gave him a link to someone else, permitting the other to see through the boy's eyes. We never did find out who it was who stole the first of the stones, but we did eventually learn that it was through Hiroshi. And so the sanishi no testugakusha was stolen by Mizugakure and the first Shinobi war began."

Enma knew the story- he was ancient and well learned. But even so, he'd never heard it from Sarutobi's point of view, and it was an interesting look into the psychology of this revered human.

"Konoha of course was desperate to get it back- but we would learn that this was only the first stone to be stolen, each of those we'd lost by a different village... And only afterward, when we found that it was through Hiroshi that they'd learned access to the chamber of the stones, did we learn that the first and second Shinobi wars had been deliberately orchestrated by someone."

(End Flashback)

Sarutobi shuddered as he saw Danzou standing calmly, holding a slender steel rod with his single remaining arm- the same one with which he'd slain many an Iwa nin during the third shinobi war. The shuriken had scarred the metal terribly, but the weapon remained hale, as the real shuriken Sarutobi had thrown clung to the metal as though glued there- or else, stuck there magnetically.

As though to confirm the worst possible outcome, the shuriken fell to the ground, the jutsu released.

Sarutobi could see that not all his shuriken had been deflected- a terrible thing indeed, for the bandages which had concealed a "ruined" eye had been cut away. Revealing a cheek that was lined with multiple studded piercings.

(Flashback)

"This was during the Second Shinobi war, and I was ANBU, when Hiroshi himself attempted to kill the Nidaime. He almost succeeded... would have, except somewhere, deep within himself, Hiroshi found the strength inside to fight the one who was controlling him, even after all the years during which he'd been under the other's control. And his hand froze for a split second, the Nidaime turned and drove his Raijin through Hiroshi's chest, splitting the piece of metal through which Hiroshi had been controlled."

Enma raised an eyebrow. This was something he hadn't known about. "Go on."

"He only lived for a few minutes longer, but he told us much about our real enemy... it was because of him that the Bijuu were distributed around to each of the ninja villages... not for the balance of power... but so we would have an early warning when he started to make his move again... that the jinchuuriki were being targetted to be stolen away again for whatever purpose he had for them."

Enma nodded. "An effective system, I would think." He commented.

Sarutobi nodded in return. "It gave us our warning, as well, when suddenly the Jinchuuriki no Rokubii broke free of his sedation in Amagakure five years ago." Sarutobi gave a despairing chuckle. "He was ready to make his move."

"Did you ever learn his name?" Enma asked.

"Yes." Sarutobi said. "His name was..."

(End Flashback)

"Pein."

'Danzou' flickered a faint smile. "It seems my reputation precedes me. But I suppose it doesn't matter... Simply that I will have to take a more direct route with you."

"So, then." Sarutobi said. "You were uncontent with merely one nation, and now... you intend to take a second. And that really is you in there this time, isn't it? Not like with Hiroshi."

"Hiroshi?" He said thoughtfully. "Ah! Yes, that was what... forty years ago? Shortly before I killed your Nidaime. Yes... I am the owner of the soul that lives within this shell, and the previous inhabitant is long gone."

Sarutobi thought fast and hard as he faced this foe- one who had already killed one Kage, and was the one who had attempted to gather the ishi no tetsugakusha, willing to destroy the five shinobi nations and kill untold thousands of people to get them. Now he was almost certainly more ruthless than ever- and years craftier. But he had a chance... that if his soul TRULY DID inhabit this body... that he could end the threat to Konoha tonight.

Then with no warning he created a single Kage bunshin, and the two of them charged forward together, the clone forcing

Pein to defend while he himself formed hand seals as quickly as possible. The clone dispelled in a flurry of strikes but Sarutobi seized Pein by his shoulders- one with an arm that fell useless to his side and the other a weakened stump- as Pein found himself unable to move.

