Stumbling upon the financial statements, the shadow clone quickly went through several folders until he found his target - the ownership of the business he'd snatched from the criminals.
Force side is force side, and the documents should be with the owner, even if it was a front man.
Anbu Ne had done a good job of ensuring a steady flow of large amounts of money from various cities of Ho no Kuni, more than covering the costs of the organization, despite some failure in the capital and Ryo was just targeting the most tasty morsels - the village also had to leave something behind, otherwise the theft would be obvious.
Pulling out and folding several crested sheets, the shadow shinobi plunged them into his chest, reaching for the next, but froze for a second, turning his head towards the entrance.
Quickly pulling out a few more sheets without looking and hiding them inside, the uninvited guest set the folder in place and ducked into the shadows of the table with a sharp jerk, disappearing from sight almost instantly.
Just a second later, a tiny light snake drilled through the wall near the door and spat out a shinobi familiar to many. Orochimaru gracefully stood up and without wasting any time, rushed towards the shelves, just like the thief before him, the only difference being that after using the hand seal, two kage bunshin appeared on either side of him.
In five pairs of hands, the serpent sannin very quickly went through four cabinets, seized all the materials pertaining to his research and the funding he was receiving, took some of the documents for the revenue-generating establishments, and stuffed the loot into a patiently awaiting draft.
After that, all five sannins vanished in a puff of white smoke, leaving no trace behind, except for the slightly thinned shelves in the cabinets. The snake disappeared in the same way.
Root's archive had been robbed twice without the base's inhabitants noticing, and Konoha's forces, arriving half an hour later, had disarmed the traps, broken down the door, and packed the documents into scrolls, finally destroying all traces. The only person capable of pointing out the shortage was safely imprisoned under triple guarded by strong jonins and could not do so.
***
It took the combined forces of Anbu and the clans only an hour to clear the entire area of the Root base, and most of that time was spent removing traps from the warehouse, armory, and Donzo's personal office.
The surrendered operatives were surprisingly compliant, allowing themselves to be searched and chakra sealed without complaint before being sent off with a solid escort toward the village.
The biggest problem was the children being trained here, aged three to seven, who were frightened by the masked fighters who had burst into the common bedroom in the middle of the night and reacted accordingly, the older ones throwing kunai and the younger ones running and hiding.
All of this was accompanied by such noise and commotion that it appeared to be audible at the opposite end of the base.
Expectedly, some of the nearly five dozen children taken from orphanages and even bought from their parents panicked and I had to deal with them, as well as a few other unlucky shinobi who had been injured in the assault.
When I finally managed to catch and calm all of Root's underage recruits, collect all the loot, and search every millimeter of the base, it was starting to get light upstairs.
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