"What?"
"I know this is hard to hear," the Hokage says, "but we have three reports from high ranking Anbu that Sakura killed her two Anbu guards before escaping from the hospital. They reported she exhibited techniques well beyond her chakra reserves, which means we are forced to acknowledge that Orochimaru has taken her over completely."
Kakashi staggers back.
He had felt her copy of his seal break, but by the time he arrived at her hospital room, she was gone. They had two trusted Anbu on her, two ninjas he had known and trusted from when he was still Dog, not to mention the whole damn village around her. They had thought they could rest, for just a day. But—
What?
"But sir, yesterday—"
"I understand this is a shock," the Hokage says. "We are searching for her, and we will do our best to bring her back alive. But—" he sighs, "it is important to recognize what has happened."
"Sir, she had mastered Hashirama's Perfect Flow technique! We obtained the acknowledgement of six of the seven esteemed clan heads."
The Hokage's lips pinch. "Kakashi," he says, voice stern. "Sakura is quite extraordinary, but that technique took the First Hokage two years to learn. What is more likely, that Orochimaru managed to fool us, or that a civilian-born child mastered a jutsu that took the god of shinobi two years to learn in ten days?"
Kakashi blinks. "What—"
The door of the Hokage explodes inwards, splintering entirely off of its hinges, flying through the air, smashing through the window, and tumbling down to the ground below.
"You're a fucking coward, old man," Tsunade growls, stepping through the empty doorway as four Anbu appear in the corners. Tsunade meets each of their eyes and cracks her knuckles. They take a step back.
She strides up to the Hokage's desk and plants her hands on it, leaning down into his face.
"Be reasonable, Tsunade," he says, looking at her with frustration. Behind Tsunade, Jiraiya walks through the ruined mess of a door, looking distinctly uncomfortable. He scratches the back of his neck, twitches the bare shadow of a smile at Kakashi.
It's a broken smile—there are bags under his eyes, and his eyes are just a little bloodshot.
"Fuck that," Tsunade says. "I'm sick and tired of being reasonable. You're going to take Danzou's fucking word on this? I got six fucking clan heads to confirm it for you to stop exactly this, and you'll still take his damn word on this?"
"Tsunade," the Hokage says, voice rising.
"Hiruzen," she snarls back.
"A whole Anbu team saw her kill her two Anbu guards, and we have twenty eye witness sightings of her tearing through the city! How, exactly, am I taking Danzou's word in this? Just because you were close with the girl—"
The Hokage's desk shatters under Tsunade's fist. The Anbu jerk towards her, but there is nothing but hardness in Jiraiya's expression when he turns back to face them. They stop moving.
"Don't you dare condescend to me, old man."
Jiraiya comes up behind Tsunade, and sets a hand on her back, over the kanji for bet in its center. She twitches her shoulders faintly in acknowledgement.
"Jiraiya," the Hokage says, standing where his desk used to be. "Please—"
"I don't know why you'd think I'd be on your side on this, Sensei," he says, face hard, and there is a moment of shock and hurt in the Hokage's expression before it hardens.
"How about this. I am your Hokage. I am hereby ordering you to drop it, and get out of my office."
Tsunade takes a deep breath. Jiraiya removes his hand from her back, and she takes off her haori, holding it loosely in one hand.
"The Anbu that saw her were Root, or brainwashed," she says. "Fooling a couple random chuunin and jounin with a transformation jutsu is child's play."
The Hokage gawks at her. "You're insane."
She looks down at her haori and sighs.
She snaps it, like she's shaking out dust. In the sound, Kakashi can feel the crack of broken chakra, and when he looks back at Tsunade, she's thirty years older.
"I'd really hoped I'd never have to do this," she says, her voice a little lower now—a little rougher—as she redons her haori, which now bears the Senju Vajra.
Behind her, Jiraiya shifts, his massive ponytail listing just a little to the side, revealing a matching vajra in the center of his back. Seeing it, Kakashi tries to remember any time he saw the center of Jiraiya's back.
He must have—Jiraiya couldn't have spent every moment they were together actively hiding it.
Except… he can't remember a single time he say where the vajra is now.
Fucking Sanning.
"Tsunade—"
"Senju-sama," Tsunade corrects, face flat. "I wish to call a council."
"On what grounds?"
"You have accused a member of my clan of an S-class crime. I am within my rights to demand a hearing."
The Hokage blinks.
"Tsunade, you didn't."
Tsunade holds her hand out behind her, and Jiraiya unslings the massive scroll from his back and sets it into her hand.
