Meanwhile at Home
(Mako POV)
You slammed your hand down onto the Hokage's desk, damn the Anbu who were pointing blades at your throat and all the others who were with you. "How dare you Hiruzen." You whispered.
The Hokage frowned. "I would like to remind you Jounin, that your visit is both unscheduled and unannounced."
You felt your eye twitch in anger. "You know exactly why we are here you perverted son of a-" the blade at your neck was now touching you, but it was not the thing that made you shiver in fear.
Hiruzen's body was leaking killing intent.. Part genjutsu, part bodily reaction, it could make anyone who had never felt it before die of a heart attack, or even commit suicide and even those who felt it curl up into a ball and beg for death.
And Lord Hokage's was enough to make you feel fear. A feeling you had not felt since you were a little girl meeting Hotaru for the first time. "Jounin Kurama… I would like you to remember who you are speaking to." The entire room darkened, even the bright sunlight of the afternoon dimmed as the room became thick with negative energy.
Thankfully, the other concerned parents were still up. Uchiha Sojiro spoke, his voice snapping you out of your stupor. "Lord Hokage, for the past month, our mission requests have been denied by the mission office. Not because of the money is lacking, nor is it the lack of personnel. We have checked both."
The civilian woman, one of the mothers of the academy students who was kidnapped held up a law book. "According to the Konaha Lawbook 15.24 on mission assignment, payment anpersonalel 'The law states that if any mission is delayed by parties from within the village, they are by law required to know the answer as to why the mission cannot be accepted except during a time of war.'" There was a pause. "Don't tell me we are at war Lord Hokage?"
The Hokage stood up, grabbed his pipe and started to smoke from it. "Every nation on the continent is looking for your children, and the diplomatic repercussions of any one of them would be severe if they were to retrieve them." He then turned towards you. "The reason I did not accept your mission was because I had sent 3 Hunter-nin teams to look for them."
There was a sense of relief for a brief second. "Had sent?" You asked. "What the hell does that mean?"
"We found two wagons in the Land of Birds two weeks ago. Both wagons were burned, and many of the bodies were charred corpses or ashes. But there were two Konoha headbands among the cinders." Hiruzen puffed smoke. "They are dead."
That made you narrow your eyes. "How do you know they did not escape?" You asked.
"There were no tracks or scents that suggested that any of the children even survived." Hiruzen stated before sliding over a report, the ink barely dry.
You scanned the documents. Everything was in place, all of it was there… but something just felt off about reading it. There were no loose ends, no theories on what happened, how hot the fires were, comments on the mission... simple things that made the Hokage's day a little bit easier when the jounin knew Hiruzen was going to have a bad day.
They were always in the ANBU reports as well… you had placed plenty during your six-month stint there before Ayako was born, and since it wasn't wartime, the comments were allowed.
Except from one branch of the ANBU, the one that you only had bad memories about… ROOT.
"Thank you lord Hokage." You said quietly, starting to leave with your fellow parents.
A few minutes later, you were back out onto the streets of Konoha.
"Something wrong?" Sojiro asked.
"ROOT is involved." You replied.
"What are you saying?" One of the other parents asked.
You looked up to the Hokage monument. "I need to pay a visit to my old friend."
These were the moments that made you hate this fucking village, and all the old bastards who thought they knew better than everyone else.
You were supposed to be protecting children from the horrors of war, not taking them from their beds and turn them into emotionless killing machines.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Danzo was with two of his bodyguards when you walked into his view. "Ah, Hello Mako." Danzo started. "What-"
"Shut up councilman." Your answer made Danzo's smile disappeared, being replaced with a frown of anger. "I just need an answer from you, and a truthful one. You owe me that much."
Danzo held his cane with a death grip. "After all these years, an answer is what you use your favor for?" He asked.
"I just want to know this. Did you kidnap the children for your little army?"
Danzo looked surprised, but only for a moment. "I'm not going to ask you how you learned about how you know about ROOT." His lie made your blood boil. You were the one Hiruzen ordered to steal children for Danzo, and that sonuvabitch thinks he can just forget. "But I did not recruit the children into ROOT, even though there were many promising candidates for it."
"Don't lie to me Danzo." You replied. "I still have perfect memory of every face of every child you made me take from their bed. An ambitious man like yourself knows that it would be political suicide for the names and ranks of all your men to leak... and how they were re-" Blades were at your throat, carefully not drawing any blood.
You narrowed your eyes. Finally, you got his attention. "Tell me… did you take the children… or did you not?"
Danzo gritted his teeth for just a moment. "No. I did not. Not these children at least."
You nodded. "Good day councilman." You then disappeared in a breeze of leaves.
AN: Enjoy.
Edit: Remember guys, it is okay to Blame Danzo... But not now at least.