Please pardon any errors you see in this chapter. I tried my best to clean it up.
CHAPTER 32
Konoha loved celebrations. They threw parties to celebrate any little thing. Matter of fact, they wholeheartedly grasped any reason to express happiness, especially after the previous war.
The Fourth Hokage's Swearing-In wasn't any little celebration.
It was the celebration.
It was the end of an era. The beginning of a new one. Renewed optimism for better things to come. And from the one week the man had been in power, the village could only wait in impatient anticipation of what the next few years would hold. One week alone, and Minato had drained the sludge from the village council and brought money, heaps and piles of money, into the village's reserves, spreading it through every nook and cranny of Konoha till it seeped to all of the village's extremities.
To say the village was overjoyed was an outrageous understatement.
Minato was their guy. The man of the people, and they had been right to push him forward.
A stage was built in the village square, with a podium and some seats on the stage for the council. Red, yellow, and white streamers spread across the entirety of the village, stringing from lampposts to pillars. Walls were draped with images of the incoming Hokage, and a blimp sluggishly crawled across the sky, wrapped in Minato's winning grin and looking over the village with his electric blue eyes. Many windows and doors bore Konoha's symbol. A musical chime echoed softly through the village, adding to the bounce in the steps of the villagers, who swarmed in their numbers to the village square. Old and young, shinobi and civilian, they marched merrily onto the concentric cobblestones of the village square.
There were tall shops and apartment homes ringed around the square, and people clambered to the balconies of those buildings, leaning forward to get a better look at the stage. The sea of humanity below milled and turned, bubbling with palpable emotion.
On the rooftops, ANBU diligently kept track of everything that moved, and at the gates, the gatekeepers screened the travelling papers of visitors. Konoha jounin carefully waded the throng of cheering, hooting people, throwing cautious looks left and right, while at the base of the stage were stationed two burly Akimichi. Another few ninjas stuck to the edges of the stage, creating a path for the village council as they steadily trooped up the stairs, taking their seats behind the podium.
There were some tents in the village square, at the edge of the concentric cobblestones but not blocking the buildings, situated in such a way that they could easily see the stage. Under those tents were foreign dignitaries, people who had come all the way from far distances some days before to witness the dawn of a new day.
The Fire Daimyo was placed on a cushioned chair, alongside his wife and three sons. Their servants neatly placed themselves behind the royal family, and three Fire Guardians stationed around them. Winter was nearing, so the family wore warm clothes. Nothing fanciful. The Daimyo, a rail-thin, scowling man with serious, narrowed green eyes, leaned to his oldest son and whispered something. The boy, nineteen years old, nodded and left the tent. A Fire Guardian followed him.
Another tent housed the Kazekage and his students, with five guards. They were stiff and wary, looking left and right at all times. Konoha's peace settlement was still fresh, and the Kazekage being here was merely a sign of goodwill to the Fourth Hokage; the Konoha-Suna highway was under maintenance and the shinobi exchange program was about to start between their two villages. He didn't bring his wife or any other member of his clan, for their security. Suna needed to keep the Konoha alliance at all costs, that was why he was here.
Kushina, Mikoto, Itachi, the husbands and wives of the council members, and all of their friends had a tent. Asuma was with them, as well as Kurenai Yuuhi, Anko Mitarashi, and Rin Noharu. Rin and the girls were keeping Itachi occupied, as the young boy didn't enjoy being boxed in by such a large and noisy crowd. It was overstimulating for him. Mikoto would have preferred to stay at home and watch the ceremony on the television but Fugaku and Minato wanted them close. They didn't say why.
The tents contained other such dignitaries, wanting to experience the event for themselves.
There were some faces that were strikingly not in attendance, like Tsunade Senju, who was working a shift in the hospital, and Jiraiya.
Konoha's Police patrolled the nearly vacant streets outside of the square, supporting the jounin by guiding lost tourists or returning lost children to their parents. It was a busy day for everyone.