She drives the end into the ground between her and the Hokage, breaking the stone, and pulls the first foot of the scroll open. The angle is just oblique enough that Kakashi can see the rightmost column.
It is a list of names.
Senju Nawaki
Senju Tatsuma
Senju Kamigo
Jiraiya
Orochimaru
Mikono
Katou Dan
Abe Hikozaemon
Abe Iemon
Katou Shizune
Yuki-no-Mikoto
Haruno Sakura
"This is a farce," he says. "Did she even know you put her on this scroll?"
"That is not for you to decide, and that's irrelevant," Tsunade says, closing the scroll and handing it back to Jiraiya. Jiraiya, who has carried a massive scroll on his back for the entirety of Kakashi's life. Jiraiya, who has apparently been carrying The Scroll of The Senju, the Senju's most precious artifact, on his back, for Kakashi's entire life. What the fuck? "Call the council, or I will. I assure you, you will not like how I would go about it."
With that, Tsunade turns away from the Hokage. She shares a glance with Jiraiya, her hand sliding onto his back to match his on hers.
"I'm sorry," she says to him, her voice barely even a whisper, and Jiraiya shakes his head.
"It was bound to happen eventually."
At the door, Tsunade stops, and glances back at Kakashi.
"I need a third, Kakashi. Are you interested?"
"Absolutely," he says.
Behind him, the Hokage steps forward and speaks.
"Do you really want to do that, Kakashi?"
He turns back to the Hokage, and for the first time in a decade finds exactly that standing in the wreckage of his desk behind him. The Hokage of the Village of the Hidden Leaf, one of the strongest and most dangerous shinobi it has ever produced. Just as Jiraiya wraps himself up in lecherous lethargy, the Hokage has, for the last ten years, wrapped himself in a charming sort of bumbling senility.
It is gone now. There is no smile on his ancient lips, and his brown eyes are hard.
"I don't, sir," Kakashi says as respectfully as he can manage. "But I don't think I've really got much of a choice."
Kakashi stands on Tsunade's right side as Jiraiya stands on her left. She sits between them, elbows on the table, leaned forward enough that the Vajra on her back is visible for all to see. Leaned against the table beside her is The Scroll of The Senju, and he can now see the lip of the scroll that Jiraiya had always kept pressed to his back. A Senju Vajra, because of course.
Kakashi glances right, and finds the seven esteemed clan heads.
In order—Akimichi, Yamanaka, Nara, Uchiha, Inuzuka, Aburame, and Hyuuga. Now, for the first time time he can remember, at their head, closest to the Hokage, sits Senju.
The Senju have been dead for as long as he can remember. He knows, vaguely, of a time before Tsunade left the village, but she was not the clan head of the Senju, because the Senju didn't exist.
Except now, apparently, they exist again.
"I would like to begin by putting this motion into record," Tsunade says, drawing a sheet of paper from nothing and placing it onto the table.
She slides it towards the Hokage, just a couple feet to her left, who takes it with a barely contained sigh.
He is still still mid-sigh when he looks down at the paper, and what he sees there freezes that sigh in his throat. His gaze snaps to Tsunade, and there is a moment of black fury in his expression before he brings himself under control. His hands shake, just a little.
"If you will not read it aloud, Hokage-sama, allow me." Tsunade stands, and takes a deep breath. "I would like it to be henceforth known that I, forty-second head of the Senju clan, do hereby posthumously exile Tobirama Senju from our clan, for his crimes against Konoha, and against our dearest allies, the Uchiha, in particular."
The silence after Tsunade's words is stark—barren. The Hokage, having already read something to this effect, does not react. Everyone else does. The civilian guild leaders stare at Tsunade, open-mouthed. The esteemed clan leaders look upon Tsunade with slightly muted expressions of shock.
All but one, that is.
Uchiha Shouko, tiny Uchiha Sasuke on one side, Uchiha Aoto, the surgeon who transplanted Kakashi's eyes, on the other. She twists her lip in faint disgust.
Danzou sneers.
"This is a farce. You have never been recognized as the leader of Senju clan, and have no authority to exile one of its most esteemed and prominent members. Do you have—"
"That is not for you to decide," Tsunade interrupts him. "This council is not vested with the power to decide who is and is not clan head." She sets her hand on the scroll beside her, and her hand glows red. "By Senju law, I am already recognized as clan head. By the laws of Konoha, I must only attain the recognition of three of my peers."
Tsunade holds Danzou's gaze until he inclines his head. He makes a face like he's swallowing glass, and given what Tsunade seems to think happened to Sakura, Kakashi can't find it in him to feel an ounce of pity.