"Wha-what is this?" Pein managed to gasp- and suddenly, behind Sarutobi, he could see a towering, terrible figure, raising clawed arms, a kodachi in its teeth. The two arms shot forward into emptiness, and suddenly burst out of the Sandaime Hokage's chest, into Pein's, and he felt a soul searing coldness.

A shadowy figure pulled out of Pein's body, then a second... Pein's souls were being channeled through the body in Sarutobi's presence.

Miles away, in another nation, a man with numerous facial piercings falls over, stone dead, his open eyes showing nothing, no pain, no fear, simply... a frozen portrait of a man in life, now given over to death.

In the morning, a woman is found dead, laying in the hut of an old, crippled man. He is a hermit; he doesn't know who she is- much as most don't know who he is. He has lived alone for decades, learned to hold back the darkness and bloodlust and now simply waits for it all to end. None know him personally- and this is how he prefers it.

All those who knew the Jinchuuriki no Yonbii are dead.

The flow of souls stopped.. started to retreat within the body. Sarutobi grimaced- it was now... or never.

The piper must be paid. "SEAL!" He roared.

The figure behind Sarutobi took the knife from its mouth; the knife struck. Severed.

Pein screamed like the souls of the damned before the body fell over- and Sarutobi with it. He felt himself drawn from his body, his soul helplessly writhing in the grip of the Shinigami. With him, he knew, was the soul of Pein.

Sarutobi felt himself and Pein being crammed into the maw of the Shinigami, and the torment began as his essence was rent assunder... but he knew a two shining truths that let him know peace.

Pein had lost something. Sealed within the belly of the shinigami was the ability to take other bodies... and the souls of three of them. Sarutobi knew that there were only five more left, and now, there would never be any more than this. Now they could win. If only there was some way to tell Konoha this... his successor... Anyone...

But the second truth. Konoha was safe now. Pein's body here in Konoha was gone. Tomorrow, the third exam finals, the genin would be competing, ready to show their strength. He might be heralded as a traitor, his effigee excoriated from the Hokage mountain... but he had done his duty.

(Flashback)

Sarutobi wound down finally after an hour and a half. A tale of pain. Of loss. Of empty victories and fallen comrades and people a generation later starting the cycle over again, certain they could win this time. At last, his words spent, his grief expended, Sarutobi looked over at Enma again, and smiled faintly. "It's all a matter of perspective."

Enma tilted his head to the side. Beneath them, the waterfall flowed ceaselessly, pouring water unending into the lake and river below. At this distance, the sound was a light rumble, hiss of foam, easily forgotten in the moment. It was a moment where the sunlight shone on the faces of the statues, mist in the air from the pounding water wreathing their legs in rainbows. Long ago, a terrible tragedy had happened, one much like what Sarutobi had described being repeated endlessly... And yet, now, sprung from that tragedy, beauty now held sway.

Here, in the midst of all turmoil, there was still peace.

"Enma... I want to thank you." Sarutobi said. "Tonight, we finish this."

Enma looked at Sarutobi as he slowly got to his feet with a grunt. "Hiruzen... did you find what you were looking for?"

Sarutobi smiled. "I don't know. But... I think I found what I needed."

(End Flashback)

Enma was gone, now. He never received the request from Sarutobi... but he knew that Konoha would have wanted to know what the Sandaime had found. Perhaps he didn't know all the details, but he could at least tell them everything he knew. Now, there only remained to find the highest ranking member in the village. With both Danzou and Sarutobi dead, that left... Hyuuga Hiashi.

Behind him, Enma's final gift- a white chrysanthemum- lay on Sarutobi's chest, above the seal mark on his belly.

Fare well, my friend. You will be missed.

End Interlude Two

In many ways, Sarutobi's death came as a surprise to me when I first envisioned... but the clarity of vision I needed to record it wasn't really present until tonight, where I pretty much wrote it from the beginning to the finish. I'm not going to be content to let this story wither half grown on the vine, and my muse is loosening up a little, so I hope to be able to continue the story for you before very much longer.

Thank you all for your responses, messages, reviews, and patience.

-AXENOME