Chapter 47

Kakashi helped Genma undress and winced sympathetically while taking in the wounds, yep those were going to scar. It also said a lot about the injury with which speed the senbon wielder fell asleep after his head had hit the pillow and so Kakashi silently closed the door behind him to allow Genma his much needed rest before making his way outside to look after his students.

The three ninja in training were dutifully running through their katas and Kakashi nodded in approval, especially Naruto and Sakura were improving remarkably.

"Very good you three, after you have finished I want you to start running laps around the village alongside the outer wall, run until you can't continue anymore." Kakashi told them while he corrected Naruto's stance a bit, the boy's foot work was becoming sloppy again.

All three of them nodded before concentrating back on their workout, Kakashi eased himself onto the bench beside the house wall and entered a meditative state while keeping an eye on the kids in front of him. About twenty minutes later, Shiori called him for breakfast and he joined Gai and a recently awoken Hinako at the breakfast table while his Genins started their laps.

"Daddy." Hinako mumbled sleepily while she spooned more rice porridge onto her hair and bib than her mouth.

Kakashi snorted and gently started to pick out the rice chunks out of her hair before moving her into his lap and offering her a spoon full of her breakfast. Dutifully she slurped the mushy rice into her mouth before turning and burrowing her face into his chest after she had swallowed. Kakashi chuckled lightly before arranging her so that she could doze lightly while he ate breakfast.

"I have to go to the tea house today Kakashi, can I leave Hinako-chan here or should I take her to the crèche? Oh and what are Anko's and Asuma's room numbers, I want to visit them." Shiori asked when she sat down beside him.

"I can't promise that I won't be called in today, or for the rest of the week really, so it's probably better to leave her at the crèche,… and I'm sorry Shiori-chan but you won't be able to visit them, they are under guard detail. Only ANBU and high ranking ninjas are allowed access." the silver haired Jounin explained.

"Oh,… okay." The black haired civilian said and shrugged her shoulders, ninja rules were ninja rules after all.

Interlude Emergency meeting

Inoichi tiredly rubbed his head while he stared at the information in front of him; they had done it, FINALLY!

Now he only had to brief the Hokage as well as Shikaku so that they could discuss the next steps that needed to be taken to ensure that there wouldn't be a rebellion of the Root agents,… and Konoha's citizens to be honest.

What the blonde interrogator and his colleagues had found out was both better and worse than they had feared. It was better in the sense that the Root agents really WERE loyal to Konoha and with Danzo out of the way they would serve whoever the Hokage appointed but with that came also the negative part. The organization was a lot more interwoven with the dealings of the village than anticipated and should the organization be just removed or cease to exist Konoha would feel the repercussions for years on end. The amount of civilians, nobles and ninjas Danzo pressured, blackmailed or simply bribed was,… there were no words for the amount of corruption the old war hawk had introduced into Konoha's ranks or at least fostered. And this was only Konoha, he had another file of the memories he had downloaded on paper that was just as thick as the previous and contained Danzo's dealings with the other nations, they hadn't even begun to sort through that.
Inoichi sighed once more, this was a mess of epic proportions and he was NOT looking forward to untangle it, not at all. Why oh why had he agreed to come out of retirement for this? Oh right the Hokage had asked him.

The four hour long briefing that followed was,… the Yamanaka head couldn't describe it accurately, he just wanted to get home, kiss his daughter and crawl into bed with his wife. Beside him Shikaku played with the shogi stones of the game he had brought along. His teammate normally had this quirk under control but when he was confronted with a particular frustrating problem he couldn't suppress it and moved the pieces around until he had found a solution.
Across from them sat the white faced Hokage on whose face you could count each of the 68 years, on both sides of him sat ANBU Bear-sousui (commander), the current head of the ANBU forces and Kusari-sousui (chain) the commander of the Hunter nins.

Kusari was an Inuzuka and had started to nearly inaudibly growl throughout the briefing until she had bit through her lower lip to keep control of her more savage instincts. Betrayal of one's Alpha and Pack, especially in such a form was a sacrilege to an Inuzuka, an act that just couldn't be forgiven no matter what and had to be paid in blood. Furthermore Kusari took the Elder's betrayal personal, which added insult to injury.
The thirty three year old woman had never personally liked Danzo; his scent had been just a nuance too off for that but she had definitely appreciated his levelheaded advice and suggestions during emergency sessions. Kusari had RESPECTED the old war hawk even if he had been a militant bastard most of the time. That the man now turned out to have betrayed all of them in such a disgusting way nearly sent her into berserker mode.

"Danzo has to die." came the cold voice from ANBU Bear.

The man had been commander of the ANBU forces for nearly thirteen years, ever since the previous one had sacrificed himself along with numerous operatives to slow down the Kyuubi and give their Hokage enough time to come up with a plan to stop the tailed beast. He had never fully trusted Danzo, not since he had seen the frustration the old shinobi had provoked in the normally so mellow Yondaime. And so ANBU Bear had always been careful with his dealings with Danzo; he also kept a watchful eye on those operatives that had been sponsored through the old war hawk himself or any of Danzo's connections. Bear simply hadn't liked the fact that the retired shinobi had a say in HIS division. But in the end he still had not expected the true extent of Danzo's schemes.

The Uchiha massacre. Uchiha Itachi,… Uchiha Shisui.