"Nara-sama," she says. "Do you recognize me as the rightful head of the clan Senju?"
Shikaku quirks an eyebrow, and a wry smile touches his lips.
"I do," he says.
"You honor me as you honor my clan, Nara-sama," she says, bowing deeply.
Shikaku returns the bow without standing, that wry smile still twisting his lips.
"Hyuuga-sama," Tsunade says, and Toumi's lips twitch. "Do you recognize me as the rightful head of the clan Senju?"
"As much as I would love to dispute your claim, brat," Toumi says, "I cannot see how I could, in good conscience. I recognize you as the head of the old and most honourable clan Senju."
"You honor me as you honor my clan, Hyuuga-sama," Tsunade says, bowing to her.
Toumi inclines her head.
There is a moment of silence as Tsunade looks over the remaining clan heads.
There are many good choices. Tsunade and the Senju are well respected.
There is only one wrong choice. One clan which would refuse her just to spite the Senju.
So, of course—
"Uchiha-sama," Tsunade says. "Without your blessing, I cannot, in good conscience, claim myself as the head of the clan Senju. You, who represent Senju's oldest and closest friends—with whom we built this village we now all live to protect. Do you recognize me as the head of the clan Senju?"
Silence reigns over the council room.
Shouko's face is hard.
"How you honor me and my clan, Tsunade-sama," she says. "But I worry your words are hollow. Prove to me that you do not speak lies."
Tsunade takes The Scroll of the Senju in her hands, and pulls it four feet open before her. This lets Kakashi see every Senju in the history of the village and before intermittently interrupted by black burn marks. He can't see beneath them, no way to know which one is Tobirama's. But one thing is clear—
Although Hashirama and Itama's names are present, Tobirama's name appears nowhere on the scroll. There is a single burn mark between Hashirama and Itama's names.
To their right, Shouko's eyes briefly spin into pinwheels as she stares at the scroll. The hardness of her expression softens, just a little. "You speak the truth," she says.
Tsunade inclines her head and closes the scroll, setting it back against the table, but she does not sit, nor does she turn away from Uchiha Shouko.
"You honor your clan, and you honor us in turn, Senju-sama. I recognize you as the rightful head of the clan Senju."
"You honor me as you honor my clan, Uchiha-sama," Tsunade says, and her bow to Shouko is longer and deeper than her bows to Toumi or Shikaku.
Shouko stands, and returns the bow.
There were three easy clans to choose. Clan heads who owed her something—or owed Jiraiya something. Akimichi, Inuzuka, and Yamanaka. Tsunade had purposefully picked the three clans whose heads hated her the most.
Shikaku because Tsunade never tolerated his shit, Toumi, because they've been having a pissing contest as long as Kakashi's been alive, and Shouko, leader of the one clan who was glad to see the Senju slowly die.
Tsunade turns back to the council room at large. "I have attained the recognition of three of my peers. By Konoha law, this means that the village must recognize me as the head of the clan Senju. Do you have any further concerns, Shimura-san?"
Danzou speaks like each word is pulling teeth. "I do not."
"Let it be noted," she says.
"It is so noted," the scribe choruses.
"Hokage-sama," Tsunade says to the Hokage.
The Hokage takes the sheet, and then hands it to the scribe.
"Please, enter this into the permanent record."
"Yes, sir."
"Now, I wish to enter into the main order of business. My clan member, Haruno Sakura, has been declared an S-class criminal. I demand a hearing."
Again, Danzou speaks. "Only clans that are a member of this council may bring such a case. The Senju have no place at this table."
"You forget yourself, Shimura," Tsunade says. "You claim to support this tree of ours, but it seems you have forgotten who planted it."
Danzou hides a flinch with a sneer.
"Regardless," the Hokage says. "What he says is true. The Senju have never sat at this table. During the reigns of the first and second Hokage, they believed it to be unjust to take two seats at the table, and by my time, when they tried to take their seat, their standing was rejected by their peers."
A smile flickers across Tsunade's face.
"In that case," Tsunade says, turning to the clan heads to her right. "I would like to ask your consent, most esteemed and noble clans, for my clan's right to sit at this table, as one of the founders of this village."
Toumi is the first to speak.
"Founders you may be, but you are a clan of one, for all that you pretend otherwise. No."
Then Shibi.
"No," he says, with no further explanation given.
Then Shikaku.
"Yes. Who are we, the Nara, to claim that the Senju do not have the right to sit at this table?"
And Inoichi.
"Yes."
And Chouza.
"Yes."
No explanation given, because InoShikaChou always votes as a block.
