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Sarutobi Hiruzen had intended to wait a few more days before issuing the order.
The situation at the Lightning Country front was critical but not yet beyond management. Minato was holding. The line had not collapsed entirely. A few more days might have clarified the picture and allowed a more measured response.
Then the news arrived, and measured responses ceased to be relevant.
........
"The Nine-Tails Jinchūriki has disappeared?"
The freshly brewed tea left Danzo's hand before he had consciously decided to set it down. The cup struck the floor and shattered. In the silence that followed, no one moved to address it.
Aburame Tatsuma, who had delivered the report, was still pale from the moment he had received it himself, the color not yet returned to his face. The Root guards surrounding them had gone completely still, the particular stillness of experienced shinobi encountering information that their training had not prepared them for. Even among operatives conditioned to suppress emotional response, this news had produced something that moved through the room like a current through still water.
"There was an Anbu detachment assigned to guard the jinchūriki at all times," Danzo said. His voice was quiet, which somehow made it carry further than if he had raised it. "Where are they? And the Barrier Division? What exactly have they been doing?"
The Root members present lowered their heads in unison. No one spoke. Danzo's usual restraint had given way to something colder and more specific, and his favorite tea set lay in pieces on the floor, which told everyone in the room more than his words did about the weight of what had just arrived.
"She is from the Uzumaki clan." Orochimaru's voice came from a direction no one had been watching. He had appeared without announcement, a scroll held loosely in one hand, his expression carrying genuine concern beneath the usual surface quality of detached observation. "The Barrier Division's sealing techniques are insufficient to hold her. And a woman blinded by love almost certainly has a specific destination in mind."
The implication did not require elaboration. Everyone in the room understood where she was going and why.
"The Barrier Division's function is detection, not containment," Danzo said, pulling his attention back from the specific and toward the immediate. "We will address the failures of procedure later. The priority now is return."
........
He knew the weight of what a Biju represented.
In the days since the body's adjustment had stabilized, he had worked through the inherited memories more comprehensively, filling in the gaps between general knowledge and specific understanding. The five great nations' relationship to their Biju was not simply a matter of military advantage, though it was certainly that. It was closer to the relationship between a great sect and its sacred artifacts in the Tao World, the objects that anchored a sect's fortune and power across generations. The head of a sect might die and be replaced. The artifact had to be preserved regardless of the cost.
A Hokage could be replaced.
A Biju, once lost, was almost certainly lost permanently.
The jinchūriki fleeing was a manageable problem. A jinchūriki fleeing with the Biju still sealed inside her was something else entirely, and the distinction between the two was the difference between a disciplinary matter and a catastrophe.
"Two years ago," Danzo said, "when Konoha stood alone against four nations and faced the genuine possibility of destruction, the jinchūriki did not leave this village a single step. The war is nearly finished. The pressure has eased. And this is when it happens."
He let the observation settle.
"If I were in Hiruzen's position, I would step down as an act of accountability."
........
"The teacher's order reached me as well," Orochimaru said, turning the scroll in his hands. He was already performing the calculation of costs against benefits, the question of whether the battlefield was worth his time when the experiments at base were currently running without interruption. He shifted the weight of the decision sideways with the ease of long practice. "What are we going to do?"
"Do as you wish," Danzo said. "I will handle Hiruzen directly."
Orochimaru received this with visible relief, dissolved into smoke, and was gone before the dissipation finished.
........
The Hokage's residence was already crowded when Danzo arrived.
Jonins filled the lower hall, their voices overlapping in the particular way that voices overlap when a large number of people are alarmed and have not yet been given a direction in which to direct that alarm. Sarutobi Hiruzen sat at the front of the room, visible exhaustion in the lines of his face, his hat pulled forward slightly as though he could reduce his exposure to the situation by reducing his visibility within it.
"Sandaime Hokage-sama, the jinchūriki cannot be allowed further indulgence." The voice came from somewhere in the gathered jonins, sharp and certain with the confidence of someone who has been waiting for an opportunity. "She is not a native villager. Her value exists solely as a vessel. If another nation captures her, we lose the Biju."
Agreement moved through parts of the crowd. Other parts stayed quiet.
Nara Shikaku stood among the quiet ones. Those who had worked closely with Minato, who understood what was actually at stake beyond the political opportunity the situation presented, kept their silence and waited. A jinchūriki who had left the village, regardless of the circumstances behind the departure, could technically be declared a missing-nin. The people in the room who wanted to use this moment to undermine Namikaze Minato's rising influence were not being subtle about their intentions.
"The priority is return," Hiruzen said, his voice carrying the tired authority of a man who has been managing competing factions for decades and has not yet found a method that makes it less exhausting. "Even if force becomes necessary. Where is the intelligence report? Why has nothing come through yet?"
"She has gone to the Lightning Country front," someone said. "Minato is there. Anyone who knows her knows exactly where she is headed."
The room erupted briefly.
........
The door opened with a sound that ended the noise more effectively than any order could have.
Danzo walked in.
Black cloak. White shirt. Expression carrying the particular quality of someone who has already assessed the situation and found most of the people in the room to be a secondary consideration at best. His gaze moved across the assembled jonins, and the room went quiet with the speed of a reflex.
"Hiruzen." His voice was flat and direct. "I told you the jinchūriki's protection should have been placed under Root's authority."
Mitokado Homura was already on his feet, the practiced smoothness of a long-serving adviser managing a collision between two immovable forces. "This is not the moment for that conversation, Danzo. We need solutions."
Anbu moved a chair into position beside Sarutobi Hiruzen without being asked, reading the room accurately. Danzo sat.
He began issuing orders.
"Notify the border posts by the fastest available messenger bird. Dispatch three squads for retrieval. If the jinchūriki resists, the objective is detention, not engagement. Root will handle the actual return operation."
The head of intelligence looked toward Sarutobi Hiruzen. The Hokage said nothing. The intelligence chief nodded once and vanished using Shunshin before the decision could become more complicated.
"Shikaku." Danzo turned to where Nara Shikaku stood. "You will assume temporary command of the jonin unit. Thirty minutes. Then we move to the Lightning Country front together."
Shikaku's expression carried the particular quality of a brilliant mind acknowledging a situation it cannot improve through cleverness alone. He smiled without warmth and nodded.
"Should Orochimaru-sama be notified?"
"I do not repeat myself."
Shikaku vanished. Most of the jonins in the room went with him, the hall emptying with the rapid efficiency of people who had been ready to move and had simply needed the order. Konoha's primary strike force had been waiting for this since the first reports from the Lightning front arrived. The waiting was over.
........
"Iwagakure's main force has not yet committed," Danzo said, addressing those who remained. "Ōnoki is waiting. He wants Kumogakure and Konoha to bleed each other further before he decides which direction serves him better. While I lead the forward deployment, the village's internal defense requires maximum vigilance. No gaps."
"Yes, sir."
The remaining jonins cleared the hall.
The silence that settled afterward was the particular silence of a room that has been very full and is now almost empty, the residue of urgency still present in the air.
Sarutobi Hiruzen looked at the man sitting beside him with an expression that carried several decades of history in it, history that was complicated in ways that neither of them had ever found adequate language for.
"Danzo." His voice was quieter now, stripped of the formal register. "I am sorry. I am always asking you to deal with consequences that my decisions created."
Danzo rose from the chair.
He looked at his eternal rival for a moment, at the face that carried the specific tiredness of a man who has held a position of absolute responsibility for a very long time and has paid the price of it in ways that do not show up in any official record.
"I am not doing this for you," Danzo said.
He turned toward the door.
"I am doing it for the village."