Regret
This part takes place during the last week of the Search for Tsunade arc
Kumo was by far, one of the least accessible Hidden Villages in the Elemental Nations. It had taken Tori the better part of three days to find a way into the mountaintop village. Once he had though, it was almost too easy. Like Konoha, Kumo had grown complacent and overconfident in the strength of their natural defenses. He had only come across four guards in the last ten minutes and he was in the center of their Military District.
Taking a left into a nearby alley, Tori found the maintenance entrance he'd been looking for. Kumo's Military District was at the top of the mountain range in a pressurized dome, ensuring everyone inside got the proper oxygen amount. Going this high without a cumbersome air tank was suicide for the average ninja. For a man of Tori's talents, it was unnecessary.
Tori brushed his brown hair before pressing his hand against the hatch, slowly slipping through it as his body turned to gas.
The Ibuiri easily slipped into the tunnel, using the small pass that he'd taken from a maintenance worker who was now scattered to the four winds to open the airlock. He slipped into the tunnel which was pumped full of pure CO2, necessitating the use of a pressure suit for most people.
Fifteen minutes passed before Tori found the hatch he was looking for, opening it to enter another airlock. He stepped through it and suddenly found a sword at his throat.
The Kumo Shinobi holding the sword bore the white flak jacket of a Jounin, a small grey chevron on his shoulder denoting his rank as a Tokubetsu Jounin. "Who are you and how did you survive the tunnel?"
Tori's brown eyes seemed bored. "Which should I answer first?"
The sword dug in a bit deeper. "Just fuc-!"
It was here that Tori struck, his arm converting to gas and rushing down the Jounin's throat and flooding his lungs. The Jounin swung the sword, passing harmlessly through Tori as the gas flooded his lungs, keeping the Jounin from breathing. Sure, his lungs went through the motions but the air remaining couldn't pass through his alveoli.
Tori kept it up until he was sure the man was dead. He moved forward and went through another door, entering the sample storage room of Kumo's Science Division. Quickly going to a wall of scrolls, he picked out one of them, the one bearing a red band and a label which read 'Subject 148.'
Sealing it away, he unsealed out several pounds of powder. The reddish powder was spread all over the scrolls and several other areas. Several small pieces of lead and zinc were spread around, followed by a layer of grey powder. The ratio of red to grey was approximately 8-3. He took a strip of thin grey tape and weighed some down with a bit of lead, taking the other end and unrolling it so it tied to the body of the Kumo Shinobi which Tori had moved into the room.
Preparing himself, he lit the grey tape and rushed through the airlock, stepping over the corpse on his way out.
The fire traveled up the magnesium ribbon, reaching the clump of powder and igniting it. 30 seconds later the reaction was in full swing, the temperature skyrocketing. The low melting point of the lead and zinc chunks cause them to vaporize and explode, scattering the reacting compound even more.
The explosions attracted the guards outside, the first of which made the mistake of looking into the reaction, blinding himself. His partner avoided making the same mistake and used a water Justu, trying to drown out the fire. At this point it was too late. The Iron Oxide and Aluminum powder had reached the critical point where they produced their own heat and Oxygen. Despite the best efforts of arriving Shinobi, the Thermite reaction consumed the scrolls, destroying every sample the science department had collected.
By the time the Thermite stopped burning, Tori was long since gone, moving in the direction of Frost Country.
2 Days after Tsunade's coronation.
Tori pulled to a stop just outside the reinforced steel door, nodding at the 2 masked Ninja flanking it. He cleared his voice and spoke. "Agent X-162, Tori reporting a successful mission."
The door slid open and Tori walked in, saluting the figure behind the desk before handing two scrolls to the man. "Mission successful sir. I was spotted once but took care of it."
The figure's gravelly voice seemed to echo in the small room, lifting up the scroll containing Tori's report. "Well done Agent, you're dismissed. I'll call you back here tomorrow to go over your report."
Tori saluted once more and left, heading to the Infirmary for the standard post op checkup.
The figure placed the scrolls on his desk before getting up, cleaning off a table. A small chakra pulse told his 2 bodyguards to leave his office and lock the door. Once they had, he activated the privacy seals and pressed a button on his desk so a mesh of electrical conductors surrounded his office, turning it into a Faraday cage.
The man cleared off a nearby table before unsealing the scroll with the red band. The scroll deposited its contents onto the table making the man's breath hitched as he took in the body it deposited.
Messy black hair, glassy black eyes closed, the small scar on his lip from when he tried to eat a stapler as a child. His gear was reasonably intact, the fabric of his flak jacket fused to the skin on his torso from the electrical attack that killed him.
The figure let out a small sob as he pulled a picture out of his desk. The picture depicted him, a kind looking woman wearing a flak jacket with brown hair and purple eyes and 3 children. One was a boy of about 12 years with brown hair, black eyes dancing with amusement, next was a 9 year old girl with brown hair and violet eyes, leaning against the woman. The third was a boy of about 8 with black eyes and black hair, sitting in the lap of the man.
Touching his forehead to the cold one of his youngest son, tears made their way from his uncovered eye, down his cheeks and passed the x-shaped scar on his chin and for the first time in 13 years, Danzo Shimura wept.
Sobbing, he clutched his son closer. The preservation scroll had kept the boy almost exactly as Danzo had last seen him leaving the gates of Konoha 15 years ago. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Toru."
