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Chapter 33: Thirty-ThreeChapter Text

A/N: Sorry for the long wait, unfortunately uni has been an absolute bitch. It's going to continue being a bitch for the next two and a half weeks too. I just honestly couldn't deal with it today. But in two and a half weeks it will be over for three months and I can write as much as I want <3< strong>

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE:

The rage tasted bitter on Kakashi's tongue. No, not rage– betrayal.

Kakashi had done everything for Konoha; he had killed his first man at age five, in service of the village, and his hands had only grown more bloodied since. He'd sacrificed his body, his heart, his very soul for the village he called home, and it would be those chains that dragged him down when death came for him.

He let Konoha tear him apart, flay the flesh from his bones, allowed the village to make a monster of him, the sort of monster that terrified other monsters, that the shinobi in other villages whispered of in awe and horror. He fought their wars, slaughtered his way through battlefields before he'd even lived a decade.

He'd donned a porcelain mask, given up his very identity and instead stepped into the shadows to become Inu and lead the sort of missions that would make even other jounin blanch. He followed his Hokage's orders and let himself be dragged further down, dragged from the sunlight and then shadows, down to the dank, twisted roots in the dark below and let those roots wind around his neck like a noose, strangling the last, twisted scraps of humanity from him.

He would and had sacrificed everything about himself for his village, for his Hokage, and in return– in return they had done this.

Fuyuko was too light in his arms, too fragile. The traces of puppy fat he remembered clinging to rosy cheeks had long-since melted away, replaced by hollows and slim muscle, the kind that came from endless training. She was bone-white, sickly-pale in the way only Tenzo had been when they first met, the hair she had so loved now thin and lacking its well-tended lustre. And her eyes…

Minato and Kushina's daughter had always had sharp, cold eyes, eyes that were always too alert, too knowing, too predatory for her age. Kakashi knew those eyes, had seen them in the mirror all his life.

He also recognised the eyes that had looked back at him in Danzo's office. Recognised the hollow emptiness (had seen that look in the mirror too). And then, facing Danzo himself, as she forced the man to his knees… in that moment, Fuyuko's eyes had been as endless and merciless as the ocean's depths. There was nothing childlike left there. No, those had been the eyes of a shinobi– the eyes of a Kage.

And then– I am Uzumaki Fuyuko, she had declared as she cast aside her mask. And Kakashi, who had hidden behind the mask of Inu for so many years had finally heard a small voice inside his head, emboldened by the courage of this child, this packmate who had refused to be beaten down, who had looked for him, who had not abandoned him, speak up and say, I am Hatake Kakashi.

Watching Fuyuko on the battlefield, watching her stalk and hunt, watching wolves bigger than horses bow before her, following her orders, pride and horror had warred within Kakashi's heart. The cub he remembered leaning into him for comfort, a puppy-soft whine in her throat, was gone; Fuyuko had shed what little remained of her childhood innocence and stepped up to become the alpha that the blood of Minato and Kushina was destined to be.

Seeing her, red hair whipping around her thin face as she seemingly-effortlessly controlled the twisting columns of bijuu chakra around her, it tightened his chest, made his heart falter. She was powerful, deadly, controlled; a perfect shinobi of Konoha– a perfect weapon. And that made something inside him howl in furious, impotent rage. What had they done to her!? What had they done to Minato and Kushina's daughter, the blood of their beloved Hokage, the heiress to the Whirlpools!?

It turned his vision red. It made him want to bundle her up in his arms and take her as far away from Konoha as he could.

And so he'd done just that.

Tenzo had followed. Of course he had; Tenzo had loyalty and devotion to the ANBU squad that had adopted him carved deep into the marrow of his bones. And Gai had let Kakashi go without a fight, even though he was the only one outside of the Sandaime himself who had a real chance at stopping him, because Gai was steadfast in his trust of Kakashi. And his pack, his faithful summons, hovered at the edge of Kakashi's awareness, ready to be summoned back, to defend or attack, in a heartbeat. 

Kakashi knew the Hokage would be sending tracking and retrieval squads after them and his chest felt too tight, but it wasn't out of panic. The vicious, sharp-toothed predator that hunted in his soul was howling its rage and fury, murderous and bloodthirsty, and Kakashi half-wondered if the orders were to bring him back alive or not. He found he didn't care. Not when he knew what had been done to the too-small, too-thin little girl in his arms, on Sarutobi's orders– or if not on his orders, at least due to his intentional ignorance.

Despite the rage, Kakashi had just enough self-control to know that attacking Konoha nin was crossing a line that he couldn't take back if he wanted to return to Konoha. So, with some reluctance, he signalled to Tenzo to engage in evasive tactics; between Tenzo's mokuton bloodline and Kakashi's own knowledge of tracking, nobody would find them if they didn't want to be found.

