Deep beneath Hokage Rock, deeper still than the networks of tunnels and emergency shelters buried below the village, lay the village's dark underside.
By all rights, Root Headquarters shouldn't exist, and indeed on paper it didn't; following the fiasco that was the Uchiha Massacre, the Lord Third had ordered Root, the ANBU's training subdivision under his old friend Danzō's direct control, to be abolished. And yet, unbeknownst to the villagers, Root Headquarters remained in use to this day, no more than a hundred metres below their unsuspecting feet.
Root HQ was a veritable maze, filled with dead ends and false entrances and exits, and it was mostly empty the majority of the time, save for operatives in recuperation or in training. But today, Root's leader himself had descended into the bowels of the village to meet his men…
"Lord Danzō!"
Shimura Danzō watched with quiet satisfaction as his men dropped to one knee before him, though his expression remained one of cold restraint. His two most trusted lieutenants stood at his side, hands clasped neatly behind their backs, their expressions just as inscrutable behind their masks.
The first was Yamanaka Fū, a tall man with auburn hair tied neatly into a ponytail, an eyepatch concealing one eye even behind his cat mask. The second was Aburame Torune, who wore a high-collared black cowl with integrated goggles under his differently coloured cat mask.
Leaving aside their clan-specific talents, which Danzō highly prized, both were exceptionally skilled in combat, assassination, and reconnaissance. Danzō had picked them out himself, taking them from their clans while they were still children— much to the displeasure of the Yamanaka and Aburame clans.
"Tsuchinoe," said Danzō calmly, looking to one of his men. "Report."
"By your will, Danzō-sama," said the masked operative, raising his head slightly. "While the Fifth Hokage was out of the village for her meeting with the Daimyō, we successfully managed to swap out Codename: Tanuki with a member of the Kedōin Clan, without the guards noticing the exchange. The subject is currently sedated, and the extraction process is already under way."
The Kedōin clan possessed a special technique that allowed them to mimic other people flawlessly, down to their very scent and chakra signatures. The downside of this technique was that close contact with the target was required, and it could not easily be undone.
Naruto had encountered them once before, during a test Lady Tsunade had designed for him. Sakura had also met two of them: Kazan of the Hundred Transformations, once his clan's greatest shapeshifter, and his daughter, Furin… whom Sakura had never realised was in fact his son, despite the fact that his (or her?) situation somewhat mirrored his own.
No wonder she had run away from home!
"And the Kedōin clan member?" Danzō asked.
"…our operatives are ready to stage a fake rescue on behalf of the Hidden Sand," Tsuchinoe replied. "During which the Kedōin clan member mimicking Codename: Tanuki will, unfortunately, meet an untimely end."
Danzō nodded in satisfaction. Loose ends needed to be tied up, and speaking of which…
"Mizunoe," he said, looking at the masked man kneeling next to Tsuchinoe. "Report."
"The Nine-Tails Jinchūriki and the Manyū girl are no longer in their cells," said Mizunoe, raising his head. "There are no signs of egress, nor any indications of a struggle. They have simply vanished without a trace."
"What!?" Danzō barked.
The Fifth Hokage had conveniently imprisoned her disciple herself, to prevent her from disobeying orders and pursuing her sensei, Hatake Kakashi. It would have been the perfect moment for an "accident" to occur to her defenceless disciple, which would doubtless have sent Tsunade spiralling into depression, providing him with the ideal pretext to seize power under emergency provisions during martial law…
"I have no excuse," said Mizunoe, lowering his head.
Danzō glowered at his men.
Despite her remaining an enormous security risk, Manyū Sakura remained the village's strongest kunoichi, and Uzumaki Naruto was still the Nine-Tails' Jinchūriki… a living weapon. All plans were subject to change; even if Danzō could not use them or eliminate them outright, the village could not afford their disappearance at such a moment, with the Leaf's four rivals' troops marching on the Land of Fire even now.
"Find them and bring them back," Danzō hissed. "Immediately!"
"By your will!" shouted Mizunoe, before flickering away.
This was far too soon! The four Project: Gozu Tennō yōkai embryos, cultivated from the Land of Sky's Zero-Tails which had been captured from the ruins of the fallen air fortress Ancor Vantian, were still far too immature to be used against the other four great villages. They needed more time to grow and absorb negative emotions!
"Mizunoto," Danzō said, turning his glare to his next subordinate in line. "Report."
"Uchiha Sasuke is heading due west," replied Mizunoto. "His destination and goals are unknown, but given that he left the village without authorisation, and Lord Jiraiya's recent confirmation of the existence of the Akatsuki's headquarters in Amegakure… I suspect he may have learned the truth from Itachi. He may have defected, and there is a small probability that he might be seeking out the Akatsuki to join them."
Danzō's eyes narrowed dangerously.
"Send a telegram to our agents watching the enemy troops' movements," he said. "Have them find a way to eliminate Uchiha Sasuke before he crosses the border… without getting directly involved. They don't stand a chance against him."
The geopolitical situation was precarious, to say the least.
First, there was the entire debacle surrounding the world learning of Sakura's heaven-defying blood, her ability to absorb and permanently copy other kunoichi's bloodline limits… and then there was Orochimaru making a right mess of things by adding himself to the already volatile mix, hunting down several high-profile foreign kunoichi possessing bloodline limits and slaughtering them.
Second, there was the Hōzuki Castle Incident, in which Kumogakure had launched a special operation into the heartland of Kusagakure to seize the ancient superweapon known as the Box of Ultimate Bliss. The mission had escalated into a three-way battle between Konohagakure's Manyū Sakura, Iwagakure, and Kumogakure, allfought on Takigakure's sovereign territory… after which Rōshi, the Four-Tails' Jinchūriki, disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
The Box itself entered Iwa's possession, while its Keeper of Secrets Mui ended up with Kumo.
Following these two events, Iwa's and Kumo's forces had already begun massing at their borders, each watchful for any retaliatory strike from each other. As for Suna, it had already begun eyeing the Land of Rivers with great interest, eager to exploit the chaos wrought by Kumo and Iwa to seize more arable land from its weak neighbour… as well as its mountains' valuable mines and Takumi's skilled craftsmen.
So, when Hiruko declared the beginning of the Fourth Great Shinobi World War on behalf of Konohagakure, was it any surprise that those three countries immediately sent their armies towards the Land of Fire… trampling, in the process, over the Lands of Rivers, Grass, and Waterfalls, forcing Tanigakure, Kusagakure, and Takigakure into the conflict as well?
Of the minor countries bordering the Land of Fire, only Orochimaru's Otogakure in the Land of Rice Paddies, Amegakure of the Land of Rain, Yugakure of the Land of Hot Water, and Shimogakure of the Land of Frost still remained neutral… but they would no doubt be drawn into the conflict soon enough.
As for the last of the Great Villages, Kirigakure… the Hidden Mist remembered all too well what had happened the last two times everyone had tried to gang up on the Hidden Leaf, and, still weakened from years under the Blood Mist Policy, they had decided to adopt a wait-and-see approach under Momochi Zabuza's rule, which was rather uncharacteristic of him…