Sarutobi’s combined air-flame dragon roasted him quite thoroughly, forcing him to burn a second rez. Then a squad of senior ANBU arrived to assist, and things went rapidly downhill for the Snake Sannin. It wasn’t long before he was running for his life, with Anko and a squad of jounin in hot pursuit. With the changes I’d made to her seal Orochimaru was in for a hell of a surprise when she caught him, and I already had a shadow clone waiting in the woods to make sure he didn’t somehow slip away. My new clan’s first retainer was going to get her fondest wish today.
Meanwhile, the rest of the invasion was meeting a similarly ignominious end.
Outside the walls, my demon aspect intercepted a certain giant snake summon in the forest just beyond the kill zone. With a teenage body that looked more like an Uchiha that my real self, she didn’t have to hold back for fear of being connected to me. So she used her Sharingan to control the giant snake our enemies had summoned, sending it back to attack their own ranks while she crept about assassinating their leaders. With no quick way to breach Konoha’s walls the assault quickly ground to a halt, and that was before Jiraiya arrived on the scene to take charge.
Inside the walls, dozens of sleeper agents and infiltrators were springing into action, only to find themselves badly outnumbered by Naruto’s clones. He’d left hundreds of them wandering around town, with a few of Hinata’s deployed with them for reconnaissance. So all over Konoha, civilians and academy students were finding themselves being rescued in the nick of time by the village pariah. A dozen sabotage teams were intercepted and taken down before they could perform their missions, and as a result Konoha’s defense never dissolved into chaos the way Orochimaru had intended. There would still be casualties, but not many of them.
Another of Hinata’s clones followed the retreat of the Sand siblings, subduing all three of them with a brief display of her full skills that no reliable witness would be around to report. Gaara never even had a chance to transform. Shikamaru and a scratch team of genin arrived on the scene a few minutes later, and she spent the rest of the afternoon pretending to be the real Hinata.
Because it was important for everyone to have a good alibi.
The guards outside the heavy steel door fell to Hinata’s surprise attack almost instantly. I disarmed the alarm seals as she picked the lock, and then we were inside.
The cavernous space of Root’s secret base stretched out before us.
We were near the top of the main chamber, on a small balcony that served as a landing for a long, winding stairway build into one wall of the room. Far below us a small cluster of ninja were gathered, surrounding a scowling old man. Our target.
“We will wait here until the fighting dies away,” he was saying. “Then we will emerge to see what has come of Sarutobi’s foolishness.”
I dropped off the railing, and fell through two hundred feet of empty space to land lightly just outside the group.
“I knew you were a traitor, Danzo,” I said casually. “But I didn’t realize you were a coward as well.”
I was in my adult form, wearing the same armor I’d used for my battle with Nagato, which made me a complete unknown to them. They were instantly on guard, scanning the dimness around them for more intruders.
“Who are you?” The old man demanded. “How did you find this place?”
“I’m just a gardener, Danzo. You see, Konoha doesn’t need a bunch of self-righteous psychos like you lurking in the shadows making problems for the Hokage, so I’ve decided to put a stop to you. One way or another, Root will cease to exist today.”
“You’re a fool if you think the two of you can defeat us all, girl.”
He was as skilled as I thought, to have spotted Hinata before she revealed herself.
He pulled aside the bandages over his right eye to reveal the implanted Sharingan beneath, and tried to snare me with a Tsukuyomi. But I’d left all my darkness in my other two aspects, and my chakra was pure gold. In this state you could more easily drown water than bind me with misery.
I shook my head gently, and filled the area with knockout gas without so much as a twitch of my fingers.
“So predictable, Danzo. I’m not a fool at all. I’m just that good.”
Two thirds of his men collapsed, while most of the rest looked around wildly and did replacements to take to the shadows. Hinata would take care of those, assuming the gas they’d breathed didn’t get them. Danzo must have been immune, since he didn’t bother to evade. Instead he ripped the bandages from his arm, revealing more than a dozen Sharingan eyes implanted all over it.
His attempt to use Amaterasu on me worked no better than the genjutsu, of course.
Danzo was a tough old coot, but age had slowed his reflexes and he’d never been on my level to begin with. I opened six gates for a moment as I flashed in to strike at his arm with a sword pulled from my mindscape, and severed it at the shoulder before he could begin to dodge. I plucked out his Sharingan eye for good measure, and tossed it to the floor as I stepped back to put my blade to his throat. The stump of his arm didn’t bleed nearly as much as it should have. But then, I knew he’d had all sorts of experimental medical techniques used on himself.
Hinata appeared at my side.
“Everyone is accounted for,” she said softly. She was adult and armored just like me, and I caught Danzo’s momentary shock as he realized she was a Hyuuga.
I nodded. “Thank you. You know, Danzo, my friend here wanted to see if we could inflict as much pain on you as you’ve caused to others. She’s pretty creative, and I can heal anything she does, so we might actually be able to do it if we put our minds to it. But I’ve been feeling more merciful than usual lately, and I know having that many Sharingan eyes stuck in you would drive anyone crazy.”
“So I’m going to give you one chance to wise up. I’m going to replace that arm with a normal one, and the eye too, and if you meet my conditions I’ll let you go. If not, you die and all your agents get delivered unconscious to the Torture & Interrogation section.”
He considered this for a moment. “What conditions?”
“First, you disband Root and stick with political moves that are actually legal. If you can’t convince the Hokage that your ideas are the way to go, that means you don’t get to use them. Second, you arrange a meeting with Itachi Uchiha for me. And third, you stop using your influence to block Uzumaki Naruto’s career. After the show he put on today the only way he could fail to be promoted is if you call in favors to oppose it, so if he isn’t wearing a chuunin vest tomorrow I’ll be back.”
“Do we have a deal?”
“It seems I have no choice,” he said sourly.
“Good.” I dismissed the sword, and reached out to touch his shoulder. Growing his arm back took only a moment, and his missing eye was no harder. Then I took Hinata’s hand, and pulled us both directly into my mindscape.
The invasion was crushed so soundly that there was no trace anything had happened when we gathered in the square before the Hokage’s office the next day. Sarutobi gave a nice little speech about the Will of Fire and the true king of Konoha, and handed out four promotions.
As the crowd broke up Naruto shrugged on his new chuunin vest with the biggest grin I’d ever seen.
“Finally!” He exclaimed. “I don’t know what you girls did that I never thought of, but thank you! The city is saved, the snake freak is gone, and we all got promoted. Did we miss anything?”
“Father has acknowledged me as his heir,” Hinata added in that expressionless tone the Hyuuga always affect. Then her face broke into a rueful grin. “I can’t believe how many years the looping me spent on clan politics. I can be running things there in six months, or we can all elope tomorrow. As long as we can be together I’m happy either way, but I’ll need to know which one you want in the next few days.”