Of course, that wouldn't be helpful if the Sandaime figured out where they were going– which was why they had to travel as quickly as possible if they were going to find Jiraiya before the teams sent by Konoha did.

~

Inu and Not-Kinoe didn't speak as they ran, the gates of Konoha now far behind them, and the silence gave Sansa time to think. To process.

Everything had happened so quickly it felt as if she was little more than a wolf cub caught in the unyielding currents of a fast-moving river, its unrelenting tides threatening to drag her under. But Sansa was not just the blood of a wolf; she was a Tully, too, and she refused to drown.

The seal on the back of her neck pulsed like a living thing in time to the beats of her own heart. When she focused on it, she was peripherally aware of the thin, almost-strings of chakra that stretched out from the seal. She could trace one string back to where it led to Not-Kinoe. It felt like... like a spiderweb, almost, and she was the spider, perched at the centre, able to feel every quiver of every strand. The other strands of her web, she imagined, would lead her to the other Root agents.

...her Root agents. Because this seal Danzo had activated, the words he had left ringing in her head– the implications of it all was unmistakable.

Heiress.

He had made her his heiress.

She wouldn't say a word to anyone, of course. She wouldn't give the Hokage an excuse to gain any power over her, not when she'd only just escaped one master– and she had no intention of replacing the finally removed from her life Danzo with a weaker, more ineffectual version. But even when Root was, in the most likely scenario, absorbed back into Konoha's shinobi forces, she would still be linked to them. She would always know who they were and where they were. She would always have power and authority over them. They would always feel loyalty to her.

They were hers. But she wasn't Danzo. She wasn't a shinobi trained to fight on the open battlefield, she wasn't trained for open warfare. She was trained for infiltration, subterfuge, sabotage. She was trained to be the unseen spy, the assassin who killed in the shadows. Why would she build herself an army, when instead she could have her shinobi infiltrate Konoha's ranks? And would the Hokage even really think much of her visiting all those old friends she'd grown so attached to–?

Sansa frowned, concern stirring inside her at the direction her thoughts had immediately spun out to. Why would she even want to keep Root, when she'd been trying so desperately to get away from it? Why would she even want an unseen shadow force? Why did it seem as if it was such a foregone conclusion to her, that she would take control of Root when she had never had even the slightest desire before? When her interest in shinobi matters started and ended with her brother alone?

You are my heiress.

Sansa felt a sudden, ice-cold fear rise within her. What had Danzo done to her? What had he done with that Mangekyo sharingan? She had never wanted to be Danzo's heiress, she had never entertained any thoughts to the matter, and yet–

Yet.

Root washers now, for better or worse. And she'd already started to make plans for it, already started to make the accommodations. Why would she want to give up such an advantage, when it had fallen so easily into her lap?

No – no, no, no, it wasn't an advantage, it wasn't, she didn't want it, she didn't–

But think of what she could do–

Sansa let out a shuddering breath and closed her eyes, immediately falling back into her mindscape. When she opened her eyes within the godswood of her mindscape, she gasped in horror. The skies above her were burning in a thick, furiously spinning pattern of blood red and fathomless black, no misty winter grey to be seen. It was like something out of the Seven Hells and Sansa's lungs felt as though they were being crushed in an iron grip as she staggered backwards, staring up, until her back was pressed up against the pale, twisting branches of the heart-tree that made up Kurama's prison.

"What– what is that?" she could barely choke out.

The only answer was a spitting snarl that rattled the entire mindscape and as Sansa turned around, she was horrified to see Kurama pressed against the back of the prison, looking up at the sharingan-sky with horror and fear in their eyes, lips curled back, hackles raised. They looked the very picture of true terror in a way Sansa had never seen before and in a way she'd never dreamed they could.

"Evil!" They hissed, baring jagged fangs. "Abomination! Foul, twisted abomination!"

Sansa didn't even hesitate to climb through the branches, rushing over to Kurama. "Can I touch you?" she was careful to ask. She knew better then to touch someone who was so upset without asking first. Kurama bowed their head, closing their eyes as they lowered themselves to the ground, curling up. Sansa carefully leaned against their muzzle, her back resting against the soft curve of their throat, trying to comfort them however she could. 

"Is there anything I can do to help you?" she asked softly. Kurama made a quiet rumbling noise.

"…maybe you could sing," they said, after a moment. Sansa hid her smile.

"I can do that," she said, clearing her throat before she started singing, 'The Ice Queen of the North'. Kurama almost sounded impressed by her feat of executing so many people at the end of the ballad.

After she'd sung a few more Westerosi songs, mostly Northern ones as Kurama seemed to appreciate the more gruesome songs, they finally relaxed enough to order her to go wake up Mito from the seal. Sansa was reluctant to leave them, the memory of their panicked state still raw and fresh in her mind, but Kurama simply pushed her away from them and her tiny body wasn't nearly big enough to stop them sending her sliding across the cage and into the branches that made up the prison walls. 

