Deviation Actions
Literature Text
I woke up in a chakra restraining cell with two ANBU standing guard. Captain Kakashi was right on the other side of the bars, arms crossed over his chest. “Chizu,” he said softly as I blinked my eyes open. “Where is Itachi?”
“Captain,” I mumbled, my mouth full of cotton. “Am I glad to see you!”
“Are you now?” he asked in a tight emotionless voice as if he didn’t quite believe me. When I hesitated, he slammed his hands against the bars. “I asked you a question!” he snapped. “Where is Itachi!?!”
I had never seen him so emotional before. “I don’t know where he is… he just… vanished,” I stammered. “I looked for him, but I was worried that his brother might need medical attention so...”
“You don’t know where he is…” Kakashi repeated in that same disbelieving voice. He stared at me for a moment and his face softened. “Chizu… Look…” He paused and turned to the ANBU guards. “Could you give us some privacy for a moment?” he asked politely.
“Our orders are to…” started the one in the Cat mask.
“Please,” Kakashi spoke firmly. “As a favor to me. I swear on my honor as a shinobi that she won’t disappear, or mysteriously escape, or suddenly inexplicably hang herself with her bedsheets or anything like that.”
The two guards’ masks turned slightly as they looked first at each other and then back to Kakashi. My captain sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Neko-san… you owe me. I saved your life when that Hidden Mist mission went sour.” He turned to the Owl mask. “Fukuru-san, have you forgotten that time when I…”
“Yeah, yeah okay we get the picture,” growled the voice behind the owl mask. “We could use a break anyway.”
Kakashi was silent as their footsteps echoed down the hall. Once all was quiet he leaned forward till he was almost touching the bars of the cell. “Chizu… the entire Uchiha clan is dead. Itachi has been declared a missing nin with a kill on sight order.”
“What??? Why??!?” I gasped.
Kakashi lifted one eyebrow. “Are you trying to convince me that you really don’t know?”
“No!” I insisted.
My Captain gave me a very cold look. “Itachi Uchiha has been charged with the murder of every single person in his clan… and there is a great deal of suspicion that as his partner, you knew about it in advance... and quite possibly helped him.”
“That’s insane!” I shouted. “That’s not what happened at all! Itachi and I were trying to save his clan!”
“That’s not what the evidence suggests,” said Kakashi slowly.
“Evidence? What evidence? How can there be any evidence?” I quickly started to spill out everything I had seen that night to Kakashi. How Danzo had led in the ANBU to kill the Uchiha clan, how they poisoned everyone, how Madara Uchiha had conspired with Danzo and then the pair of them had turned against each other. How the Uchiha caught in the middle were killed off one by one… I glossed over the bits about where the Uchiha were planning to overthrow the Hidden Leaf and Itachi’s plan to lead them all out of Konoha to found their own village… it seemed like Itachi had enough problems without bringing in his real treasons.
At the end of it all Kakashi just stood there shaking his head in disbelief. “Are you listening to yourself Chizu? Madara Uchiha alive? The commander of the ANBU wiping out an entire clan to steal their sharingan? I find it hard to believe you couldn’t come up with a better lie than this.”
“I’m not lying! I have a witness!” That stopped my Captain up short.
“A witness? Who?”
“Itachi’s little brother Sasuke! He saw all of it!” I paused for a second. “Well… some of it… But enough! Enough to corroborate most of my story!”
My Captain gave me a very thoughtful stare. “Can he now? That’s good to know… I’d better go have a chat with little Sasuke then shouldn't I?” He paused in the doorway. “Chizu,” he said slowly. “Let me give you some advice… as a friend… I would think very long and hard about telling anyone else that story of yours… it could taint your court martial hearing.”
“Court martial?” I squeaked after him, but he was gone. The original guards came back in after that and asked me a bunch of questions, but I wasn’t listening. I couldn’t get my mind around the idea of my court martial.
I had served my village and my country honorably. I had stood by my friends and my commander. I had stood up to hidden threats, both inside the village and out and even if I had disobeyed orders or broken rules, I knew that I had acted in ways that were for the greater good of Konoha and her citizens… just as we were taught in basic ANBU training.
And because of those actions, my village was going to put me on trial and see if I deserved to live.
My trial started the very next day. Both of my guards remarked how unusually speedy that was as they led me to the courtroom. Instead of the large sweeping audience room meant to hold the whole of the council and all the elders, I was shuttled off to a little used function hall, half the size. Apparently like so much of the ANBU, its court martials aren’t public either.
