Karu had received a mission from her lord, the Daimyo commanded that she head to the Leaf to observe. She was to find the one who left the note on her lord’s chest, as she was the only witness. To see just how far the ninja had fallen. To see just how deep the treason ran. To verify the letter.

She had always served faithfully. From the first day she arrived till the day that accursed letter arrived no one ever questioned her loyalty. She was one of the few trusted to be alone with the Daimyo, and she had worked most of her life for it. Going above and beyond her orders, knowing when to bend and when to break the rules and laws. Now she was told to leave her lord's side, but it was about mental framing. She just had to believe she was sent because she was trusted, there were a thousand souls better to spy on the ninja, but she was picked. 

One of the ninja had broken into the Daimyo’s palace and laid a letter on his chest while he slept. The threat was clear, but the letter painted a graver threat. The Hokage was making moves that impacted all of the Land of Fire. There was a balance between the Daimyo and the Hokage. Hiruzen was making moves that threatened the Daimyo.

The Uchiha were gone, slaughtered off on the Hokage’s order. Their clan was a major threat deterrent, the clan itself was more important to the Security of the Land of Fire than the Hokage. The Hokage, was just a single Kage leveled combatant, and a leader. The Uchiha were the possibilities of hundreds, thousands of them. They had routinely pumped out at least one Kage level combatant a generation, since the time of the warring states. They had just put out the Three Red Eyed Deaths and several minor ones who could grow into Kage tier threats.

Each Kekkei Genkai was a military deterrent. The Uchiha were an espionage deterrent, as well as a military deterrent. There was little one could hide from their eyes. Able to learn Jutsu from seeing it done, They were the reason the Leaf had such a vast Jutsu collection. The reason the other nations did not use their more esoteric spying methods. Between the Hyuga who could see any chakra usage for miles and the Uchiha who made any technique used against them their own, spying had to be done the old fashioned way with spies. The Leaf could just teach someone with Yin affinity the Yin Possession Jutsu and have spies that didn't even know they were spies.

Traveling from the Daimyo’s palace to the leaf took longer than she would have liked due to her cover. A relaxing time vacationing, the mission would be anything but. 

She met up with the watcher implanted in the Hyuga compound, a civilian servant, the day she arrived. They sat in a bar nearby talking like old friends. She was told the Hyuga were on high alert, at least five of them watching their compound at all times. The main house cut back the number of missions they took. They unloaded the extra on the branch house. She nearly killed him when he suggested she bring him to bed that night. The night was young, and she was nowhere near drunk enough for that. She didn't think there was enough alcohol in the entire land of fire for her to do that.

After brushing him off she went on to bar hop through most of the night, using poison cleansing techniques to stay mostly sober. As bits of her dignity crumbled with every bar she learned.

Five had survived, three males and two female Uchiha, there were possibly more but they would have gone to ground. With effort they could recover, on paper. Of the three males one as a child, another a missing nin with a massive bounty. The last one, Kaze Uchiha, was a combatant of enough skill to make it impossible to make him breeding stock. The two females at most would produce thirty children, if used as breeding stock. Karu and the Daimyo knew it wouldn't be that easy, bloodline dilution and the fact not every Uchiha awoke their Kekkei Genkai, would mean less than half of them would be viable Uchiha. 

The corpses were burned right after, making it impossible to posthumously harvest the organs needed to produce more Uchiha. It didn't add up. If there was no hope of revival, the Uchiha would have gone full postal. They were consolidating finances, and buying smut. It just didn’t add up with the psychological profile she has been given for the Uchiha.

After the first night of drinking she decided first hand observations where needed. She would swear red in the face it had nothing to do with how handy ninja got when drunk.

She had taken to watching the new Uchiha house even coming to speak with the surprisingly tight-lipped architect. A few coins in the right pockets, and some civilian workers let slip what she needed to know, a large basement with good drainage and full amenities. Kaze was buying medical books in bulk. The Daimyos file on him wasn't allowed to be copied, from what she recalled when she was forced to read it, Kaze had pioneered a type of medical scroll that could keep bodies fresh for years, or allow for critically wounded ninja to be transported inside. 