"Hell no," Hone, the Inuzuka matriarch says, with a slash of a smile across her old face. "You snooze you lose, Senju. You never should have left the table in the first place."
All eyes turn to Shouko.
She turns her hard gaze to InoShikaChou on one side and the slightly less monolithic Aburama, Hyuuga, and Inuzuka clans on her other. She turns back to Tsunade. She smiles.
It is not a pleasant smile.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kakashi can see Danzou match it.
What is the chance, after all, that an Uchiha will help a Senju?
Maybe—
"The Uchiha's answer is, of course—" she waits, because, of course, she's still so, so incredibly extra, "—yes. Welcome back, Senju-sama. I look forward to working very closely with you in the future."
Maybe Danzou should get his mind out of the past.
"You honor me, Uchiha-sama," Tsunade says, bowing her head. "Now—" she turns her gaze to the Hokage with a cruel, unpleasant smile, "—I believe I'm entitled to some answers."
"No," Danzou says, standing to match Tsunade. "You have decided by what—fiat?—that Haruno Sakura is Senju, don't make me laugh. You are making a mockery of this council and you're making a mockery on the very clan system upon which this village sits. And do not think I've missed you would also claim Orochimaru and Jiraiya as your kin, Tsunade."
There are some angry grumblings around the council room. He's right, after all.
"Senju-sama, Shimura-san," Tsunade says. "Who, exactly, is making a mockery of this council?"
Danzou glances around the room before grinding out.
"Senju-sama."
Tsunade smiles a truly unpleasant smile, and sets the scroll on the table before her. "You claim that Sakura cannot be Senju, because she has no Senju blood? How little you know of us, Shimura-san."
She throws the scroll open with a flick of her hand, sending the head of the scroll flying and forcing the clan heads to her jerk back into their seats to avoid taking the scroll to the face or the arms as the Scroll of the Senju goes screeching past them before crashing into the wall.
Spread across the council table now is columns of name after name after name after name. All the way to the wall, twenty columns, maybe more. Too many for Kakashi to count without Obito's Sharingan.
From where Tsunade is holding the lip, above Tsunade's additions, is Senju name after Senju name. Three solid columns of them, and then—
And then the foreign names start.
There are murmurings from the assembled clan heads at the names before them as they see their own clan names in the scroll.
Inuzuka Kashio
Two Senju names later.
Katou Miyuki
Uchiha Kanoko
One Senju name later.
Ameda Kawarinoko
Rin
Ame-no-ko Kiri
And on and on it goes, until—
Igarashi Isuzu
Wait. That's—
And then, in the next column.
Ibiki Butsuma
No.
It can't be.
"Why, by that logic, then our first Hokage wouldn't even be Senju—he was born to an Ibiki and an Igarashi, after all."
Silence reigns in the council room.
"Perhaps we toned it down since we founded this village, but this is no secret," Tsunade says. "How else would we have mastered so many styles of taijutsu, of genjutsu, of ninjutsu? The clanless, the unwanted, the rejects, they were always welcome under our Vajra." Tsunade flicks her shoulders, and the scroll re-rolls itself, crashing into her left hand. "The Senju have been a village for far longer than Konoha has existed. So tell me, Danzou, do you dare to claim that Senju Hashirama was not a Senju, because he was not of Senju blood? Would you dare tell me that I am not a Senju, because I am not of Senju blood?"
No one speaks.
"Do not speak on that which you do not know, Shimura-san," Tsunade snarls. "Sit down."
Danzou sits down.
"Now, these Anbu you claim saw my clan member kill her guards. I would like to see them. Ensure there have been no… misunderstandings. I'm sure you understand."
The Hokage takes his hat off, and lets out a sigh. He then turns, slowly, and looks to Danzou.
Slow, deliberate.
They have known each other for longer than everyone but maybe Toumi, Hone, and the other elders. There is no need for this production.
And yet.
"Fine," Danzou, and not the Hokage, says, signalling with one hand.
Three Anbu appear from the shadows, and step up behind him.
"How interesting they come at your command, and not the Hokage's," Tsunade comments, and Danzou grimaces. "You're nothing but an elder now, are you not? What right do you have to command Konoha's Anbu?"
There are no murmurings at this, because everyone knows that Root never died.
Danzou does not answer because it is not a question.
"Tell them what you told me," Danzou says.
One of the Anbu steps forward, and his voice is as flat as his mask. "I—"
Tsunade vanishes from beside Kakashi and appears before the Anbu, holding his jaw in her hand. The other two Anbu move, but she throws them into a wall with a single wave of an arm.
