章節 1079: 32
Chapter 32: Thirty-Two
Chapter Text
THIRTY-TWO:
Sansa stared blankly into the still-spinning crimson eye, still so vibrant and clear despite the fact it was planted in the head dangling from Inu's grasp. Blood leaked in gushes from the terrible neck wound and in an absent part of herself, Sansa thought she ought to be sickened, that she should be turning away from the ghastly sight. She didn't, too numb to the dread from the enormity of her realisation. Of what Danzo had done.
Horror and terror twisted inside her and she moved before she even thought about it, Tsukiko's bulk hiding her actions from all but Inu as her small fingers pried the still-spinning eye from Danzo's right socket, actions careful as she could not to damage it. After a brief pause, she knelt down beside the limb, headless corpse and pried Kagami's glassy, blank eye from its mutated arm– it would, she hoped, give Mito closure for them to bury it.
Concentrating a moment, her chakra eagerly leaping to her command, a storage seal blazed dark blue against the flesh of her forearm, muddied as it was by blood and dirt both. Sansa lightly touched the two Sharingan to the seal and in a quick blaze of chakra, they disappeared, along with the seal, hidden away.
Inu, who had said nothing as she did this, finally reacted to something Sansa didn't see. He yanked her up into his arms and before she could do or say anything, it was like they were flying through the air he was moving so fast. Even Not-Kinoe couldn't keep up, though he did try.
Sansa wasn't sure what was going on; the wolves weren't following them, Tsukiko, Sayomi and the others had dismissed themselves though Sansa could feel them still, hovering just at the edge of her awareness where their bonds ran deep, still ready to answer her call, to fight, to spill blood in their Pack's name, but in Inu's arms Sansa finally let herself take a moment to breathe.
Danzo was dead.
For Shin. For Serena. For Tsukiko. For Sakumo. For Kagami.
For herself.
Danzo was dead.
Sansa felt an overwhelming outpouring of relief, of that there was no doubt. Danzo had taken her, he had tortured her, he had killed her partner, bloodying her hands to do so, he had stripped her of her dignity and pride and sense of self; he was a monster, a monster she had wanted dead and devoted herself to killing, and she had hated him, hated him, and yet there was some small part of her, some dark, twisted scrap of ruination, tainted by shadows, blood, and bitter, haunting resentment, that grieved him, the man who she shared tea with and who had asked for and respected her opinions, even when he disagreed with them.
People were far more complicated then labels of 'good' and 'bad'; life would be so much easier if they weren't. If things were just straightforward, and it could be said that a person was evil, a monster, a villain. That there was nothing good in them at all. But that just wasn't how it worked.
Sansa would not mourn Danzo. He did not deserve that and the hatred she felt for him would not allow it. But she would not forget him, either. Though she did not think that possible, even if she wanted to. Not with the legacy he had left her.
You are the heiress to my empire. You are the heiress to my ideals. You are the heiress to my Will of Fire.
Sansa was pulled from her thoughts as a shinobi dressed all in green appeared suddenly in their path, forcing Inu to halt, a growl rumbling in his chest.
"Don't make me go through you, Gai," Inu warned. "I don't want to, but I will."
The conviction in his voice left no doubt to all present that he meant every word.
The green shinobi– Gai– looked hesitant. "Are you sure you know what you are doing?" He asked, hushed and uneasy.
"I do," Inu said shortly. "I'll be back, Gai. I promise."
"Then it will be as you say, my eternal rival!" Gai exclaimed, though he kept his voice subdued. "And in preparation, by the time you return I will have–"
"I don't have time for this," Inu interrupted, pushing past Gai and Sansa distantly heard something about "hip and cool" in the distance as Inu and Not-Kinoe kept running.
~
"What do you mean," Hiruzen said tightly, barely able to restrain his fury, "Kakashi, Tenzo and Fuyuko left Konoha, and now you can't find Naruto!?"
"We know they don't have Naruto with them," the ANBU before him reported, holding themselves stiffly. "They didn't even try to hide the fact they went straight out the gates. Tenzo even told Izumo and Kotetsu they'd 'be back soon' as they passed through."
Hiruzen felt like grinding his teeth. No– that was too tame for the rage he felt. Too restrained.
"Find. Naruto." He ordered. "I don't care how, just find him! And send one tracking team and two retrieval teams after Kakashi, Tenzo and Fuyuko! Do it now!"
"Yes, sir!"
Hiruzen barely waited for the ANBU to leave before letting his face fall to his hands.
This was a disaster. In fact, this was more than a disaster. Danzo was dead, he had one Jinchūriki missing, another one involved in the death of an elder, and, possibly worst of all, Root had been exposed. The clans were already sniffing around the covert organisation, what with all the paralysed Root agents that Fuyuko had left lying around the battlefield, some of them very obviously from clans despite being completely unknown to their clan of origin, not to mention the bloodline-theft Danzo was unmistakably guilty of... no, this was a catastrophe. This could tear the village apart.