The Hokage was sitting in the seat of judgement, surrounded by his small council and a selection of his more loyal clan heads, a faint scowl on his face as I stood before him, shackled with chakra restrainers, and presented my case. He sat for a very long time, thinking heavily before he spoke. “I find these allegations of yours quite disturbing. Very disturbing indeed,” he said slowly. He rubbed at his forehead as if he had a headache and then turned to Danzo Shimura. “ANBU Mouse has just told us quite the tale of treachery and deceit. She describes what can only be described as a cold-blooded massacre of one of the founding clans of Konoha. On top of the tragedy that it is, it is also a political nightmare… How do you respond to this?”
Danzo Shimura stood there, impassive and unmoving in the prosecution's dock. His sharingan was bandaged and his ‘bad’ arm was once again bound and in its sling. “By exposing this fiction for what it truly is,” he said dryly, rapping his cane once on the floor. The loud clack echoed throughout the audience chamber.
The door to the impromptu courtroom opened and two ANBU came in flanking Sasuke. He walked up to the ANBU commander with a slow unsteady gait, stumbling as if he were waking up from a dream.
“This young Uchiha has told me a very different version of events.” Danzo proceeded to tell the court how Sasuke missed the opening of the massacre because he had come home late from kunai practice at the Academy. Upon entering the Uchiha district, the young Uchiha had found the sub-village to be almost completely devoid of life. He describes Sasuke’s growing horror as he realized his friends and relatives had been slaughtered...how he entered his home and found his mother and father dead and his older brother standing over them gloating.
“That’s wrong!” I screamed, interrupting him. “Itachi did kill Fugaku and Mikoto, but it was a mercy killing! They had been poisoned by the attacking ANBU! They only had hours to live at most! Itachi killed them and destroyed their sharingan so that they couldn’t be stolen!”
Danzo slammed his cane into the floor again. “Am I to be openly slandered by this petulant child, Hiruzen?”
The Hokage turned on me with a frown. “ANBU Mouse, you will keep your peace, or you will be removed from this proceeding.”
“Why should I keep my peace Sir? You know how he’s been manipulating things!” I pointed at Danzo. “You’ve seen how he’s been treating the Uchiha clan! You know he was the one who was working with Orochimaru!”
“I will have silence!” bellowed the Hokage, but it was too late, the handful of other councilors in the room started whispering amongst themselves. I shut my mouth with a click. Hiruzen-sama glared at me for a second and then turned back to Danzo.
The ANBU commander started again, spinning a long untruth about how Itachi had gone mad and decided to slaughter his entire family simply to prove that he was the strongest Uchiha… about how his dream was to be the most powerful shinobi alive.
This story was killing me inside. It was so blatantly against everything I knew to be true about Itachi. I stopped listening and started watching the other people in the trial room instead. Sasuke was barely moving, just staring down at his feet. I could only imagine what had happened to make him go along with this. Had Danzo threatened him somehow to get him to agree to this charade? Or was he doing this out of some sort of need for revenge against Itachi. Itachi never had the opportunity to tell Sasuke what had really happened to their parents. I had tried to correct that just now… but did Sasuke hear me? The other councilors were looking thoughtful, glancing back and forth between the ANBU commander and the Hokage… Hiruzen-sama was quite perturbed. He hid it well, but I could see the signs. Like the way he avoided everyone’s eyes, even when they were talking to them.
Danzo finished by saying that Itachi had left little Sasuke alive in the sole hopes that one day, his younger brother would grow strong enough to provide him with a worthy challenge. Silence rang in the courtroom.
After a long minute the Hokage spoke. “What am I to believe? Neither story overlaps with the other! The boy tells one story, and Mouse-san another!”
“Let us question the girl more thoroughly,” said Danzo in an emotionless rasp. “Let me take her to the interrogation center. A few hours with young Ibiki and we’ll soon know the truth!”
“You have the truth, Sir!” I said pleadingly to the Hokage. “I’ve told my story to Captain Kakashi, and I’ve told the same to you! Call him in to compare!”
The Hokage looked very confused. “Captain Tora has returned from his mission in Hidden Stone?” he asked Danzo.
“Don’t be silly... the man is still in the field,” Danzo looked at me in the same way a cat looks at a saucer of cream. “It’s just another example of the girl telling tales.”
I had seen Kakashi, I told him everything! And then I realized that if Kakashi was truly gone… I must have spoken to someone using a transformation jutsu. “I swear to you that I have not lied, Sir… I swear on my honor as a shinobi!”
The Hokage blinked sadly at me. “Did you hear that Danzo? The girl swears on her honor.” There was the edge of self-satisfaction in his voice.