HE was the first one on the scene, who wasn't one of the perpetrators. HE had a sudden intense interest in medicine. HE was acting shifty and being watched by the perpetrators according to the letter. He no longer trusted the Hokage and the entire upper echelon of the Leaf. The basement had built in shelving for scrolls, for a guy who notoriously disliked them. 

She had an entirely separate dossier on Kaze Uchiha, with less classified intel brought with her. It didn't have mission specifics and anywhere near the sheer detail, but it served as a good refresher. A successful business owner and an inventor, on top of being a Kage tier combatant. Owner of the largest paper producing plant. He was single handedly responsible for literacy rates rising all over the ninja world. One of the main sponsors of Bingo news, which produced a booklet every month giving people a basic idea of what was going on in the world. They had partnered with the same neutral organization that disseminated the Bingo books.

She watched as his clones ran around, as his officers disguised themselves as him, and observed. This was the man who looked at the forests around Konoha and saw libraries, he had a plan. It was hidden among a thousand other possibilities. It was a single leaf in the woods. It was all she needed to confirm it was Kaze who had left the letter. Several of the local contacts didn't believe her. 

Then she saw it, it all stopped. His clones didn’t patrol, and he left his house in ceremonial garb. The plan, whatever it was, was at an important junction. He needed eyes on him. So she watched. He sat down with the Hokage and the elders, to resign and they disappeared. Then the plan came to fruition. Anbu found evidence of what happened. Dossiers, and orders. A paper trail a mile long, he hung those who wronged him by their crimes. He had to keep eyes on the trees in the forest so they wouldn't see the fox stealing. As quickly and easily as they found it, there was no way it wasn't staged. That the leadership of the greatest village would leave incriminating evidence just out to be discovered.

Proof, the Hokage had suppressed several clans, that they had purposefully sent the Senju on risky missions, until only two remained. Any political rival who could threaten the Hokage position, would be sent on several risky missions, until they lost enough to no longer have the political capital or they were dead… Then it came out what they did to the White Fang. There were talks of having the Third’s face removed from the mountain. It spread like wildfire in dried grass. Then the accounting came out, the embezzling. The faked mission records making the Shimura and Sarutobi clans look better. Most of it was hushed up very quickly but the rumors spread among the ninja. 

Kaze was ruler of the village, he controlled the Anbu, and what was left of the police force. The Daimyo would never accept that though. It would be civil war, but he didnt do anything. He kept the village running, and fixed several problems in the village. Increased funding to several departments, He spoke and the ninja listened. She was captured as she slept, and woke up in a chair facing him.

Kaze just sat there behind a massive desk reading reports as several identical copies of him did similar activities. Further past them sat several Anbu, faces hidden behind their animal masks. It took her longer than she’d ever admit to notice she wasn't tied down. Looking around the room was full of people doing paperwork, the sound of rustling pages, and quiet discussion distracting from her situation.

“I don’t plan to stay as the Hokage, pretty sure my face won't ever be on the mountain, I could push and take it, yes, but the stress of it would put me in an early grave.” he spoke not even looking up. 

A fox, standing upright with hands dressed in some very nice clothing, walked past her and took some papers from Kaze's desk. 

“So my cover is blown?” she said slowly

He looked up scoffed, “You were made the second you got within eyesight of the village. The Daimyo’s personal female samurai attendant bodyguard, your face is known to everyone who works gate duty. No, the Daimyo knew who put the letter on his chest from the second you told him how I appeared in that room.” he went back to filling out a form.

She sighed, understanding dawning on her, “You have been in contact with the Daimyo for some time?”

“Oh, that yes.” he said, clearly distracted. 

One of the clones snorted and looked up at her, “You're on vacation.”

She clenched her hand. The bastard had been pulling pranks like this since she was eight and given to the Daimyos family. He never actually ordered her to find all this out, just told her it was something that needed to be done while she was there. She wondered if she could start a rumor that the Daimyo was too big to pleasure a woman. It was a suitably flattering insult. She could have been relaxing in a hot spring in the land of hot water, she couldn't leave the country due to her position, but damn it she wanted to relax.

No now she’s somewhere surrounded by some of the scariest people she’s ever heard of. Her sword gone, some of the weird upright animal summons have more chakra than Samurai squad commanders. 

She focused on Kaze, or who was hopefully him and not a particularly hard to discern clone. He looked bored. All his clones looked bored.

