Mokuton Root Agent #9

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Mokuton Root Agent

Chapter 9

–Shinnosuke "Monkey" Sarutobi–

It was the Uzumaki strategy to use Fuinjutsu for everything. They used it for their Ninjutsu and their Genjutsu to drastically amplify the prowess of their jutsus. 

A basic C rank Genjutsu backed by a C-ranked Fuinjutsu often managed to trap even seasons chunins.

What he was seeing here was nothing less than an A-ranked Genjutsu powered by a B-ranked Fuinjutsu seal array. He was not even sure it was B-ranked since trying to unravel the seal would bring down the whole room on him.

He was not even sure why. This room held some important documents but nothing that Danzo would risk killing me for.

He knew that I knew he would not hurt me. Not when doing so would leave the village infinitely more vulnerable. 

There was a reason why the average ninja was not aware of me. I was the head of Konoha's ANBU, the most secretive organisation of the Hidden Village. It was literally my job to make sure nobody knew of me.

I was the one who battled the Raikage in a Taijutsu battle and came out of it alive. The higher-ups of the other villages were well aware of my existence and my propensity to disregard my own life in favour of winning at all costs. The only reason I was not in the Bingo Books was a tacit understanding between enemy villages to not advertise their ANBU prowess since all it would end up doing is increase the village's infamy and divert more and more missions to their village.

While he was trying his best to find a way to unravel the Fuinjutsu since that seemed the only way to figure out what was behind the Genjutsu, Kakashi snuck up behind him.

Well, snuck up would be generous since the brat was fine but he still had a ways to go to reach someone of his level, "So, what's gotten our esteemed commander stumped?" Ah, he had momentarily forgotten about the snark.

"Ah, Hound, I was wondering why it was so peaceful recently but then you had to remind me of your existence." He said.

Kakashi just deadpanned at him.

He shrugged and said, "Well, I was trying to decode this Double-Genjutsu Fuinjutsu array that Danzo had set up in this room before you came in with your silver-ass shining hair."

Kakashi had the audacity to move a hand through his hair and say, "Well, thank you. I do take extra care of them. Nice of you to notice and people say that you are a robot."

He waved his hand at Kakashi and said, "Come, take a look at this. I know you were taught at least this by your teacher and his wife. You should know the significance of today's fiasco so let's get to work."

He nodded seriously and went to work, injecting small streaks of white chakra into the outermost points of the Fuinjutsu array.

Eventually, the outermost array began to fade away, making way for the next array. Kakashi kept at it though. The closer the array was to the center, the more finely tuned chakra Kakashi had to expend to make sure that the array didn't implode and take the evidence with it.

The complexity of the array reminded him of the security measures he had seen in the Uzumaki village when he had visited the country as an exchange student of sorts when he was but a teenager.

The existence of this array raised some concerns in his head because as far as he knew, Mito-sama refused to teach anyone the signature Uzumaki Fuinjutsu to anyone but Kushina-san and he knew for a fact that Kushina-san didn't teach the core Fuinjutsu to anyone. Even Yondaime-sama only had limited access to her notes from time to time and self-learned most of the way.

He had asked her once, why she refused to do so and the answer he received was most enlightening.

Turns out that the reason advanced Fuinjutsu was not as common among the major villages, despite them getting getting significant amount of the Uzumaki inheritance, was that normal shinobi literally could not learn the more esoteric aspects of Fuinjutsu and the reason they were this few of Fuinjutsu Grandmasters was more due to the absence of adventurous Uzumaki who left a few kids outside rather than it being an actual talent issue. Fuinjutsu, at least the advanced aspects of it, could actually be termed as a Kekkei Genkai rather than something that could be learned.

Apparently, having funky hair colour was actually a sign of being of Uzumaki descent since the clan was known for having all sorts of colourful hairstyles. Naturally occurring Yellow, White and Red hair was the most common of the hair colours.

She had confided in him about the significance of this information since she believed that there were still some pure-blooded Uzumakis roaming the continent and while most of them will never give birth to the next generation as a form of spite, making sure that the art that the major villages coveted so much died with, some might not have been given a choice in that matter and as such, this information was supposed to be kept secret.

Yondaime-sama himself made it an S-class secret. He hadn't even revealed this to his father because frankly, he still had some doubts about Konoha's involvement in the fall of Uzu.

The existence of this array only further solidified his suspicions.

While he was ruminating on his newfound suspicions, Kakashi finally decoded the array and promptly fell down, now dangerously low on chakra.

He caught him and threw him to Rat who caught him easily, "Take him to the hospital. Tell him that I'll destroy his entire book collection if he tries to leave without my say-so."

Rat nodded silently and left the base.

The Fuinjutsu that was powering the Genjutsu had fallen apart from Kakashi's ministrations, leaving behind a potent but well within his means to deal with, Genjutsu.

As he approached the corner once again, this time, he felt the Genjutsu take a hold of him before he flexed his chakra two times in a row for the redundancy to fall apart and reveal a shelf, an ordinary shelf but given all the smokes and screens, he would be foolish to believe that.

Nearing the corner of the shelf, he found a card stuck behind the shelf's lining. Carefully checking for any traps, he slowly removed the card from the back of the shelf's metal lining.

Looking it over, he couldn't find anything special about it other than it being made of chakra metal which was prohibitively expensive but had the added benefit of having any seals engraved on it to be completely invisible and permanent.

He tried injecting some of his chakra into the card to check if it reacted in any way. Even cycling through all the 4 chakra natures he had access to didn't give off any visible reaction.

Maybe it needed a different identification procedure?

He tried to coat the entire card in his chakra, trying to pinpoint any areas where his chakra fluctuated. He was essentially using his chakra and his exceptional chakra control to form a chakra radar of sorts.

His brows furrowed as the task at hand took all his attention to make sure that the chakra threads didn't snap. Soon, he pinpointed about a dozen different points where chakra went in but didn't come out. That could mean a number of things but with all the clues he had gathered in the past hour or so, it meant that the card had an identification network but it was incomplete. 

There were about a dozen connection points where the other part needed to be connected and from there it would carry out its intended function.

As if having an epiphany, he suddenly stood up ramrod straight and looked towards the decoded Fuinjutsu array.

The center of the array looked suspiciously rectangular to him. Carefully crouching over, he held up the metal card with chakra threads and floated it above the Fuinjutsu array. 

As soon as the card was dropped in the centre array, it lit up in a blinding white light.

The last thing that went through his mind as he felt himself being transported somewhere through means similar to Yondaime's Hiraishin was the fact that the bastard Kakashi was as useless as ever. 

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–Hiruzen Sarutobi–

As he looked upon the prone form of his once dear friend, he thought about what the future would bring upon them.

He would be the first person to admit that he was not the right choice for the position of Hokage after Minato died. Not with Biwako dead, his successor gone and the village having gone through the biggest tragedy of its life. Then his son in all but blood, the one whom he loved even more than Shinnosuke and Asuma, Orochimaru, had betrayed him and the principles upon which the village was built upon, and suddenly, it was as if he was alone in the world, shouldering the burden of ensuring safe lives for tens of thousands of people all by himself. People he could look to for support, his students, his sons, all thought of him as the unshakable pillar and he never had the heart to go looking for their assistance.

Every day that he saw people looking up at him for guidance, for reassurance, for help, for support, for strength, he broke up a bit inside.

Honestly, after forsaking the hat, he felt lighter than he did in decades.

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Word Count - 1621

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