The secret bunker beneath Naka Shrine had once served as the meeting ground in which the Uchiha clansmen planned their failed coup against the village. For me, it was the perfect location in which to plan the annihilation of the Root, at least once I had reinforced the place with additional security seals. Pinned to the walls were maps of the village and its sewer system with various locations marked, places where I had discovered entrances to the Root complex over the last week.

It had not been as hard as one might expect. Danzo himself always had Root agents guarding his home when he was absent; all I had to do was have Shadow Clones locate and follow those agents. In addition to finding the entrances, I had also been carefully recording the comings and goings of every operative and their patrol routes. Danzo's people were consummate professionals, always perfectly on time and acting with clockwork precision.

Funny thing about perfect routines: they made it easy to plan an infiltration. Sometimes discipline could be a double-edged sword.

The entrance I would be using was concealed atop the Hokage monument, hidden by a genjutsu. At precisely ten pm, a patrolling operative codenamed Kiryu wearing a blank dragon mask would return and swap with a fresh replacement. Her height and build were similar enough to my own that I could Transform into her without hindering my movements, so she would be my target. I waited in the branches of a tree along her patrol route, and when she passed by, a length of lightning-infused ninja wire caught around her neck. She died quickly. Her body was sealed into a scroll so as not to leave any evidence, and one Henge later I was continuing in her place.

Gaining entrance was as easy as walking right past the man taking Kiryu's patrol route, ignoring the guard just inside the door, and heading straight in. Root operatives did not make small talk or engage in friendly banter, so I did not need to worry about giving myself away by meeting a friend of Kiryu's who might notice something wrong. Even once inside, I could simply stroll through the complex unnoticed so long as I did nothing to arouse suspicion.

Although the number and distribution of entrances had led me to believe the complex spanned the entire village, much of the sprawl was actually made up purely of passages and tunnels used to get around invisibly. All of the important – and therefore interesting – parts of the structure were concentrated around the centre of the village, with a single large chamber acting as the base's core. Root ninja could occasionally be seen running up the walls or jumping between the bridges and balconies that criss-crossed the space above. Everything was arranged vertically around this one column, making it both efficient and a nightmare for outsiders to navigate. With the way everyone else I could see was moving, staying still for too long would attract suspicion, so I set off upwards myself.

The first level I checked was all classrooms dedicated to the theoretical side of shinobi arts: anatomy, psychology, geography, cryptography, chemistry, and more. Any knowledge that might aid a covert operative in the field was being taught here. Through a window I saw children – very young children, perhaps six or seven years old – watching a dissection. The body on the table could not have been older than ten.

Next up were obstacle courses, dojos, and killing houses. The sounds of clashing metal emanated from behind some of the doors, and the scent of blood hung strong in the air here. Apparently Root did not believe in holding back during training.

The third floor contained the living areas: barracks, a cafeteria, a library. Little of value to me.

The fourth floor, on the other hand, was where things started to get interesting. Immediately, the smell of disinfectant hit my nose. The whole place was clean, but this particular area was properly sterile. Obviously, Root would need their own medical wing; an organisation that did not exist on paper could not have its members showing up in the village hospital. And the eastern wing of this floor was just that: a perfectly unremarkable hospital. It was in the west wing that I found something truly worthy of my attention. Behind an ordinary wooden door with a simple lock that was easily picked, I came upon row after row of scrolls, stretching from floor to ceiling, each labelled with a name. And when I opened one and unsealed its contents, what should pop out but a glass vial inside which floated a pair of fleshy orbs with a distinctive crimson hue and three tomoe pattern.

I had found Danzo's spare parts.

All of the Sharingan harvested after the Uchiha massacre, at least the ones Danzo had not already used and Obito had not gotten his hands on first, stored away and curated like books in some kind of macabre library, ready to be withdrawn at any time he needed a replacement. Unfortunately for me, Fugaku's eyes were not here, so I would still need to take Itachi's to avoid blindness. Regardless, I couldn't just leave them here for anyone to come grab, so I would be taking them and putting them somewhere safe.