“What are you doing?” she asked without a care, she was on vacation.

He looked back up at her, “I have to go through every-fucking-thing, the previous regime were… I have to go through and find every dollar, operative, and man hour. I’ve found twenty eight buildings in the village no one owns, not the state, not a single person. So much…” he took a deep breath, calming himself and looked at her, his eyes filled with desperation.

“Why do all this?” She took the bait.

His sudden smile sent a shiver up her spine. The whole room seemed to get a bit cooler. He straightened his back, every single person in the room was watching them. 

“Survival, you can always rebuild if you're alive.” he said like it was a climatic line in a play.

She shrugged, he was kinda right, can’t do stuff if you're dead. It hit her like a falling piano. This was the man they were thinking of killing? This was the obstacle between them and having their own sharingan samurai. 

In a single month, he had identified those responsible and killed them. All the while placing evidence to be found by ninjas justifying the regime's death. The only things her lord had personally ordered to do, was go to the leaf and learn what was going on, and then mentioned it would be nice to know how deep the treason ran. The rest was delivered by those who spoke for her Lord. It clicked in her mind, Kaze was finding out exactly how deep the treason ran. 

“You’ve been speaking with my Lord?” She asked with a deceptively calm voice.

Kaze looked up at her and blinked a few times, then smiled, “Oh, so you just caught on did you.”

He popped his neck, then stood up. He seemed to be stretching, but now he was looking down on her. It occurred to her it was not a good idea to get snippy with the living weapon.  While not as pant shittingly fear inducing as a tailed beast, the Screaming Death wasn't to be messed with. She sat before a man who made the world itself scream when he moved, and suddenly she was feeling that. 

“Karu Konpon, a distinguished and trusted samurai of the Daimyo.” she could feel her chakra slowing a bit as he spoke.

She nodded, “That is I.”

“You are a thorn in my side,” her heart started hammering in her chest as he paused, watching her, “but you are also a solution to another much larger thorn.”

It was official, he was doing something to scare her, she knew that logicily. It was just hard to put it into practice when any sudden movement put her trained instincts into overdrive. She had felt similar feelings executing serial killers.

A clone of his handed her a file, she was now sure it wasn't a real one. Not one of the clones gave off such causal malice. It wasn't even malice, it was deadly disdain, boredom even. She opened the file detailing crimes and general shady dealings of the previous regime. 

Purposefully having Lord fourths apprentices put into extremely risky situations until only one survived. Purposely driving a wedge between his own apprentices, and authorizing the experiments that got Orochimaru kicked out of the village. A great deal of crimes were uncovered. 

The order to have Dan Kato approach Tsunade Senju. It was an open secret now that he’s dead, but Dan Kato’s record was not. Once the falsified mission records were found there was a raid on the Hokage’s records. She knew a lot of shady things went on behind the scenes right after the war. Some of the things she heard prior made her question exactly how depraved the ninja were. They never found lord Fourth’s wife’s body. Now she knew.

She would have to report this all to her Lord. The more she read the more she had to hold back from retching. She could feel beads of sweat dripping down her back, as she read it. She didn't notice that feeling of fear receding or the temp in the room rising as she read. She didn't notice how Kaze gave a delighted smile as he sat back down watching her engrossed in reading. 

“You want the Daimyos support to stay Hokage.” she said sitting up after finishing reading the whole file. 

She looked up and everything had changed, the piles of paperwork had shifted, and new Anbu stood behind Kaze. 

“You've been reading for like an hour and a half. I had shit to do, and no, I don't want his support to stay Hokage.”

Her disbelief showed on her face so he continued, “Believe it or not I really do not like being a ninja. If I tried to make myself Hokage, it would mean war.”

His file, the big one she wasn't allowed to copy, did say he was anti war. It also said he had a massive crush on the Hyuga girl in his squad when the war started.

“You don’t want anymore Aines to happen.” she said, trying to regain some measure of control, so she could get some answers out of him.

He sighed and set down his pen that she was only then noticing, it had chakra burns on it, “I don’t want another Kaze Uchiha. I don’t want anymore monsters forged in bloodshed.”

She glared at him, “No, you don’t want to see what happened to her happen to others.”