The Commander of the ANBU gave a small cough and then turned to face me. “Nezumi-san!” he barked as if it were an order. “It is well known that your partner is a master of the genjutsu… Do you think it possible that you were influenced by one during this incident?”
I shook my head. “No Sir.”
Danzo stared at me harder. “Think carefully now.... could you concede that this wild story of yours might have been placed in your mind by your former partner? That this is all something that Itachi wants you to believe?” He started rubbing at his right eye.
“No sir,” I said more hesitantly this time. I could feel pressure and uncertainty building in my mind.
“Look at it logically, my girl,” The ANBU commander said, dragging out every syllable of every word. “This story of yours… versus the one I presented here… Which is more realistic? Can you really be sure?” Another wave of tension and doubts filled my mind.
“N… no…” I stammered. “My partner would never do anything like that to me… Itachi is… too kind.” I tried to say all of this with a surety that I wasn't feeling.
“I want you to think back,” murmured Danzo, vigorously rubbing at his right eye socket. This time I heard the voices in my head whispering: How can you be sure? He’s an Uchiha… deception is in their very veins.
The pain was hammering at my skull ‘Just say yes,’ one of the voices whispered. ‘Just say it… things will go so much better for you if you do. After all it could be true… Why don't you just save yourself from the pain of going through the rest of your life branded a traitor?’
This whole time Danzo kept right on rubbing at his missing eye. The bandages surrounding it was beginning to grow spotty… red spots. His eyes were starting to bleed. I had seen something like this before… and I knew where it came from. Danzo’s eye was bleeding from overuse…. just like Shisui… just like Itachi. I knew right then that those voices in my mind, telling me to give up, belonged to Danzo.
I dug my nails into my palms until they drew blood. The pain briefly cleared my brain of the insidious threads Danzo was trying to weave in my mind. “Get out of my head!” I snarled at him. “You have no right to that sharingan! You stole it from Shisui Uchiha!”
There was gasp from the gathered councilors followed by a very dangerous pause in the room. Danzo Shimura studied me, his eyes narrowing slightly. All of a sudden all pressure on my head abruptly ceased. “Kill her,” the ANBU commander ordered in a dry offhand way. The ANBU guards shifted uncertainly glancing back and forth between myself, Danzo, and the Hokage, clearly waiting for verification of the order.
Hiruzen-sama didn’t even blink. He just sat there, a vapid expression on his face. The Hokage I knew would never sit idly by while his subordinate callously ordered someone killed. The rest of his councilors sat there, frozen as well. I knew then, that Danzo was using the power of Shisui’s eye on the Hokage and the court.
Two of the ANBU, the ones closest to Danzo, pulled out kunai and stepped forward. “You are nothing but a liar,” the ANBU commander stated matter-of-factly. “A liar and a traitor… possibly a murderer as well. You have let your feelings for Itachi Uchiha cloud your judgement. You have betrayed your village, your country and your Hokage.” He gave me a cold hard stare and waved his hand at a small bit of dark colored fluff that drifted down from the ceiling. “A quiet death will spare her clan the shame of having to banish her,” he said as a larger black feather floated through the air behind him. “Make sure the body is never found.” I struggled against my shackles but with my chakra being suppressed, there was no way I would be able to fend off those two armed men.
Feathers fell like a thick black rain. The two ANBU who had been tasked with killing me looked up astonished, and then collapsed in a twitching heap. The members of the Hokage’s council, sagged unconscious over the judge’s table. The croaking chorus of a murder of crows rang out in the function room and they turned and swooped and then coalesced into an whirling pillar of glistening midnight feathers that hovered right behind the Hokage’s chair.
A pair of glowing red eyes could be seen in the shadowy depths of the cloud. “I will trade you, Danzo-sama,” Itachi’s voice floated out of the storm of flapping wings. “The life of your precious Hokage for that of my little brother and Chizu Akimichi!”
The two other ANBU in the room, the ones who hadn’t reacted to Danzo’s order to kill me, suddenly tensed up. The Commander of the ANBU smiled slightly. “So Itachi Uchiha… you show your cowardly face at last,” he said coldly. “Shamefully hiding behind the man you swore to protect with your life!”
Hiruzen Sarutobi stirred in his seat. “Danzo,” he said in a slow lilting voice. “Don’t worry about my safety… kill the traitor.”
“As you wish, my Hokage,” said Danzo and with a nod he launched a wind style attack across the room, spraying vacuum bullets in an indiscriminate cloud. A handful of shuriken and kunai flew from the cloud of ravens into the cloud of bullets, some shattering, some ricocheting into far corners of the room. The first of the bullets were deflected or destroyed but Danzo just kept up his jutsu.