Offering up the deceased Danzo as a scapegoat would mitigate part of the damage, but to deny any knowledge of his old friend's activities as he must do would only serve to make him look weak. The clans would whisper, his forces would start to doubt him, to doubt his decisions… they had only just narrowly avoided a civil war, perhaps to be plunged into an unrest just as poisonous, just as potentially weakening of the village.
Who had told Kakashi of Fuyuko's placement with Danzo? Whoever they were… Hiruzen wanted them punished for this disaster, wanted them dead– which short-sighted shinobi could have possibly failed to foresee how Kakashi would react? The boy was unstable, and worse he had the skill to survive his instability– there could have been no doubt how Kakashi would react. No doubt as to the disaster he would wreak. Whoever had informed him had committed a grave disservice to Konoha and he was going to have to have each of the ANBU aware of Fuyuko's placement interrogated to find out who had spilled.
Head still in his hands, Hiruzen could only wonder in disbelief at how it had all come to this, how everything could have spiralled so far out of control– and now he was supposed to bring the village back to heel.
~
"So," Genma drawled, leaning against the wall of Raidou's secured hospital room– a very nice way of saying 'cell', considering there were two ANBU ready to subdue him should he try leaving, "you got taken out by a seven-year-old."
"A kage can be killed by an academy student," Raidou immediately parroted his old genin sensei's teachings, "all it takes is one mistake."
"Mm," Genma looked at him with judging eyes, "Yes. Interesting word choice there– mistake."
Raidou sighed. "Yes, alright," He said. "I made a mistake."
Which was what had ultimately landed him here.
The Uzumaki, he had been told as he was 'politely' contained, could transfer seals of pure chakra onto their opponents in the midst of battle. Unlike seals of ink, chakra seals couldn't always be seen by normal eyes– they were going to have to bring in a Hyuuga to check him over, to make sure that whatever seal Uzumaki Fuyuko had paralysed him with was just that, a paralysing seal.
Fuyuko…
He had seen his once-charge weaving through the abandoned training ground turned bloody battlefield and the hammering of his heart had had little to do with the cloak of the Kyuubi's chakra that clung to her, those malignant twisting tails of power radiating such intense malice, and far more to do with his fear of her small form amidst all that violence. He wanted so desperately to go to her but he had been ordered to stay back as the threat was assessed, nobody quite sure what was happening to the shinobi left on the ground in her wake.
Raidou had been beyond relieved when Fuyuko had retrieved a small masked figure from the fray and moved apart from where the fighting raged, a child that looked just as young as she was under his shattered mask. Fuyuko had lightly slapped him with a hand free from the Kyuubi's chakra and when the boy had fallen over, motionless, just like the many other members of the not-ANBU Fuyuko had brushed up against had, he'd finally been confident that whatever she was doing, it wasn't harmful– she had been his charge for four years, he knew what care looked like on her face and knew that she wouldn't harm the boy.
He'd tried to approach her then, the memories of the last time he'd seen her almost overwhelming– Minato's daughter in his arms, bleeding, her little face twisted in a terrible expression of fury and agony both, sharp teeth bared at him as he tried to apologise and she snarled, "not fucking good enough!" and he'd known, he'd known, she was right.
It wasn't good enough. Nothing to do with how the twins, Minato's children, had been treated was good enough. Hell, not even Kakashi's treatment by the village in the aftermath of the Kyuubi Attack had been good enough. Kakashi was Minato's son in all but blood, everyone knew that, and what did the village do to the grieving, verging on suicidal fourteen-year-old who'd lost every last piece of family he had, save for two infants he wasn't even allowed to adopt? It stood back and allowed him to throw himself into ANBU.
(Not that Raidou could judge too hard. Not when he'd thrown himself into the anonymity of ANBU after That Night, after surviving his Hokage as no Hokage Guard ever should)
The only blessing in that mess was when Kakashi was assigned Jinchūriki duty. And then that all went sideways too. Fuyuko, somehow, managed to get attached to Kakashi, despite the fact he only interacted with her when someone was trying to hurt her or Naruto, then Kakashi had killed a kid in front of about thirty other kids, including the twins, and the Hokage (the Hokage, not his Hokage, Raidou's Hokage had died, died so that this ungrateful village might live) had pulled Kakashi from Jinchūriki duty, had pulled him from ANBU duty, and Kakashi had disappeared.
Over a year and a half had passed with no sight of Kakashi in the village. And then, just as suddenly as he'd disappeared, Kakashi had returned, a half-mute, brown-haired boy trailing after him, and a new savage, feral grace to his movements; Kakashi had always been terrifying, the sort of talent and skill that came around once a generation, if that. After his time... away, Kakashi had been more than just terrifying, his every skill had been honed so sharp that even his fellow comrades would shy away, for fear of getting cut. Wherever Kakashi had been, they had broken whatever was left of the boy that remained, then sharpened those jagged pieces into blades and taught Kakashi how to wield them.
Monster, some part of Raidou whispered.
Another part of him, the part that remembered watching Minato slaughter thousands of Iwa shinobi in a single day, whispered, Kage.