If I ever needed to use Izanagi, having some spare eyeballs laying around afterwards would be handy.

After making a Shadow Clone and tossing her a sealing scroll, I left her to gather up all the Sharingan while I continued my search for Danzo.

"Kiryu-san, what were you doing in there? You know that place is forbidden." Upon leaving the room, I was confronted by two people. The one on the left was taller and wore a bull mask, the other had long black hair and a hawk mask. The latter moved into an uncomfortably familiar combat stance before speaking.

"This is not Kiryu-san. They are under a Henge."

A Hyuuga, I groused internally. Well, shit. I dropped my Transformation and used the split second of surprise as they recognised me to use my anti-doujutsu technique, Flash. For just the brief moment in which my chakra burst out of me, I flickered my Sharingan off, saving me from its effects. The Hyuuga was not so lucky, cursing and shaking his head, allowing me to Shunshin forward and let fly a diagonal slash directly from the sheath, bisecting him instantly. While I was doing this, his partner drew their tanto and swung, but I was fast enough to intercept and Kusanagi could not be stopped by mere steel; it cut right through the short blade and lopped off my enemy's head. The encounter lasted less than a second, and two corpses struck the ground with a spray of warm blood. A flicker of blue lit up the corner of my vision, giving me just enough warning to duck and spin, lashing out with my blade. My assailant barely avoided the attack, jumping back and pulling away a hand coated in the shroud of a chakra scalpel. It looked like they had been aiming to disable my sword arm. That chakra signature… "It's been a while, Kabuto-san. What's Orochimaru's favourite pet doing in Root?"

"I just happened to be making a delivery. And you?"

"I suppose you could say I'm doing the same thing." I shook the blood from my blade. "Special delivery for one Shimura Danzo, courtesy of the Shinigami."

"I'm afraid I can't let you do that."

Kabuto was a skilled man. A brilliant scientist, an exceptional medic, an unparalleled spy.

Direct combat, however, was not his speciality, and he knew it. So why had he engaged me in combat? Something was wrong with this picture, and it was that nagging uncertainty that had me merely fending off his attacks instead of going in for the kill. Something fishy was going on here, and I wanted to know what. I parried with the flat of my sword, weaved around jabs, struck out superficial blows to distract and wear down my opponent.

"Is this really how you want to die, Kabuto-san?" I asked as Kusanagi sliced clean through the tendons in his right arm, forcing him to abandon an attack in favour of healing the damage. "Throwing your life away for that decrepit sack of shit? Fucker tried to have you killed by your own brainwashed mother and you still want to die for him?" Kabuto half froze at that, and was punished by having a deep gash opened on his chest, sending him stumbling back.

"How could you-!?" He shook his head. "I owe Danzo-sama my life. I must serve."

"Of course," I muttered under my breath. "Kotoamatsukami. In that case: Raiton: Teiza no Jutsu!" By underpowering the technique, I left Kabuto stunned but conscious. The effect would not last long, but I only needed a moment. One Shunshin brought me up close enough to tap his shoulder and disrupt his chakra with a pulse of my own, and a second took me back out of range. The spy dropped to his knees, clutched his head and grunted in pain, no doubt suffering the backlash from Danzo's brainwashing being undone. Ripping aside his mask, he bent over and vomited, retching and heaving. Once he was finished emptying the contents of his stomach, he wiped his mouth and looked up at me in confusion.

"A genjutsu?"

"A powerful one. Danzo can brainwash people just by being in their presence, totally and completely. Victims don't even notice, they believe they're acting of their own free will."

"Then, when he released me during the invasion…" Judging by his expression, if Kabuto was not already pale from being sick, he probably would have been after hearing that. "He wants a face-to-face meeting with Orochimaru-sama, and I would have set it up without question…" That made far too much sense. It also inspired an idea within me.

