Chapter 180: Calm Before the Storm

He had taken Hiruzen's blind favor for granted in his schemes. That's why he thought he wouldn't get any punishment and would be able to do anything he wanted after the meeting ended.

Just like Danzo, Hiruzen also received a report on his table about the meeting of all the clan heads in the Uchiha compound.

"They are serious about this, huh. Well, Danzo has crossed the line many times, but this time he has enraged the genius of the Uchiha clan, at least one of them, and threatened the life of the second one.

I can easily assume that Shisui, going full-on with the rebelling threat, told Fugaku about doing something about it this time.

And I am also at fault here. I have allowed Danzo too many things I shouldn't have. He has done enough damage to Konoha until now.

It seems I have to manage both the light and dark side of Konoha on my own for now until I find someone to take this burden from me." Hiruzen sighed.

However, there was a soft spot in his mind for Danzo. Hiruzen still remembered that he was once a teammate, and at least he considered Danzo his teammate.

With the contribution Danzo had made in keeping the village peaceful and safe all this time, Hiruzen was not going to give him the death penalty.

Even imprisonment would be off the table, considering how many 'loyal' underlings he had.

Just the possibility of them going rogue and selling village secrets to enemy nations was enough to remove any idea of giving Danzo any punishment further than home imprisonment, like Hiruzen did in the anime after the Uchiha massacre.

Even when Hiruzen's mind was under Shisui's genjutsu to hate Danzo, he still thought of the village before his hate. And when we are talking about hate, it is not a small amount. The dissatisfaction he had towards how Danzo did things was not small, and he would have punished Danzo many times by now if not for his important role in keeping the village safe from the shadows.

For that, Danzo had done many questionable things, like killing many civilians of other nations to put the blame on someone else so that their enemy would fight among themselves, and Konoha would get some precious years to build their strength back.

The number of innocent people Danzo had killed in his lifetime would have been enough to make a small nation like the Land of Noodles, but Hiruzen knew it was important if they didn't want all other enemy nations to form an alliance once again and attack Konoha when it was at its weakest.

But in recent years, Danzo had gone beyond that, crazily increasing the intensity of training of the Root ninja under him, forcefully recruiting many talented ninja from both Konoha clans and civilian ninja, with the death rate of training being as high as 60 to 70%.

Which is what he showed on paper. Hiruzen knew the actual stats were much worse than that. And even doing that didn't give any massively great result. The ninja who completed their training just became very efficient killing machines, effectively losing their emotions, which severely affected their potential (mostly like Sai).

Hiruzen was sure if Danzo had been stopped before, Konoha would have had many more Jonin than they had at the moment.

These thoughts already made it difficult for Hiruzen to stop himself from doing anything against Danzo.

But since Shisui didn't know that and thought that since Hiruzen was always in favor of Danzo, he would at least have to make his hatred and dissatisfaction five times stronger to have some effect.

Which would have been right, but now it worked wonders since his emotions were now so enhanced. Hiruzen started making plans to effectively remove Danzo from his position and make it so that they would not face any consequences from this.

Since Danzo was investing all of his focus and resources on finding the Uchihas' next move, he wasn't able to sense his impending doom. With Hiruzen, the Uchiha, and other clans planning on attacking him head-on, the chances of Danzo turning the tables in his favor in tomorrow's meeting were close to none.

Since Hiruzen knew that he had one last night before the Uchiha initiated a council meeting to raise their complaints, Hiruzen was making sure that all of the preparations from his side were complete.

Luckily for the Uchiha, there was no major change in his behavior, so others may not guess that something other than a simple complaint was behind Hiruzen's actions, but there was no way they would be able to find out what, no matter how much they tried.

...

After listening and improving Kaida's plan on how to use those Root base locations, Fugaku said, "This is a very important role, that's why I am giving you all the responsibility and power. Go to the Aburame clan head and ask for his help. With this seal, you would represent me.

Make him move his best ninja for information gathering, heck, move him if you have to. We have to find out what is in those bases. Also, your top-most priority will be to not get detected at any cost." Fugaku said.

"Don't worry, Fugaku-sama. I will make sure everything happens as planned. I am sure Danzo would be keeping tight eyes on us by now, but there is little he could do to change anything now." Shisui said with a smile and then left using the Body Flicker Jutsu.

Time was of the essence. He directly went to the Aburame clan headquarters, which was much smaller than the Uchiha's but the surveillance of that headquarters was top-notch. Shisui could easily sense that there were thousands of bugs all around the vicinity of the headquarters, and all of them contained a little amount of chakra.

Since Shisui appeared all of a sudden, all of the bugs in the surrounding became active and ready to attack at a moment's notice. But after a second, a chakra wave was released from the Aburame clan's head office, and all of the bugs once again became docile.

"Great," Shisui said and made his way to the reception, but before he could ask anything, the receptionist said, "The clan head is waiting for you in his office."

Shisui looked at the bug on the table in front of the receptionist and understood that Shibi Aburame, the clan head of the Aburame clan, already knew about his arrival and was waiting for him.

"Okay," he said and made his way toward Shibi's office.

knock knock

"Come in," came a serious voice, a voice that contained the authority and seriousness of a leader.

"Good evening, Shibi-sama. I am sorry I have to come here in such a hurry, but we are in urgent need of your help," Shisui said.

"I already guessed that much, boy. As I had already promised your clan head, I am going to fully support you, so tell me what you need," Shibi said.

Shisui nodded and began telling all the details about the locations of Root they got, to what they expected to find on those bases.

"How sure are you about this information?" Shibi asked.

"Almost 80%, but the only doubt we have is that they are normal bases and not bases where Root is doing experimentation. There is no chance of any trap," Shisui said.

"Fine, I will personally join you. There is no one better than me for this job," Shibi said.

"That would be really helpful. We would never forget this," Shisui said while bowing a little.