The Anbu in her grip tries to attack her, but she blocks his attacks easily, and then drives a fist into his stomach that knocks him unconscious.
"This is an outrage!" Danzou says, standing, but Tsunade ignores him, plucking the mask from the Anbu in her grip and crushing it in her fist, before using her grip on the man's jaw to force it open and pull his tongue from his mouth.
"Oh my, what is this?" Tsunade says, voice flat, turning to the council room. "This is the Root's Cursed Tongue Eradication seal. I thought Root had been disbanded, but this ninja is too young to have been in Root from before its dissolution." She smiles, a little sheepishly. "I know I've been gone for a long time, but surely we have not re-introduced the ninja corps whose graduation exam requires the murder of another Konoha ninja, and which reports only to Shimura Danzou?"
"We have not," Shikaku says, definitively, even though Root was never disbanded, because InoShikaChou have been trying to actually eradicate Root for the last two decades.
At the end of the table, Toumi hums.
"Two promising branch member children have gone missing under suspicious circumstances since our seal was removed," she says, hands folded together, implication clear.
"The disappearances of gifted children in my district never decreased after Root was supposedly disbanded," the madame of the red light district says, from the civilian half of the council room. "I simply assumed that it in fact had never been disbanded, and we civilian guild leaders were simply lied to."
The faces of the other civilian leaders tighten.
A smile touches Tsunade's lips.
"Danzou, I don't imagine that if I examine the tongues of those two Anbu over there that I will find matching seals?"
The two Anbu in question try to run, but Jiraiya crashes into them before they can so much as move, pinning each to the ground with a massive wood geta.
He reaches down, pulls the masks from their unconscious faces, and—
Killing intent swamps the room as Inuzuka Hone surges to her feet, the council table cracking under her grip.
"My pup," she growls as her ninken raises its hackles and bares its teeth in a snarl matched only in ferocity by her own.
Beneath Jiraiya's left foot is a kunoichi whose face bears the characteristic red fangs of the Inuzuka.
"We lost her in the nine-tails attack," she continues, white chakra bubbling from her skin and hardening into a second skin all around her, her new talons digging into the table before her. "Kin-stealer."
The table shatters as Hone hurls herself towards Danzou. Four new Anbu materialize out of nowhere, moving towards Hone as Tsume and Hana burst into motion to intercept them. Kakashi activates Obito's Sharingan, but before he can do anything Jiraiya is before Hone, stopping her in an instant with a single hand on her shoulder, and Tsunade has thrown two of the Anbu members into the other two, sending them both crashing into the table before Danzou.
In Jiraiya's arms is the Inuzuka Root member, her face so round, so small. She can't be more than, what, fifteen?
He holds her out to Hone, who takes her in shaking hands, white chakra vanishing from around her. At her side, the room still shakes with Kimaru's growl.
"Where is her partner?" Hone snarls, and then moves her head to the side as her question answers itself when a dog leaps out of her shadow and lunges for her throat. She catches it by the scruff of the neck with one hand, and shakes it.
The dog stops snarling and goes limp. It is so sudden that Kakashi worries that Hone killed the poor creature before Obito's sharingan finds a pulse still pounding under that black fur.
"Good, I see you haven't forgotten your alpha," Hone says, and then sets the dog on… her partner's chest. Hone does not look away from Danzou.
"Hana," she says, holding the pair blindly out to her left.
Hana bows her head in a bow which is really more of a hunch of supplication before taking them both in her arms.
"Take them to our kennels, far from prying eyes."
Hone does not look away from Danzou until Hana has left the room.
"I will tear you apart with my own jaws, and then feed you to my dogs," Hone says to him, voice flat. However, despite her words, she turns her gaze away from him and returns to her seat, sitting before the hole she tore in the council table.
She turns her gaze to Tsunade, where she has turned to keep both Hone and Danzou in view at once, and says, "Senju-sama, I believe I may have misjudged you. Welcome to the council—the Inuzuka will not forget this."
Tsunade inclines her head.
"You honor me as you honor my clan, Inuzuka-sama." She returns to her seat, flashes a brief grin at Kakashi before turning back to the council. A blink of an eye, and Jiraiya is back at her side. "I trust you checked them for the seal, Jiraiya?"
"Present on both, of course," he says.
"Well, Danzou. What do you have to say for yourself?"
Danzou stands. "I should not have to defend myself." He signals to the four Anbu still in the center of the table, and they vanish, their two comrades with them. "But I will, regardless. All I have done, I have done for the good of this village, and with full knowledge of the Hokage."
He gestures to the Hokage, and, with great hesitation, the Hokage inclines his head.