Itachi, still holding on to the Hokage, dove out of the way of this continued assault. The ANBU were seeking cover from all the shrapnel in the air. Sasuke was crouched behind an overturned table, eyeing his brother, but flinching with every loud explosion. I took the opportunity of all the chaos to seize one of the fallen kunai and insert the point into the lock of the chakra restrainers that I was wearing. I am either one of the best lock pickers in existence or extremely lucky, but either way I managed to get the restraints around my wrists open.
I started working on the shackles on my feet as Itachi tossed the Hokage to one side of the room and was suddenly surrounded by the glowing orange skeleton. Danzo’s vacuum bullets exploded in the woodwork to my left, leaving huge gouging pits in the wood as the bullets tracked towards the stunned form of the Hokage.
I ran for Hiruzen-sama and tackled him to the floor. It was then that I noticed that in between bursts, Danzo was again working at releasing the sealing bracers on his right arm, apparently planning on using his wood style jutsu again. The ANBU commander didn't even have the time to unbuckle the first one before a titanic bony arm seized him tightly and squeezed.
The two remaining ANBU, seeing their commander under attack, ran to help him. They were flung across the room with one titanic arm, to crash into the wall and fall to floor, rag doll limp. Danzo Shimura might be many things, but he did not disgrace himself in battle. He did not cry out or beg. He just grunted slightly as my partner used the demon jutsu to pick him up, dangling the ANBU commander in front of his face, holding him as one might hold a woodlouse before smashing it. “Today is your last day Shimura-san,” Itachi snarled. “And the world shall be richer for it!”
A kunai sailed through the air and clanged harmlessly off of the demon skeleton. A blood thirsty howl rang through the audience chamber as Sasuke Uchiha, eyes glowing red and holding a second kunai, charged at his older brother. “Murderer!” screamed Sasuke. “Murderer murderer murderer!!!” The younger boy passed straight through the burning tongues of chakra and began slashing at Itachi.
“Sasuke! Stop it!” barked Itachi, easily dodging each blow. The distractions were taking their toll on Itachi’s jutsu however, the fiery orange skeleton was wavering in spots and one of its arms faded away.
Itachi had enough, he grabbed Sasuke and put one arm around his neck to restrain him. “Sasuke!” my partner yelled as his little brother managed to score a shallow cut on his forearm. “Stop this at once! What has gotten into you?!?”
He pried the kunai out of Sasuke’s fingers, but the younger boy just started hitting and kicking him. Itachi cuffed Sasuke across his head as the younger boy sank his teeth into Itachi’s arm. “Murderer!” Sasuke said again, looking slightly dazed. “You killed them! You killed them all!”
Itachi slammed the boy across the head again and Sasuke went limp. The moment his struggles lessened, my partner turned his head to glare at Danzo. “Release my brother from your genjutsu!” Itachi commanded as the giant arm gave the ANBU commander a violent shake.
Danzo, the man who never showed emotion, started to laugh. “Not… a…” The rest of his croaking words were lost in a strained gurgle. Itachi snarled in response, a cry of rage and frustration. The skeleton’s other arm reached up, ready to tear the ANBU commander in two.
There was a grinding crash of stone clattering together as an earth dragon rose up out out the flagstone floor of the audience chamber. The living statue gave a rumbling growl that sounded like an avalanche, and liquid fire dripped from its snarling jaws. “Release him Raven!” Hiruzen-sama’s voice rang out over hall. He was leaning heavily against the wall, blood running down his left arm from where a vacuum bullet had gone through the meat of his shoulder. The pain of that had clearly snapped him out of the genjutsu. “Killing him will solve nothing!”
“Nothing?” screamed, Itachi his voice dancing along the edge of madness. “Nothing?!? It will solve the problem that he still lives while my clan is dead!!!” The Skeleton demon’s arms seized Danzo Shimura and pulled.
The stone dragon crashed into the skeleton, knocking it sideways and knocking the ANBU commander from its grasp. The chakra demon began to pummel the earth jutsu construct while the dragon’s claws and fangs tore into the flickering orange aura surrounding my partner. It was right then that Sasuke regained enough consciousness to plunge his knife into Itachi’s thigh. With a bellow of pain, Itachi yanked his tanto sword out of its over-the-shoulder sheath with one hand and brought it sweeping down into his little brother’s face.
Or he would have… if I hadn’t been there. My expansion jutsu enabled me to take the blow on across my armored ANBU gloves. The blade bit deep into my knuckles, but better that than Sasuke’s face. Without really thinking, I shoved my hand back, trying to knock the sword out of his grasp.
