Chapter 49
Hatake household
Genma came awake with a start; he could feel Gai walking from the living room into the direction of the guest room and allowed himself to groan while his body continued to tell him what was wrong with him, sometimes he really hated how hyperaware his senses were.
The door opened and in came his comrade with what looked like a tray with a bowl of soup, some other dishes and a glass of water.
"How are you my friend?" Gai asked in a distinctively calmer voice then normally.
"Ugh." was his unintelligible answer.
"Hhm, that bad? Shiori-san left for the tea house but she made a big pot of fresh miso soup and a lot of snacks, do you feel up to eat something now?" the green clad ninja asked uncommonly serious.
"Yes, please." Genma sighed while inwardly he more than looked forward to eating.
In the two year since knowing Kakashi's wife Shiori's food had become one of his secret or not so secret indulgences and it was especially appreciated when he returned injured or from a fucked up mission.
"Here my friend." Gai said while he handed him the bowl as well as the chopsticks before he continued to speak, "I will leave to do some training with my own team in ten minutes, Kakashi left for the Hokage tower half an hour ago but his Genin and ninken are still in the back yard, they have instructions from Kakashi to train and to leave you alone."
Genma just nodded to that, he was thankful that he wouldn't have to deal with Kakashi's brats right now. He hated it when he was seen in such a state, his comrades and Shiori were no problem but Kakashi's Genin brats were a no go.
And so he just grinned and said, "Have fun with your own brats."
"Yosh, I will!" the green clad shinobi answered, his voice had started to return to his normal exuberance after realizing that his senbon wielding comrade could take it.
Genma watched amused as the taijutsu expert left his room. Sighing the brown haired shinobi propped himself up against his pillow and then took he first sip of Miso soup, Genma sighed contently while he let the liquid run down his throat, oh yes that was the stuff!
From outside he could hear the flowery goodbye the Taijutsu expert sent in direction of the Genin, an amused snort escaped him while his smile turned into a grin, completely bat shit insane, the senbon wielder thought happily,… his comrades were awesome!
Tea house
When Shiori arrived around ten in the morning at the tea house she could practically feel the excitement from her employees, what was going on now the black haired woman asked herself before she confused waved at Ai while walking through the tables, hopefully this excitement wouldn't put off their customers.
The bubbly young civilian hastily walked over and came to a halt in front of Shiori, Ai's eyes sparkled and she smiled happily but didn't say anything.
Shiori looked amused at her employee before asking, "What is going on that has you all in such a good mood?"
"Come I will show you." Ai said before she grinned mischievously and led the black haired tea house owner into her own office.
There a sheet of paper was pressed into her hands; Shiori recognized the sign of the Hokage on the lower part of the sheet and so sat herself down to read the missive. When she had finished her eyes had become wide and a small smile played around her lips.
"This is going to be a lot of work, Ai-chan could you please inform the rest of the staff that we will have a full meeting tonight to discuss this?" the blue eyed mother asked kindly.
Her employee nodded eagerly before she happily bounced out of Shiori's office and returned to her work.
When the younger female had left the office the smile slowly dropped off Shiori's face while she leaned back and tried to comprehend what this would mean for her, her family and especially Kakashi's Genin. Her eyes involuntary fell back on the simple one page long sheet.
The Chunin exams were coming.
T&I Headquarters
A nervous energy had taken hold of the normally so dreary corridors of the Intelligence division. Even the members that weren't privy of the reason were feeling the tension, which in turn made them all nervous. Unfortunately this did nothing for the already strained nerves of those that WERE in the know.
It went so far that this tension was even tangible outside the headquarters; the workers at Mariko's for example were getting curious about the sudden increase of liquid takeout and orders of calming and anti stress teas. Especially the fact that they had repeat offenders made them inwardly raise their eyebrows, not that they showed this to their customers.
Shiori watched the whole spectacle for about half an hour after she had arrived at the tea house before she had had enough and simply packed a giant container of premixed calming tea in a bag, alongside a sheet of strict instructions how to brew it and pressed it into the arms of the next harrowed looking Intelligence ninja that visited the tea house. Whatever was bothering those ninja, it was probably a bad idea for their work efficiency to constantly go on tea runs.
Twenty minutes later a delicious smell waved through the normally odorless corridors of the T&I and more than one ninja was drawn into the T&I kitchen by the enticing smell and left with a relaxing cup of Mariko's tea.
Finally the tempo of things getting done increased once more, though the Hokage and quite a few of the veterans of the division marveled why the normally so high strung Rookie Intelligence Chunin were suddenly so mellow. While Sarutobi found this whole phenomenon intriguing he quickly shoved it in the back of his head, he really had other things to worry about.
Shortly after Bear-sousui had returned with the news that the assassination missions had been completed he had given the command for the squads of former and current ANBU operatives to loosely surround the Root facilities which locations they had fished out of Danzo's mind, they didn't want to tip anyone inside off. Meanwhile Kusari-sousui had been put in command of the fastest ANBUs and had placed them alongside her Hunter nins to prevent anybody from escaping Konoha. The rest of the ANBU operatives were placed throughout Konoha on standby to give aid to their colleagues should the fights spill out on the streets.
The civilians and low-level ninja that had been placed under Danzo's seal were covertly squirreled away to be kept safe in the caves under the Hokage mountain, only a few more public members were left in plain sight, and those had protection details.
They had planned and replanned this whole spectacle until even Shikaku had admitted that he couldn't think about any new way this could go FUBAR.
The Sandaime's thoughts were interrupted when one of the ninja positioned outside of the conference room knocked and came in to tell them about the arrival of Hatake Kakashi.
