9 Chapter 9

He was a hunter.

What is a hunter?

Hunter is someone who stalks his prey and strikes when his prey is most vulnerable. The most important thing about the hunter was that he never lets his prey know that he is hunting them at all.

Akira Kurogane was a hunter with no peers. He had been hunting down animals in the forest while travelling to Hidden Leaf after all. And right now to him, the Root were no different than animals.

They were something to be hunted down. After all, they did try to harm his precious imouto.

Danzo had sweat running throughout his body as he was paralysed by fear. How could a veteran ninja like him experience fear? Impossible!

But it was a fact that it was happening right now. The Killing Intent of the one preying on him and his organisation was even more terrifying than that of nine tailed fox!

He finally saw it!

THE DEMON!

He wanted to negotiate or compromise but he just froze there unable to do anything.

The whole Root base was filled with dismembered parts of it's members. The only sound that could be heard was sound of blood dripping from cieling and Danzo's laboured breathing.

"Danzo... you are quite foolish for someone who's supposed to be a veteran ninja. Did you never once think of the repercussions to your actions? Well, I guess not. If you had this wouldn't have happened after all."

The demon spoke casually. Danzo had only feared one person in all his life and that was Madara Uchiha and now the demon in front of him could be counted as well.

"You could have done so much more from the shadows for this village but... what do you do? You thirst for light so much that you are consuming it and tainting it. It's a shame Danzo, you could have been more than this."

The demon said as strings of chakra wrapped his neck painfully choking him. "Just die so you can calmly think about what you have done in hell."

Danzo saw his life flash through and finally saw what he had been doing.

'I became the very thing I loathed...'

With that he was no more.

Akira looked at the old man in front of him.

'Danzo... you were too consumed by your ambition that you were blind to everything else.'

He turned back and looked at the kneeling Root members. "All of you will now follow my orders. Danzo is gone, and your reason for living has now taken a turn to me. You will live for me and die for me. Understood?"

"Understood!" They all replied in unison.

The fact that they were all dead was Danzo's misconception as he was too affected by the Killing Intent of Akira that he saw his worst fear happening.

As for the Root ninjas, they merely followed a more efficient leader to guide them.

Sasuke Uchiha was an avenger. That is what he kept saying to himself but after seeing what was in front of him, he no longer thought of it that way.

It had been a total of five months since Akira had started teaching in the academy and he had finally taken Sasuke together with Naruto, Shikamaru and Hinata to train in his own personal Taijutsu arts.

"What... is this? This can't be!" Sasuke said in disbelief looking at the contents in the scroll.

Akira put his arm on his shoulder to comfort him. "It's the truth, Sasuke."

Both of them were in the Root base as Akira had decided to tell the truth behind the Uchiha Massacre to Sasuke. Akira didn't want Sasuke to suffer in the future like he did in the anime.

"So in the end, the village ordered my brother to kill his own clan?" Sasuke said gritting his teeth in anger.

Akira flicked his forehead as Sasuke rubbed it in pain. "Are you an idiot? Danzo was the one who ordered it and he's currently dead. Sasuke, do you think that Itachi alone could kill all the clan members by himself?"

Sasuke looked at Akira in confusion and finally realised. "He had help!"

Akira nodded. "Whoever helped him must have threatened him."

"What do you mean?"

"Currently Itachi in an organisation called Akatsuki as a spy for the village. It seems someone from that organisation threatened him using you." Akira said.

"Is that why he told me to get strong? At the expense of me hating him?" Sasuke mumbled as he looked like his whole world had come crashing down at him.

Akira hugged Sasuke. "You are not alone anymore. You have me and the others with you now. I will be training you so you could bring Itachi back, so just focus on getting strong. Itachi believed in you after all."

Sasuke looked determined. "Thank you Akira-sensei for telling me all this. This kind of S-rank information must have death penalty for sharing."