"Root was never disbanded because it is necessary. You all have known of it, but you have ignored it, because you do not wish to dirty your hands with the work that needs to be done. And that is fine—we in Root do not begrudge you your blind eyes. It is for the best that as few know what must be done as possible, so that those who live in the light can live up to the reputation of this village. Our darkness allows the light of the rest of Konoha to shine all the brighter."
He looks at the faces around him, which are slowly shifting away from anger and hate.
Kakashi himself cannot help but be a little moved.
Everything he is saying is true, after all.
Nobody has managed to touch Root for a reason.
InoShikaChou stand alone. Not even Kakashi every truly supported them.
"As for Inuzuka Ashi—her parents were members of Root, and it was their sincere desire for us to take custody of their child after their deaths. I have the documents for you, if you so desire, Inuzuka-sama. I had no intention of, and never will have any intention of, taking your pack from you."
He turns to Tsunade.
"As for why all of the Anbu watching Sakura were Root, it is no coincidence. You successfully convinced the Hokage and the jounin commander that she was no danger, but I still had my doubts. It is my job to doubt our own ninja, so that their teammates and families don't need to. So I assigned my own Anbu to watch her, to ensure that she had indeed sealed Orochimaru, as you so claimed. I am as disturbed as any of you that she failed, and regret that even though I should have known that three Anbu would never be enough to contain Orochimaru, that was all that I sent. If I had sent enough Anbu, we might have been able to contain him and suppress him again."
Kakashi feels sick. He had been so sure, after Tsunade's outburst, that Orochimaru hadn't taken her. But this… it all makes sense.
But—
"I'm sorry," Danzou continues, and he actually sounds it. "I failed. But—"
"You would use a Sharingan on an Uchiha," Shouko interrupts, her voice low and cold. Kaksahi looks to her, and finds her brother's Sharingan blazing in her eyes. "How you must look down upon us. Tell me, Danzou. Whose Sharingan do you bear?"
Danzou frowns, and… really—what could Shouko possibly be talking about? Danzou unwraps his right eye, revealing… just what he always claimed there to be.
Nothing but a milky, scarred eye.
"Uchiha-sama," he says, a bewildered frown on his face. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Shouko looks from him to the faces around the room, all looking back to her in confusion.
Shouko lifts her hands into the first of the three seals for sealing a Sharingan when Tsunade speaks.
"There's no need for that, Uchiha-sama," she says, and Shouko stops. "Bold of you, Shimura-san. To attempt to use the Sharingan before me."
Danzou sighs.
"Senju-sama—"
Chakra ripples through the council room, and suddenly a Mangekyou Sharingan in the shape of a shuriken spins in Danzou's right eye socket.
"Honestly," Tsunade says, as surprised shouts echo throughout the council room. "The Senju have been fighting against Sharingan jutsus for generations. Did you think we have no ways of breaking them?"
At the end of the room, Toumi lifts her hands on either side of her. "Hiashi, Kanna, to me," she says.
They lean forward, and the moment their heads touch Toumi's hands, they collapse to the floor on either side of her.
"The only guarantee that a Sharingan will not affect you is having no eyes at all," she says in explanation, smirking, just a little. "Just a precaution, of course. Please, continue."
At that, Shouko snaps her fingers. "Aoto, take Sasuke and leave."
Once they have left, Shouko turns her gaze to Danzou, Mangekyou Sharingan still spinning. Unlike when she came to see Sakura, she bears her brother's eyes again now. The true-sight and the law-maker. "Now, I will repeat my question, Danzou. Whose Sharingan do you bear?"
"Uchiha Shisui," he says. "As you know, Uchiha-sama, the—"
"Stop," Shouko commands. "Do you think I wouldn't notice? What you still casting with that eye?"
He raises his hands in surrender.
"As you know, Uchiha-sama. It is impossible to take an Uchiha's eye under duress. Uchiha Shisui gave this eye to me himself, because he feared that Itachi was coming for him to steal it."
Shouko takes a deep breath, and he can see the chakra for the true-sight spinning into her eye. Whatever it does, she neither explodes with rage or settles, which means that it cannot actually see through lies, as she likes to claim.
"And what of the ten eyes in your arm, Shimura-san?" Toumi offers from where she sits alone at the end of the table, the veins of byakugan standing up across her body. "The ones you have hidden under the seal under the cast of yours that none of my kinsmen were ever able to see through? Were those also given to you by Uchiha that feared Itachi was coming for them to steal their eyes?"
"Eye-thief," Shouko hisses, standing.