Now that Sansa knew how to precisely activate Mito's seal without overloading it to the point that it caused a near-explosion, it was a simple process in which her ancestress simply shimmered into existence. The moment Mito emerged from the seal, the small, warm smile she was wearing quickly turned to horror. "Oh gods," she breathed. 

"I know," Sansa said helplessly. "I know."

"What happened?" Mito asked, horrified, and Sansa began to explain, to her and Kurama both. When she got to the part about her killing Danzo and then Danzo using Kagami's eye, Mito actually put her hand over her own eyes and started to weep. And then when she told them about the second Mangekyou sharingan and the seal on her neck, Kurama gave a blistering snarl and Mito went pale with rage.

"I can't help with the Mangekyou sharingan," Mito said darkly, "from what Kagami told me, it's an instinctive thing, to know its boundaries and its weaknesses and how it works. But as for the seal, if Danzo activated it with blood then it's a blood seal and he transferred ownership of it to you. That means only you can activate it now, so it's only visible to you and only when you apply blood to it. If you trace it out for me, I can tell you exactly what it can do. Without using any chakra, of course."

Sansa nodded, kneeling in the false-snow and, focusing on feeling the lines and curves of the chakra embedded in the seal on her neck, she traced the seal into the snow, careful not to add any chakra to the design.

Mito looked utterly disgusted. Sansa, who was surprised to realise she actually understood most of the building-blocks of the seal she was drawing, was disgusted too– there were tracking seals, silencing seals, suicide seals, obedience and heart-stopping seals, all combined into one slave seal. And she had the master seal, the seal that controlled them all.

"I wan–" Sansa's mouth snapped shut, the words choking in her throat as her mind was suddenly bombarded with reasons why she couldn't get it of the seal, why she couldn't tell Mito I want it off, why she had to have it stay on. She looked helplessly up at Mito, unable to help the tears that welled up in her eyes. "Even in death, I'm not free of him," she whispered. "Even in death, he still controls me. I can't trust myself, or any decision I make. And that is terrifying."

"The Sharingan is a twisted, ill-begotten curse," Kurama snarled, "and the Mangekyou Sharingan is worse. The Uchiha who have used it to control me have wanted nothing but death and destruction."

"…of course," Sansa realised, with a rush of understanding, "Mito, you said it's instinctive for Uchiha* to know the weaknesses of the Mangekyou sharingan– hopefully one of them will know how to break this– whatever this is– and then none of us will have to look at it again!" She gestured up at the sky. 

Above her, it burned.

~

Genma leaned casually against the wall of the Hokage's office in a careful display of nonchalance as the ANBU, gave their report to the Hokage and Jōnin Commander, Nara Shikaku, while a second ANBU glanced over at him, seeming uneasy at his lax posture. He grinned at them, clicking the senbon he had in his mouth against his teeth, tasting the sharp sticky-tang of poison and causing them to tense up. Shikaku gave him a look and he rolled his eyes slightly and turned his attention back to the debrief– the first of many, he presumed.

So far, the tracking team hadn't had any luck in tracking down Kakashi, Tenzo and Fuyuko. Neither had the retrieval teams. And they wouldn't. Genma wasn't sure why the Hokage had even bothered sending anyone after Kakashi, especially considering the head start– his ANBU Captain could be half-dead and bleeding out and he'd still be more then a match for them. Kakashi has always been the best of them– even little Itachi and Shisui, their other baby genii, hadn't matched him.

Genma straightened up slightly as the two ANBU finally finished their reports and the Hokage, his fury and frustration barely hidden under a mask of geniality, turned to him. These last couple of days hadn't been easy for the Sandaime, Genma knew, not with the loss of two Jinchūriki and the discovery of an Elder on the council, who also happened to be one of the Sandaime's Genin teammates, having been building a private army while committing bloodline theft and abducting clan children. Not to mention the Uchiha massacre hadn't been that long ago. If he was a better person, Genma would feel sorry for the Hokage.

Genma was not a better person. Not even slightly. All Genma cared about was the broken look in Raidou's eyes when he spoke about Minato's daughter, the way his best friend had teetered on the edge of suicidal for years out of staggering, all-consuming guilt, all due to the monstrosities that Sarutobi had allowed be committed against Fuyuko, and now Genma believed the Sandaime had reaped what he'd sown. 

"Any leads on Naruto?" The Sandaime asked and Genma shook his head.

"We're confident he's in the village," he reported. "But his ANBU watchers said he disappeared shortly before the confrontation with Elder Shimura went down– we suspect Kakashi contacted someone, asking them to hide Naruto during the confrontation, or that the person hiding Naruto is the one who alerted Kakashi to the fact that Uzumaki Fuyuko was in Elder Shimura's care and then went to ground afterwards, knowing exactly how he would react to that."

