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The war room of the Hidden Leaf Village, buried beneath the stone foundation of the Hokage Administration Building, was a large chamber where many of the Hidden Leaf's most serious and critical military decisions were made. The heavy doors of the chamber groaned on their hinges as Hiruzen stepped into the chill of the war room, wearing the full ceremonial robes of his office, with the red-and-white hat casting a shadow over his weathered features.
The room was already a sea of green flak jackets and dark ANBU cloaks. Twelve jōnin—the village's most important military assets—were clustered around a heavy basalt table. Everyone else was seated in the chairs next to the walls.
All the discussions halted, and everyone stood up in deference to his arrival. The sound of his sandals echoed against the stone floor until he reached the head of the table and sat down.
"At ease," he murmured and then held the attention of the silent room as he pulled out his pipe, lit the blend, and finally took a long drag before exhaling a cloud of grey that settled over the room. "The time for formality has passed. We are here because the ANBU have managed to locate the ROOT base. It's time we root out this problem, and everyone here will have a role to play in eradicating the rot plaguing the village and country."
There were maps everywhere in the room. Two lay on the table, others hung on the walls. All of them were of the Land of Fire on different scales and scopes, but all of them had one thing in common: the location of the ROOT base marked in red. Everyone present already knew that they had located the base. However, hearing it from the Hokage's mouth shifted the air in the room.
"Status, Stag," Hiruzen ordered the commander of the ANBU's Domestic Branch.
Stag wore his mask even though everyone at the table knew his identity. "An hour ago, we received the information that the mission led by ANBU Captain Weasel was a success and that we are now aware of the ROOT base location. Unfortunately, we lost a brave unit in the process. A ROOT jōnin ambushed them."
There was a murmur in the room as everyone showed at least a less-than-pleased reaction at the loss and caution at the mention of the enemy jōnin.
"They will be honoured and remembered," Hiruzen said.
"Which squad?" Everyone turned to look at ANBU Captain Fox, with a head of silver hair, sitting at the table. Similar to Stag, the people at the table knew his identity, but he retained his mask.
"…It wasn't mentioned," Stag said and continued after Fox didn't speak. "Weasel engaged the ROOT jōnin in battle. We are not sure of the outcome of that battle."
Hiruzen glanced at Uchiha Sayuri with her arms crossed and the deepest frown between her eyes. She was a master of the Uchiha's signature Fire Release ninjutsu arsenal and a bearer of her clan's dōjutsu. Nowadays, she kept herself busy with managing her department in the Leaf Military Police Force, but in her earlier days as a jōnin, she had completed many A-rank missions and had even participated in some landmark S-rank missions for the village.
Stag then gestured to Nara Shikaku, the highest-ranking Leaf jōnin commander and head of the Nara clan, who spoke, "The preparations are set, Lord Hokage. The forces reserved for this mission are being contacted and will be ready to mobilise at dusk. We are currently formulating the most efficient route to the target location and will have a logistics plan ready for an initial review within the hour."
Only two ANBU captains, Fox and Weasel, were participating in the attack with other jōnin coming from regular forces. As the jōnin commander, Shikaku was responsible for choosing and gathering the jōnin who were to participate in the mission. Neither he nor Stag was going to participate.
"We have gathered the finest we have to offer, and I thank everyone for answering the call," Hiruzen said, looking at the ten jōnin who were going to command the small army of shinobi. "Does anyone have any questions?"
Akimichi Choza raised a question. He was the head of the Akimichi clan and one-third of the famed Ino-Shika-Cho trio. He was also one of the shinobi most trusted by Hiruzen to bring results out in the field. Choza had personally volunteered when Shikaku had approached the Akimichi clan.
"What would be the consequences of Weasel's fight against the ROOT jōnin? Let's assume that the jōnin manages to escape," Choza was careful not to say anything about a potential Weasel loss, "and returns to the ROOT base. What are the chances that they might make a move? A move like abandoning their base."
The moment the ANBU made contact with ROOT in Fune, the latter would know that the former was onto them.
"Do we know if that jōnin knows if we have the location?" asked Yuhi Kurenai, a brilliant genjutsu specialist and among the youngest jōnin in the room. She had a record of being an efficient mission leader in her time as a jōnin and had managed to run extremely safe missions with low mortality and injury rates through her extensive and creative use of genjutsu.
Stag shook his head. The chamber door grated, and an ANBU-nin made a beeline to Hiruzen and whispered something into his ear. That choice of going to the Hokage instead of Stag made it known that the operative was one of the Hokage's ANBU.
"Send him in," Hiruzen said before looking over the table to Stag. "Raven has returned."
A couple of minutes later, Raven stepped into the chamber. One look at him was enough to see that he had come there in a hurry.
"Report," Hiruzen ordered.
Raven gave his account of what had happened at Fune, and noted that he was back at the village to give some context that was missing in the short messages.
