Chapter 39

Those of you who have been reading my stuff for a while can attest that I'm usually terrible at responding to comments or reviews. That's because I generally have an aversion to confrontation and awkwardness. So when, over three weeks ago, one of my stories was placed on Content Review at Spacebattles, I was justifiably crushed. The second I found out, I went to the chapter and deleted the risque scenes (which, mind you, were not full-on sex scenes, which was what I understood the website to prohibit). However, the story remains on content review for one reason or another. I do not blame them for this, as it stems from my lack of complete understanding of the rules. However, the subjective manner in which said moderators enforce rules leaves much to be desired. That is beside the point. I felt crushed by the decision and, as a result, found it difficult to post on that site or any other.

But I feel that I've allowed my issues to limit me for much too long. I must lean on the strength of my fictional characters and post regardless of how I feel. So here's the chapter. This chapter is dedicated to everyone else who suffers from sometime-crippling anxiety. As always, thank you to all of you. You rock!

I returned home to little fanfare. There was no ceremony welcoming me or anything. After all, I'd pretty much returned in one of the worst situations ever, so I was not surprised to find no one waiting for me at the gate. What I was surprised at, however, was the meeting going on in the Kage building. The meeting of the Suna Council that I definitely hadn't called. Oh, this was going to be entertaining.

I lifted my hand to my face and smiled at the unmarked skin around my wrists. My body then dissolved into sand and allowing the winds carry me across the air, and through the windows of the meeting hall directly opposite my office. I entered and formed in a second, taking note of the gasps of shock. A few of them were even sharp enough to prepare to defend themselves. I just smiled and walked forwards to the empty seat that customarily belonged to the Kazekage. None of them were any threat to me. At least, they had the good sense not to fill in my seat.

"I am at least 90% sure that I left orders that the next council meeting would be upon my arrival, and not before" I said, speaking to no one in particular, waiting to see who would respond. I wasn't too savvy with politics or shit like this, but my Charisma stat's levelling up made things like this come easier to me. I just knew the perfect things to say and how to say them. Well, not perfect. The stat wasn't at a 100 yet.

"Yes, Kazekage-sama. But the report from Elder Ebizo and his students was most pressing. The news that you were embroiled in conflict with not one, but two S-class shinobi, one of whom was the Tsuchikage himself, was enough to bring up some need for urgency." Yura replied, face giving nothing away as he spoke with an earnestness that I knew he wasn't feeling.

"Indeed? Urgency, I can understand. But plotting for my replacement before my death could even be confirmed was most unusual, do you not think so?" I asked sarcastically, pausing for a second as Chiyo actually chortled and burst into laughter from her seat on the table.

"He's got you guys by the balls there" She said, cackling. I resisted the urge to turn. To her, unsure if I wanted to smile or glare at the humorous interruption.

"Your treason" at that, objections rang out across the table… "Or intentions thereof will be discussed at a later date. For now, I have news. The first and least important, of which, is that two Kages saw their lives end in the last week. Onoki of Iwa lost his life at my hands." I said, enjoying the way the veteran ninja struggled to hide their shock. Telling them that there were two dead Kages was enough to get them reeling, but then immediately following with the fact that I was the one responsible for that death must have been scrambling their brains. They'd have a difficult time justifying their desire to remove me now. I'd proven that I could stand against the other titans of the Shinobi world, and name myself their better in some cases.

"The other dead Kage, is of course Hiruzen Sarutobi, Sandaime Hokage of Konohagakure. He lost his life to Danzo Shimura, one of his advisors and former classmate." If Onoki's death had caused drops of shock to leak through their dams of composure, then Hiruzen's snapped the dams in their entirety. That a Kage would die was a shock, that it was the one that most of Suna saw as an indomitable bastion of strength was even more shocking, and then that that would have happened at the hands of one of his own ninja must have turned things up a notch.

"And that's the least important news?" Ebizo said, with a look on his face that I found difficult to place.

"Yes. The more important bit for everyone here is just what exactly Danzo Shimura has been up to. He's made himself the most dangerous shinobi in the world in one fell swoop." I said, watching the doubt creep into their faces. 'How could one no-name from Konoha be the most dangerous in the Shinobi world?' they must have asked themselves in their heads.

"But how, Kazekage-sama?" Dragon asked, walking into the hall just as I finished the previous sentence. I guess he'd found out about my arrival and had come on his own to ensure my wellbeing with his own two eyes. It was difficult to explain just how much of a mother hen the anbu captain could be when he got it into his head to be one.

"He has a jutsu under his command. Edo Tensei, the Konoha-nin called it. I had to face it during Sound and Stone's failed invasion. For some reason, the Second Hokage had gotten it in his head to defy the path of the winds and find a way to return a soul from the pure lands with a sacrifice of a living being. I fought against a reanimated Second and First Hokage during the invasion" I said, drawing looks of amazement from most of the room, but a few like Chiyo just looked doubtful.