The Sandaime's face went tight and Shikaku gave him a warning look which Genma understood. That had been pushing at the bounds of Sarutobi's patience. But everyone in this room knew that the Sandaime knew about Danzo's little army of brainwashed children turned into soldiers– it wasn't like a Jinchūriki could just accidentally be misplaced.

"When you find whoever has Naruto, bring them to me," the Hokage ordered and Genma bowed.

"Yes, Hokage-sama," he said, before leaving the office. Shikaku followed him out moments later.

"You've already found him, haven't you," Shikaku stated, not asked.

"I would never lie to my Hokage," Genma said, while absolutely lying.

"We both know someone's going to die for this mess," Shikaku murmured. "Someone other than Danzo, considering Kakashi's already killed him. You're protecting them, so they must be young. Probably from the Yūkaku, because it's clear you relate to them on some level– you feel protective of them, which isn't like you, not unless it comes to a certain type of child from a certain type of background. And you don't want them killed for being the only one with the courage to speak up."

Genma smiled, sharp and mean. "She's the only one who didn't find it too troublesome," he said and watched in satisfaction as Shikaku's eyes widened slightly.

He didn't mind the Jōnin Commander. Really, he didn't. Shikaku had never treated him differently from any other shinobi, just because he was the result of some unknown shinobi's liaison at a brothel in the Yūkaku, where Genma had subsequently spent his childhood years running around the streets. But that didn't mean it was Shikaku's business– and if Shikaku wanted to put it out there, Genma had no issues pointing out the fact that the Nara Clan apparently wasn't above a roll in the sheets in the Yūkaku either. Because that girl, the one who was always with Naruto, she was a Nara through and through– both in looks and in brains, considering the way she was swiftly climbing up the yakuza ranks without insulting anyone badly enough to get her throat slit.

"Is Naruto safe?" Shikaku asked quietly, a tight, irritated look on his face that said he was about to very thoroughly question his clan as to who had been careless enough to father a bastard child and to not even realise they existed– or worse, to abandon them. Genma shrugged.

"No more or less then he's always been," he said. Shikaku looked even more irritated and Genma smiled at him again, an edge of mocking in it. "He's a street kid, Nara-sama," he said. "He's a child of the Yūkaku. He has allies who will try to protect him and enemies who will try to prey on him. That's how it works. And Naruto knows how it works. It's his life. And once Kakashi's back, he'll get a message out to Naruto's allies and Naruto will start attending the Academy again."

"Chouza was the sensei of your genin team yet I learned more in the last five minutes about the community you grew up in then those two years," Shikaku said, looking over at him thoughtfully. They had left the Hokage Tower now and were making their way through the bustling streets. of Konoha's marketplace.

"Because you didn't want to know," Genma told him honestly, "you didn't ask. Nobody ever does. It makes them uncomfortable so they tell themselves that asking about it would make me uncomfortable and they never talk about it." He clicked his senbon against his teeth again, felt the sharp edge slice into the soft inner skin of his cheek. His blood tasted warm and salty with a tang of spice from the poison as he grinned. "I'm not ashamed. I've never been ashamed. I've never forgotten my roots."

There was a shrine to Inari-sama in his apartment that he prayed to before every mission. Once every quarter he donated part of his paycheck to the brothel where his mother had worked. He bought blankets and warm clothes in winter that he handed out to the children of the Yūkaku, because he remembered how being cold was worse then being hungry. But he remembered being hungry too– when he was young, before his Academy days during wartime, he once ate a dead rat caked in dirt that he "cooked" (charred was probably a better description) with an exploding tag he found in a training field, because he was literally starving to death. A few months later he'd joined the Academy, trading a life of servitude to the village for a steady income and at least he'd never known starvation again.

Shikaku looked back at him thoughtfully, dark eyes gleaming with intelligence. "No," he said, "nobody ever asks, do they?"

He was talking about more than Genma's own past now. And it was a dangerous thing to say, no matter how true it was. But nobody ever asked in Konoha; too afraid that if they did, they wouldn't be able to keep up their facade as the "nicest" of the Hidden Villages. Too afraid of unearthing all the skeletons hidden in the soil under the fallen leaves. And there were just oh-so many skeletons under there, so many crushed and twisted and splintered bones just waiting to be unearthed.

And now Kakashi had started digging.

~

*yes, the Uchiha have been massacred (minus the women and children who weren't of Academy age, as we learned about in Kakashi's POV a few chapters back, but since that was a while ago, I thought I'd put in a reminder), but Sansa doesn't know about it. But yeah, I just thought I'd remind you because it was a while ago :)