In a valley between dunes, right next to a small oasis, a cluster of tents granted some respite from the sun's unforgiving heat. Within one of these tents, a bandaged man slowly placed a scroll back on a low coffee table, his fingers moving a calligraphy brush with precision born out of decades of experience to trace the opportune code that would enable his orders for the North Front.
Once the one-eyed man was done, he sealed the contents of the scroll with a swift application of fuinjutsu and threw it at his closest operative, who departed in order to follow the prders he had already received.
The Elder listened in the silence for a few seconds, until only the sound of the evershifting sands carried by the constant wind of Kaze no Kuni remained.
Done with his most pressing task, Shimura Danzo's lone eye closed, and he left himself drift in a state of semi meditation that allowed him to quickly track the several parrallel plans he had ongoing to secure the victory of his homecountry.
The last, even if maybe hastily devised, plan was going to be a success. Like he often did, Danzo double checked the resources spent against the weight of the possible gain, events and people taking the shape of unfeeling and dead numbers in his head so that he could be sure of his choiches.
The mixture of defective results of the Root program and weak members were obviously less valuable than a full blooded Uzumaki loyal to Konohagakure.
It was simple, was it not?
The red-headed girl had been rescued from Iwa after her attempt to escape the war-torn Kusa, she had a brief experience of peace and safety in the land of Fire, only for that quiet and peace to be broken by his less useful Root agents, who had the orders to bring the captive towards him, almost intercepting the planned travel of Jiraya while they carried just enough proof to point at their loyalty to Kumo.
The girl was either to be rescued by the Toad Summoner travelling with the Jinchuriki or she was to escape and seek refuge with Danzo. It was too late for the one-eyed warhawk to turn her into a useful asset, but he would be properly courteous while hinting at the possibility of... repayment.
By the time the Uzumaki girl started to feel unease at Danzo's presence, Jiraya would randevouz with his forces, learn of her, and fueled by his distaste and distrust of Hiruzen's old teammate, coupled with the familial ties with the Jinchuriki, he would take the girl to safety, once again saving her from the clutches of less than auspicable circumstances.
As an added gain, Konoha not only would manage to revive the Uzumaki blooline, but there would be alternatives for the sealing the Kyubi when the time came.
Truly, loyalty is easy to engineer. The one-eyed man didn't change his expression, but from the reports, this war was bringing more and more resources to Konoha: the only true menace were Kumo and somewhat Iwa, which still lacked the numbers and the skill necessary to be an actual treath to the land of fire. Onoki's successor wasn't cut of the same cloth of the Sandaime.
In truth, the only wild variable was the Nibi, which had been spotted in a couple of occasions before it levelled areas of the stony environment of Iwa.
Now that the south and east of Konohagakure were safe, at least in terms of potentially country-breaking damage, with Kiri still trying to put itself back together under the guide of a Kage that had won a civil war, thusly guaranteeing herself the dislike of at least pert of the people, the only work left was to set the game to deal with Kumo, which had gained a foothold within the forests of Hi no Kuni.
It was then that he realized that there was foreign chakra in his coils.
With an ease that betrayed his experience, Danzo Shimura broke the illusion that the shifting sound of the evermoving sand had triggered, and with his cane in hand, he steadily left his tent, his chakra ready to unlock the fuinjutsu that kept him from making full use of his abilities.
When his lone eye landed on the 30 members strong platoon he kept around himself, all ranking from seasoned chunin to jonin, with a smattering of Root agents gifted with esoteric abilities that had been extensively trained, he paused: moving languidly among the tents, as if dancing, there was something that rose many alarms in the veteran.
A blood red rattle snake sized like three horses put together moved quietly between his forces, its rattle echoing the sound of the shifting sand to sneak an area of effect genjutsu over Danzo's forces. When the summon, because it couldn't be anything else, noticed the one-eyed leader of Root, he seemed to smile while its forked tongue hissed in the warm air of the desert.
But it wasn't the creator of the annoyingly dangerous auditory illusion that brought Danzo to immediately start the process of undoing the seals and locks on his arm.
In front of him, blue armour glinting in the sun, Daiki was openly smiling, Konohagakure's headband mockingly sitting on his brow.
He hadn't changed that much, at least in appearance, but where his chakra had before been blazing and almost openly challenging the rest of the world, he was now controlled, almost like the surface of a lake in absence of wind.
Ripples where there, his chakra capacity was simply too large to disappear completely unless he used some esoeric ability granted from his summons, but it was... controlled.
And for the first time since his death, Danzo was reminded of Hiruzen Sarutobi. Vastly powerful, yet controlled. Focused, yet relaxed.
And above all, dangerous.
It was then that a blade removed the head from Danzo's shoulders.
As his vision started to darken, blood leaving his brain faster than he would have liked, he immediately relized his predictament, and ready as he was, his chakra acted while he forced open the eye he kept hidden under the bandages: "Izanagi."
...
Jiraya wasn't having a good day.
It had started with his foolish apprentice attempting to randomly wake him by dumping enough chakra into a E-rank Suiton manipulation that he managed to extract a couple of liters of the precious liquid out of dry air, following by his limited chakra sensing spotting a frightened presence that he could easily intercept.
Stumbling onto an Uzumaki in full desert stank to high heaven, double so when he had been relayed some reports of this particular red-head, one that Danzo wanted to get his hands on, and one that obviously had somehow gained Naruto's unending protection in virtue of sharing a simple Surname.
He had to slow down and to spend part of the sadly small water reserves he carried in his scrolls to make sure that the girl wouldn't simply die out of exaustion, the girl was unsure about them even after Jiraya and Naruto basically saved her life, and her cry of alarm was the only thing that stopped the Toad Sage from being skewered as his little group moved across the sands.
The blade glinted sharply in the air at a speed that belied the skill of the user, which quickly revealed itself as one of the worse possible opponents for Jiraya to face.
With no hesitation whatsoever, chakra surged through the white mane of the Toad Sage, who turned himself in a spinning ball of steely spikes that deflected the impressive shurikenjutsu while he fluctuated his chakra in order to break through the illusion he had been dropped into.
His wooden sandals kicked off the sand and flung him towards his two other companions while he created a Tsuchi bunshing from the sand beneath him, who immediately collided with the horribly fast form of the attacker, which broke into a murder of crows.
Jiraya's eyes widened in something that in a less experienced man would have been fear when they landed on his apprentice.
In front of the red-headed Uzumaki, Itachi Uchiha started to plunge his kunai, only for Naruto to explode in a whirwind of movement almost too fast to follow.
Following the orders he had been given, in fact, as soon as the blonde haired jinchuriki had spotted the cloack with red clouds, he started to dump all of his chakra into body enhancement, something that he couldn't do without damaging himself because of his atrocious control, but nevertheless something he needed if he wanted a hope to follow the events around himself.
So, while his muscles tore and his ligaments strained, a toxic-feeling red chakra started to seep through his skin, his whiskers marks darkening as the red-headed sensor, because of course she had to be so sensitive to the people around her, turned her back and ran, terror whipping at her heels.
Then Jiraya barreled into Itachi Uchiha, a shadow clone grabbing Naruto and trying to follow the sprinting redhead that hadn't hesitated to flee, and the fight was on.
...
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