I ended up backhanding Itachi in the face. My partner flipped head over heels with the force of the blow. The chakra demon promptly vanished, but he landed squarely in a crouch. Itachi rubbed at his face, fingering a trickle of blood that was running from the corner of his mouth. Then his head whipped around and he fixed me with that blazing red stare… full of hurt and betrayal and rage.
The Demon blazed back ten times brighter than before. The bones of the skeleton grew thick with flesh, and thick plates of ornate armor constructed of orange chakra draped themselves over the demon. A gleaming black sword was clenched high in one titanic fist.
“So… this is how it must be… betrayed by everyone and everything,” Itachi intoned. His cheeks were wet with tears and with blood. “This is what it takes for me to see the truth! Madara was right… Gods help me Madara was right…”
The Hokage’s voice rang out over the crackle of chakra. “Stand down Itachi! I swear… I will make an inquiry into this matter… there will be justice!”
My partner laughed. A chilling, crazed chuckle. “Justice? My entire family is dead and you offer me justice?” His laugh suddenly stopped, and somehow the silence was worse. The Hokage and I shifted uncomfortably. “I am beyond justice. The last loyal son of the Uchiha shall take his vengeance upon you all. I will give my clan a funeral pyre of this damned village that will make the Gods themselves tremble… an end worthy of a song indeed!”
In the demon’s other hand, a spinning disk of midnight slowly grew. There was a ferocious crackle and a blaze of heat, but no light at all from the flames that licked there in the giant’s palm. The stone dragon charged the demon, but the huge sword came down, slicing the beast in twain.
There was a whimper from Sasuke in the corner. Itachi didn’t turn his head, but I saw his eyes dart to where his little brother was cowering. “Fear not Sasuke… I’ll make it up to you in the next life. It will be cleaner this way. Better our clan should end now in fire and blood, then peter out old and toothless.” He paused and shot a hateful glare towards the fallen form of Danzo Shimura. “And blind,” he snarled.
The black flames blazed higher in the monster’s hand and he moved as if to slam it into the floor. I grew to as large as the room would handle and charged, grabbing the demon’s arm about the elbow, taking extra care not to get burned by the dark fire.
The heat was almost unbearable. I could feel my flesh starting to char. “Itachi stop!” I screamed. He looked at me… and I didn’t see my mentor, I didn’t see my partner, I didn’t see my friend, or the man I loved… I saw a monster.
It took all my strength just to keep that black fire jutsu in that one hand from impacting the floor. The demon’s other arm still had that sword. It swung in a wide arc, ready to cleave me in two.
And faltered. There was a pained gasp from Itachi. Inside the fiery demon he was clutching at his eyes. For the second time in less than a day, I saw this particular dojutsu of his waver and then come crashing down. The chakra demon evaporated.
I went to him. Even though he hated me, I went to him. I shrank down to normal size, at least, I think it was normal, but I might have misjudged. In my memory Itachi looks so small and frail.
I called out to him as he crouched there, pressing his palms into his face. “Itachi?” I asked again, putting a hand on his shoulder. He was very fast with that kunai. The only reason why he didn’t kill me was that he was practically blinded, I guess by the blood in his eyes, and I was bending over in a very awkward position.
The knife slash caught me across my left side, but wasn’t very deep. “Traitor!” Itachi snarled at me. “You were there… you saw! And you still side with them???” As I staggered away he turned in the general direction of the Hokage. “I’ll see you burn for your actions this day Hokage!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Do you hear me? I’ll see this whole village burn for what they’ve done!” His voice echoing about the walls, my former partner vanished in a swirling cloud of crow feathers.
I walked straight past the Hokage, even though he should have been my primary concern as an ANBU. I went to Sasuke instead. I felt somewhat responsible… I was the the one who took him back home, I was the one who was responsible (albeit indirectly) for him seeing Itachi give his parents a more gentle passing. The boy was curled up in a corner, practically catatonic. I checked him for wounds and cradled him.
I didn’t look up as the door crashed back on its hinges and a double platoon of ANBU charged into the room. I didn’t register it at the time, but the genjutsu Itachi had placed on the room to prevent any alarm from being spread had worn off, and suddenly the guards could see all the damage and smell the smoke. Medical-nin were summoned to treat the Hokage and Danzo’s wounds. Sasuke and I apparently didn’t rate very high.