"I think Tsunade might also be interested to know whose face you seem to have on your shoulder," Toumi continues blithely.
Tsunade takes a deep breath from where she sits before Kakashi.
"I know of only one ninja who successfully implanted my grandfather's cells, Shimura-san. How did you come by that information?"
Slowly, Danzou unties his robe, and revealing his bandage-covered right arm. He unlocks the three bolts holding a massive metal seal around it, and it parts in two, the halves falling heavily to the table before him. He unwraps the bandages, revealing ten spinning Sharingan implanted on his forearm, and Hashirama's face on his shoulder.
"Sage below," Tsunade curses.
"As you can see, Uchiha-sama, none of the eyes are rotted, proof that none of them were stolen. And Senju-sama, once Orochimaru developed a method to implant your grandfather's cells, the strength it grants would simply be too wasteful to never use. I volunteered, trusting that I could control the cells if they got out of control. Unfortunately, the process is too volatile to be of more general use. I was only barely able to survive, and even then, only by luck—any other shinobi would no doubt succumb."
Shouko does not sit down.
Danzou is, after all, obviously lying. Funny that he can seem to think that now, when his excuses are no worse now that they were before.
What the fuck was that jutsu Danzou was using?
"I believe that you may have some information that Shouko may find interesting, Jiraiya?"
Shouko turns to face Jiraiya and Tsunade.
"I uh… came upon this in my research," Jiraiya says, crossing the distance between them, and handing her the scroll.
Shouko takes it, opens it, and begins to read.
Then she stops, and killing intent rolls over the room.
"Tell me, for I am the second most junior member of this council," she says, every word dripping with fury, "but have we consented to allow the village to take the remains of our dead to do with as they please?"
"No, we most certainly have not," Shikaku says, looking once at Jiraiya, and then at Shouko. He holds a hand out for the scroll, and Shouko flings it at him in disgust.
"Would that be sufficient to overcome the curse you've laid upon your eyes against thieves?" Tsunade asks. "Even if he killed them himself?"
"It would," Shouko says, still shaking with fury.
Danzou looks from the scroll and back to Shouko. Shikaku stops halfway through the scroll, kais, then points to a line to show Chouza and Inoichi. The scroll then passes the down the table until it reaches Toumi, who runs fingers that are still covered in the veins of the Byakugan down it before nodding.
All eyes turn to Danzou.
"There is no—"
"I do not need proof," Shouko thunders. "You are a liar and a thief, Danzou. I hereby declare all contracts my clan has entered into with you null and void, and nullify them, forevermore. You are henceforth persona non grata to the Uchiha clan." Her right eye spins wildly in its socket, and he can feel her chakra from here. "Let my word be law—Ookuninushi."
Kakashi feels Shouko's chakra wash over him, and feels the universe remake itself in its passage.
Across from them Danzou flinches as… all eleven Sharingan he has implanted into himself began to darken and then… begin to rot.
Danzou crumples in on in himself with an agonized cry.
"Not a single Sharingan was given to you freely, Danzou?" she says, voice low and deriding. "Suffer as is your due, eye-thief."
She turns to the Hokage.
"Did you know, Hiruzen?" she asks, voicing rising with each word. "Did you place hidden clauses in Konoha mission contracts so that you could harvest the eyes of my kinsmen? Did you have me elected so that you could trick more of my people into signing these contracts—so that you can harvest further eyes from us?" By the end of her question, she is bellowing, her voice shaking the walls, chest heaving. Her brother's Mangekyou Sharingan spin wildly in her eyes. Her voice drops to a more reasonable level. "My brother's left eye is the true-sight, Hiruzen. Do not think that you can lie to me."
(Apparently she's gonna keep claiming her left eye can do that, then.)
"The Hyuuga are also very interested in your answer," Toumi says, closing the scroll before her.
"As are the Yamanaka."
"The Inuzuka."
"The Akimichi."
"The Nara."
"The Aburame."
Tsunade smiles at her once-teacher.
"And, of course, the Senju. Tell me you did not defile my people's corpses, Sensei," she says.
A rotten eyeball, fused into most of an eye socket, drops to the ground a moment before a forearm with ten rotten, oozing sores follows in its wake, and Danzou straightens, re-covering the hole where his right eye socket used to be with the bandages that were still hanging on his face. He pulls his cloak back over his rapidly-regenerating right arm.
All of the false understanding of his previous speech is gone from his eyes, replaced with pure hatred. He glares out at them all, and if looks could kill.
The Hokage ignores him, ignores them all, his gaze only on the hat before him. He turns it over. He looks to his left, first at his two genin teammates, who are sitting, stone-faced, beside him, and then up at Danzou.