"Thankfully, the user of the Jutsu, Orochimaru of the Sannin, was not a master of it and I did not face them at their full strengths. That fight might have been a bit too much for me" I said, admitting that I wouldn't have been able to slap literal gods of the Shinobi world with a shrug. No one here could criticise that. We all either grew up on the stories or got to watch the stories get written in real time. Chiyo had been a little girl when Hashirama had sealed the tailed beasts of the world and bartered them away like curiosities. It was something else.

"Orochimaru of the Sannin? But how? We all saw his head" A councillor objected from the left, looking at me with some measure of suspicion on his face. I'd known exactly how it would have looked to them.

"I returned his body to Konoha to receive the Bounty for the good of Suna, and somehow this led to humbling returned to life. The Third Hokage and I were able to defeat him again, but now I fear that even that would have not been enough to ensure that he remains a non-threat. As a result, all Shinobi will be placed on alert. Orochimaru of the Sannin is a category 5 enemy of Sunagakure. Any information on him is to be pursued relentlessly over and above anything else." I said to nods from my waiting audience.

"But to think that they would dare to rob a soul from the grasp of the winds and bring it back to the mortal coil like that. Those damn tree-huggers" Ebizo said, placing his head in his arms. The entire room was silent as the Councillors stared at each other one at a time, realising just what was at stake here.

"When I was attacked within Konoha's walls, it was with the reanimated body of Mu the Null Man. He regenerated from every attack. His chakra reserves refilled themselves instantly. The only way to defeat them is to seal them. In light of all of this, I will be implementing several new policies for the good of Sunagakure. First of all, all the graves in the village are to be given Priority one security. The bodies of previous Kazekage and S-rank ninja are to be exhumed and destroyed." "May the winds have mercy on our souls" Someone said to the left. I ignored the interruption and continued to issue orders.

"Secondly, all ninja are to spend at least thirty hours in the next three months taking lessons at the Seal Corps. The Seal Corps are to increase their admission rates. Not a single team will leave this village without being escorted by a member of the Corps. For the lessons, begin with the puppeteer corps and extend to the rest of the village over time" I said, receiving a nod from Inasa, the head of the Seal corps.

"Thirdly, It is to now be the position of the Kazekage that all plans for war with the Hidden sound be postponed and shunted to the wayside. We must instead turn our attention on Iwa and Konoha. My present position is a Blitzkrieg attack on Iwa to knock them out of all war efforts in the short term. That will ensure that when we're faced with Konoha, we can handle the conflict with the full range of our attention and interest. I said to them, noticing the varied looks across the room.

""Kazekage-sama, I apologise. But I must ask. Are you sure this is to be the wise move? Why not retreat deeper into ourselves and prepare for Konoha? You yourself have admitted that Konoha is the biggest threat to us as it presently stands." Tsuyashiro, a councillor from the Second Kazekage's administration, spoke out. She'd been his cousin, I believe.

"Yes, I agree with you. But on my way out of Konoha, I left a nasty surprise. Several key pieces of infrastructure, including the hospital, will find themselves spontaneously exploding. It was to be my trump card, a threat I would have held over Hiruzen in the long term, but once things changed, I made the decision to bring things to a head much more quickly. Unless Danzo wants to suffer mass rebellion in his ranks, he cannot turn his attention to us before putting out the fires in his own home. By then, we would have taken from Iwa just what we needed. Techniques, Kekkei Genkai, and Kinjutsu that previously called Iwa home, will all be ours. It is the best way I can think of to prepare us for Danzo when he eventually sets his sights here" I said.

"But will that truly be enough?" Another councillor objected. I guess telling them that the opponent would have literal zombies at his beck and call must have spooked them. "They've already brought out the First and Second Hokage, What happens if they bring the Fourth? Or even the previous Raikage, since they can get their hands on previous Tsuchikage."

"You forget who you speak to. What is my name? Gaara of the Desert Waterfall. There is one fact that you must all hold as true. In these deserts. In this land. In Sunagakure, Gaara of the Desert will not be beaten. That is my promise to you. Trust me as your Kazekage. I have never led you wrong before." I said, receiving a nod of approval from Chiyo and a smile from Ebizo. My words seemed to have sated most of their fears. In canon, most of Suna had legitimately believed Gaara to be invincible and if I was being honest, that version of me was nothing compared to where I stood now. He'd struggled with A-ranks while I hung out in the same ballpark as fucking Kage.

With that, the mission was over, and I wasted no time in latching on to Chiyo as we made our way to her lab. I'd had a breakthrough in dealing with and extracting Kimimaro's Kekkei Genkai. And besides that, the body of Kakashi of the Sharingan had secrets to tell us. Well, beyond the Sharingan that I was going to be implanting into myself. I didn't have any Hashirama cells to stave off the blindness, but I had a million and one ideas for dealing with that.