A muffled spattering of polite applause rang from the crowd when the Third Hokage climbed onto the stage. He smiled wanly at the people, but everyone saw the sullen, sunken look in his eyes, unable to rest since he had relinquished power to his successor. He wasn't under house arrest, though he was under strong observation for his lackadaisical manner of signing laws while he was Hokage. The respect of the people had visibly diminished.
He waited by the podium.
Noticeably among the council members, Fugaku Uchiha was absent.
He, Jiraiya, and Minato were huddled on a rooftop looking over the village square, covered by numerous ANBU guards. Naruto was sitting on the ledge, feet dangling over a long drop and keeping an idle ear on the conversation happening around him. His Byakugan jumped from one person on the ground to another, enjoying the bubble of activity.
"Are we really going to do nothing?" Fugaku hissed, flicking a black stare to the boy on the ledge. He knew Naruto, mostly through Minato, Kushina, and his wife, who had crossed the boy in combat some time ago. They vouched for his skill and his allegiance to their cause of uprooting ROOT. He was still rightly keeping a firm eye on the boy. Other than what he was told, Naruto might as well have not existed. "If his intel turns out to be true, losing Kabuto to the jailbreak would make us lose our only link to Orochimaru. And besides, lives could be in danger."
"We're not doing nothing," Minato assured him, placating. "Naruto has it covered. Orochimaru has his brother, and we want Orochimaru. The jailbreak could kill two birds with one stone; trap Orochimaru and retrieve Kakashi. Everyone wins."
"Could." Fugaku frowned. The Uchiha spelt out his worries in no uncertain words, the expression turned down into a hard frown and voice low. "It would be better if we capture them. Subject them to the Yamanaka interrogators. Know everything they know. That way, we reduce the risk of losing shinobi and we also find Orochimaru's hiding place. Two birds, one stone."
"I'm with Fugaku on this," Jiraiya murmured, also shooting a quick look at the unspeaking boy, agreeing with Fugaku's hesitation to trust him. "Kabuto isn't exactly left in just any other detention cell. He's in the T . That place is as impregnable as the Firepit. Whoever is breaking him out will not be weak, or alone for that matter. We don't know how many there are, we don't know when they'll break in, and we don't know how they're breaking in. There are too many variables. We're blind to anything they're about to do."
"What if the person coming is S-rank? What if there are multiple S-ranks? Do you truly think they will go down easily? Do you honestly hope that they won't do something drastic to evade capture and escape with Kabuto?" Minato scowled. Fugaku's terse lips pressed together, unable to properly answer the Hokage's questions. "Assigning too many people to this mission will alert them that we know their plan. They could postpone to heaven knows when. He," motioning to Naruto, "is more than enough to handle those unknown variables. Remember, he's the entire reason the Kannabi Bridge mission wasn't a total failure. He handled those unknown variables, didn't he? No one outside of the council and my team knows it."
This made the two other men's lips purse tightly, unable to argue with that fact.
Team Minato had been split up by Kisame, Ao, Kushimaru—the Nuibari holder—and a squadron of Kiri ninjas. Naruto killed them and rescued the team, but they were later struck hard by two of Danzo's CORE, and Naruto still somehow salvaged the mission, removing CORE Operatives One and Sandy from the equation, rescuing Kakashi, Obito, and Rin, and then blowing up the bridge with some shadow clones. The boy had lost many of his wolf companions.
Admittedly, Minato didn't expect the mission to be even remotely straightforward. Naruto's presence on the mission was due to an agreement with Minato to make sure everything went as planned, but Minato, or anyone else, didn't foresee Naruto completing the mission by himself.
That alone attested to his skill.
"If Naruto hadn't been there to get the job done, we would still be at war," Minato finished. He raised his eyebrows, waiting for them to object further.
Naruto inhaled an audible breath, tired of all the arguing. All eyes went to him as he turned around, facing them. "None of you would know about this if I didn't say anything." Minato's brow creased and he made to interrupt. Naruto gave him a quick, secretive look, stopping the man. "I shared my intel because I didn't want anyone disrupting my plans." He didn't care for subtlety. He had ulterior motives and they could see that. He snapped his fingers at Jiraiya, "I hear you're a good spy."