While the ANBU guards were milling about, Hiruzen took the opportunity to hold an impromptu council of war. “Itachi Uchiha must be dealt with,” insisted Koharu Utatane. “He has proven himself to be a severe threat to our village! First he murders his clan, and then a direct attempt on your life Hokage-sama!”
Hiruzen Sarutobi’s brow creased as he debated the issue. “That he most certainly is,” he agreed quietly, wincing as a medical nin mound up his shoulder. “Put together a few teams of hunter nin before the trail gets too cold. Make sure that you round out the hunter teams with plenty of sensory nin and genjutsu users.” He paused and stared at a broken remains of his stone dragon that littered the floor. “Tell all squads to use the utmost caution in attempting to apprehend him… he has managed to grasp the basics of the most powerful forbidden jutsu of the Uchiha clan… He has made a direct threat to use it against Konoha and all of her citizenry.” The Hokage’s councilors nodded their agreement and the ANBU saluted.
There was a stirring from the corner of the room where Danzo was being treated. “Find me Lieutenant Commander Ryu,” he called out in a raspy urgent voice. “I will also want a squad to escort the Uchiha boy to ANBU training center beta.” I tensed up as I realized he was talking about Sasuke. “He is a most valuable asset for…”
“Belay that order,” said the Hokage, his voice brimming with quiet steel. “Go and find Itachi Uchiha… deal with him… nothing more.”
The Commander of the ANBU struggled upright, despite the protests of his medics. “Hiruzen, don’t be a sentimental fool! You saw what Itachi Uchiha was capable of! His little brother will be the perfect foil for that… I could train him… forge him into the perfect weapon! To give up such a perfect opportunity...”
“Inu-san!” shouted the Hokage, turning his back on Danzo. “The Commander of the ANBU has been injured in battle and is unable to perform his duties… you will take over temporary command of my ANBU!”
Danzo Shimura, famously known for not showing emotion, turned bright red with anger. “You wouldn’t dare…” he hissed.
Inu-san flinched, glancing back at his former Commander, and then at the Hokage. “You have your orders Inu-san,” said Hiruzen Sarutobi in an almost supernaturally calm voice. He ignored the rest of the people in the room, and turned back to face Danzo. “Now… all of you… Please leave us…”
“As you say Hokage-sama,” said the dog masked ANBU in a gruff voice and led his comrades out of the room. As he was leaving Inu-san caught sight of Sasuke and me and took a step towards us.
“That will be all, Inu-san,” the Hokage said motioning to the door.
The new temporary commander of the ANBU looked at the Hokage, looked at us, and then looked back to the Hokage and nodded. He shut the door behind him. The click echoed loud in the tense silence.
It was Danzo who broke it. “You are a fool if you think you will be able to get rid of me that quickly and easily Hiruzen,” said the former commander coldly, having recovered from his outburst. “I hope you haven’t forgotten the choice bits of information I have left with various allies. They have instructions if I should… mysteriously disappear.”
“You directly assaulted my person,” said the Hokage. “You tried to take advantage of Itachi’s attack with that genjutsu of yours… ‘Don’t worry about my safety… kill the traitor’ indeed.” Hiruzen Sarutobi unclasped his ceremonial robes at the neck and let them fall to the floor. Underneath he was wearing an older style combat uniform. “I warned you what the consequences would be if you again tried to be rid of me…”
Danzo bent and retrieved his cane from the floor. “They say that fortune favors the bold… Shall we just throw caution to the winds then? Set a new precedent for the Hokage succession?”
There was a long cold silence as the two old men stared at each other. “You don’t really wish for things to end this way between us... do you old friend?” said Hiruzen in chilly yet calm tones. “You have served me well in one of the highest positions in Konoha. I made you commander of the ANBU because it suited your mindset and your skillset…”
“And you so enjoyed lording your superiority over me!” Danzo growled. “Anyone with eyes knows that I should have been the one you named your successor! Instead you passed me over in favor of lechers and wet behind the ears ideologues!” the former ANBU head showed his teeth in a feral smile. “A studied insult if there ever was one!”
