Preparing for the assault on Danzo's base was not easy.
Even just the first stage required over thirty shadow clones of Ino, Ren, and Hinata each. They didn't have that much time for preparation either, so they had to create as many clones as their chakra allowed them, put these in stasis seals, feed on a soldier pill, and squeeze out one more clone they could send to work in their stead before they had to rest for a day, feeling absolutely miserable and exhausted. Only to repeat the process the next day as soon as their chakra reserves recovered and Hinata cleared them safe enough to use another soldier pill.
That was... not fun.
Alas, both Ino and Hinata desired blood. Ren expected Ino to complain, but she didn't utter a single peep during the process. Even the usually mild-mannered Hinata went through it with a single-minded determination.
And Danzo was not their endgame. No. His demise was going to sate them, for now. But his girls were angry. The way Hinata's expression went all cold the second Ino steered the discussion to her clan and their contribution to the current predicament, the three of them were facing...
Ren decided not to get involved in that. His Hyuga girl was a big girl. The Byakugan-protecting seal she requested was almost finished, and the process to remove the Caged-Bird Seal was also near completion. Once his clones were done with the seals, Ren decided to simply give them to Hinata and watch the fireworks from... well, he wanted to say from far away, but he guessed now it would be all the way from Suna.
Yeah. That sounded safe enough. He was not giving her these seals while he was still in the village.
But back to Danzo...
Getting the confirmation that the second stage could begin, Ren gripped Ino's hand tighter, and the air around them suddenly started swirling as the space was disturbed. Silently, they were both sucked into the swirling vortex, disappearing from the spot before the space stabilized yet again.
In the barracks of the underground facility, space swirled as the exit point for Ren's spatial transportation opened. Ino and Ren emerged from within it and instantly sprang into action.
Ren kneeled on one knee, putting a privacy seal underneath them, and activated a small privacy bubble that covered them, while Ino's hands shot forward. Her pointing fingers and thumbs met in the usual Yamanaka focusing hand seal, as she aimed it at the lone sentry within the dark barracks full of sleeping ninja.
Before the man could react, Ino's mind technique took hold of him, and his shoulders slightly slumped, while Ren glanced around to see if somebody stirred at the disturbance. When nobody in the room reacted, both he and Ino let out a relieved sigh.
This was the most dangerous part of the plan. Getting into the barracks where the ROOT ANBU slept without waking them up was quite daring, and if it went wrong... well, then the not-very-preferable plan B would be a go.
Thankfully, it didn't seem that it would be required.
Ino and Ren's eyes met as they shared a quick nod. Ino went back to focusing on keeping the guard restrained, while Ren became intangible, making his way to the closest bed.
Restraining the guard took Ino's whole focus because the privacy bubble covering her body did not reach the guard. That particular one was quite limited in range, and Ren chose it for the quickness of its deployment.
The problem was that highly trained ninjas could and would wake up from sleep at the slightest chakra disturbance around them. And they were in a room full of such highly trained ninjas. Ino had to restrain the guard not only from moving his body, but also from using his chakra.
Usually, taking over somebody's body with the Yamanaka techniques didn't restrict the target's chakra network. The chakra network would wildly flare and rage at the mental intrusion even as the Yamanaka puppeted the body of his or her victim.
But here? Such a thing would absolutely wake up the entire room in an instant, even if the guard could not physically move.
Despite her skill and prowess, it still took Ino's full attention on the single guard to keep his chakra network still. Her technique was not exactly suited for it, but she was managing for now as beads of sweat started appearing on her forehead.
Intangible, Ren reached the closest bed, and his hand reached toward the sleeping ninja on it. With the barest touch, his finger caressed the ninja's armored chest, flickering from intangible to tangible and back, all within one second.
With bated breath, Ren watched, irrationally afraid that the slightest chakra fluctuation was going to wake everybody. But his fears were unfounded. He knew that much. This much was not enough. The whole plan was built on that fact.
Under Ren's gaze, the sleeping ninja in the bed slumped, seemingly relaxing in his sleep, but Ren knew better. The second, his finger barely caressed the man's armor, a seal was activated with a barest hint of flicker of chakra, and his heart was suddenly petrified.
The man was dead.
Silently, like a gloomy reaper, Ren turned away with a grim determination, and full of distaste, he started going from bed to bed, ensuring these sleeping ROOT ANBU would not wake up again.
This was truly such a massive waste of manpower. He could only sigh in his mind.
Contrary to how it might seem, Ren was not putting seals on them. Such a thing would most definitely wake the entire room up. No. Ren simply made use of the fact that Danzo started to feel secure in his base.
It was honestly a coincidence.
