Hinata's mystery visitor is going to have to wait because it's time for a Sasuke-centric chapter!
Chapter 47:I am the violence, I am the sickness (the price of your greed)
The tunnel exited into a large, hollowed out space with two bridges crossing perpendicularly through the center. When Sasuke glanced over the railing, he saw an endless drop. The ceiling was just as far away, though at least it could be distinguished from the darkness due to the dim light filtering in through thin slits around the edges.
A man stood at the center of the two bridges, tall and leanly built with dark hair in a topknot. Sasuke recognized him even with the ROOT mask on.
"Mizunoto," Sasuke said tonelessly. At his back, Kiyoko stepped out of the tunnel and it closed behind her, leaving an unmarked wall where it used to be.
With a precise hand, Mizunoto removed his mask, revealing androgynous features. "Uchiha Sasuke," he returned. There was a depth to his voice that was at odds with the soft roundness of his face. "Thank you for coming."
"No one exactly asked me," Sasuke muttered. "But since I'm here, I heard you have something to say to me?"
"I have a proposal to make," Mizunoto corrected. "Until now, we seem to have been working against each other, but I believe this is a misunderstanding."
Sasuke quirked a brow. "Treason against the Hokage is a misunderstanding now?" The question felt ridiculous even as it left his lips.
What right did Sasuke have to speak of treason?
Mizunoto seemed to be thinking the same, amusement bleeding into his otherwise level voice. "And is that where your loyalty lies? With the Hokage? Or with Konoha?"
"You're saying your actions are against the Hokage but for Konoha," Sasuke surmised. "You think there's a difference,"
"Isn't there?" Mizunoto asked. "Or do you believe they are one and the same?"
Sasuke frowned.
"Danzo-sama didn't," Mizunoto said, once it became clear an answer wasn't forthcoming. "It's the reason he founded ROOT. To protect the village in ways the Hokage could not."
"Danzo was a power hungry old man. That's why he had an armful of stolen sharingan," Sasuke sneered.
"He was a man," Mizunoto agreed, "With his own vices which he allowed to mislead him from his original goal."
The absence of blind faith in his predecessor brought to mind Sasuke's interrogation of Tsuchinoe when he'd followed Utatane on Kakashi's orders. The former ROOT agent had been bitter about the resurrection of ROOT and the new leadership. Although she hadn't used Mizunoto's name, she'd called him a usurper.
"But the rest of us still believe and plan to uphold it, even with him gone."
"By poisoning civilians?" Sasuke asked as he watched Kiyoko make her way to Mizunoto's side.
Mizunoto didn't flinch at the accusation. "The succession party was an experiment. A harmless one. No civilians were injured," he said, sidestepping the effects on Yamato and Naruto. And consequently Hinata. "Successful integration of the white zetsu into Konoha-nin or civilians would have been helpful, but isn't necessary."
Sasuke narrowed his eyes.
"Supporting Konoha from the depths was never a sustainable solution," Mizunoto continued. "But Danzo-sama's attempts to become the Hokage were doomed in this current system. Senju Hashirama, his brother, then their student Sarutobi. Minato, the student of Sarutobi's student, Tsunade, another student of Sarutobi's and the Senju's granddaughter. Minato's student Kakashi and now his son. The passage of the Hokage title was never going to extend to an outsider. They say they hand down the will of fire. Perhaps that's another way of saying they hand down the same values, preventing any chance of change."
"If you want change, Naruto's your best bet. So why try to get rid of him?" Sasuke asked.
"Is that so?" There was a twitch of amusement in Mizunoto's face. "Sasuke-san, did you consider Sarutobi Hiruzen to be a good Hokage? Better than Danzo-sama would have been?"
Sasuke opened his mouth to agree, a kneejerk reaction to disparage Danzo. Then he paused. Sarutobi had sent Hyuuga Hizashi to his death for saving Hinata, to appease an enemy that had struck first. What would he have done if Kumo had succeeded in kidnapping Hinata? Allowed them to have her in the name of keeping the peace?