Raidou had ignored both whispers, had ignored Kakashi's new sharp edges and his socially-inept tag-along, instead attempting to fold Kakashi back into their group, though Kakashi had only ever orbited at the fringes, as if he'd never been gone. Kakashi never said where he'd been, never explained the boy– Tenzo's– presence, but he did try to settle back into village life. Even if he wasn't allowed to see the twins. Raidou thought the only reason Kakashi went along with his attempts at forced socialising were so he could be updated on the twins, the only way he could really circumvent his ban. Raidou did what he could, to try and tell Kakashi how the twins (Kakashi's little siblings) were faring.
And then, less than a month after Kakashi's return, Raido found himself forced to avoid the younger man as he carried a four-year-old to and from the Academy to be beaten and bullied by her Academy sensei. He couldn't bear to look Kakashi in the eye, not knowing what he was allowing to happen. Not that he had any way of stopping it.
(Not when he hadn't even tried)
And then... and then the Incident. He remembered it so clearly still. Fuyuko stabbed, bleeding, Naruto's small hands bloody as the Academy sensei bled out on the ground, the snarled words from a little girl as he tried to apologise, words that haunted him yet (not fucking good enough!), and then Fuyuko was gone.
(Gone like Kakashi)
He had begged the Hokage, pleaded, even tried to threaten, but nothing changed the elder man's mind. And for three years, Raido had avoided any mention of the twins near Kakashi, citing orders– not a lie– and forced himself to swallow down his guilt, his grief, to try and ignore how disgusted he knew Minato would be (how Kushina would tear him to shreds with her own bare hands).
Genma didn't know the details, but he knew something had happened. Something that had caused Raidou to withdraw into himself, to avoid his friends, avoid Kakashi, to begin making reckless decisions on missions, taking unnecessary risks. It was Genma that forced him to hang up his ANBU mask, a year ago. Genma who dragged him to a Yamanaka for counselling, hard-eyed and stone-faced, refusing to lose Raidou too.
It had… helped. He still felt guilt, felt grief, felt a self-loathing that threatened to drown him, but he managed to reconnect with his old friends, even though he could never quite make himself reach out to Kakashi again.
And then… the battle in the village. The call of all available jōnin forces to respond. The sight before him, of Fuyuko, so pale and thin and yet fearless as she moved across a battlefield as though she belonged, of Kakashi, feral and furious and matching Elder Danzo move for move, blow for blow.
Raidou knew why Genma was angry. After the counselling, he'd promised to stop making reckless decisions, to stop taking unnecessary risks. But it honestly wasn't even a conscious decision, approaching Fuyuko, dropping to his knees before her, the daughter of one of his best friend's, his Hokage, the man he'd sworn to guard with his life and failed twice-over, by losing Minato and surviving. The little girl who had been his charge for four years, who he'd witnessed grow from a precocious infant to a young girl who was cold and sharp, like ice, yet who softened for those fortunate enough to find themselves under the banner of her affection.
He should never have believed that shy expression on her face. That soft, tentative happiness at identifying him. Fuyuko wasn't shy, she wasn't soft; she was a force of nature, a terrifyingly protective creature, and she had no pity for those who crossed her or her brother. He had just been too wrapped up in a fantasy where she didn't just remember him but that she forgave him that he didn't think to be wary of her, to be mindful of her small hands.
At least the paralysing seal didn't hurt.
Not like it did when she stepped over him, without looking back once.
"You fucking mess," Genma sighed, sitting down on the bed and running a hand through Raidou's hair. Raidou didn't even try to deny it. "So this is what's had you so messed up, then?" his best friend asked quietly and Raidou nodded.
"Couldn't talk about it," he said, just as quietly. "Hokage's orders."
"She was sent to… him," Genma didn't even try to hide the loathing in his voice, "to train. Minato's daughter. Sent to fucking Danzo."
Genma had been part of Minato's Hokage Guard too. He understood the loyalty Raidou felt to those two children, barred as he had been from approaching them without the excuse of ANBU duty, and Genma looked just as deadly-furious as Raidou felt.
"She didn't want to be a shinobi," Raidou was finally able to reveal, "weeks of attempts to… change her mind did nothing. Then the Academy sensei went too far while trying to force her to react and she used to Kyuubi's chakra to heal herself. The sensei panicked, threw a kunai at her. I took her to the hospital and never saw her again. I was told not to inform anyone of her absence."
"Well," Genma said, dark amusement in his voice that matched the fury in his eyes, "it looks like Kakashi figured it out."
Raidou finally managed to smile, the memory of Kakashi shoving a chidori in Danzo's chest then ripping off the elder's head lifting his mood slightly.
"You think he plans on coming back?" Genma asked.
"He will," Raidou said confidently. "…if only to grab Naruto," he added, seeing Genma's sceptical look. Genma snorted softly.
When Kakashi did come back, Raidou knew, he would bring with him a reckoning, for all those involved in the deception of Fuyuko's time spent with Danzo. Raidou knew he wouldn't be spared the younger shinobi's fury. He wouldn't want to be.
(…these were probably the sort of thoughts he should be sharing with his therapist)
"Such a fucking mess," Genma repeated, and Raidou wasn't sure if Genma was talking about him still, or the situation, but either way he agreed.
~
每周推薦票狀態
-- 推薦票
榜單 
-- 推薦票