ANBU Bear felt deeply ashamed for failing two of his brightest and youngest operatives without ever knowing. One killed himself to prevent his other eye also being used by Danzo while the other one sacrificed his family and most likely sanity to the village, to his comrades.

ANBU Bear had no words for the utter disgust he felt for what had taken place as well as the returning of the deep anguish and consternation he felt for the loss of all his Uchiha comrades. For Uchiha Fugaku to have felt desperate enough to risk a coup the situation must have been even worse than ANBU had been aware of because while he was a proud man Fugaku was far from suicidal.
From the memories and thoughts Inoichi had extracted from the now nearly mindless Danzo, the old war hawk had actively encouraged the segregation between the Uchiha and the village and then used the Uchihas desperation to change their situation to get his hands on one of Konoha's strongest bloodlines.
The deviousness and ruthlessness that was necessary for arranging this had left all shinobi in the room speechless for quite some time. And in the end all this had happened because the old shinobi was desperately craving for more and more power, uncaring about the lives he was destroying.
Yes there may have been some side motivations along his need for power, like preventing a Sharingan user from taking control over the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki but in the end Danzo's main motivation for eradicating one of Konoha's founding clans had been power and that could none of the present ninja forgive.

"Obviously." gritted Kusari out quietly.

The men around her took warily note of her fists and tensed muscles, in their experience the quieter this woman was, the more dangerous she became.

"Danzo the person has to die, but Danzo the public figure has to stay alive." Shikaku finally said from the sidelines, he had been quiet the whole time since Inoichi started to talk.

"Why?" Kusari asked angrily, she wanted to spit on his grave after he was finally six feet under.

"You are not thinking clearly Kusari, I know this is upsetting but we have to put our personal feelings aside and act in a manner that spares Konoha from a devastating outfall and that fast. What do you think will happen if the public get's wind of this?" Shikaku rebuked the woman before continuing, "With Danzo's death his Juinjutsu will vanish and those that are bound by it are suddenly free to speak. As far as Inoichi can tell there are more than five hundred people under this seal, of which only fifty are ANBU Root. We have to locate them all before killing Danzo or we risk somebody talking and sensitive information getting out. This alone is going to be nearly impossible additionally to that we have to do this in the next few hours to prevent Root from trying anything before we have the situation under control. Once Danzo is dead their conditioning will force them to look to the Hokage for guidance. Sandaime-sama you will have to appoint somebody, or more likely a team to run ROOT operations until we can slowly integrate them into the normal system, if that is even possible."

Sarutobi Hiruzen just nodded before turning to Bear, "Let's begin with weeding out the agents in the official ANBU force before activating the full division with the emergency act."

Bear nodded wordlessly, he had five confirmed Root members in his division and another three sealed against their will, all of them thankfully in the HQ at the moment. He was planning to send out his two best poison specialists to tranquilize the five and bring them down to T&I for detainment until the other Root agents were caught, he would then decide what to do with them.

Bear's thoughts then went to the emergency act. This piece of legislation recalled all retired members into service, along with activating the sleeper agents in the shinobi ranks. What nobody but the Hokage, himself and a few handpicked retired ANBU knew was that since the Kyuubi attack they had implemented one of the Yondaime's most genius ideas. There had been never more than two hundred ANBU at any given time since the founding of Konoha,… or at least that was what the Elders, the Daimyo and everybody bellow thought. In truth there had been never more than two hundred ACTIVE ANBU operatives; additionally to them were about three hundred fifty retired ANBUs in Konoha, hundred fifty of them in peek physical condition, while a good percentage of the rest was mentally fit enough to coordinate teams from the HQ. And then there were the hundred sleeper agents, regular Chunin and Jounin that received ANBU level training from a group of retired ANBUs but didn't run any official missions. These agents were Konoha's emergency force, should something as devastating as the Kyuubi attack ever happen again they would step up to fill the empty slots in the ANBU division and would only need minimal adjustment training.

So in total Bear would shortly have more than four hundred fifty shinobi under his command,… the thought was a little bit daunting.

"Let's work through the list and decide the priority of the people the T&I has to interrogate and who can be continued to be bribed." the Hokage sighed while his old hands opened the folder with a list of names and occupations in it.

In the end there were about three hundred people that would probably gladly cooperate with them the moment Danzo's seal vanished including the Root ninja. Hundred fifty of the sealed people could be either bribed or threatened or both and the remaining fifty needed to die in an accident or vanish before Danzo could be executed.
Of the fifty only four resided in Konoha, the other forty six were scattered all over the Elemental countries and Sarutobi gave a rush order to four ANBU teams already outside the village to assassinate them. None of the present ninja felt particularly guilty about that, all of the targets were part of the underground and had a lot of skeletons in their closets.

Anko Interlude

The snake summoner cursed frustrated when the leaf fell off her forehead again, why the hell couldn't it just stick to it? What the hell was wrong with her.

The Hyuuga nurse beside her hummed thoughtfully and then asked, "Are you in pain?"

"No, it just doesn't want to do what I want!" Anko pressed out frustrated.

Nodding the woman activated her bloodline once more and then scanned her body before canceling it, "There is nothing wrong with your chakra system, it is actually healing very well for the trauma it went through,… The problem that you have is that because of the sudden lack of corrupted chakra your senses are thrown off."

„So what you are telling me is,…" the purple haired woman began to say.

"You will have to relearn your chakra control." The medic nin confirmed while looking nearly sympathetically at the kunoichi in front of her.

"Well,… fuck." Anko grumbled.