“We were caught in a trap, she shoved me out and didn't manage to get out herself. The third member of our team kept her alive, while I went on a killing spree, “That Kaze would continue right up till the end of the war,”.” he smiled as he quoted the dossier about him given to her.

“It's in every dossier of any worth about him.” a new voice spoke up.

She looked over at the crab with a tray in its claws. The crab god. He had a lot of nicknames throughout the war, one would think his summons would have been more prominent as evil as they were. It was worse than a spider, with its creepy legs. Its beady soulless eyes. The way it could rip someone apart with its claws, the gods truly made a mistake making such creatures. 

It was going to be a long day.

 

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Asuma Lee had always wanted to verify a single rumor for the majority of his ninja career.. He’d heard it the first day he joined Anbu. That the Hokage kept the only Leaf ninja porn magazine in his desk. Put out by the seduction corps every three months, and only given to a select few. 

When the Holage and his elders disappeared he saw his chance, just a quick looksy. Nothing bad, he’d just take a peek through the drawers and check for it. Then he opened it, and right on top of the first drawer was a file labeled ‘Removal of Uchiha Dissidents’.

He couldn’t very well not look at that with the Uchiha having been massacred. Kaze Uchiha being a dick, maybe he was going to get mind fucked by the Yamanaka. Fix whatever was wrong with him. He needed someone to fix his head, the resignation letter though. It explained why shadow cones were not widely used.

Opening it up, the file was not what he expected, he puked right to the side after opening it up. Right on top was an image of a vivisection, centered on the right eye. Several images of an eyeball slowly being cut open. 

Like Pandora's box he couldn't close it until he had seen it all. Page after page of fucked up experiments on Leaf shinobi. He didn't notice when another Anbu came over to look and where entranced in the horrifying pages. 

More came to see where they were, and soon everything in the desk was pulled open. Hundreds of files lay out, and in the locked center drawer laid the holy grail, the seduction corps catalog, forgotten. 

These Anbu were not the Hokages personal Anbu but the general Anbu troops. While all of Anbu was under the Hokages command, these were peripheral. They did all kinds of things for the Hokage, but keeping their mouths shut for this kind of heinous stuff was not what they signed up for.  

The Hokage was missing, and he was right to run. If Kaze had an inkling of what he had just seen he wasn’t going to stop till the Hokage is dead. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to look a Uchiha in the eye ever again.

Others started pulling out other files, and reading them, the first one was full of horror story inspiration. The others weren't any better. Less visceral for sure but the implications no less fear inducing, his whole life was a lie.

They had to find the Hokage so he could shove a kunai up his ass. He had to stand through hours and hours off all those bullshit speeches about the will of fire and who the village is a family. You don’t cut family’s eyes open while they are still alive. You don’t send them out on suicide missions until they die. Then have operatives collect the body to harvest the organs. 

It was one thing to know medical nin had to poke around a corpse to know what they were doing, it was a whole other thing to see pictures of whatever the hell that was. Asuma wasn’t keen to find out what it was, he liked his ninja missions simple. Take items from point A to point B and make sure no one stops him even if he has to kill. Guard an object or person for X amount of time, and get paid. None of this clandestine organ extraction shit. He didn't know what photoreceptors in the back of an eye were before that day, and he would spend the rest of his life wishing he never learned. 

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Ruri Hagoromo couldn't stop her hands from shaking. The Hokage was dead. He didn't run away, she didn't care that Kaze didn’t use any chakra, he had killed them. He was heading off a search she should have been running. 

First thing she did was head to his house upon hearing what had happened. She kicked in the door, and came face to face with Kanna Uchiha. 

“Where are they!” she demanded marching up on the Jonin in their own home.

Blade drawn, she went for a blitz and all she was was spinning red eyes. Then she saw death, so much death over and over again. It just didn't end. No matter how she screamed, begged, or pleaded, it just didn't end. She tried the chakra disruption method, she wouldn't feel the Genjutsu but she could still see it, no matter what she did she couldn't stop seeing it. 

It had been hours of nothing but experiencing death after death happening around her not being able to do anything to stop it. Caged by an image projected directly onto her eyes. 

“Why?” she choked out. 

When nothing answered her but the rustling of clothing, she shook in silence. 

“Why are you showing me this?” she asked again, for what felt like the thousandths time.