Akira patted Sasuke's head. "Well... at first I thought you were a arrogant little piece of shit." Sasuke looked insulted at that.

"But! You were just suffering and now that you are my student, it is my duty to guide you after."

Akira grinned. "I won't be able to train you much after a month since I will be busy with missions. After all I will be becoming an official ninja then."

Sasuke nodded. 'Itachi... I will save you!'

He thought with determination as his path of avenger came to a halt.

Hokage sighed as he finished the last of his paperwork. Ever since Danzo's apparent and sudden disappearance, things have been going smoothly. Too smoothly in fact. And he was not used to this.

All the troublesome pests that would have caused quite a bit of headaches have been mysteriously solved. He had an inkling to who was behind this but had no proof. He was just too good at keeping appearance.

Akira Kurogane's threat level had just increased with this. He wasn't doing anything detrimental to the village's wellfare but a ninja's paranoia was a hard thing to control.

"Inu, what do you think of this? Is he really not a threat?" Hiruzen asked tiredly to the Anbu that suddenly appeared.

"Even I cannot say clearly. He is just too unpredictable. He has already gained the trust of almost all the clans and if he has any plans regarding this village then I think he has already succeeded." Kakashi said with a wry tone.

"I am getting too old for this shit, Kakashi. I am ordering you to leave your Anbu post and become a Jonin as of now." Hiruzen ordered as Kakashi's eyes widened.

"Is it to observe him?"

Hiruzen shook his head. "I want you to prepare for the future when you get your Genin team. Both Sasuke and Naruto are already too attached to him. I am going to place them in your Genin team in the future so you can watch over them."

"Very well, Hokage-sama." Kakashi left with that.

"So how long have you been there listening on us, Jiraya?" Hiruzen asked without even turning at the new person.

Jiraya was a man about in his forties with long spiky white hair with tall stature wearing red haori with trademark oil written on it.

"From the very beginning." Jiraya said giving a grin.

"So what do you think I should do about him? Knowing you I think you have already checked up on him, haven't you?" Hiruzen said while smoking tobacco.

Jiraya gave a nod. "Yes, I did check on him and I have to say he dangerous and extremely so. But he's not a threat to the village."

Jiraya had checked and even had to resort to Senjutsu to properly gauge Akira's skills. When he got a glimpse of his ability, well Jiraya got away quickly away from there as possible before there was a misunderstanding. He did not want to take him on without any preparations.

"Why do you say he's not a threat?" Hiruzen asked curiously.

"You know... he reminds me of him. The way he acts and his charisma with his denseness." Jiraya gave a sad smile after saying that.

Hiruzen widened his eyes. "Yes... now that you are saying, he is similar to Minato-kun."

"And there also the fact that he has something deep inside him. Unleashing it the moment when someone close to him gets in danger just like him." Jiraya smiled fondly remembering his late student.

Hiruzen thoughtfully nodded as they had already seen what happened to Danzo after he foolishly went after his adopted little sister. There was no trace of him left after that.

Hiruzen sighed. "Jiraya... I am too old to handle this. I need a successor."

Hiruzen looked at Jiraya in hope but he shook his head. "You know that I am not really fit for this job. But I know someone who is."

"You don't mean..."

"Yes, her." Jiraya said but Hiruzen shook his head.

"You know that she blames the village for what happened, right?"

"Then we will just have to convince her and I have got a perfect person to go with me for that." Hiruzen looked in disbelief at what Jiraya was implying.

"You! Are you sure?"

"Yeah! With this I will also be able to tell if he's really loyal to the village." Jiraya said.

"Alright Jiraya. I will trust your judgment on this."

"Just trust me on this, Old man." Jiraya said confidently as he left.

Hiruzen sighed. "I am really too old for this shit." As he said that he took out a Icha Icha Paradise book.

"But not old enough for this! Oh! Mariko-chan you naughty girl."

The night was filled with perverted giggle of an old man who led many nightmares to many innocent girls in the village.