I had my first assassination attempt on the third week of me becoming hokage. It was interesting since the guy had burst into my office and saw 6 of me. He froze up for a second and that was his first and last mistake.
I released a wood jutsu I had made called spore release. If you think of it as a smoke bomb made out of spores and breathe it in you will be in serious trouble. Not that it matters if you don't since it will cling to your clothes and skin. Once it is on the person it will cover every inch of them unless the person lights themselves on fire or doesn't allow it to touch them at all. It also can't be removed by using replacement jutsu since it will change to the same chakra signature as a part of the body it is touching. I can then control the person by command.
The assassin had apparently not known of my new jutsu and had thought it was some sort of poison gas for me to escape. He let it cover him and I forced him to open his mouth and swallow a portion of the spores while a good amount covered the inside of his mouth.
Once it all cleared and the ANBU showed up all they could see was a guy holding a kunai while covered in a green dust and not moving while I sat looking at him.
"One of you go get Ibiki so he will be here when I interrogate this guy." I told them without looking at them.
"Yes hokage."
Ibiki came a few minutes later and sat in to listen to how I would interrogate this guy.
"Okay, so to start with I'm going to tell you that I'm going to release your ability to speak, however I have already had the spores cover your teeth in case you have a poison capsule or try to bite off your tongue. You also can't move the rest of your body. I don't want you to die, at least not until I get you to tell me who sent you and why."
"I won't tell you anything, you should just kill me and get it over with." He said with a glare.
"I think otherwise. Did you know that plants need nutrients to grow and spores are in fact plants themselves? They are so small though that they don't need barely any nutrients to grow. However in this situation I can get them to grow in a very interesting way. You see, I can use you as nutrients to grow the plants. Because of how small they are they will consume a single drop of blood and just keep growing over time and spreading like a parasite. Slowly but surely they will eat you alive. Eventually you will simply turn into a plant without even being able to fight back."
The ninja was sweating hard by the time I had said this and was turning pale at the thought of being devoured alive, but he was still holding out on telling me anything.
"The most interesting thing about these spores though is the fact that they are actually spirit based spores. Normally they would be used to make a powerful genjutsu or a hallucinogen. These ones however would be used to absorb the soul of its victim. After you are devoured alive you would turn into a plant."
I looked him in his terrified eyes and said with a smile. "You will be devoured alive being unable to do a single thing over time and will eventually be completely devoured only to have your soul and mind trapped in a plant for the rest of eternity. Nobody being able to hear as you scream for release, watching as people pass you by and slowly going insane. Even when you go mad nobody will notice since their is nothing you can do as a plant."
"It was Danzo and the head council members." The ninja cracked in terror. "They felt threatened by you making changes they didn't want and the way your popularity was constantly rising made them nervous that they wouldn't be able to lead you around or force you to do what they wanted you to do. Now get these out of me." He screamed while starting to foam at the mouth in terror. I let the spores fall off of him while a number of spores were puked onto the floor before he passed out.
The Anbu and Ibiki just stared at him and me in shock and terror.
"Don't worry, the spores are actually just normal spores and would at worst give him a stomach ache from eating them. They are full of vitamins and are healthy for you. They just have a restraining effect because they are controlled with my chakra. I'm still working on making them weaponized and haven't reached the point of making parasitic spores yet."
I could tell that they all let out sighs of relief at that before once again tensing up.
"So what to do about this?" I muttered to myself.
"We could arrest them, however because of their standing among the council and the power they hold they would have all charges dropped within a day and would use that as a reason to attack you to lower your standing." Ibiki said with a grimace.
"I agree." I nodded. "I can't just let this go though, otherwise it would send the message that I am weak enough to not be able to stop this from happening."
"Well I can't go after the council members right now, but Danzo on the other hand is a different story. The third hokage had already ordered him to disband his ROOT organization and he has instead continued to build it in the shadows which not only is directly disobeying a command from the hokage, but it is also creating personal troops without censure. He has been building these troops in direct opposition to the hokage's orders and it is now obvious that he intends to continue to oppose the hokage's office with violence. I command all ANBU forces to search out Danzo and immediately capture him for investigation. If he resists you are given permission to use lethal force as necessary. It is also necessary to keep in mind that ROOT members may be implanted amongst the ANBU as double agents and that you should all keep an eye on one another at all times. Even if it is someone you trust with all your heart, do not for a second lower your guard since it is known that Danzo has used brainwashing on his ROOT members since childhood. Now go and hunt him down." I commanded
"Yes hokage." The ANBU members said before heading out and spreading the word to the other members and also passing along my warning.