Before Ren started plotting Orochimaru's demise, he liked to plant some prank seals in Danzo's secret bases. To keep him and his ninjas on their toes and remind them not to mess with him.
His favorite were seals that turned the clothes and hair pink. He only caught Danzo in it once, but the old man was frothing at the mouth with pink hair and eyebrows for the next week, having a hard time washing the paint off.
But ever since Ren started focusing on Orochimaru, he stopped with the prank seals. Danzo moved his bases yet again, as he usually did, and Ren guessed the old warhawk decided that this base was safe, that Ren could not find it, because no more prank seals happened for many months.
In hindsight, that was probably what gave the man the courage to plot against Ren.
The checks for seals among the ROOT ANBU were not exactly lax, but Ren still managed to slip a specifically adjusted and well-hidden seal near the exit points to the base. A seal that sneaked a small petrification seal to people who passed through the tunnel, burrowing it into their bodies and sneaking onto their hearts.
Of course, to make such a seal subtle, it had many downsides. One of which was that Ren had to personally turn it on, and he needed to do it at close range.
The second downside was that it needed some time to be set in place, and even the lightest use of chakra within a minute of the seal being implanted would destroy it.
Another was that the process of implanting the seal was very likely to fail, and did so often even without any unknowing interference from the target. But that was not such a big issue with how much the ROOT ANBU went in and out of their base. There were enough chances to implant the seals, and even with all the failures, it only took a few days to put them on everybody in the base.
As yet another sleeping kunoichi, this one no older than twenty, died under Ren's gentle touch, he couldn't help but feel a bit wistful and embarrassed at how easy this operation was going. This was a method of attack that nobody could use but him, and as such, countermeasures for it were not yet developed.
It was almost unfair to his enemies.
Well, he shouldn't really complain.
Twenty minutes later, every sleeping ninja and kunoichi now sported a heart of stone, making it very challenging to stay alive, and Ren let out a breath he didn't even know he was holding in.
Fortunately, everybody slept in the same room, as it would most likely make it easier to react to any alarm. Yet, it only made the surprise attack easier for Ren's team.
Noticing that Ren was done, Ino, who was starting to breathe a bit hard, had the ninja guard she possessed whip out a kunai from his pouch and ram it upward into his chest, straight through his heart.
She mentally let go of him, and he crumbled onto the ground as he died.
Letting out a groan, Ino stretched out her weary body a bit as she walked toward Ren, who was waiting for her near the door. They exchanged a quick smile, and Ren opened the door, only to come face to face with a guard who was about to come in to check what the thumping noise was inside the room a moment ago.
They both froze.
The guard blinked under his mask. Ren politely smiled.
A split second of awkwardness passed, and the guard's eyes widened in alarm, and he was about to spring into a flurry of action... When two delicate hands sporting lavender-colored fingernails tightly gripped the sides of his head from behind, and with a resounding crack, his neck was broken.
Ren's eyes moved from the dead guard toward Hinata, who had killed him. This one was not a clone but the original one. Unlike Ren and Ino, she infiltrated the base with the clones in the first stage of the plan and was cleaning up the sentries within the tunnels while they dealt with the barracks.
"The base is clear." Hinata smiled, "All one hundred and sixty-three occupants are dead with the exception of Danzo, who is still soundly sleeping within his quarters."
"I see. No problem with the privacy bubble, then?" Ren asked as he created another shadow clone that instantly sprang into working on sealing all the corpses in the room.
Even if Konoha eventually found the base, Ren wanted Danzo's disappearance to be an unsolved mystery. Most of his ROOT ANBU were on missions outside of the village right now, and once they returned, Ren didn't want anything to lead them to him, Ino, or Hinata.
"No. Your clone that accompanied me had no issues putting the privacy bubble around the door to Danzo's room." Hinata shook her head.
Nodding in understanding, Ino and Ren followed Hinata toward the door to Danzo's room and stopped in front of it.
"Well, I guess this is my time to shine." Ino cheerfully said before she stepped closer to Ren and pecked his lips. Giving him a smug smirk as she pulled away, she opened the door, revealing the sight of Danzo sleeping on a small bed on the side of his office.
The door was intentionally creaking, and Ren thanked for the privacy seals. Fighting Danzo would make it very hard to keep this little outing a secret.
Ino strode forward until she was in the doorframe, where she plopped onto her posterior, sitting cross-legged on the ground within the privacy bubble where she had a proper view of Danzo as she aimed her Yamanaka focusing seal at him.
"This might take a while." She informed Ren and Hinata, her tongue sticking from her mouth in concentration as she immersed herself in delving into Danzo's mind and attempting to completely subvert it while he peacefully slept.
... Ren decided to add another layer of security seals on all of his homes.