"You and Orochimaru both owe me a favour now, Kabuto-san: one for sparing your worthless life, and one for saving your master from becoming Danzo's puppet. You can repay yours by making a very loud exit and getting the Root off my tail. Tell your boss I'll collect on the second at a later date. Refuse me and I'll kill you. If anyone other than Orochimaru hears about this I'll make you beg me to kill you. Clear?"

"Crystal." Replacing his mask, he dropped down to a lower level, and soon enough shouting and the clashing of metal reach my ears. I waited until I was sure all attention was on him before jumping up to the final floor.

"Status report," Danzo demanded of his subordinates, stern and unflinching in the face of this intrusion into his hidden underworld. The operative currently codenamed Oni bowed before speaking.

"Kabuto-san appears to have gone rogue, Danzo-sama, and has incapacitated or killed half a dozen operatives. He is currently being pursued towards Gate Thirteen."

"I see." Kabuto had broken free from his control? Impossible, Shisui's eye was completely irresistible. Yet it had happened, which meant that someone else had set him free.

Which meant that he was being used as a distraction. Someone wanted Root's attention shifted onto him so that they could infiltrate for their own ends.

"Call off the pursuit and sweep the facility. Someone else is involved in this."

"Yes, Danzo-sama."

Oni had barely crossed the threshold of his office when she was engulfed by a fire jutsu and reduced to a charred husk. His two bodyguards, Fuu and Torune, took positions in front of him, ready for anything, while he began unwrapping the bandages from his right arm. The instant the purple-clad figure stepped through the door, they charged as one, Fuu drawing his tanto and Torune removing his gloves.

"Katon: Goukakyu no Jutsu." The fireball was white-hot and put out enough heat that Danzo was sweating even on the other side of the room. His men split up, going around to flank their target from both sides. They vanished from his sight by passing around the fireball, then the sound of chirping birds filled the air followed by strangled gasps, and when the fireball faded, the fates of his bodyguards were revealed: Fuu was impaled through the chest by the extended blade of the Kusanagi no Tsurugi in Uchiha's right hand, Torune by a beam of chirping lightning chakra from the other that left his body spasming due to the electrical discharge flowing through it. The sword shrank to its normal size and the chakra blade dissipated, dropping them to the ground, and Uchiha flicked the blood from her weapon without so much as glancing at either of them. Blood-red eyes bored into him, cold and merciless. Danzo scowled.

"Uchiha-san." Had Itachi told his sister the truth, or had she somehow found out herself? No matter, he could still come out of this situation better off, even with the losses of his best men, thanks to the power of Shisui's eye.

"Danzo-san." He froze at the sound of that voice, for the child before him was not its source. His unvoiced question had been answered. Entering the room alongside his younger sibling, Itachi fixed him with exactly the same hateful gaze he had levelled on the night of the massacre, when he had delivered his last warning. Then there was an explosion of pain, and Itachi was gone.

Along with his entire right arm.

The genjutsu worked like a charm: Danzo was so terrified of Itachi that he missed the rest of its effects, creating a perfect opening. I stood upside-down on the ceiling and stashed Danzo's severed arm in a scroll while he confronted my Clone below, oblivious to my true position. He formed a one-handed tiger seal, pressed his remaining hand to his bleeding stump, and grunted as the wound was cauterised. If nothing else, his pain tolerance was impressive. My right hand drifted into my pocket, fingers closing around the unorthodox implement I had brought for this mission.

"Kitsune-Ryu: Kuukyou no Mai." As expected, Danzo ripped aside his bandages, using his stolen Sharingan to track my Clone's chakra. At that moment, I dropped down behind him and grabbed his hair in my left hand, pulling back his head so that my right could dig the teaspoon into his eye socket and scoop out my prize. A swift application of chakra severed the optic nerves, leaving them dangling from the socket grotesquely, and I caught the eye as it sailed through the air, being careful not to damage it, before my Clone reappeared in a crouch and stabbed Danzo through the gut, twisting her sword and ripping it out with a spray of blood before vanishing out of existence. With the elder's innards having become outards, I let him fall to the ground and nonchalantly strolled over to his filling cabinet, slipping Shisui's eye into a sealing scroll on the way.

