Ch248. Uprooting 2

Tsunade jumped up to avoid the thrown kunais while also throwing a handful back against her assailants. From her five kunai, only two hit a purchase, telling her the ROOT ANBU could dodge. Huh... who knew.

This surprised Tsunade for the briefest split of a second since the strength behind her throw was something no B-ranked ninja could ever evade without getting at least a cut to show for it. Two of the three who managed to dodge were instantly filled as A-ranked threats in Tsunade's brain, causing them to jump right to the top of her 'to be eliminated' list while the last lost a bit of muscle from his upper arm in the attempt.

ROOT didn't have many A-rank shinobi in their midst. They were mostly B-rank. Capable, good at working together, ruthless, emotionless, completely fine with dying to get the job done... but not A-rank powerhouses. That told Tsunade the three who dodged were one of the best Danzo had in the room.

Danzo did not train powerhouses. He trained capable but controllable assassins. That meant his ninjas had to be easily disposed of the second they did something he didn't like. It wouldn't be good to make someone in ROOT strong enough to oppose him. Yes... together, his ROOT ninjas could face and take down A-rankers and even some weaker S-rankers depending on the circumstances and the acceptable losses ratio. Alone, however, they were mostly high B-rank ninjas who overspecialized in stealth and assassination.

Tsunade dropped back to the ground, frowning as she noticed the support pillars in the room having cracks all over them. With a sigh, she let the downward momentum from her fall lead her arm down and slammed her palm into the ground while channeling Mokuton chakra into it.

The playtime was over...

"Wood Release: Fuck you!"

Thick tree trunks smashed through the floor, unstoppably growing upward and causing the ROOT ninjas to jump around in an attempt to avoid the surprisingly razor-sharp bark on the trees. Worst, however, were the branches that sprang up shortly after. Seeing one of them shredded to gory chunks of meat and organs, the ROOT ninjas instantly recognized the threat of the wooden hell they found themselves in. They didn't have too much time to contemplate this though. The created forest got thicker the higher the treetops reached until they hit the roof of the room, causing it to violently shudder as the trees creaked under the sudden pressure put on them. Finding it impossible to grow upwards now that they supported the roof, the trees did something that actually managed to get an emotion out of the scratched and gashed ROOT ninjas. They grew in volume, spreading to the sides, filling the room in more and more razor-sharp branches that had the same cutting power as wind-enhanced chakra-metal. Needless to say, the roots were reintroduced to despair.

Tsunade impassively stood in the middle of the occurring massacre with her eyes closed as she focused her senses to flow her chakra through the trees, guiding their growth and sharpening the bark with a smirk on her face. A girl gotta love her superb chakra control.

It was utterly impossible to see anything in the room through the overgrown branches but that didn't matter as Tsunade could finely sense every living being in the room. Frankly, at first, she only created the forest to make new support pillars for the room but then she reconsidered. She was not dealing with Danzo's real elites. These were all just grunts. Some of them were skilled but they were essentially still unimportant run-of-the-mill grunts.

As such, Tsunade decided to use this opportunity for a chakra control practice.

The ROOT ninjas might have had a chance if the fight was fought above the surface. Alas, it was not. They were currently trapped deep underground with nowhere to run now that the environment itself was turned against them, aiming to kill them.

Despair gripped their hearts as they realized the hopelessness of the situation. Some of them dying completely blank, incapable of feeling even the slightest emotion, while others cursed their fate and the cruelty of the world. Not one of them actually chose to become a ROOT ninja and now, they would die because of it. Sadly, such was the nature of the shinobi world...

Twenty seconds.

That's how long it took for Tsunade's half-assed, more of a chakra control exercise created on the fly than a real Jutsu, Wood Release Technique to shred the ROOT ninjas to bloody pieces without any way for them to resist as their blood painted the forest crimson.

Tsunade, on the other hand, was elated. Not because of the death she caused. That didn't even enter her mind. She long ago made peace with her existence as a killer. She became genin at six and killed her first person when she was six years and seven months old. People usually forget and focus on her reputation as a healer but it is the healers who make for the best killers. The number of lives ended by her hands far outstretched the numbers she saved, And she was considered the best medic in the world! Honestly, Tsunade couldn't really bother caring anymore as she registered the twinge of guilt and showed it into the dark recesses of her mind, forgetting about it a second later. These ROOT ninjas were not worth more thought than the training dummies in her courtyard.