"Is it really necessary to do this against Danzo?" Ibiki asked.
"If I were to leave Danzo alone he would continue to try to control the village from the shadows. I already know that he has most of the council secretly in his corner supporting him and that makes it very difficult to find a proper way to bring him down. If I wait for too long he will get more chances to drag me down so he can control me. He failed to get me today, but he might go after my wives or even my children. If I hadn't told Tsunade and Shizune about what I was worried about they might have gotten attacked and lost our child. Their child was probably the only reason they didn't rush out to kill assassins."
Sauske was with Kakashi and Sakura was with Tsunade. Ino had Tsun and Dere with her acting as guards for her.
I was by myself and had waited for this since I knew it would be coming.
"Now if you will excuse me Ibiki, I need to let myself know about what has just happened." I told him before releasing the shadow clone jutsu just as I got to see Ibiki's surprised face.
I was actually outside of a ROOT base west of the village by around twenty kilometers. I knew of five different root bases near the village. The only reason why I knew they were there was because the amount of dangerous wildlife and bandits dropped in these areas. I had once infiltrated a bandit group for a couple of hours to exterminate them and had found a map with these areas marked off as dead areas. I had checked them out and had found five ROOT bases and one of Orochimaru's labs.
I went into the Root base by using a mask and clothes I had gotten from a Root member I had killed nearby. I used a ninjutsu to spy on the ROOT guards for over a month now and knew all of their signals. I had even used roots underground to find out the structure of the base including an escape route.
I then snuck inside through the front door and went to their library.
I was beyond happy to read all of their stolen information and the experimental data. Danzo might be going to die, but I was so happy right now from the new information. I was even able to make my spores parasitic since Danzo had apparently worked with Orochimaru to use parasites to create new chakra pathways. It usually made the patient go insane from the pain, or instantly die, but the information on parasites and jutsu's related to parasites instantly made me figure out what was missing to make parasitic spores.
I decided to test out my new jutsu by releasing it from within the depths of the compound. The parasitic spores would suck out a ninja's chakra while leaving just enough to stay alive while releasing the rest into the air and creating more spores. It spread out immediately and only stopped because I had set the limits of the spores to only go as far as three feet away from the outside.
It took a bit to start up, but once it got out it would spread indefinitely unless I ordered it to stop. I just made the worlds first biological WMD, I feel so proud.
I read all of the paperwork in the place and got rid of anything that wasn't incriminating as hell by burning it after reading. I could make a copy later from memory. I then took all of the rest of the paperwork with me in a bag and went to the front of the compound where two guards were still standing at alert for intruders.
I made a clone and we snuck up on the two before throwing them backwards into the spores filled hallway. The two only had enough time to yell at us asking us to identify ourselves before falling unconscious.
I then left two clones at the entrance to pretend be the guards in case any other ROOT members or Danzo came after he was attacked in the village.
I went and conquered all of the other bases using the same trick. The lucky thing is that once someone came close enough to notice the spores in the poor lighting it would already be too late and they would get trapped. So nobody was able to get out to warn the other bases. I even was able to find three more bases from the paperwork and found a huge stash of goods set aside in a special base meant to hold goods for an emergency situation. It also had a ton of scrolls and books that I hadn't read before. Raiding is apparently super good for the finances.
I used storage scrolls to take the goods that weren't already in one and found out that Danzo had been killed from a clone that had been left with the ANBU.
He had tried to fake his death after the last of his sharingan eyes had closed and when that had failed he had tried to have the five ANBU agents who were secretly ROOT agents cause a commotion to escape earlier in the fight. Because of my warning those five were immediately killed by the other ANBU and Danzo failed to escape. My clone had immediately used a lightning jutsu to move in front of Danzo and spear him in the chest. He had tried to use a replacement jutsu, but it didn't work since I had already had the clone layout a placement lock formation the second he was found so that he couldn't use any replacements or teleports. It basically would cause the movement to rebound when the chakra reached out to make a path beyond ten feet away from the users body.
My clone had checked and rechecked the body before being satisfied that even the blood was Danzo's and not just a body doubles. I didn't trust the medical records to be correct when it came to Danzo's blood and had gotten a DNA sample from the few times I had seen him and even from a restaurant he had visited with the council members. I had five different sources of his DNA to check against and make sure it was his just to make sure he was actually dead. It was a lot of work.
The next day was hell for me. I had the entire council demanding to know why I had killed Danzo and they wanted an explanation immediately.