"You really got me good, didn't you, Danzou?" the Hokage says, with a sigh.
Because—
Well.
The truth is—it doesn't matter if he knew about that clause, or if he didn't—if Danzou had been using whatever the Amatsukami his to manipulate him or not—if he knew that Danzou had stolen the Uchiha's eyes, or he didn't.
If he did, he's evil. If he didn't, he's incompetent.
Either way, no one will trust him again.
He turns to Tsunade.
"Tell me, Tsunade—will you do this old man one last favor?"
Tsunade tilts her head.
"For old time's sake," he says.
"What do you want, old man?"
He stands, looks down at his hat again. Turns it over.
Then he holds it out to Tsunade, and the room falls into complete silence.
"It appears I've lost the faith of every clan head, Tsunade. I would like to choose you as my successor."
No one moves.
No one breathes.
Tsunade looks down at the hat. She shifts her shoulders, her chakra ripples through the room, and when the ripples clear, her youth has returned, and the character for bet on her back has returned with it. She steps forward and takes the hat.
She places it on her head and turns to Danzou.
"Danzou, I hereby charge you with treason. Does anyone in the council wish to dispute this?"
No one speaks.
"Arrest him."
Danzou raises his hands in surrender as Kakashi and Jiraiaya close in on either side of him.
"I am, as always, a servant of the people of Konoha," he says, as Jiraiya closes a chakra cuff around his remaining wrist. "Everything I did, I did for the good of Konoha."
"No," Tsunade responds, ice cold, as Sarutobi Hiruzen sags back into his chair, looking every one of his sixty-seven years. "No you did not."
Then she turns away from him and Hiruzen, to the rest of the council.
"Inoichi, I would like to surrender Danzou and any further Root members we find to you and Ibiki's tender care. Prioritize the identities of Root members, any active actions against the village and location of Root bases. If you can get any information about Sakura's actual whereabouts, that would also be greatly appreciated. Jiraiya will stay with you to guard Danzou."
"Yes ma'am."
"Shikaku," she nods to him, "Anbu leader," she nods to the woman seated on Toumi's right, between the civilian and ninja factions, "I would like you to mobilize all the jounin and Anbu you trust to search out and detain Root members. Although the tongue seal is a good indicator of membership, a lack of it is no guarantee."
"Yes ma'am," she gets in a chorus.
"Hone, Shibi, I would like you to track the scents of the Root members we find to search for any bases they have."
They incline their heads in unison.
"Toumi, the Hyuuga's eyes will be invaluable, not just in searching for unguarded Root bases, but also any conspicuously guarded rooms."
Toumi inclines her head.
"Shouko, your clan's ability to see through genjutsu will be highly valuable. Please coordinate with Shikaku."
Shouko inclines her head.
"Chouza, you and yours are valued shinobi of Konoha." Tsunade smiles ruefully, and Chouza returns it with a faint smile. "I trust you know where you're needed."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Civilian leaders, I need you to keep the peace. There are going to be a lot of shinobi moving around the village, and likely more fights than we would like. Kiriko, Nijito, Mina, please keep people off the streets and… entertained. The village will compensate reasonable losses incurred in your service to the village. Hikozaemon, Sakumoto, Komina, please do all you can to delay all merchant activity out of the village. I don't want word of this getting out until it's already done. We will, of course, compensate you for reasonable losses incurred by the interruption of your business."
She gets a chorus of yes, ma'am's and nods.
"Himiko," she says to the head of police sitting beside the head of Anbu. "Assist the civilian leaders in keeping the peace. I know you are powerful shinobi in your own right, but civilians are an important priority. Keep them safe."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Sensei, I'm down an elder, welcome to the elders' council."
Sarutobi blinks in surprise.
"Elders, assist me. We're going to be going over some records, get your reading glasses. And—" her eyes blaze as she stares Utatane and Mitakado down, "—you better not have been fucking in on this shit."
The elders make displeased faces, but nod regardless.
"Kakashi, find Shizune and bring her to me. Protect her with your life."
"Yes, ma'am."
Tsunade claps her hands together.
"I'm sure many of you have concerns about my appointment. I assure you we will have a proper vote, but now is not that time. Does anyone have any concerns with the delay?"
No one says anything.
"Good. You know what you need to do."
Shizune is fine. There are no Root agents attacking her.
He delivers her to Tsunade, then summons his dogs to once again fruitlessly try to track Sakura.
He doesn't succeed, and six hours later, he gets news.
Danzou has escaped.