Mizunoto appeared gratified by Sasuke's silence. "Danzo-sama engineered the death of your clan," he acknowledged. "But can you say you are satisfied by how the Sandaime handled the aftermath? That same sentiment that prevented him from giving Danzo-sama more than a cursory punishment also prevented him from stopping Orochimaru from escaping Konoha. I'm certain you know more about the consequences of that decision than I do."
Sasuke gritted his teeth. "What's your point?"
"Chasing after a friend who defected from the village to join not one but two enemy organizations. Fighting for that friend's freedom even after he turned against the people of the Leaf and tried to destroy Konoha. Does that sound familiar?" Mizunoto asked, mockingly.
"I don't wanna kill you! You're trying to be alone again and I won't let that happen…'cuz you're my friend!"
For a moment, Sasuke's tight grip over himself slipped. His expression slackened and he stumbled a half-step back. The moment was short lived, but in this cavernous room Sasuke was the focal point. Mizunoto and Kiyoko's sharp eyes were affixed on him alone.
"Uzumaki Naruto is not as different from the previous Hokages as you seem to think," Mizunoto said decisively.
The silence that followed was heavy. Sasuke wondered if the weight of his self-loathing could be felt by anyone else.
"Mizunoto-san," Kiyoko started, "Perhaps it's time for the gift?" She gestured demurely towards where the far end of the bridge disappeared.
Mizunoto's gaze didn't leave Sasuke's even as he nodded. "Yes. Let's go."
Once they crossed the bridge, Mizunoto led them down a corridor and through another sealed passageway that opened up into more of the winding tunnels that seemed to span Konoha's underground.
Sasuke was sandwiched between Mizunoto and Kiyoko, likely as a precaution, though Sasuke didn't plan on going anywhere. He'd learned more in the past hour than from weeks of reconnaissance.
He ignored the prickling at the back of his neck, denying the effect of Mizunoto's words as they landed squarely in every sore spot Sasuke would die swearing didn't exist.
"You must be curious," Kiyoko tried, voice sultry sweet.
Sasuke grunted.
Kiyoko let out an airy chuckle. "Always playing so hard to get," she murmured. "But I think this will please even you."
Sasuke didn't bother responding, eyeing their surroundings. They hadn't passed a single other person on their trek. If all of their members had been deployed, then it seemed that Shikamaru's ploy had worked.
They turned the corner and another room came into view, one with a glass partition splitting it in half. On the other side of the glass sat two figures slumped in chairs, ropes tying them in place and gags around their mouths.
Sasuke studied them, straight-faced, then turned his gaze towards Mizunoto who was already watching him.
"What is this?" Sasuke asked.
"An offering," Mizunoto replied.
Sasuke's eyes slid back towards the glass.
Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu's furious faces stared back.
"And what do you expect me to do with your…offering?"
Mizunoto stepped closer to the glass wall. "When I regrouped ROOT, there's a reason I changed the name. Nae-ROOT. Nae from naegi. Sapling. I told you, we have no intention of remaining in the shadows any longer. But for a new great tree to grow, the old one must be felled. Only then can we grow stronger and better than before."
"It sounds like you want me to do your dirty work," Sasuke noted. "Some gift."
"It's not like you won't get anything out of it," Kiyoko countered, wheedling. "Vengeance on two people who wrote off your entire family. Every man, woman and child. That doesn't interest the self-proclaimed avenger?"
Sasuke watched as neither Homura nor Koharu reacted to her words, though he could tell they heard them. Their eyes were as dismissive and unapologetic as ever, glaring back at him as if he were a less than a bug under their shoe. A blight on their ideal image of Konoha.
He felt it. That familiar rage that had kept him going after his family's death, kept him warm in his isolation and loneliness in the barren one-room apartment granted by Konoha. The only reason he hadn't lain down and given up.
The rage that, when there were so many reasons to die, had given him something to live for.
His hand moved to the hilt of kusanagi, starting to withdraw it —
"…have you considered that what Kakashi-sensei wants is for you to want to live?
— then stopped, knuckles white from their grip.