He pulled the photo next to his son. "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you, or your mother or your siblings. I wasn't fast enough to save any of you."
Still weeping, he continued. "I'm making them pay though. None of you have gone unavenged. I swear it, as long as I live none of them will know peace again, not Kiri, not Kumo, not Iwa, not the damned Uchiha or Tsunade. I will not stop until they get what they deserve. I swear it."
It was over an hour later that Danzo finally stopped crying, his eye crimson from the tears. Carefully resealing the body of his son, he put it in the same drawer he'd taken the picture from, the same that held the scrolls of his dead family.
His wife Kasumi had been an active Jounin, the first from the Kobayashi merchant clan. Quite the firebrand, Danzo had found that he was the one who stayed in Konoha, watching over their children while she was in the field. Hiruzen had been the Godfather of all his children, Biwako their Godmother just as Danzo and Kasumi were the Godparents of their children.
Arashi had been their eldest, born during the tense period between the first and second wars. Headstrong and eager, Danzo spent a great deal of time drilling the subtleties of the Ninja business into his head.
Hiromi was the second child and born 3 years after Arashi. She took after her mother and seemed to enjoy driving her father insane with various pranks. Danzo had seen quite a bit of her in both Kushina and Naruto Uzumaki. She loved using explosives,
Toru had been the youngest, born almost exactly 13 months after Hiromi. He took after his father the most, actually beating him in Shogi on a few occasions. His son held the same Wind/Fire affinities Danzo had. He treated his children equally but deep down, Toru had been his favorite.
His family had been very active during the 3rd war, there was hardly an operation without at least one of them involved. Arashi made it to Jounin and his sibling to Chunnin.
The battle of Umino Bay pitched the 50 strong Konoha force against over 7 times their number in Mist Ninja and Water Country Partisans. Fighting for days, the Konoha shinobi were nearly wiped out before escaping to the safety of Fire Country. His daughter had already been wounded for several days, a poison from a kunai wound working its way through her. The poison was not a fast one and it caused the muscles to cramp uncontrollably similar to Tetanus. Danzo had sent for Tsunade, doing his best to keep Hiromi alive.
Tsunade arrived two days late, having drunk herself into a stupor in a casino. Just like that, one of his children had been taken from him. It had been Hiruzen who'd kept Danzo from slaughtering Tsunade, the old monkey's grief over the death of his Goddaughter staying Danzo's wrath.
He couldn't stop Tsunade's appointment to Hokage, the Advisory council's opinion of her being the absolute worst candidate meaning nothing in the face of the Daimyo's need to promote a noble to the position. Tsunade was practically royalty so the Damiyo ignored their preferred candidate: Shikaku Nara. Danzo resolved to make her life a bureaucratic hell.
His wife had been the next to fall, caught in an ambush by Onoki's younger son Ryutsuchi. She'd fought valiantly but ultimately fell to the might of the Dust Release. Danzo's revenge had been swift and deadly, wiping out Iwa's infamous Black Fortress on the border between Earth and Grass countries. Bypassing a hundred miles of enemy held territory, Danzo had struck the fort with a small team. They used a barrier array devised by Jiraiya to cut the fort off from reinforcements and proceeded to walk through the front gate. By the time they finished, their clothes had permanently stained in blood, Ryutsuchi's head clutched in Danzo's hands.
A year had passed before the battle of Hiroshi's pass in Frost Country. The pass was the main route between Kumo and the frontline. Toru had been a part of the strike force sent to collapse the most critical parts of the pass. It had been a trap and the strike force was wiped out, their bodies trapped behind enemy lines where Konoha couldn't recover them. Danzo had been informed of his son's death in a propaganda pamphlet distributed around Konoha by Kumo agents. ROOT agents later caught those responsible. Their deaths had not been particularly quick or pleasant. The upstart Namikaze had condemned his actions as excessive and immoral but Danzo didn't care.
The war had been over for a year when Jigo Uchiha killed a fellow Shinobi in a bar brawl. The renegade managed to evade the Military Police on his way out, though Danzo suspected he'd either been assisted or at the very least ignored by his fellow clansmen. The Uchiha had made it all the way to the border unopposed before running into Arashi. His son had taken one look at the slashed forehead protector and attacked. Jigo had been only mildly drained by his escape while Arashi had been wounded from his mission. Jigo had fought off Arashi, cruelly puncturing Arashi's lungs before escaping. Arashi died wheezing as his lungs failed to contain the air inside of them.
Danzo followed the man into the Land of Rain, beating him in combat before ripping out his eyes and puncturing his lungs. Jigo had died just as Arashi had.
Danzo sniffled one last time before cleaning his face and undoing the privacy seals and faraday cage. Whether or not Fuu and Torune noticed his eye, neither of them commented.
He knew deep in his heart that he'd done horrible things in service of Konoha but it was all he had left. When the Shinigami came, Danzo would go but only after he'd done everything he could to protect Konoha.
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Well that was depressing. This was something that just popped into my head this morning and I decided to write it up. Yes, this is how thermite works in simple terms, don't do it at home and do not look directly at it. Just for clarification, Hiruzen became Hokage during the 1st war, Dan died during the Second and Tsunade was AWOL for the 3rd war. Please review and as always, have nice day.