The Sannin smirked, crossing his arms. "Don't act like you haven't heard about me, kid."
"Everything I know about you is repulsive. I try not to think about it." Naruto waved away his haughtiness and Jiraiya's aghast expression. "You can come too, but don't get in the way. We're not fighting anyone. Just tracking." Jiraiya clicked his tongue, but Naruto had already moved on to Fugaku. "You'll cover us."
Fugaku's jaw hardened. "How?"
Naruto explained his plan to the three adults.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Traditionally, the Hokage Swearing-In marked the day a Hokage was to start their job. It had been so since the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju. It was only because of the unique events that took place one week ago—Orochimaru's escape from Konoha with Kakashi, the revelations of the Sannin's crimes, and Minato finding out that his choice as successor was still at risk—that Minato forced his way onto the Hokage's seat, pulling it from Hiruzen Sarutobi ahead of the official Swearing-In.
In hindsight, that was the appropriate reaction. The people certainly agreed.
On stage, Hiruzen helped Minato wear the ceremonial robe of the Hokage, arranging the shoulders of the white with red flames cloak, smoothing down the Konoha symbol on the back and then crowning Minato's head with the Hokage's wide-brimmed hat. All of this happened to the rancorous applause of the people, beaming and waving Konoha's symbol proudly. Multiple trumpets exploded with sound and drums boomed, matching Minato's steps as he moved to the podium, grasping the edge and smiling confidently. The slight twitch at the corner of his lips was nearly missed, if not for the quick vision of those who knew him best.
Kushina's eyes narrowed at her husband's nervousness.
Televisions across the continent broadcasted the event live and radios tuned in to the man's first official speech as Hokage. His words travelled over the village on powerful speakers, echoing far and wide.
At the TI, shinobi clustered around a radio and listened to their Hokage. There was scarcely any noise from the holding cells, aside from the occasional jangle of fingers drumming on cell doors and muttered conversation between inmates in different rooms. Some guards patrolled the underground complex, looking into some cells every so often.
Konoha's Torture Interrogation Department, or TI , was where enemies of Konoha were held and questioned, oftentimes unethically and brutally, for information on their nefarious operations against the village. There were no lines TI operatives couldn't cross to collect information from the minds of their interviewees; waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and even mild electrocution. Yamanaka techniques, though wildly effective, sometimes needed the prisoners to be softened up beforehand before a mind walker could step into their psyche.
TI specialists had an infamously high success rate.
The facility was located at the edge of the village, a long walk from the town with no neighbouring houses in sight for several miles. It was a desolate field of ankle-heigh grass and stumps, where a solitary detached house stood on a low hill. That was the only part of the building that was aboveground, all of the real work happened in the several stories beneath the earth, where close to a hundred cells spiralled downwards, with many interrogation rooms and storage rooms where information was collected. Matter of fact, hardly anyone, shinobi and prisoners alike, used the entrance aboveground to access the TI there were a variety of tunnels spiderwebbing outwards that could be used to sneak people into the prison, but never out.
The facility was divided into sections, separating high-risk prisoners from medium and low-risk prisoners.
There were cameras everywhere and every non-prisoner that walked the grounds was tagged with a special seal, one of Jiraiya's contributions to the village's safety. Guards and staff had to check in with the warden or his assistant every thirty minutes through their handheld devices. Moving from one section of the prison to another was also strictly controlled; not just anyone could go deeper into the TI and access the high-risk section, and the same for high-risk staff to low-risk staff.
At the high-risk section were some of the most dangerous people to have ever opposed Konoha. Serial killers, arsonists, rapists, cultists, cannibals, ritual murderers, unrepentant paedophiles, and worse. A bunch of men and women that were so evil that the TI specialists and guards assigned to their section had to constantly monitor them, while they languished in their cells, fed only once a day and deprived of any dignity to receive sunlight, or exercise out of their cells. The only thing that saved them from a quick and justified execution was that they still held some needed information, dangling it over TI specialists like bait to keep them alive for just a few more minutes.
