The meeting ended shortly after Renjiro unleashed his accusations in a spectacular fire, and the talks immediately broke down afterward. Which was not a surprise. Seeing the way Orochimaru turned and then looked at Renji, it was no wonder that Jiraiya took the boys away, while the rest stayed for a while... Fugaku left next, walking out calmly, but then disappearing in a flash, heading to the Uchiha Police headquarters, recalling every Uchiha, no matter what mission they were on. Even as the village mobilized for war and police patrols had doubled, this couldn't wait. Sensing the seriousness, his main officers remained silent even if they couldn't understand why he sent them to check every grave within and around Konoha... But nobody questioned him. Especially after what they found.
"Every third grave was empty," Fugaku reported as he entered the room later that evening, his calm exterior hiding a fury like never before. The only relief he could hold onto was that, since ancient times, they knew not to leave their dead intact. However barbaric it would seem to any other village... their dead never went to their graves with their eyes intact. There were too many attempts to rob them of it in the past that the clan had adapted to it, developing a strange custom, something that was present even before the formation of Konoha.
"So are ours," the Inuzuka clan head, Gōga, added, already sitting at the table, where half of the previous meeting's main players were once again present. Jiraiya, Ashina, and the Nara, Yamanaka, and Akimichi clans' heads, with Sakumo closing the door behind Fugaku. "Damn it."
"So..." the head of the Nara clan, Shikudo, muttered as he folded his hands and scanned the others. "Which disaster should we discuss first?"
"I vote we begin with Renji, because this is what affects us the most." The Yamanaka patriarch, Inomasa, said with a grunt, "He may have a horrible attitude; that makes me wonder how he survived until now, but he can back up his words. I just don't know how he gets his information..."
"He can see the connecting dots and make the guesses drawn from them," Jiraiya muttered, rubbing his head. "I watched him do it multiple times, and although he plays the idiot whenever you question him, if you show enough clues, he will put it together, Sharingan or not. That's why they are on the same wavelength, Minato and he. If not for being such a hothead, he would be a great shinobi already."
"He still needs proper discipline, indeed!" Inomasa agreed at once.
"We are not here to decide whether Renjiro Uchiha needs his mouth washed with soap or not," Fugaku interjected, making the others fall silent and look at him. "He was reckless, but I warned you all that if you let him loose, he will flip the table. He already did it within our clan, and I trained him enough to know that he will bull rush his enemies. I warned you, so if you were offended, blame yourselves."
"..." Inomasa fell silent right after, making the others smile a little.
"He did hit the nail on the head, and now it's out in the open... And I mean Danzō's private forces. They have been on the mind of the Hokage for a while," Sakumo also spoke up then, "and have been watching the kids. I am not surprised those two realized it, and that the Hokage wouldn't spy on his own future shinobi. Now... With Sarutobi-sama being unconscious and in a critical condition, Danzō has much more freedom to maneuver them. I have my most trusted friends at his bedside, but the kid is right... We must protect the Hokage until he recovers."
"And from Orochimaru's hand, too," Jiraiya added with a pained voice. "I'll be there, and when I'm not, Sakumo will switch with me."
"I'll help you place down seals and also, I will protect Kushina," Ashina said next. "If we move every force away from protecting her... She can become a target. It would be best if she could return to her clan, instead of keeping her in isolation."
"Perfectly reasonable," Shikudo said before anyone could think about objecting to that. "I was thinking of the same thing. With Danzō practically demanding a permanent replacement for the Hokage, and with him nominating himself while the two elders kept nodding, I believe the kid, too. It feels rushed and fishy. He was like... If he was afraid of letting us think."
"The Hokage had been incapacitated for less than a day." Sakumo said with a shrug, rubbing his face, "This was indeed an unexpectedly rushed meeting... But I also have to agree that there is a chance that Sarutobi-sama won't recover or wake up. And we are now at war... Haaah... We need... We need Tsunade back."
"We don't know where she is," Jiraiya whispered, shaking his head while his fingers moved slowly, dragging them across the table, drawing on it subconsciously. "And we can't afford to just go out and search for her. Not with everything happening."
"I think we can..." Shikudo added in a low voice, rubbing his black goatee, "We will perform enough scouting and infiltration missions from now on. That's how war is. We can combine the search and those with specially selected individuals. She is still Konoha's Sannin... In case of war, she may return on her own."
"Or will stay away because of it," Jiraiya whispered, knowing full well what state she was in when she left. "But okay, we can do that."
"As for the War Council," Sakumo spoke up again, looking at everyone, "The idea is sound. Are we agreeing on that?"
"I do," Ashina said first, and then, to everyone's surprise, Fugaku was the second to nod, followed by everyone else. "All of our clans have their strength, and fields we excel in. Renjiro saw and comprehended that, and he was right. If we want to face the enemy, we have to act in a unified way and not while arguing who becomes Hokage."
"Especially because," Fugaku leaned a bit closer, "We now have two villages that lost their leader. It is our chance to infiltrate both villages and push them further down before they can regroup and surround us. I myself can head to Kiri with a few of my people... And make sure they are not in a shape to fight."
"And we can go to Kumo." Shikudo also whispered, looking at his partners, "It wouldn't be the first time... And if the Hyūga side with us..."