Danzo's files were protected by a blood seal, which was not much of an impediment given that his bleeding corpse was lying a few metres away. The man had obviously been too arrogant to consider the possibility of someone getting their hands on his blood, because that was all the security he had on them. Regardless, I now had access to complete files on everything Root had ever done. Briefly looking through a few that seemed particularly interesting, I was getting the distinct impression that Danzo was actually worse than I thought. Unfortunately I had no time to stand around and read them properly, so I sealed everything away into yet another scroll and decided to make my exit.

Leaving Danzo's office, I found the hallway blocked by what must have been every Root operative currently in Konoha, amounting to about two dozen people with weapons drawn or hands positioned to weave signs. I could only assume that they felt their seals fade with their leader's death and rushed back to avenge him. One in front, a stocky figure wearing a bear mask, spoke three short words.

"Kill the traitor." A hail of shuriken and kunai filled the hallway, and a cloud of blue surged as they called upon their chakra for jutsu.

"Isobu-sama, could you spare a little chakra?" There was no verbal response, only a cold weight that settled over my body in a glowing red cloak thrumming with power, single tail swaying lazily behind me. The cold, detached certainty of death that had radiated from Yagura when he drew upon Isobu's power flooded my mind, demanding the end of all the insignificant insects who stood before me. "Suiton: Daibakufu no Jutsu." Isobu's water affinity made the high-level technique easy for me to call up, condensing their chakra into a deadly vortex that surged down the hallway, inescapable in such tight quarters, breaking bones and sweeping Root agents off their feet. In mere moments, more than twenty highly-trained assassins had fallen. I let go of the borrowed power, the cloak receding and taking the darkness with it. "Thank you, Isobu-sama." I met my first Clone at the base of the main chamber, surrounded by broken bodies, and she whistled appreciatively as she handed over the scroll containing Danzo's Sharingan collection.

"Well, I certainly wouldn't want to fight us!" she quipped. I was inclined to agree with me.

Tsunade was on her way home, walking through the streets of Konoha, when she felt it: a cold pressure like the depths of the merciless ocean blanketing the area. It was faint, distant, and seemed to be coming from somewhere beneath her feet, too far below to be in the sewers. She had never faced down a bijuu herself, had been far away when the Kyuubi attacked Konoha, but she had heard the stories. It lasted less than five seconds, but it still left its mark: villagers shouting, shaking, crying in terror.

"What the hell are you doing, Makoto?" Turning on her heels, she began marching back in the direction of her office. Somehow, she doubted she would be getting much sleep tonight. You'd better have a damn good reason to be using that chakra inside the village.

Kakashi was waiting for me when I stepped back out into the open air, Pakkun at his feet. His eye tracked over the bloodstains on my coat, his expression giving nothing away.

"Well, we found her. Thanks, Pakkun."

"Anytime." The pug poofed back to wherever Kakashi's dogs lived.

"Uh, Senpai?"

"Hokage-sama wants to see you. Come on."

It had been a long time since Kakashi was in the Root. Back then, it had been an official branch of the Anbu, sanctioned by the Third Hokage. Officially, it had been shut down years ago, but he'd known that was bullshit.

Point was, he had been one of Danzo's attack dogs, and he knew the old man's scent. He knew exactly whose blood had been decorating Makoto's haori when she stepped out of that hidden door, and he hoped desperately that she had some kind of justification for what she had done, because as shady as Danzo was, he was still a village elder, and killing him was still treason.

He couldn't bear the thought of one of his students turning traitor.

Tsunade took one look at me as I entered through her window, saw the blood, and immediately pulled a bottle of sake from under her desk and took a long swig before slamming it down on the table and demanding an explanation, so I withdrew one of the sealing scrolls from my pouch and set it before her. She activated it and blinked at the result.

"What the fuck is that?"

"That," I answered, "is the right arm of the late Shimura Danzo."

She drained the entire rest of the bottle.