The high-risk section consisted of the thirty rows at the bottom of the TI, dozens of miles underground, illuminated by buzzing orange light that scarcely worked and ventilated by a complicated system of machines, keeping the air breathable but horribly stale, so much so that the specialists and guards had to wear gasmasks and carry oxygen tanks. They carried powerful torchlights and always had one hand on the handle of their weapons, ready to draw and kill inmates at a moment's notice. The place was dark and damp. It was an environment that tortured and killed.
Conditions were subhuman in the high-risk section. Konoha might be keeping them alive, begrudgingly, but they weren't stooping to keep the inmates happy.
This was no place for petty criminals or juvenile offenders.
Kabuto Yakushi had been confined in here for only one week.
The only light he had seen was the dull orange light that hummed weakly outside of his cramped cell, glowing faintly through the top crack of the iron door. The cell had been carved into the bedrock, just enough for him to hold his elbows outwards and stand with a slight hunch, but any other luxury was non-existent. There were no windows and he only had a single threadbare blanket, if you could call it that. He hadn't stood upright in weeks and he hadn't had much reason to do anything but crawl.
He was sat in the stifling darkness, choked for air and drinking his own sweat. The only way he knew day from night was when they turned off all of the lights, or even that could be a cruel joke by the guards.
Some hours ago, he had heard his cell neighbour kill herself by bashing her head into the solid rock wall. The guards hadn't even tried to stop her, standing outside of the wall, shining their abusively bright torchlights through the thin slit-like they were watching a television show. He heard them open her cell and carry her out; a slim crack underneath his cell door allowed him to see the hard boots of the guards and the idle drops of blood that came from the dead woman. He hadn't seen the state of her head, and he didn't want to.
Lights-out was horrible. They would switch off that worthless light and he was truly soaked in darkness, alone with his weeping thoughts and left to curl up in the far corner of the cell on the ground with his blanket. His only entertainment was staring up at the sliver of orange light that peeked into his room, and when that was gone, he was painfully alone.
He hadn't even been interrogated.
The guards had said that they didn't need anything he knew, as Orochimaru's bases and network were exposed after his escape. Orochimaru's caches and resources were all in Konoha's possession.
Why were they keeping him alive, then? Why not just slit his throat or tie a rock to his chest and push him into the sea?
He could still be proven useful. He was Orochimaru's assistant; he could still have a few drops of information to tell them when they needed it—
He jerked back when a pair of feet stopped at his door. The person's presence loomed at the door, then they walked away, their footsteps clicking on the ground as they left. Kabuto shivered and pushed into the back of the cell. His hands gripped his blanket, grating his teeth.
Is today the day I get dragged into the interrogation room? He thought, eyes fixated on the door and jerking again when he heard a soft fluttering, and a light shadow gathered at his door. This one didn't have feet.
The lock snapped and the door handle, on the outside, clicked. It eased open, slow and painstaking, until Kabuto saw who was on the other side.
It wasn't human.
It was a cluster of darkness, hovering some inches from the ground in what looked like watery, silky black robes. They were human-shaped, vaguely, with their head covered by thick, heavy veils, fully blocking the view of their face or eyes, but they had no arms or legs, which looked to have been fully drawn into their billowing, wavy robes. A halo circled their head, though it only looked to suck in air and light inwards, adding to the blackness of the creature. Though the orange light remained on, it failed to cast any illumination, swallowed by the creature's darkness, unnaturally bent and pulled into the halo. The halo could have looked divine and holy on any other person, even someone as irredeemable as Orochimaru, but it only made this sentient silhouette malicious. Evil. It was a mockingly angelic.
Kabuto knew better.
He wasn't a religious person, not even close, and yet he couldn't deny what he was looking at.
This was a fallen angel. A demon that had come to claim his soul.