"I think we can make that happen," Chōhei, the Akimichi clan's leader, finally spoke up, and everyone nodded.
"Before any of that," Sakumo tapped the table, looking at them, "We must act. The fact our graveyards were pillaged, the sacred dead disturbed... That's enough reason to act. It's treason. We can't wait for the others' decision; we must move tonight! We must go to Danzō's hole and, if we have to, force our way in. If we give him time, he will make every clue disappear."
"Then what are we waiting for?" Ashina asked, already standing. "I have descendants in his 'care' that I had buried. I want them back, and if I can't get them back... I want to plant Danzō into his own grave as recompense."
...
....
...
Deep beneath Konoha, Danzō wasn't worried, but... he was more furious than Orochimaru had ever seen him.
"The insolence..." He said, grinding his teeth as his cane struck the stone floor.
On the other hand, Orochimaru stood near the wall of the chamber, his hands hidden in his sleeves to hide their trembling. Unlike Danzō, he was worried... He could see the walls closing, but he said nothing, because he already knew Danzō wasn't listening.
"A Chūnin... Talking to me like that! A child... And they permitted it. If they think I can't see through their attack, they take me lightly."
That was what really angered him because, despite everything. To him, Renji was just a child. An unusually dangerous child, but... a child. He had the potential to be something, which in turn meant that he only had the potential to be dangerous, which was his biggest miscalculation.
Orochimaru saw it differently, simply because he was once at Renji's age. All those old times, when he knew he was right on so many occasions, yet the adults rarely listened to him. That is why, in this meeting, he realized the boy was actually dangerous. Because he let Danzō's blindness affect him, letting himself be lost in his experiments, and believing Danzō was capable enough to cover for him... He never really paid attention to what was happening in the village. And thus... Now everything was falling apart. The only reason he stayed calm and collected in the meeting, even when he heard how much Renji knew... was that he had prepared contingency measures.
"I just don't know where he learned this much..." Orochimaru spoke up, but Danzō had no answer for him. "And you were too hasty in going to the Uzumaki island."
"There would have been no time for it, after the enemy moved in. They would have taken the island after Hiruzen died and turned it into a fortress from where they could launch attacks at us."
"And you know this because...?" Orochimaru asked, also a bit surprised.
"Hanzo... But it doesn't matter anymore, because he did." Danzō grunted, tapping the floor with his cane.
"So you knew about the plot..." Orochimaru smiled and shook his head, but Danzō just scoffed.
"Don't tell me you feel sorry for him now?"
"No." He answered, but never specified who he meant, pulling his hands out of his sleeve and raising them... And by then, they were no longer trembling. "I don't care."
"They will calm down," Danzō said after a deep breath, but slowly, Orochimaru's smile he always wore disappeared.
"No, they won't. It's already too late."
"Pull yourself together!" Danzō looked at him, leaning on his cane. "They can do nothing."
"Oh? Confident."
"They won't." Danzō added with a snort, "You overestimate the boy and the ramblings of a child."
"They did the same with me." He answered, smiling again, but it was no longer fake, hollow, or friendly. It was exactly a snake's smile. "And that's what made me into what I am today. That is your mistake, too, and I'm not taking part in it anymore."
"Where do you think you are going?!" Danzō asked, raising his voice, but Orochimaru had already turned his back on him.
"Jiraiya already suspected me, and Fugaku already distrusted you. Sakumo has no affection for either of us, and thanks to you, the Uzumaki clan now has a personal cause to investigate their missing bodies. That's already bad enough... Have you forgotten how the damned Uchiha Police have wanted access to several of my, no, to your locations for years? Hiruzen is no longer awake to wave their suspicion away, because he trusted you. By removing him, and then failing to fill the hole he left, you removed the only thing that protected you. You played yourself, old man."
"What do you want to say... you snake? Speak clearly." Danzō's jaw tightened as he sneered at his back, his chakra gathering, but then Orochimaru's own began rising, easily overwhelming Danzō. Especially after he looked back at the one-eyed man over his shoulder, his snake-like, yellow eyes glowing.
"I'm saying that I quit."
"They have no proof!"
"And they will find none," Orochimaru answered quickly, still looking at him. "But I'm afraid it won't matter anymore."
"What? What did you do?!"
"Ten years of work," Orochimaru muttered, feeling that it hurt him physically to say it out loud. "Your sudden recklessness had caused ten years of work to go up in flames."
"What did you do?!" Danzō's voice rose so much in that moment that ROOT members began appearing, but Orochimaru showed no fear as he continued.
"All those Hashirama cells, my precious compatibility research, their chakra integration. All my bloodline studies and the Uzumaki's fūinjutsu. If you'd been just a bit more patient... We could have a specimen ready." As Orochimaru watched him, his yellow eyes displayed all the disgust and disappointment he felt in that moment. "What a horrible partner you turned out to be."
"WHAT DID YOU DO?!"
"Burned it all before they find them." As he said it and the Root members attacked him, right after Danzō's finger twitched on his cane, Orochimaru's body began dissolving into hundreds of tiny, white snakes. "I'm already out of the village and soon, the country..." His voice came from the mouth of the snakes, echoing from all directions. "I hope you die painlessly... Because if you survive, I will one day experiment on you; I promise you that, Danzō the Failure."