"ANBU Lieutenant Kingfisher and his unit perished…"
Hiruzen glanced at Fox, who had leaned into his chair and was now staring at the ceiling as though relieved. He felt guilty because he had asked Kakashi to extend his time at ANBU by another year. This mission was going to be his last before he left as soon as the month ended.
"Would you say that the jōnin would know that we have the location?" Stag asked.
"… I don't believe so," Raven answered after some thought. "By the time the ROOT jōnin arrived, we had already extracted the information; the agent died during the interrogation, triggering the Death Seal. Operative Ratel then engaged the jōnin in combat to give us time to escape…"
"How is he? How were his injuries?" Hiruzen asked. The first report didn't say anything about Ratel's death, which meant that by the time Raven left, he hadn't died, and Hiruzen knew that Weasel had engaged the jōnin; however, fighting a jōnin as a chūnin must've come with potentially lethal injuries.
"Ah, I wasn't aware at first, but the Operative Ratel with me was a shadow clone," Raven said, almost sheepishly.
Inuzuka Gaku burst into loud laughter. He was a genius tracker who moved with a pack of six ninken, a high number even for those in the Inuzuka clan, and was in perfect sync with all of them. His bingo book warned people to stay away from him because if he caught the scent of a target even once, it was nearly impossible to escape him as he would continue to hunt you down. They gave him the moniker of "The Unfailing Hound".
"So you're saying that the jōnin ended up wasting his time fighting a clone, which gave Weasel enough time to catch up? That guy sure screwed him over!" he snorted.
"Yes. The reason I mention all of this is that between the fight with Ratel and then with Weasel, I don't believe the enemy jōnin would have had the opportunity to examine the courier in time," Raven said.
"I see." Yamanaka Kawamochi nodded. He was an older cousin of the current Yamanaka clan head and a decorated jōnin, who had served on the frontlines in the Third Shinobi World War. He had been part of almost every large-scale operation the Hidden Leaf had run in the past decade, including the Steam-Frost War, due to his ability to provide tactical support with his ability to use his clan's hijutsu to establish telepathic connections with shinobi on the battlefield to create a highly active information network, giving the Leaf forces an edge over their opponents.
"Even if the ROOT base now knows that we were waiting for them at Fune, from their perspective, it shouldn't be enough cause to flee from their base. For them, there's too much at stake. If they decide to move, they would have to abandon everything they have worked hard to establish since their exodus from the village and start from the very beginning. It would require too big an investment for their current selves. Shimura Danzo and the remaining ROOT leadership would need something more concrete to outright flee."
Hiruzen hummed in thought. In preparation for this operation, the ANBU had mass-targeted suspected ROOT allies and associates to throw them off their scent. Including all of the work they had before it, ROOT had suffered many setbacks. An unwanted change of their base of operations would be damaging to their goal of returning to form and regaining their stability.
"However," Shikaku added his thoughts, "it's safe to assume that they would be cautious and would've ordered preparations that would allow them to abandon their base at a moment's notice. I believe it would be improbable to take them by surprise."
"In conclusion, we are still on track to attack the base location." Hiruzen stood up to address the room. "ROOT was born from the Leaf, but it has forgotten that the tree cannot survive if the roots seek to strangle the trunk. Tomorrow, we purge the rot…"
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Around the same time, Shimura Danzo waited in his small house at the edge of the village with a scroll only half a finger thick sitting on his table. A single candle lit the room along with the moonlight. It was an encrypted message from an agent in Fune, responsible for observing the situation and reporting on developments. As he had expected, the ANBU were behind everything happening to Baizan, and they had laid a trap for them. That itself wasn't surprising. What was surprising was that Uchiha Itachi had been in Fune and that he had fought Kinoto.
From the short description, he recognised one of Kinoto's A-rank ninjutsu, which meant the battle had escalated to a point where Kinoto was forced to use his trump cards, which again wasn't that surprising if his opponent was that Uchiha Itachi, who was already among the most dangerous shinobi alive, and that was excluding the fact that he bore the accursed Mangekyō Sharingan.
His biggest problem was that Kinoto hadn't returned home, nor had he made contact with anyone else. That could mean two things: he was either dead or gravely injured to the point he couldn't return home. Neither option was good because he was missing something they couldn't afford right now; moreover, the agent posing as the courier was missing as well. If he was right, then there was a chance that Leaf forces could show up at his temporary home tomorrow.
"Prepare to leave at a moment's notice," he ordered.
"Yes, my lord," a voice answered from the shadows. There was a pause before the voice added, "The other preparations for the transplant are ready. They are waiting for you."
Danzo hummed. He got up and walked into a room, and when he came out, he had a glass jar with a single eye suspended in preservation liquid. As he stepped into the moonlight, the light shone on the eye, revealing it to be a Sharingan.
He gazed down at it. He was where he was today because of the eye. All of it was because he didn't want it in the hands of an Uchiha. It would be better served in someone else's hands. His hands. However, rather than serving a purpose, it had caused his downfall—temporary, at best. And yet, it was his greatest treasure.
"Truly cursed…"
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