"It's their type of thinking that has kept Konoha down. Weakened us, where we could have thrived. Konoha is home to more clans, more hiden, more kekkei genkai than any other of the great villages. But their fear of those with power they couldn't understand, led them to segregating it in order to hold onto their control," Mizunoto said.
"Traitors to the village, the both of you, one from an entire family of traitors! You're not welcome here!"
Sasuke eyes narrowed.
"Remind me, how long did they have you bound and locked up?"
Orochimaru's taunt rang through his ears. But now here they were, those same elders that had advocated for his prison sentence, bound and gagged with their lives in his hand. Sasuke couldn't say it didn't please him. These people who had condoned the death of his entire clan, his parents.
Yes, he could taste the rage rising up inside him. It was the same flavour, but something felt different.
"…for some reason, I keep getting worried that…I'm going to repeat my parents' mistakes."
The grief that had always accompanied the rage was no longer an open, festering wound. And so the resulting madness was nowhere to be found. Without those two emotions to fuel it, the rage felt…smaller, somehow. No longer the all encompassing feeling too big to be contained.
Was it because the rage had diminished? Or had Sasuke himself grown bigger than that rage?
"After all, you are part of the village, Sasuke-san, and you chose to step in. Is that not change?"
Mizunoto continued to drone on. "I dream of a united Konoha. Where every ninja is given the tools for greatness. Access to all techniques, hiden, ways to increase their chakra reserves and, eventually, sharing of kekkei genkai."
Sasuke released his grip on his sword. "And in that imagined future, do you see clans giving up their prized family secrets peacefully?" he asked. "Or is that where the seals on your followers come in? Limiting free speech, controlling chakra levels with its siphoning ability to prevent uprisings?"
"As I said, the old tree must be felled," Mizunoto repeated. "Radical change requires radical actions. Sacrifices are inevitable for the greater good —"
"You know the thing that every megalomaniac has in common?" Sasuke interrupted. His head was thrown back, eyes raised to the ceiling. "Always spouting on about changing the world and necessary sacrifices. Of course the lives being sacrificed belong to people who never asked to be involved."
"It's for the greater good of Konoha," Mizunoto finished insistently.
"The elders may forget, but a clan is made up of people."
Hinata's voice echoed through Sasuke's mind, hoarse from crying but still determined.
"The greater good of who? A village is made up of the people who live in it. Without them, Konoha is just a plot of land." Sasuke crooked his neck enough to aim his dark eye at Mizunoto.
Mizunoto's lips twitched into a frown. "I don't think you're understanding me, Sasuke. In the world I'm building, what happened to your clan would never happen again. With every ninja sharing the same resources, there would be no need to ostracize anyone. There would be no prodigies with the weight of the world on their shoulders. No looked down upon clanless ninja. No need to steal children for secret techniques. No —"
"The other thing about megalomaniacs," Sasuke cut in. His dark eye bled red, tomoe spinning to life. "They all talk too damn much."
The dim lights in the room flickered as an electric charge rose into the air.
"Chidori Nagashi."
Streams of lightning flickered throughout the room.
"Fūjinheki." At Mizunoto's command, wind swirled around himself and Kiyoko, thick enough to hide them from view. The lightning reflected harmlessly, hitting the glass partition and lining it with several deep cracks.
"Katon Ryūka no Jutsu." After so many years, the katon transformation was second nature to Sasuke and his one-handed signs were almost as smooth as when he'd had two to work with. He barely registered the heat traveling up his throat, shooting out of his mouth in a powerful stream. Mizunoto's futon technique caught fire, turning into a swirling inferno.
The sound of metal cutting through air had Sasuke ducking. The fiery wind of Sasuke's katon combined with Mizunoto's futon dispersed into nothingness.
Neither Mizunoto nor Kiyoko had been caught in it.
Sasuke barely had time to take in the large Fūma shuriken embedded into the glass wall before another one was speeding towards him, thrown by its namesake. He dodged, spinning around to face his opponents. Sasuke reached for kusanagi, but his hand fell short of the handle. He found himself immobilized, dark shadows twisting around his body.