“Because that's what I see everytime I close my eyes, If I’m not exhausted and holding him I can’t sleep.” Kanna replied, looking at the flour on her hands and seeing them as she fought root ninja in her home.

She took a breath and shook it off, “You come into my home, and attack me, and you ask why I make you live an hour in my life?”

Ruri, blinked as the projection faded from her eyes, she sat on the floor in the kitchen. She could see dust beams coming from the windows and flour all over one of the many counters. Kanna stood there in a summer dress with an white apron that said ‘Bread the cook’.

Kanna pointed a rolling pin at Ruri and tilted her head with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. 

“You're going to stay here. My love, the fool that he is, needs you out of the way so you can stay here while he commands the Anbu changing public opinion about Hiruzen or you can go back to living out what my life is like.” Kanna said sweetly.

Kanna’s eyes said pick the second option while Ruri’s mind quickly screamed ‘just shut up and stay still, maybe if we’re still enough the predator won't see us’.

She had heard of a type of Genjutsu so powerful that any ninja caught in it couldn’t break out of them. The Hokage had apprised her of the abilities of the Uchiha over the past month. A suitably motivated Uchiha could learn to trap near anyone in Genjutsu, even tailed beasts. Before the village had started The Uchiha clan would go out to find a tailed beast and use Genjutsu to control them. Setting them loose on their enemies like natural disasters. If the Ninetails couldn't break free what chance did she have. 

She looked at her captor, Kanna Uchiha, not the most beautiful Uchiha she had met but she had a glow about her. She seemed happy as she went about making pastries. Ruri admired Kanna’s smile as she made dick shaped cookies. Oddly life like dick shaped cookies. She made the mistake of looking at the cookbook, and now knew exactly how life like those cookies were. 

Kanna sat a plate of full sized dick cookies in front of her. 

“They taste so much better than the real thing, unless I cover it in icing too.” Kanna said, sitting down at the nearby table with her own plate of fresh dick cookies.

“Do I have to eat them?” Ruri asked, preparing to stifle her gag reflex.

“No, just give it a lick tell me if I got the icing right.”

So Ruri did, and it was good, it didn't taste like pure sugar, had a hint of… she ate it in less than three seconds. Kanna was pretty sure those weren't drugged, she liked making laxative laced ones to give to anybody who stared too much in the windows. It was mainly the males she did that too, her love would need fertile bodies to rebuild the clan with. Most of the males wouldn't even touch her penis cookies, so she generally never spiked them with anything. Watching Ruri devour the whole plate of them, she wondered if she messed up when she added in the spices to her icing. 

“That good?” she ventured, genuinely curious if it was her baked goods or something else. 

“Gods that was good, you have anymore?” Ruri demanded more than asked, eyes already searching out more.

Kanna tiled her own plate showing them to Ruri who jumped up from the floor and sat down across from Kanna. She started wolfing down more cookies. 

“If I knew these tasted this good I would have bought some before now.”

“You’ve never had a cookie?”

Ruri shook her head, focusing her mind on the now, instead of the hour of horror she had just witnessed. Cookies were good, cookies didn't have anything to do with watching Anbu dressed ninjas cut down Uchiha in the streets. Cookies made her happy. 

“The clan didn't have the money to waste on sugar or extra dough.” she said between bites.

It was somewhat of a lie, the merchant families in her clan could, but her, who wanted to be a ninja, wasn't worth it. To waste her money on such frivolous things when she needed to buy supplies to train with, and lessons from retired ninja. She’d had dango once when one of her underlings gave it to her, but the cookies blew it out of the water. She had to bring back the glory of her clan, she would become a great ninja and let the others have lots of little brats.

She would sit right there eating cookies, couldn't be a great ninja if the Uchiha queen broke her mind, or if the screaming death killed her. She was together enough to know exactly how screwed the higher ups of the previous regime were. Hiruzen knew he was going to die, Danzo and the other elders might not have, but Hiruzen saw the writing on the walls. Most of his personal Anbu, were dead. She would eat dick shaped cookies and survive.

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Kousuke listened to the other old civilians gossip while feeding the ducks, that insane Uchiha brat was at it again. The official title was Intermittent Leaf Shinobi Commander, last time he got a park out of it, maybe this time he’d get something good.