Kabuto blinked, clenching his hands and swearing. He cursed the guards for taking his glasses.
One week in this hellhole and he finally lost his mind?
The fallen angel softly rustled, moving sluggishly into the cell. Kabuto panted raggedly, pushing as hard as he could into the wall and muttering nonsensically, searching his mind for the will to flee whatever this was, only that he didn't find anything. Getting nearer, he heard a shudderingly low vibration ebbing from the shadow, making his head ring. He shrank into a ball, curling into himself and accepting his fate. He squeezed his eyes closed, praying for his death to be quick.
It stopped barely a foot from the cowering boy. The ringlet of light around the crown of its head glowed faintly on Kabuto's pallid face, sending deathly coldness into the boy's soul. He felt something escape from his nose and mouth, flowing out in the form of mist and absorbed into the face and halo of the creature. He gaped, gasping, unable to close his mouth as the strange fog curled from the pit of his stomach. He tasted iron at the back of his throat, blood and bile, and he sagged as unconsciousness gripped his throat.
"Can you walk?"
Someone said, and Kabuto's eyes flicked open, suddenly fully awake. He must have been in a daze. The ghost was gone, replaced by a young-looking person with a frozen smile on their face.
Dim as the lighting was, Kabuto knew the person from his bingo book entry.
They were stooped low, dull brown eyes fixed on him and head tilted to the side, waiting for a response.
"N-No…" Kabuto croaked; voice dry from disuse. He winced as he struggled into a sitting position, trying and failing to hide his relief at the departure of the demon. He wheezed and held a hand to his chest, pleading with his heart to calm down. He swallowed, finding his voice after a few seconds. "My…My legs. They're weak. Atrophying—I-I haven't stood in a week."
The person's smile didn't shift, though their sleepy eyes narrowed a little. "I see." His hand snapped forward and roughly grabbed Kabuto by the scruff of his shirt, unceremoniously pulling him out of the cell and tossing him to the ground.
Kabuto swore as he rolled on the ground, flopping bonelessly till he stopped against a solid surface, another cell door. He coughed and blood spattered on the ground, flowing from his nose and staining his face.
Sasori of the Red Sands eased himself out of Kabuto's cell and stood up. Kabuto gasped breathlessly, grunting and sitting up, seeing the S rank Suna missing ninja fully for the first time; they weren't much taller than Kabuto, wearing a dark cloak with red clouds and regarding Kabuto with impatient eyes. His wooden smile stuck on his face. His red hair, shaggy, almost cast a shadow over Sasori's frozen face, with the orange light buzzing noisily overhead.
"Heal yourself, medic. Shini removed your chakra suppression seals." Sasori wandered a step to Kabuto, standing over the boy. "And hold your breath."
His words would have confused the boy, if not for what he had seen a matter of minutes ago. He touched the blood leaking from his nose and looked up at the puppet master, mouth flapping open and closed, amazed that the seals on his body had been removed without being touched directly.
Sasori's head turned to the left and Kabuto couldn't help but look as well, seeing the black wraith floating in from a corner, stopping and staying where it was. Kabuto finally saw the five chakra threads spinning from Sasori's fingertips, connected to the ghostly puppet.
Kabuto gasped and coughed out more blood, but this time he felt a familiar heat in his chest. He gaped and his fingers blazed through some hand seals, activating his healing palm technique. He looked at his hands, glowing a harsh shade of green, oozing healing to his extremities. He set his hands on his knees, sighing heavily at the feeling of his rotting muscles untwisting, reconnecting and reviving.
His eyes fluttered, threatening to close, before he remembered Sasori's advice, inhaling quick breaths and holding it in his lungs.
Meanwhile, Sasori stared hard at the puppet he borrowed from Morty.
It was a work of art, resembling an extremely dangerous sentient creature, especially with the tools the child had loaded into the puppet. The halo wasn't just an aesthetic addition. It was the focus point for operating the puppet, managing all of the complex mechanisms inside the heavy assemblage of robes and veils. It was etched with harsh counter seals that could overpower and remove any other seal it came close to, with the downside of damaging the object or person the seal was on.