No... Tsunade was elated because she slowly started to figure out how to make her forests permanent like Grandpa Hashirama! She simply had to jump and shriek from the sheer joy she felt!

Her primary mission and the reason why she even bothered to infiltrate Konoha and ROOT base pushed back, Tsunade proceeded to happily whistle and experiment with her newfound knowledge while the Konoha's underground tunnels changed into an orchestra of pain-filled shrieks, despairing screams, and blood-curling wails, all melding into one a soul-chilling symphony supporting her happy tune of whistles and hums.

'Danzo might have been onto something with his fixation on roots.' Tsunade admitted inwardly as a mischievous smile spread through her face. 'In that case, let me create the real roots of Konoha!'

That was the last time anyone could access the underground tunnels of Konoha without fearing for his life because of the living razor-sharp vines that suddenly appeared in there and killed anyone brave enough to venture too far down.

Nobody ever discovered what laid in the center of Konoha's underground tunnels.

And Tsunade?

Well, she had a new safehouse.

...

The council meeting finally finished, tired Danzo arrived home, utterly drained from all the bickering between the ninja council and the civilian council about who gets to pay what taxes. Not for the first time, he cursed Hiruzen for not slaughtering the impudent powerless fools on the civilian council. Sure, he made good use of them, manipulating them to get what he wanted, but even he could recognize how much their very existence weakened Konoha.

'Sarutobi sure as hell became more cut-throat after the Uchiha massacre.' Danzo let his impassive facade slip into a natural scowl as he remembered that debacle, 'I didn't even acquire ONE damned pair of these eyes. Damn Uchihas! Damn Itachi! To think he would destroy every single pair of eyes as he killed his clan... I can't even gut his little brother as the twerp doesn't even have his Sharingan awakened yet!' He seethed.

The Uchiha massacre that happened a few months prior was the biggest mistake of his career as the Yami no Shinobi. The only real haul was Shisui's eye and while that was marvelous, it still hurt to see all that coordination, all that work, literal years of spreading rumors and distrust against the Uchiha clan, go to waste just because he didn't foresee Uchihas utilize something similar to Hyuuga's Caged Bird Seal that destroyed their eyes upon their deaths.

Worse yet, Konoha lost an entire clan and was weakened without him even getting anything substantial in return! Sarutobi even refused to let him copy the Uchiha Jutsu scrolls, quoting they belong to Sasuke! What a load of...

The irritated Danzo finally reached his living room, stiffening right after he entered the room. His mind briefly wondered what was wrong before the answer sprang into its forefront as instincts kicked in...

He smelt a faint scent of blood.

Danzo quickly switched the light on and... for the first time in the last twenty years, he bent at the waist and puked his guts out.

His whole living room was caked in liters of blood, pieces of organs, splinters of bones...

The worst were the hundreds of eyeballs put on the table, arranged to stare right at him.

The most disturbing were the penises mockingly hanging from the ceiling.

The most informative was the two hundred and sixty-seven eyeless and tongueless heads of his ROOT operatives nailed to the wall of his living room straight through their forehead with wooden spikes.

Danzo quickly realized the rest of their bodies was currently scattered through his living room in the likeness of a poorly shredded mush, giving off such a strong putrid scent even he couldn't take it despite all of his experience.

As he retched, Danzo inwardly thanked Kami that five of his best ninjas were with him during the meeting so their heads were still firmly attached to their bodies. Anyone who could cause... this... would most likely have no problem dealing with them and it would be a heavy hit to lose Torune or Fu.

Danzo was not a moron nor a fool. He instantly noticed the wooden spikes used to nail the heads to the walls and took it for what it was. A message. It was wood needed to create the chakra paper. It was Mokuton wood only found in the forests around Konoha.

Danzo briefly wondered if Hiruzen got far bolder than he imagined but that notion was quickly forgotten. No... this was not Hiruzen. Danzo refused to believe such an assumption. Pigs would fly sooner than the old shitflinger monkey learned how to fling his shit again.

Taking a deep breath, Danzo looked upwards in a search of a brief reprieve from the gruesome sight and potent smell of blood... only for his eye to widen as he discovered the intestines of his late subordinates nailed into the ceiling and forming a message,

'A tree with shallow ROOTs can be easily uprooted. By the way, thank you for the Sharingans. Sorry for not leaving even one for you. You know how it is. They are quite rare! Signed, your friendly neighbor Yozora.'

Needless to say, Danzo was not amused.