I went to the council chambers and made a seat and a desk for myself while they glared at me.
"I killed Danzo." I began while looking at all of them slowly. "Because he and a few other members sent an assassin to kill me yesterday."
"You killed Danzo based on the words of a mere assassin." The male head of the council spit out in rage.
"No. I ordered the ANBU to bring Danzo in for investigation and if he fought back to use any means necessary to stop him. If he had come willingly and was innocent then he would have been let go immediately. However because he resisted arrest he was killed."
"There is no way that Danzo would be guilty of such a thing, he was an upstanding member of this village and accusing him of doing such a thing is a slap in the face that he did not deserve." Screeched out the female head.
"I am not only accusing Danzo." I said with a shark like grin.
"What?" They both asked as the other members of the council grew restless.
I pulled out a storage scroll filled with paperwork and emptied it on the desk. "I am also currently accusing a number of the members of the council of Konoha of supporting and colluding with the criminal ninja Orochimaru and with Danzo to knowingly fund and be involved in experimentation on the citizens of this and other villages as well as the kidnapping and murder of numerous children from various orphanages. Honestly the list of crimes goes on and on and makes me sick."
ANBU came in and surrounded all of the elders. "If you do not resist arrest you will be investigated and if found innocent will be released, however if you decide to resist it will be met with forced capture."
I noticed that the two council heads had sweat running down their faces. "I should also warn you that I have already placed a movement locking formation on the entire building and nobody can use jutsu to escape." I smiled with a shark grin at the two who turned pale.
As the council was dragged away in hand cuffs to the jail they screamed out about how I wouldn't get away with this and how the citizens of Konoha wouldn't stand for this injustice.
There was a crowd that had built up along the road outside the jail and a number of them seemed like they were ready to start trouble. They were already forming up and yelling.
I stood up in front of the jail by making a raised platform and caused all of the crowds eyes to turn to me. The few people trying to stir up trouble tried to get others to yell at me with them until I used a jutsu to restrain them in vines.
"You four can stop trying to stir up trouble. It is bad enough that I already have to deal with such terrible things, I don't need to deal with you lot trying to start a riot for criminals as well." I scolded them.
"What do you mean criminals?" One of the townspeople asked.
"Yesterday afternoon I was attacked by an assassin. The assassin was captured and interrogated and it was found that the two head councilors and Danzo Shimura had sent the assassin to kill me since they wished for a figurehead leader as the hokage and felt threatened when I refused to be such."
"I was also currently investigating Danzo concerning the disappearances of numerous children from orphanages that had been happening over the years. As everyone here is sure to have heard, I have been attempting to root out Orochimaru and his supporters and had thought that it was him who was causing the children to disappear. I was both worried and surprised to find out that Danzo was involved in the missing children and decided to also investigate him."
The citizens were all paying attention and listening to my story.
"While investigating Danzo I found out that he had been training a force of ninja in secret using brainwashing and experimental techniques that were given to him by Orochimaru by trading them for more experimental subjects. Those subjects were the orphans that Danzo had been taking from the orphanages."
The crowd let out a gasp in shock and I could see the anger in their eyes at Danzo's actions.
"I found multiple bases containing the ninja that Danzo had been training and after the assassin attacked yesterday and told me of his employers I decided that enough was enough and ordered his arrest by any means necessary. He unfortunately fought against the arrest until death. While that was happening I personally went to the bases to capture the brainwashed ninja and collect any paperwork before it could be destroyed. I succeeded in doing both."
The crowd let out a sigh. This was actually kind of fun. I thought to myself.
"After going through all of the paperwork it was found out that members of the council had funded and supported both Danzo and Orochimaru in these evil deeds. I along with the ANBU have arrested the council members to investigate how far this goes and to root out any and all other crimes that have been committed. I apologize for the unsightly behavior displayed today and hope to dig to the bottom of this so that those who are innocent can return to their homes as soon as possible and those who are guilty get the punishment they rightly and justly deserve."
The crowd let out a cheer as I turned around and went into the building. I turned to one of the ANBU standing in the corner. "Go collect those four that were causing trouble and investigate the reason behind it. Give punishment based on the reason, but don't be too harsh unless needed." The ANBU nodded and went off.
It was found out later that only three of the councilors out of all of them were innocent of any crimes against the village. We didn't care about crimes committed during the war against the enemy ninja and anything done during war was punished on a situational basis.
