Sarutobi made sure he was present when Sasuke, the last Uchiha in the village, would wake up.
He had been the one to order the massacre, in the end, after all, so being there for the child was the least he could do.
The boy stirred, opening his eyes, and frowned.
"This isn't right," he muttered in a tone of mild confusion.
"Ah, Sasuke, you're awake," Sarutobi began in his most comforting tone, and Sasuke slowly turned to face him, as though hoping Sarutobi was talking to someone else.
Their eyes met, and Sasuke fell back with a groan.
This wasn't exactly a promising sign.
"Do you remember why you're here?"
"No," was the immediate response. "In fact, I don't remember being called 'Sasuke' at all."
Sarutobi frowned, and immediately started checking for genjutsu or any other means of replacing the Uchiha.
"Three options," the boy continued. "I have somehow been reincarnated as Sasuke. Uchiha, right? Of course. Two, my memories were simply copied and overwrote Sasukes. Three, I am Sasuke and my memories were replaced by entirely made up ones. Just great…"
He paused.
"Actually, while I'm here, would you mind answering a couple of questions? I mean, you're going to have to figure out what happened anyway, so…"
"I'll try to answer your questions if I can," Sarutobi allowed.
Questions could easily provide information just as well as request it.
"Great. First, how the hell did you explain Narutos situation without mentioning the little detail of 'kill him and you unleash the fucking Kyubi'?"
Sarutobi froze.
How did Sasuke know… any of this?
"... Sorry?"
"I mean, all you really had to say was that the Yondaime used a Seal, where as long as Naruto survived, the Kyubi couldn't return. How, in the name of sanity, did you manage to tell people… that which is covered by your law… without mentioning that?"
"I was distracted?"
This earned him a look from the boy.
"Distracted. You utterly destroyed your successors sons childhood, because you were distracted."
"How do you know any of this?"
"New memories," the boy responded vaguely. "So, second question, did a certain Danzo Shimura speak with Madara before he betrayed the village?"
Sarutobi frowned. "What exactly is so important about that?"
"It isn't," shrugged Sasuke, "I just want to know if there's anything to my theory that Danzo is responsible for literally everything that has ever gone wrong in the hidden villages, and this is my best chance."
"What do you mean, Danzo responsible for everything that has ever gone wrong?"
"Well, he interfered with Rain to get Jiraiyas students there killed," the boy commented. "Didn't get all of them, so the survivors turned their mission for peace into spreading pain across the world, claiming it to be for peace still. And that leads to Madaras apprentice manipulating them into a plan to trap the world into a genjutsu, and wipe out humanity in about three days tops."
"Do you have any evidence for this?"
Sasuke glared at him.
"I have literally just woken up with a new set of memories, and you expect me to have evidence? Like letters signed by Danzo telling Orichimaru that it's totally fine to continue his experiments, so as to get him out of the running for Hokage?"
"I see your point. But I can hardly investigate such charges without reason."
"Didn't expect you to," the boy responded with a shrug. A thought seemed to occur to him. "Hey, why am I in the hospital anyway?"
Sarutobi hesitated, not sure how to explain things.
"The Uchiha clan," he started, only to get interrupted immediately.
"Oh, the massacre. So Danzo has his stolen mind control Mangekyo Sharingan then, and Itachi is off to infiltrate Akatsuchi after leaving his brother as traumatised and disloyal as possible."
There was a moment's pause.
"Wait, I'm his brother aren't I?"
"What do you mean, a stolen mind control Mangekyo?"
"So, Shisui was meant to use his funky eye thing to cancel the coup, right? And then he turned up dead, missing his eyes, and you sent Itachi to kill them instead? So, where did his eyes go?"
That… that wasn't right, was it?
Sarutobi tried to remember.
Itachi killing the clan was a backup plan that ended up needed, so what was the original?
There was no way he'd just forget about an eye with mind control powers was there? He wasn't that old. And missing Sharingan was a serious issue, so what happened to the investigation?
He could vaguely recall Danzo telling him not to worry, and to leave the investigation to him.
Danzo, who had removed the bandages over his missing eye.
An eye that was in fact present.
"Oh fuck, Danzo has mind control."
Sasuke was nodding.
"See? So, Danzo stealing that eye and forcing the massacre also leads to Orichimaru and Suna joining forces to invade in a few years. Well, the Daimyo of Wind giving all his work to us instead of Suna had something to do with it, but…"
"We wouldn't just take an allies missions," Sarutobi protested.
Not unless they had more urgent and high profile missions than they could handle at least, but such missions were always checked by a trusted group, familiar with global politics.
A group who regularly encountered Danzo, who would do anything that could strengthen the village.
And who had mind control.
"Oh, f-"
"And then there's his ROOT forces," Sasuke continued, not seeming to notice. "All those potential ninja he brainwashes, and eliminates all concept of emotions from so that they can't predict enemy or ally actions in the slightest."
"Danzo has gone insane and needs to be stopped," Sarutobi declared, standing with the intention of doing just that.
"Well, yeah, it's Danzo," Sasuke shrugged. "That isn't anything new. But is he why Madara betrayed the village? Please, I really want to know!"
"Keep Sasuke in this room," Sarutobi ordered, ignoring the question. "He'll need a Yamanaka to check his mind before we decide what to do with him, but first I need to deal with Danzo."
He was out of the hospital before they could respond, already trying how to deal with a madman with mind control.
]
Somehow 'Sasuke' found himself cleared by Inoichi, and 'returned' to the Academy within days.
Only to be immediately overwhelmed by fangirls.
The manga had gone sone way to warning him how bad they were, but somehow managed to understate the situation.
Maybe because (judging by Hinata having blue hair rather than being brunette) this was closer to the anime.
In any case, he barely managed to reach lunch without snapping.
It was time to do something about them, and so he grabbed Hinata as they left the classroom.
"I need you to spread some rumours for me," he stated flatly. "In exchange I'll help you get on the same team as Naruto."
Her face went bright crimson.
"Wh-what are you," she tried denying, only to be met with his raised eyebrow.
"I want my… urgh… fangirls," he groaned, "to know that I am not interested in anyone who couldn't protect themselves. Who could fight off foreign ninja after a young Uchiha, for example."
"Wh-why do you need me?"
He gave her a look.
"Do you really think I could get them to believe that? If I showed any interest in one of… them… they would assume anything they said was simply to get me to themselves, sabotaging thr others. And so I need someone outside the problem."
"Um, how am I supposed to start the rumour?"
"No idea," he admitted. "Not my specialty. But maybe say I wanted to talk with you, clan heir to clan heir, about how weak they all are, and how they aren't suited to marrying into a clans leadership. I have no idea, I've only started planning since I got into the Academy today."
Hinata considered.
"And… how do I get onto Narutos team?"
"It is standard procedure for one team each year to be the top student, top kunoichi and lowest rank student. Naruto will be lowest rank of our year, don't deny it he's being sabotaged, so beat the grades of all the… urgh… fangirls… and you'll be on his team."
Hinata considered.
"Alright, I'll see what I can do…"
]
Sarutobi sat at his desk, reading over Danzos interrogation.
For all the corroborating information, he still needed to be sure that Danzo had done everything he was accused of.
Fortunately it hadn't been too hard to take the old man by surprise, ensuring he couldn't get to Shisuis eye in time.
And with it still sealed, it was safe to question him.
And discover that just about every problem Konoha had ever faced, including at least one of the great wars, was directly down to Danzo.
Which did finally answer some important questions he'd wondered about for some time now…
AN: I don't have enough of an idea where to take this to make a full 'SI' type fic, but if anyone wants to adopt the idea, please contact me.