Danzo Shimura sat in his office in his house, impassively looking at some documents with a composed poise. But inwardly, he was brooding.
The attack on the ROOT base yesterday was a disaster. He had lost thirty-nine ninjas. Worse yet, since the attack hit the core of his base, among these thirty-nine were some of his most capable subordinates. He will need at least two years to train their replacements to a similar level.
The only saving grace in this ordeal was that Torune and Fu were on a mission so they were not present during the meeting.
Danzo had to admit that whoever attacked him was good. They managed to kill him too. And that made Danzo even more furious.
Unlike capable well-trained ninja subordinates, Sharingan was a limited resource. And Danzo did not lose just one, but two of them yesterday. Without even seeing the shadow of his opponent! He still had no idea who was responsible too. It was maddening.
Restraining the urge to throw his coffee mug at the wall, Danzo took a subtle calming breath.
Just remembering how he barely managed to cast Izanagi in time before the explosions ripped his body apart... only for the ceiling to collapse on top of him five seconds after he resurrected, wasting yet another Sharingan, was enough to make him furious.
But he was a ninja and letting himself be driven by his emotions was unbecoming. He was stronger than that.
After the incident, when Danzo finally managed to dig himself out of the rubble of his previous base, he couldn't even rest. The village was put under a state of emergency and Danzo was called for a council meeting the second he reached his home.
He remembered he sat there, in the council room, frustrated as he listened to Hiruzen and his council going through the damage report and deciding how to deal with the 'natural disaster' that hit Konoha.
He couldn't even tell Hiruzen he was attacked, because ROOT was supposed to be disbanded. He couldn't even twitch in a wrong way because Hiruzen didn't become the Hokage by sheer dumb luck. Danzo knew his old friend was watching him like a hawk throughout the entire meeting.
He probably suspected something. He was not stupid. Just... old and too weary to act on his suspicions because he didn't want to deal with the outcome.
Something Danzo used for all it was worth over the years.
The meeting was a very uncomfortable few hours and the fact he had to go through such an experience after living through his death two times did not help Danzo's sour mood at all.
"So, these are the most likely suspects." Danzo said, his voice carrying just the lightest touch of anger as he looked at the documents on his table.
There were photos of several ninjas and info on them.
"Orochimaru, Jiraiya," He started reading the names, mentally going through the reasons why each individual would attack him. Many had a reason. But only a few had the means and skill to do something like this.
After an hour and a half of going through the files, Danzo's eyes fell on a certain document and he frowned as he took it into his hands, "... Ren. The chunin from the Barrier Corps." He drummed his finger on the table, deep in thought. "No. He probably wouldn't have the necessary skill for something like this."
Danzo muttered with a frown. It was suspicious. After their meeting and Ren's subsequent rejection of his offer, Danzo sent one of his best assassination teams to deal with the problem.
It was just a lucky coincidence that this team had a mission in the Land of Waves with the goal of killing the commander of the Kiri outpost over there. Ren was nothing but an unimportant side objective. Something they should have dealt with in ten minutes before moving on to their main mission.
The chunin was just unlucky that he got the mission in the general direction Danzo's best assassins headed. He was simply at the wrong time at the wrong place.
Disposing of him wasn't supposed to be a problem. And yet, it was. Danzo lost his best assassination team and Ren survived. The main mission his subordinates embarked on was not fulfilled, allowing the Kiri ninjas to gain even more ground in the Land of Waves.
All in all, it was a total disaster. A textbook failure.
The official report stated something about his subordinates being 'luckily' caught in a massive amount of exploding tags, making Danzo's suspicions deepen even more.
Things like that sometimes happen. Danzo refrained from touching his supposedly missing eye. He too shouldn't have survived the battle where he lost it. He just got lucky.
He could believe that Ren got lucky too. But he still could not shake off the suspicious feeling the whole thing evoked in him.
Because if somebody had the motive to act against him, it would definitely be the man he had ordered killed. The attack was done through seals too and Ren was in the Barrier Corps.
But he was just a chunin. He was a ninja for barely a year and did not show any special aptitude so far. He did not invent any ground-breaking seal, just introduced some small innovations to several seals, earning his promotion to chunin rank.
He seemed to be a bit above average, not somebody capable of bombing the base of a secret military organization that he should not know existed.
The more Danzo thought about it, the bigger headache he had. Ren would have to be killed. Eventually. If for nothing else, then for managing to survive the last attempt on his life and killing his best assassination team.
The whole timing of the attack was very dubious. Danzo's guts were telling him Ren was suspicious but his mind was having a hard time coming up with a way a seventeen-year-old average ninja could manage to pull that attack off.
Danzo had seen many geniuses over the years. But not many could have done that after being a ninja for one year. The perpetrator managed to plant explosive seals on his subordinates without their knowledge. Without them noticing anything suspicious. Jonins had no clue they had been made into carriers for explosives.
It honestly baffled Danzo. He had no idea how that was even possible.
There were many surprising and seemingly impossible things in the world. Kids stronger than Jonins existed. There were many of those. If somebody told Danzo that Ren was strong enough to face off against his six Jonins head-on, he would find it hard to believe but he could accept it.
Stranger things happened in the world.
But a kid managing to plant lethal seals on several Jonins without them noticing a thing? Was this Ren supposed to be the second coming of the Fourth Hokage or something?
Not even Minato was this good at sealing arts at that age and he had help from Uzumaki Kushina during his studies of the arts.
No. Danzo didn't believe it possible that Ren could be behind the attack. Hiruzen, Orochimaru, Jiraiya, or some other S-rank ninja perhaps? They had the necessary skill in the sealing arts and the wealth of experience necessary to discover the base and plant the seals. But would they be so subtle about it?
Hiruzen was old, Jiraiya was a buffoon, and Orochimaru would boast at the first opportunity. Danzo pursed his lips. He couldn't determine anything from the information he had at hand.
Still...
"Have him followed." He looked at his subordinate who was patiently waiting in the shadows of the corner and pointed at Ren's file. "I want to know everything he does."
There was still a possibility that Ren was connected with the bombing. Maybe he was a spy for Orochimaru or some other village. Or maybe he wasn't. But Danzo didn't get to where he was by ignoring his gut feelings.
It was better to be safe than sorry.
"Yes, Lord Danzo." The masked ninja replied and vanished into the shadows.
With a frown still present on his face, Danzo put the file with Ren's ninja information back onto the table, his eyes intently watching Ren's registration photo as if trying to discover some secret he was missing.
Sighing, Danzo moved his gaze to the next file belonging to another suspect. He still had an entire stack of files on his table that he would have to go through and hopefully identify the most likely suspect.
He was starting to see why Hiruzen hated paperwork so much.