Mokuton Root Agent #6

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Mokuton Root Agent (SI)

Chapter 6

–Hiruzen Sarutobi–

Arriving at the council meeting hall, he sat on his seat at the center of the table, flanked by the two empty seats that signified the importance of the founding clans of Konoha, the Uchiha clan, and the Senju clan. He looked at the empty seat on his right and a melancholy feeling filled his heart. He could only imagine how his sensei would feel about the actions he had allowed to happen under his reign as Hokage. 

Fugaku and Hiashi soon arrived and sat on the two seats on his left. He then waited for Danzo and the others to arrive even though he knew for a fact that they were in the building. 

The atmosphere charged with chakra was nearly suffocating for all the clan heads present in the meeting. They had never seen their Hokage this angry. Even during all the tragedies that happened to him in his long life, they had never seen him express himself so openly outside of private quarters. All of them were tense as they waited with bated breaths for the reason for the meeting.

Finally, Danzo and the other councilmen arrived with Danzo leading the charge with his walking stick.

Danzo entered the room and paused slightly at the pressure in the room but with barely a hitch in his walking, he took his seat offered at the other end of the table, right in front of the Hokage seat with the other councilmen following suit.

"What do you have to say for yourself, Danzo?" He thundered out.

"I have no answer that will satisfy your question," Danzo replied.

"N-No answer? Are you kidding me?" Hiruzen stood up and slammed his hands on the table, cracking it. His chakra visibly flowed outwards into a ring around his body, making it an intimidating sight for anyone. But Danzo remained calm even as everybody else shuffled away from the clearly irate God of Shinobi.

He understood that Danzo had lied to him when he had ordered the experiments to stop once he realised that moving forward would have meant Human experimentation and according to the tests, the survival rate was abysmal.

"H-How many?" he questioned Danzo, his voice breaking.

Danzo remained stone-faced and said nothing in reply to his question, "How many died in your quest for power? How many lives did you destroy in pursuit of power?" he asked once again.

Seeing that Danzo was not replying, all the energy left him as he slumped back into his seat, "Guards, take him away. Make sure he is stripped of all his duties and remains under house arrest until I say so."

Danzo remained tight-lipped, assured of the rightness of his actions, even when he was being taken away by the ANBU commander, Monkey.

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–Tsume Inuzuka–

The first time the wave of cold chakra washed over her, her hair raised in bone-chilling fear as she remembered the last time something like this happened. She didn't know for how long she stood there, still like a statue, as the events of that dreadful night replayed in her mind.

Then the ANBU broke into her house and informed her about the council meeting. She barely managed to nod her head and collapsed immediately after the ANBU left, breathing heavily.

She somehow straggled to the bed where she took her pills and after circulating her chakra with the help of the Yamanaka pills, she calmed down.

"Nina, take care of Kiba for the night. I have a meeting to attend," she ordered Nina, the househelp.

Sometimes she cursed her sensory abilities. For some reason, she was born with the most sensitive nose as well as chakra sensitivity. Not as sensitive as Inabi, that man was a legend even among the Sensor Corps of Konoha, but more sensitive than almost all regular shinobi. 

Hokage-sama must have called for this meeting in response to whatever that was. As she stepped out of the house, clad in her gear, she came face to face with the village silhouette, which was normal but what was not normal was the giant tree that towered over the village now.

She was so stunned that she forgot to watch out for her next step and almost fell face-first onto the ground. Luckily she was a Jonin so she swiftly regained her balance and rushed to the Hokage Tower.

When she arrived at the tower, the atmosphere in the tower was drastically different from normal.

The ANBUs that were normally hidden were now standing guard in front of the meeting room in the open. 

She could feel their gazes on herself as the wartime barrier of the tower pinger her chakra and marked her as 'identified' in the sensor nets. As soon as her identity was confirmed, the secretary imperceptibly relaxed and opened the meeting room for me.