I had to sit in on their hearings and it turns out that five of the councilors only had crimes that were done against their fellow shinobi during the war. Most of which was either done to complete the mission or due to necessity with one having killed his partner to throw off the trail of the enemy ninja. The five councilors were innocent in my eyes and probably the eyes of others as well. The punishment I gave them was that they were removed from their positions as councilors and would instead have to lead any public activities such as cleaning up the streets or taking care of the flower gardens in the park. While it was a punishment it also wasn't and I'm sure everyone knew that.
The councilors almost argued to get a harsher punishment until I silenced them and said. "No punishment will bring back the dead no matter how harsh, instead why don't you spend the rest of your lives taking care of the village that those you betrayed loved and died for." That made them start crying and they left like that. Tsunade was one of the people listening in on the trials and she smiled at me and gave me a thumbs up which in turn made me sigh.
The rest of the day was filled with various trials and the contents of which were made public. The five who were given light punishments weren't treated badly and spent the rest of their lives taking care of the village.
The three councilors who had committed no crimes were actually the most serious and anal motherfuckers in the world and had zero tolerance for anything that would effect the village negatively. They did however understand the difference between right and wrong and when to be relaxed and when to be serious. They would give advice when needed and would also vote for things properly. They died after 17 years of service and they all died in a damned chair in the exact position they would be in when they had to vote. I swear they just did it to spite me for everything I ended up doing.
The rest of the council ended up with so many crimes connected to all of them that I had no choice other than to have them all executed.
I made it clear that the actions of one family member are not the actions of the rest and that any actions taken against their families would be dealt with harshly. That caused the villagers to not act out, but it didn't stop the looks or curses. I didn't have any way to remove that hatred from the people who had been wronged.
Betraying your village was considered the worst thing a person could do. It was why even the resistance wouldn't accept Zabuza when he tried to kill their kage. So it wasn't a surprise that the taboo the councilors had done was transferred to their families as well.
I sat at my desk and finished writing out the report for the archives concerning this matter. The ROOT members had been taken in by the ANBU and hadn't been sure what to do since the only person they had been brainwashed to follow was Danzo who was now dead.
I had Ibiki and Ino's father work together with Tsunade to do their best to fix the ROOT members minds, but it would be a while before they would be normal again.
I had those who were already undercover take a psych evaluation before being allowed to return to their squads. It turns out that a tenth of the genin corps and a few jonin were also ROOT. They were still relatively normal since they had to be able to blend in with the others, but there was now a little bit more coldness in their actions and behaviors since they didn't need to hide it anymore.
I had to have the whole ANBU corps go through a evaluation since wearing masks all the time and having some being double agents would cause constant doubts to happen between them. It could seriously affect a mission and I made sure that any ANBU that didn't pass the first evaluation would have a month of vacation before being allowed to take another if they wanted. If they failed the first one they would be allowed to be normal jonin for another month and only then would they be considered for reinstatement as ANBU.
I also went and told Sauske about Danzo and his involvement in the Uchia massacre. He was depressed because he didn't get the chance to take revenge for his clan, but he was also grateful that I had managed to kill the bastard and not let him get away. He then gave me a kiss on the cheek and told me that he would talk to me later.
I just nodded and left him to mourn by himself and work through his feelings.
I also sent out an ANBU to find Itachi Uchia to let him know the news of Danzo's passing and to let him know I wanted to speak to him.
I got a letter from the fire lord and found out that Gaara had become the sand village's kage and that they wished to mend relationships with our village.
It was really one thing after another. I sighed in irritation before sending a letter in reply. I told them that if they wished to mend their relationship with us that I would need a show of trust. I asked to be allowed to read for a single day any and all jutsu's in their jutsu library. I would not use any tools and would not use any techniques or take any of their scrolls or books out of the library. It was either that or they had to have ninja of the same level as the ones killed in the attack take over the jobs of the deceased for ten years.
I laughed so hard when I sent it since I knew that if they chose the second one that it would destroy their village. Our hokage died, that means that they would need to send their newly elected leader to work under me. They would never allow that even if they did send the ninja to make up for the ones who had died. Though that would basically be all of their ninja and those ten years would cause the next generation of ninja to be much weaker and less trained. It had a ton of downsides.
If they chose the first one though they would only have to share information and wouldn't lose anything. Since I was sure they didn't know about my memory they would probably figure that I would only go for their S rank scrolls and try to memorize them for that entire day. Jokes on them though since with my memory I can remember everything perfectly with just a quick look and I can read a library the size of ours in less than a day.
The return letter took a couple of weeks and told me they had agreed to my first condition. They then asked to send a shinobi of their village to oversee me while I was reading.
I agreed to it and a date was set for me to travel to their village.