Kabuto would soon find out that the side effect of having the chakra suppression seal removed was burst capillaries in his eyes. Kabuto could heal that, so Sasori wasn't worried about the boy going blind.
There was also the constant cloud of toxic mist Shini was ebbing from under its robes, submerging most of the facility in paralytic poison, confusing and knocking out anyone that got a whiff of the air. It made navigating the T simple. It helped that Pain had an arrangement with Danzo beforehand, letting Sasori into the high-risk section of the facility fairly easily.
Still, for all of the advantages Morty's puppet brought, Sasori couldn't be tempted into thinking that it was perfect. It was too flawed. For a puppet made by a twelve-year-old boy, Shini was remarkable. Efficient. But it sacrificed too much flexibility for precision. It wasn't adaptable. It was too costly and not worth the trouble to maintain the mechanisms that emitted the poisoned mist into the air.
It could be that Sasori wasn't fully trained in using the entire capabilities of Morty's puppet, given that he had only been able to practice with it for two days. Morty, the creator of the puppet, would have better handling, surely.
Sasori couldn't say that he was jealous of the boy. He certainly wasn't making puppets of Shini's quality at twelve. Even better, the boy was constantly looking to better his craft, going so far as borrowing Hiruko and using Shini as collateral. He was impressed and intrigued.
Maintaining cordiality with the boy wouldn't be too pointless.
He took out a gasmask from the folds of his robes and threw it to Kabuto. He didn't have the need for oxygen for some years now.
Kabuto fumbled with the mask for a moment, clicking it in place and inhaling hurriedly, out of breath. The air at the bottom of the T was still very thin, barely breathable without oxygen tanks, but Kabuto had to make do, chasing after Sasori as the puppet master strolled pointedly to the end of the corridor. He bent away from Shini, cringing and shivering as the faceless puppet silently brought up the rear.
Climbing a set of stairs, Kabuto started seeing bodies. Dead bodies.
There was a hole where their heart used to be, slumped against the walls and bleeding freely, making the ground slippery with their blood. They were laid haphazardly about in various states of suffering, some still gurgling on their and fumbling at the large impalement wounds in their chest. Their gas masks were broken and their oxygen masks were disconnected. Their deaths weren't quick or painless.
Kabuto skirted away from a guard who feebly reached out to him, sobbing and heaving blood from his chest.
"Did you do this? By yourself?" he asked in hushed amazement, stepping over a dead kunoichi and climbing up another flight of stairs, hurrying the best he could after his rescuer. Sasori didn't deem him with an answer. Kabuto pressed, "Did…" he glanced at his back, where the dark wraith unhurriedly floated after him. His voice cracked, "Did…Shini…do this…?"
Sasori still didn't answer.
The cloud of toxins in the air dampened any sound, muffling the crackle of a solitary fire burning inside the guard's mess hall, creeping and burning from the kitchen, trickling over sleeping bodies. Some weren't even sleeping, but rather paralysed and unable to resist the flames. The double doors were closed and the mess hall was air-conditioned, guards didn't need to wear gasmasks inside, and yet despite that still Shini's poisoned mist knocked them out. They all suffered an agonisingly slow death as they burned.
A gas cylinder in the kitchen exploded. Kabuto moved to the other side of the door as the pressure slammed a body into the locked doors. Shini hovered at the door, looking facelessly into the mess of fire and smoke.
Sasori waltzed past, moving purposefully to the guard room.
Kabuto's eyes widened when he saw eight guards slumped on the ground around a radio. They weren't dead, only either sleeping or paralysed from Shini's poison mist. Some had fallen in such a way that they faced them, their eyes bugged wide in horror at the inability to move, mouths hanging open and exhaling a low, grating sound from their chests.
"No witnesses," Sasori said emptily and Shini moved to the guards. Sleeping or paralysed, they all met the same fate.