“I gave you the authority you so desperately craved!” shouted the Hokage. “And how did you thank me? By lusting after even more power…” He slowly took the Hokage’s hat off of his head and set it on the table with a click. “I have made some grave mistakes these past eight years, but none so great as listening to you… an entire clan is dead…” Hiruzen stared at Danzo. I felt the skin-tingling chill of chakra building in the room. Then abruptly it stopped. The Hokage looked away. “You will be stripped of your position and your titles. You will be stripped of your Leaf citizenship. You will be declared a criminal… but I shall let you live out the rest of your life in exile… the friendship we once shared demands that much… but the Gods help you if I hear of you interfering in Leaf politics ever…”
“Banish me and I guarantee you that the streets of Konoha will run red with blood,” Danzo snapped. “I will not go quietly. The Shimura clan will rise up against that decree as will our allies.” His knuckles tightened around his walking stick. “I wonder how many of the others will throw in their lot with me when they hear how you killed off the entire Uchiha clan…”
“Bullshit!” I snarled at him. “It was you! It was always you!” I clenched a fist and strode towards him. “You were the one who led Orochimaru astray. You were they one who instructed him to abduct all those senju blooded genin… for ‘research’. I’ve seen your unsealed arm Danzo… you can use the bloodline jutsu of the senju clan! Orochimaru gave you that!” I turned to the Hokage. “I saw what happened in the Uchiha district Hokage-sama. I will testify against Danzo! Let me do this I beg of you! Call a hearing, I will tell them what I saw… I will take any doubting elder through the Uchiha district and point out every bloodstain I saw being made by the ANBU… his ANBU!”
I thought the Hokage would be happier at my pronouncement of loyalty. “Chizu… stand down,” was all he said.
Danzo laughed at the confusion on my face. “My Gods, Hiruzen… Can you believe the girl is this naive?”
“Shut up!” I screamed at him.
The head of the Shimura clan shot me a disdainful look for my interruption and continued talking to the Hokage. “This… this is a prime example of what your policies are doing to our village! ANBU with no discipline! Shinobi who have no idea how the world really works!” Danzo looked over his shoulder at me. “No one would believe your word against mine… Everyone knows you loved that Uchiha traitor!”
I froze and flushed. Had I been that obvious? Did everyone know? I panicked for a second before my ANBU training kicked in… deal with the problem at hand… worry about other matters later. “I’m not the only witness!” I snapped. I walked back to Sasuke and gently shook him back to consciousness. “Despite his feelings towards Itachi, Sasuke saw the massacre as well!”
“Really?” asked Danzo in an amused voice. “Are you certain of that?”
Normally I would have had more tact that to talk to an eight year old who had just seen his whole family killed… but I was desperate. I went back to Sasuke and brushed the hair back from his forehead. “Sasuke,” I said a gently and kindly as I could . “I know you’re... angry with Itachi… No one should have seen what you had to see that night… But you remember, don’t you? The ANBU attacking? How they chased us through the streets?”
Sasuke looked up at me. His eyes were cold and hard, and his voice had a brittle edge to it. “My brother killed my parents and the rest of my clan… he only left me alive in the hopes that one day I would prove a challenge…”
That confused me. Was he still just saying this out of some attempt to get back at Itachi? “Sasuke…” I said, trying to be understanding. “Let’s start at the beginning. When you first got back to the Uchiha district… what did you see?”
“I saw that everyone was dead. I ran back to my house and there I found Itachi. He was…”
I could tell he was telling the truth… or at least he thought he was. Was this another one of Danzo’s genjutsu? I reached out, and hoping it looked like I was trying to comfort the boy, put my hand on his arm.
While Sasuke was talking I spent my time probing, trying to find the subtle pattern of genjutsu influence in his chakra. I could sense nothing. I furrowed my brow and tried harder. “But surely you remember the front of your house when we were attacked by the ANBU? They used a wind sword jutsu and I…”
“There were no ANBU. Only my brother… He killed my parents and my clan. He left me alive so that…”
I grabbed his head in both hands. “Come on Sasuke! Fight it! You have to break out of this! I rescued you when they were chasing you through the streets!” I gave him a sharp chakra pulse hoping that it would break the illusion he was under.
Sasuke shuddered as the energy went through him. He shot me a dirty look. “I already told you, none of that happened! It was Itachi! Itachi did it... okay? He was the one who…” In desperation, I let loose with a huge torrent of chakra, enough to break any genjutsu hold… it was enough to knock Sasuke off of his feet.
I stood there panting as Sasuke used the wall as a crutch to get upright again. “I told you,” he said, his eyes blazing with hatred. “My brother killed both my parents and my clan… That was it… there was no one else! And you weren’t there… you fat crazy bitch!” Without thinking, I took two steps and tried again. My anger fueled my chakra disrupting pulse and Sasuke fell backwards twitching. I immediately felt horrible. I was light-headed with the loss of energy, but crawled over to him, praying he was alright.