"Tenkyū."
Sasuke's rinnegan pulsed with light and he was across the room, watching Kiyoko struggle against Mizunoto's Kage Nui no Jutsu. Hundreds of senbon shaped from water rained down on her, but the shadows managed to tug her out of the way of the worst of it before dispersing. Her expensive kimono was littered with tears and blood dripped from a cut high on her cheekbone. It trailed down her skin, blending in with her red-painted lips, the corners of which twisted into a furious frown.
Kusanagi was now out of its sheath and aimed at Mizunoto's back, but another shuriken whistling through the air had Sasuke angling out of the way. The shuriken joined its siblings in the glass, further fracturing the partition. Meanwhile kusanagi's blade sunk into Mizunoto's unprotected back.
Sasuke's eyebrows twitched.
With a puff of smoke, Mizunoto transformed into a boulder. Sasuke's attention, however, was caught on yet another set of shuriken that he efficiently dodged.
Cursing lowly, Sasuke skidded back as the explosive tags on the shuriken went off.
The glass partition finally shattered, unable to withstand the force of the explosion.
With the benefit of his sharingan, Sasuke watched it happen in slow motion. Within a fraction of a second, his focus bounced between the sharp edges of the glass, the trajectory of each piece, a possible escape route to his right and the Konoha elders in front of him.
Gritting his teeth, Sasuke threw his right arm forward, palm open. Pressure built up in his left eye socket as he directed more chakra towards his rinnegan. Glass continued to fly as Sasuke's brows furrowed in concentration. The thinnest slivers raced forward, one clipping Sasuke's ear. On the other side of the room, glass grazed Homura and Koharu's knees. Larger shards hurtled forward, one the size of Sasuke's forearm on a direct path to Koharu's forehead.
Then, millimeters from her face, it froze.
Sasuke didn't blink. A piece of glass glinted menacingly in front of his right eye.
It was his first time using tendō and he didn't know how long he could hold it. Without sparing another second, Sasuke pushed down, forcing the glass into the ground.
Homura and Koharu's startled faces stared back at him from across the room. For the first time, Sasuke saw something other than suspicion aimed at him.
The sound of fluttering wings had Sasuke whirling around.
At the sight of five crows, Sasuke hesitated, the birds too closely linked with Itachi in his mind. The hesitation lasted a scant few seconds, but it was enough for the birds to dive down. They angrily pecked at him and Sasuke ducked his head away from their beaks, reaching out for kusanagi still stuck in the remnant of Mizunoto's Kawarami no Jutsu.
Mizunoto further unfurled the scroll he was holding, revealing more identical crows already painted onto its surface. The drawings then proceeded to peel themselves off the parchment and come alive.
With his sword back in his grip, Sasuke raised his arm up and slashed diagonally, managing to cut through three crows. Liquid splattered against his hand and face and Sasuke flinched. Glancing down, he saw black ink dripping down his wrist.
The crows dove at him again, cawing loudly. Their shrieks rang through Sasuke's ears much too sharply and his head spun. Ignoring this, he swung kusanagi again, making short work of the remaining crows. Eyes shut to protect them from the spraying ink, when Sasuke opened them again his vision blurred.
Confused, Sasuke shook his head, but that only served to make his vision darken around the edges. A tremor wracked his body, starting from his spine and traveling down his right arm to the tips of his fingers, leaving them numb. Kusanagi clattered against the floor.
"What?" Another tremor shook Sasuke's body. Eyes widening, Sasuke looked down at the ink still staining his hand. "This…"
"Yes. Poisoned."
Head shooting up, Sasuke's gaze met that of a stone-faced Mizunoto.
Mizunoto raised both his hands, thumbs meeting the forefinger of the other hand to form a window that he centered around Sasuke. "Shinranshin no Jutsu."
Before Sasuke could even think to move, yet another tremor ran through him. He felt Mizunoto's technique hit him straight on and then the world fell away.
Everything turned black.
Sasuke and Hinata both seem to be doing a lot of passing out lately...
Thanks as always to everyone who takes the time to read and leave a comment
MVH