The Sarutobi clan head nodded satisfied at this and told the guard to let him in. You could say whatever you wanted about Kakashi's habit to arrive late to normal meetings but his timing concerning important things had always been impeccable.
"Hokage-sama?" the silver haired Jounin asked while he watched the high ranked ninja around them quietly discussing things.
"Kakashi, good to see you. I take you have recovered somewhat?" Hiruzen asked while he distractedly leaved through the report with the assessment of the Root loyalty.
"Yes, Hokage-sama." Kakashi simply confirmed.
"Good, we are now bringing the Danzo situation to an end; I want you to coordinate with Bear-sousui." the Hokage then ordered before turning to Inoichi that had just walked up to him.
"Understood Hokage-sama." The Hatake stated before joining his former commander.
The head of the ANBU forces showed Kakashi a map on which all of the Root facilities were marked, Bear-sousui than quietly handed the information concerning the different teams. Kakashi's ANBU captain training immediately kicked in and went over the pro's and con's of different formation patterns before he gave the highest ANBU his suggestions. The two of them had played this game quite a few times throughout the years and so Kakashi knew what Bear had in mind and could adjust his plans accordingly.
Fifteen minutes later the six ninja strong group walked through the door that contained the mindless but still alive body of Danzo.
Hiruzen sighed deeply while he looked at his long time comrade and rival. Oh Danzo, he thought regretful, what has this world turned you into?
A quick hand flicker in the ANBU commander's direction let the man talk calmly into a radio unit, Kakashi right beside him and listening in.
Bear's poison and wind specialists had begun to fill the Root facilities with sleeping gas through the ventilation system. For that to work the Fuinjutsu specialists had deactivated the seals along the pipes to prevent such an occurrence beforehand. The poison that they used was one of the so called outdated ones; no ninja in their right mind would use it in a battle anymore. This had to reasons, first and foremost it was a nonlethal sleeping agent that didn't do anything else than putting a person to sleep and secondly the odorless gas needed at least ten minutes to penetrate the body and start to work. Which was a frankly ridiculous long time, battles and even wars had been decided in that time frame,… still for this endeavor it was frighteningly perfect. Exactly ten minutes after they had released the gas Sarutobi took out a senbon needle and stabbed it directly in Danzo's heart. This method of killing prevented that a mess was made in the room. It took a moment for the pulse to vanish and the brain function to stop but then Danzo was dead and the body was slowly beginning to cool.
It was done.
Behind him Bea-sousui and Kakashi were listening to the happenings over the transmitter, apparently the Root agents had become frantic when they felt the seals dissipate and were heading for the exit of the facilities when they started to drop like flies with the poison gas finally did its job. The assigned teams waited another few seconds before entering the facilities and checking the sleeping Root agents over before starting to carry them to the ANBU headquarters and into a prepared assembly room.
All over Konoha the same happened, the seal vanished from tongues and left their wearers confused and unsure.
Hiruzen nodded to the attendant medic to check the body over once more before the six shinobi left the room and made their way to the ANBU headquarters, the Sandaime would have to address the Root agents right after they had woken up to prevent any kind of rebellion.
Sai Interlude
He woke up in an unfamiliar place with many of his Root comrades around him, his head was pounding and he felt disoriented but that could be easily ignored, what couldn't was the memories that rushed back.
The seal had dissolved. Danzo was dead.
The black haired ink-specialist had no idea what to do, how to feel, should he feel anything? What was going to happen now, why had it happened?
These questions assaulted his unprepared mind and his respiration was kicked a nudge up. He vaguely acknowledged that he was suffering from a panic attack. He was a tool without a master, a tool without a use, what should he do now?
Those questions repeated themselves over and over and over while he saw that he wasn't only one was visibly struggling with the outfall of Danzo's death. They were tools, they had been raised and conditioned to fulfill the orders of Danzo, of a master. Who was going to tell them now what was to be done?
The unnamed operative's frantic musings were interrupted when a figure surrounded by ANBU entered the room. It was the Hokage. Their new master.
In unison every last Root agent dropped on one knee and bowed.
The tumultuous thoughts inside the black haired teenager calmed, he wasn't so directionless as he had thought, their Hokage would tell them what to do.
"I'm sure you are questioning why you are here and what has happened in the last hours. I will keep it short. Danzo has betrayed Konoha! He has trampled on everything the first Hokage has left us and even taken it a step further, he has betrayed me, his Hokage and direct orders that I have given him. His transgressions couldn't be forgiven and so I executed him an hour ago. You, the Root branch of the black ops have now the possibility to follow your master into the grave or continue to serve Konoha; it is your decision but be quick about it." The hard words of the Sandaime echoed through the room.
The nameless shinobi's thoughts whirled around the fact that Danzo had betrayed the Hokage; all Root agents had been conditioned to be inherently loyal to Konoha, and the Hokage as its leader, but more so Shin had always talked about the importance of protecting Konoha, he would not sully the memory of his brother by dying now and so the decision concerning life and dead was not hard.
For the first time since he could remember the ink specialist did something on his own, he stood up in the midst of his still kneeling comrades and looked the Sandaime straight into the eyes, "I will continue serving Konoha, as I have been trained to do."
Beside and behind him he could feel his Root comrades move to repeat his oath to the Hokage, they too seemed to have chosen life.
The old shinobi in front of them nodded gravely before he continued to talk, "Very well, each one of you will undergo an in depth interrogation with the T&I department before you are reassigned to your new commander."
"Hai Hokage-sama!" the emotionless answer came from the Root soldiers.
With a last nod the Sandaime left the room while Yamanaka Inoichi stepped out in front of them. The black haired shinobi's concentration went immediately to the blonde clan head to listen what the interrogation expert had to say.