Kabuto stood transfixed as eleven smoky tentacles whipped out of Shini's robes, tipped with blue chakra blades that lashed at the necks and chests of the guards, killing them instantly, and painting the guard room with their blood. The puppet wasn't wild and random, even if its many tentacles struck and slashed about; it was precise and met flesh only once, cutting away lives in one clean stroke or strike.
Minato's voice droned from the radio. His words were stifled by the cloud of invisible mist exuded from the puppet. It buzzed words that couldn't be deciphered, speaking far in the background of the solemn room.
"The cameras," Kabuto said with a gulp, forcing himself to turn away from the wordless carnage of the shadowy puppet, who retracted its tentacles and chakra blades into the cold recesses of its robes.
"They're not turned on." Sasori went to the Head guard's office and opened the door. Kabuto rushed in with him, seeing a wall of televisions that only showed static, hissing grey and white. Behind the only desk in the office, facing the televisions, was a woman in a guard uniform with her head resting unnaturally on her desk. She looked like she was sleeping. Kabuto would have thought so, if not for the pool of blood around her feet, dripping from her desk, from a deep cut in her throat.
The rest of the office was eerily pristine. The fan overhead spun sluggishly, useless in its feeble attempts to dispel the unseen poisoned mist, the carpet looked freshly vacuumed, and the bookshelf on the other side of the room was alphabetically arranged. Kabuto had been in this office only once when he was brought in and promptly ushered out to be processed. Every detail was as he remembered it—orderly and clinical, like the Head Guard herself.
He also remembered the Head Guard. Her crisp uniform, the steely grey stare she levelled on him and her regretful frown when she waved him out of her office.
He looked at the picture frame on her desk. A family portrait: the guard standing with a stout, clean-shaven man and a small boy that bore her striking features. The picture was alive, and vibrant, in stark contrast to the lifeless figure slumped before it. Kabuto looked away with a grim frown.
He was chilled to the bone at the utter disregard for the life of his rescuer. Sasori of the Red Sands was an elusive missing ninja. Infamous for his reclusiveness and the measures he would go through to maintain his privacy. His face hadn't been seen in years since his defection during the Third War. Not even a long-distance photograph could be taken. It felt like overkill to eliminate half of a facility for the sake of his privacy, and yet Kabuto managed to see some logic in it.
With these guards killed in one fell swoop, it was less likely the alarm would reach Konoha quickly. It gave them time to escape.
Sasori pressed the power button of one of the televisions and it switched off with a fizzing noise. The man stood back and a section of the wall of the televisions cracked open, carefully widening till it showed a short tunnel illuminated with fluorescent lights, winding down to a different flight of stairs.
Then, like a bolt of lightning, another realisation struck Kabuto.
"ROOT…" Sasori looked at him, his wooden smile flickering. "They allowed you in." the man's sleepy eyes lowered a bit. Kabuto reeled, mind turning to understand ROOT's involvement, given that it was Danzo who had exposed all of Orochimaru's dealings to Konoha. Kabuto was an integral part of Orochimaru's machinations, knowing and involving himself in his teacher's activities, and that included everything Orochimaru did with Danzo. So, when it came to Danzo and ROOT, Kabuto knew far too much to be kept alive. Kabuto sooner expected them to send an assassin to finish him off in his cell, than for ROOT to have a hand in his rescue. "But why? I'm not in ROOT anymore. They released me to—"
"Orochimaru. He sent me to get you," Sasori answered, cutting the boy off. His voice lilted condescendingly. "You'll be useful to us, medic."
He went into the tunnel and the door started to close, so Kabuto dove inside. Shini ghosted through the slim crack before the door slammed shut.
Authors note
At the risk of breaking your immersion, I'll say this: This chapter reminded me about why I love writing about puppets and puppet masters. I get so immersed when I'm imagining puppets. Writing the parts with Morty and Asher and Sasori and Shini reminded me about why I started writing one of my older stories, Greatness. Then there's Minato Jr in Things Get Dark.
Check them out and let me know if you want me to continue them. But only after this story!
See you when I see you :)
Foy.