Inside, the atmosphere was even more charged as all the clan heads save for the Uchiha and the Hyuga along with the historically empty seats like Hatake or Senju seats, were present.

Likewise, everybody seemed tensed about the huge tree outside and the cold chakra issue. She could understand that. She was frozen stiff when that chakra hit her. It was so full of hate, that she almost thought it was the Nine Tails situation again.

Before she could ask anybody about it, her senses prickled as she felt the particular five-natured flavored chakra of Sandaime-sama ripple violently before it began to head in their direction.

All the heads in the room snapped towards the door as Sandaime-sama entered the room, bringing with him a wave of pressure that seemed to settle over everyone present. Fugaku Uchiha and Hiashi Hyuga followed suit.

The next scenes were something she had never thought she would see in her lifetime.

Sandaime-sama actually punishing Danzo for doing something horrible was long overdue. 

Guess it only took a very public event that brought up extremely traumatic memories for every single person here was just the thing Sandaime-sama needed to finally look at his dear friend's flaws.

She looked at Danzo as he was escorted out of the meeting by the commander of ANBU himself. Seems like Hokage-sama was actually serious about the punishment this time since he assigned his own son to do the task. That was important since she had attended a similar clan head meeting held by Yondaime-sama when he was still alive. He had suspected Danzo to have long infiltrated ANBU and after his passing, under Sandaime-sama's reign, Danzo had only grown more and more brazen in his attempts to gain control over ANBU. 

Monkey was also one of the only two Kage-level shinobis that Konoha had access to and assigning one of them to Danzo meant he shouldn't be able to contact his agents in the ANBU and do something drastic.

The atmosphere in the room turned from tense to curious after Danzo was escorted out of the room. Sandaime-sama must have realised it as well as he slumped in his seat and gestured to Fugaku, "I guess as the first of us to arrive on site, you can report the incident better. They'll know everything through the grapevine by tomorrow morning anyway."

Fugaku nodded stiffly and stood up, "An Uchiha policeman who is also an excellent sensor," he glanced at her at that statement, " on a regular patrol encountered an ANBU with an unusual chakra signature. Choosing not to engage in that situation, he chose to continue his patrol but then he felt the chakra signature slowly vanish from his senses which is consistent with people dying. Now he had worked in the hospitals to accurately identify chakra worms in the last war so he knew dying people's chakra signatures and as such, immediately rushed to the aid of the ANBU who had collapsed in the middle of the street, cold and unmoving. After arriving near the ANBU, he…"

As she heard more and more about the incident, the more she realised that the incident reeked of Danzo's involvement.

When she heard the part about the ANBU's probable age, she growled at the travesty of the minimal rights that the village afforded children. Similar expressions could be seen on the faces of all the others as well.

Sandaime-sama must have felt their anger as his shoulders slumped even further even though he had pulled his Hokage Hat over his face.

"That damn bastard. I always knew he couldn't be trusted," the Akimichi clan head growled out as his body unconsciously increased in size. Noticing that, he took deep breaths and reigned in his chakra, returning to his normal size. Inoichi and Shikaku both sported rigid expressions on their faces but their chakra belied the rage they must have felt inside. 

She winced in sympathy for them as she had been witness to the fierce fight the Ino-Shika-Cho trio had put up with Danzo when he had come knocking on their clan doors asking for children to put into his advanced training program.

They had sensed something was wrong at the moment but with Sandaime-sama on his side, Danzo got his way.

In the end, 6 children from their clans were pronounced dead from the burden of the training. That had served as a wake-up call for the other clans and together they had put enough pressure on Hokage-sama to stop that practice altogether. Faced with their collective pressure, he had been forced to cave to their demands and pass the law regarding the minimum age for active duty in the ninja corps which could only be subverted by ANBU recruitment or the Hokage's express permission along with council from the council head.

But that was not the thing that was the most important thing she heard at that meeting. The next thing she heard was what chilled the very air of the council meeting..

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Word Count - 1658

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