XXXXXXX- JIRAIYA THE TOAD SAGE

"Thank you, Ma. Thank you, Pa" I said to them as I finally came to. Their genjutsu, enhanced by Senjutsu as it was, had thankfully been enough to free me from the strangely powerful sharingan genjutsu. Remembering just what I'd been forced to do and witness being done while under Danzo's control made me want to retch. It was sickening.

"Ma, Pa. Please grant me your aid" I said, bending down before them. I'd need Sage Mode if I wanted any chance of succeeding today.

"Of course, Jiraiya-boy. We're here for you" Ma said, and I felt the impact as they both landed on my shoulders. The sound of them clapping their hands was music to my ears as my body began to get flooded by Senjutsu. Knowing just what I did, there was no chance I was going to attempt to take Danzo on head on at this point. He had hundreds, if not thousands of Root Ninja under his control, and that didn't even include the regular rank and file Ninja of Konoha who'd surrendered to his reign and were now subject to his authority. Would I succeed if I tried to wrest control from him now? Accuse him of killing Sensei and placing me in genjutsu? Fuck. He killed Sensei. Sensei was gone. Fuck.

"Snap out of it, Jiraiya-boy. Sage mode or no, you will get killed if you do not move now" Pa said, and I nodded, swallowing the tears that threatened to spill forth. Sensei had been a father to me. Even more than that sometimes. I'd avenge him if it was the last thing I did. But not now. I had to be smart about it. Starting a civil war in Konoha's walls would be stupid. And I had no guarantee that the Kazekage kid would not be returning to bury us all in that sand of his for the attack on his person. Fuck.

"Jiraiya" I heard Danzo's voice bark out. But there was hesitance in it. A slight trace. And then things hit the fan. All around me, I could hear the sounds of explosions going off. Too many to count. The sound f stone rumbling drew my attention to the monument, and I watched with awe and disgust as the heads of the previous Hokage began to fall to the ground. Previous Hokage. Minato had given me one job. I won't fail you any more, my blessed student, I thought to myself as I took advantage of Danzo's distracted form and jumped off the rooftop we were standing on.

I ran across the village with the outstanding speed of sage mode, able to pinpoint the location of my target with ease. I dove through the window of the apartment building, having the glass bounce against my hardened skin. I found him in a corner. The ball of sunshine I'd come to know was gone, and in his place was the very image of despair. He was curled in on himself, shedding tears. Weeping with abandon. I couldn't even tell how long he'd been here. He hadn't startled at my entrance. He'd not even seemed to notice the property damage.

"Naruto?" I called out hesitantly, getting no reply. Fuck. I could sense Danzo's root ninja scrambling to look for me. I almost vomited in my mouth. Even now, after all the damage that was just done to Konoha, he'd prefer to spend his time searching for me instead of trying to help. "Naruto?" I called again, still getting no reply. I reached down and touched his shoulder, but he was unresponsive to me.

"We do not have the time for this, Jiraiya-boy" Pa said, and I agreed, despite Ma's objections. With a single seal, I summoned Gamakichi, Naruto's personal summons. "Head back and have Bunta reverse summon Naruto to the toad realm. It's the safest place for him now" I said, receiving a nod from the tadpole as he disappeared. A few seconds later, Naruto himself was gone.

Good. That was one mission accomplished.

"What next, Jiraiya-boy?" Ma asked.

"Next, we find our ally. The most unlikely of allies." I jumped through the same window I'd come in. Danzo had killed Sensei. For some reason, that thought never left my mind. He was Hokage now. For the good of Konoha, I could not start a civil war now. No, I'd have to come back with a kill squad of my own just for taking his head. From what I'd seen of his fight with the Kazekage brat, Danzo had been able to return to life from deadly wounds like they'd never happened. If there was one person who'd know about a jutsu like this, it would be that wretched former teammate of mine.

I dove into the sewers with no hesitation after a few miles of rooftop running. The root agents were already beginning to locate me. Left, right, and left again, I mentally announced, following the route that Danzo had made use of when he'd brought me down here. Root headquarters. In the sewers of Konoha. I guess it was fitting for them to be based out of this place in particular.

The first root agent I saw did not see me before he lost his life. I punched him in his midsection, caving in his chest with one blow, sage mode enhanced strength ignoring whatever pitiful chakra reinforcement he could come up with. I dove underneath the bridge before the rest of them could see me. The bridge was the connection between the entrance and the area of the base where my accursed former teammate was being kept. I used the tree walking technique and ran along the underside of the bridge, only switching to the top side when I was at the end of the bridge. I came face to face with a root ninja, and before he could sound the alarm, I covered his mouth with my hand. I reached out the other to the back of his head and snapped his neck in one smooth motion before he could react. Sage mode was something else.

My enhanced and improved Meisaigakure no jutsu was key in sneaking the rest of the way, I'd been hesitant to use it until now because of the technique's many drawbacks. When I finally reached the room, the seals covering it were easy to remove. I walked in, dropping my technique and looking at the still form of my former teammate. "Ma, Pa, Help him please" I asked.

"I really hope you know what you are doing, Jiraiya-boy" Ma said before they began to sing.