He was fine, but he wouldn’t wake up. Hiruzen Sarutobi carefully made his way over to where I was trying to treat to Sasuke. “Allow me… It is the least I can do after all he has been put through,” he murmured. The Hokage reached out with two finger and touched Sasuke’s forehead. There was a moment’s pause, where again nothing happened. Hiruzen-sama shifted uncomfortably and rested his whole hand on Sasuke’s head, then he added his other hand. Finally the Hokage let both of his hands fall. “What did you do to him, Danzo?” Hiruzen-sama asked in a quiet, pained voice.
“I ensured that we would have plausible deniability.” the ex-commander said frostily.
Plausible deniability… I prayed that didn’t mean what I thought it did. I had put my trust in Hiruzen Sarutobi. I stared at the Hokage stunned, wondering how well I actually knew this man whom I had sworn to serve. I heard what he was saying, but the words barely registered in my brain. “This is no mere genjutsu…” he muttered angrily to himself. The Hokage straightened abruptly and whirled to face Danzo. “Have you no honor? Have you no shame?!? This jutsu was marked forbidden for a good reason! Don’t you know what it does to its victim’s psyche?” He waved his arm wildly at Sasuke. “You’ve done this to a boy!!!” the Hokage shouted.
“An Uchiha!” corrected Danzo with a sneer. “You weep for the people who murdered your wife.”
“He’s a child!” roared the Hokage. “A child who you’ve deliberately condemned to a life of depression, reclusiveness, and mental anguish! I have overlooked much that you have done in the past… I have accepted that certain things must be carried out in the shadows for the betterment of Konoha… but this time you have gone too far… To stoop this low, all to cover your own own selfish treachery! You will…”
“Oh no, Hiruzen, that is where you are wrong,” interrupted Danzo with a cold smile. “All to cover your treachery!”
The Hokage froze, eyebrows raised incredulously at Danzo’s words. Then an expression of realization slowly spread over the Hiruzen Sarutobi’s features. His head flopped forward to his chest, and sat there in silent despair. “What does he mean Hokage-sama?” I asked into the quiet.
“I mean… that the plan to rid Konoha of the Uchiha clan was Hiruzen’s… the orders are signed in his name,” Danzo stated with a deep sense of satisfaction. The former ANBU commander shifted his hand into a ‘what could I do?’ shrug. “The Hokage personally ordered me to put a contingency plan in place… just in case negotiations broke down, and the Uchiha were to turn to bloodshed… You do remember that, don’t you dear Hiruzen? I can show you the documents if you have forgotten… I made sure to have many copies on file.” The man who never smiled was grinning now. “There were so many witnesses at the negotiation that day. Everyone saw your temper… Everyone saw the moment the most honorable Hiruzen Sarutobi’s legendary bargaining skills failed him.” The smile vanished from Danzo’s face. “Everyone knows how the great Hiruzen Sarutobi prefers to make his dear old friend Danzo Shimura walk in the darkness, working with poisons and knives so that the Hokage can go to sleep at night with a clean conscience and clean hands!” The former commander wiped at a fleck of spittle that had stuck to the corner of his mouth during his rant. “So by all means… let us tell all of Konoha what you have done… I wonder which clans will stand by you?” He turned and smiled at me. “How about you ANBU Mouse who is so loyal to her friends and her Hokage… Have your feelings about the noble Hiruzen Sarutobi changed any?”
I didn’t say anything. I just stared off angrily in the corner grinding my teeth together, trying to decide who I hated more. “Well,” said Danzo in a pleased voice. “It would appear that we are at an impasse.” He turned to the Hokage. “Do you still wish to pursue this folly, Hiruzen? Shall I return to my post?” His lips twitched in amusement. “Or would you prefer to banish me?”
I took a step towards my former commander ready to smash him to a pulp. The Hokage stopped me, holding out one arm. “Halt, Mouse,” he ordered in a voice that would allow nothing other than complete obedience. “You shall not take matters into your own hands. For this moment, at least, I am still the Hokage of this village!”
I teetered for a moment, debating plowing through him. Finishing the both of them off and running away, becoming a rogue-nin like Itachi… In the end I just bowed my head. “Yes Sir.”
“Good, I order you to keep an eye on young Sasuke… keep him safe at all costs.” The Hokage kept his attention fixed on Danzo. “Shimura-san… we need to have a talk.”
The Former ANBU commander radiated confidence. “Certainly. Send the boy and the wench away and we will discuss my terms.”
“Terms?” said Hiruzen Sarutobi, his eyes growing cold and hard. “Yes… we will discuss terms... the same way you discussed them with Minato.”
Danzo’s eyes went wide, “You wouldn’t…” he started to say, but the Hokage’s hands were a blur of signs. Hiruzen Sarutobi and Danzo Shimura vanished in a thunderclap of displaced air.
