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With the introductions over, the squad moved into the meeting room for their first informal meeting. The room had two rows of long benches facing a podium on wheels at the front. Takuma stood behind the podium as the team took their first seat on the benches.
"I'm sure everyone has questions. I'll field them now, so go ahead," Takuma said, expecting all hands to go up, but to his surprise, only two of his new subordinates raised their hands.
"Mor," he said, pointing to the former Inquisitor Unit member.
"What are you trying to accomplish with his squad?" Mor asked.
Takuma thought they would want to ask questions about the assassination attempt because even though the talk spread around, they were still ANBU-nin. People knew which parts they could safely gossip about and which to keep to themselves. And even ANBU-nin weren't safe from information getting twisted inside the rumour mill as it passed from one ear to the next. The reliability of the information was determined by how close the person was to the source of the information.
As far as proximity went, Takuma was the source.
But that wasn't the question that was asked. In fact, at first glance, Mor's question seemed stupid because everyone in the room already knew they had joined an anti-ROOT squad, but it was, in fact, very pertinent. Their reason for existing was obviously to rid the Hidden Leaf of the problem known as ROOT. What Mor and others wanted to know was how Takuma planned to accomplish that.
They could go after the agents themselves—the ROOT's lifeblood—and hunt them down until there wasn't enough manpower to sustain their operations. Or they could pour all of their effort into finding Danzo. Given its cult-like culture, ROOT would fall apart without its absolute leader. Their jōnin would eventually gain power, but without someone like Danzo holding them together, the new factions would split apart due to arguments that would naturally rise in the absence of a singular voice. Not all agents would have even stayed after Danzo's death, either. Even if those jōnin-led factions swore revenge against Hidden Leaf, they would be significantly easier to deal with in comparison to ROOT.
There were many ways to approach the problem, each with its own advantages and challenges.
"I want to erase ROOT's influence within the Land of Fire," he answered. "I'm treating this as an evolving situation. For now, I don't want anyone hiring ROOT, much less helping them. Associating with ROOT means making an enemy out of Hidden Leaf."
"Why go about it in such a roundabout way?" Tern, the controversial Shimura, asked. "Why not just target the spider's head?"
Takuma knew she shared no love for her former clan leader. What Danzo did left a stain on the Shimura clan that was nearly impossible to scrub off. Their decline was all but set in stone. It wasn't going to happen anytime soon because they were still one of the major clans in the Hidden Leaf Village with a deep history, and were still entirely capable of nurturing jōnin in the future, but like Tern, those jōnin would always carry the burden of being the blood of a traitor.
Ironically, it drew parallels with the Uchiha clan and their traitorous clan leader, Uchiha Madara, whose abandonment of the village and subsequent attempts to destroy it had put a burden on the Uchiha.
The Uchiha were forced to chain themselves to the Hidden Leaf Military Police by the Second Hokage. The difference between the Uchiha and Shimura clans was that the former were not once complicit with their clan leader. Madara had tried to convince the Uchiha clan to leave with him, but they had firmly refused, not wanting to forsake the peace gained from forming the Hidden Leaf Village. In the end, he was the only one who betrayed them.
The Shimura clan, on the other hand, grew under Danzo's influence and even used his methods, gaining them a shady reputation. Besides, the Shimura clan couldn't be compared to the Uchiha of the Sharingan, who managed to remain the strongest clan and only declined to the Nine-Tails incident, and even that was arguable. But even if the Shimura remained a prominent clan, they would eventually be the weakest among their peers.
And Tern, whose career in ANBU was looking bright, had been absolutely screwed by Danzo. Who in their right mind would trust her now? She was lucky not to be fired and ever luckier that nothing came up when the Hokage scoured through her life with a fine-toothed comb; he wouldn't have recommended her if he found anything significant connecting her to Danzo.
Her situation reminded Takuma of Anko. Like Anko, Tern enjoyed the influence of her authority figure, but was later forced to bear the weight of his betrayal. Of course, Tern wasn't squeaky clean herself. He had seen her file; she had done some stuff in and out of ANBU, but the same could be said of many people, including Takuma himself.
"How would we do that?" Takuma asked Tern. "There's no reliable way to track agents other than Intelligence finding about one of their missions in time, and that's as close to happenstance if it isn't a national-level threat. Tracking down Shimura Danzo is perhaps even harder. We have been unable to force out his location from any agents in our custody, regardless of the methods we used."
Only after he finished speaking did Takuma notice that his words had been entirely negative. While it was sensible to be realistic about what they could do, it wasn't good to emphasise all the things they couldn't do in front of a newly formed team.
"I'm not saying we should ignore the direct approach—we can't destroy ROOT without actually getting our hands on them—but I want our focus to be on turning the Land of Fire into a hostile environment averse to ROOT's growth."
Boobook, with her Mickey Mouse hair, said, "So, we are going to target their associates and allies?"
"Correct," Takuma smiled. Boobook was part of the anti-ROOT initiative, so she knew more about what he had been doing than others. He addressed the others. "ROOT is not a big organisation by any means. In fact, the ANBU is a relatively small department in the context of our overall responsibilities, which is why we actively collaborate with other departments. We have our intelligence desk, but the bulk of what we know comes from the Leaf Intelligence Division. We use Torture and Intelligence's facilities and expertise, and use general forces for protection…"
Most of Takuma's work had been finding the right people who could get the job done. Cases like the Fire-Prairie border outpost, where he had to do everything personally, were the exceptions. Usually, his work resembled how things went in the Maizuru Assassination case, where he utilised the local shinobi to find the people of interest.
"Just like we rely on others, ROOT does the same. Unless Danzo wants to turn his men into pure mercenaries—which he isn't going to do—he has to work with other people. ROOT might not have a leak, but I'll bet money that someone somewhere will say something they aren't supposed to."
Danzo was a warmonger who preferred to pull strings from the shadows. An old dog wasn't going to change his ways so far into his life, especially when he was kicked out of his kingdom.
"Are you confident that Danzo is in the Land of Fire?" asked Aquilla.
"I am," Takuma nodded to the Hyūga.
"Then wouldn't making the Land of Fire hostile cause him to move out of the country?" Aquilla asked. "Instead, let's say if we go after the agents. It'll be slow and irregular, but if he keeps failing consistently, he'll find work outside our borders. It'll reduce his influence in the country, but he will keep his main base in-country. Not to mention, it'll make him a problem in the eyes of other powers. However, if he makes the Land of Fire so hostile that he finds it difficult to develop ROOT here and decides to shift his base to another country? If that happens, it will be tough to hit him when we eventually find him."
Nothing existed in isolation, and ROOT was no exception. They needed weapons. He was sure they had a master blacksmith or two in their service, but they evidently weren't enough because ROOT purchased weaponry when they were still part of Hidden Leaf. That would not change, especially after their expulsion. If he made it so that no weapon supplier would dare supply them, they would face difficulties.
Not just weapons, what if ANBU managed to make it so that ROOT had difficulty procuring chakra ink? Different seals required different inks, and it wasn't something one could learn to make in a short amount of time. There was a reason the Hyūga clan had a chokehold on the industry. It would not only affect their fūin-nin's ability to create, but more importantly, it would also make it difficult for them to train new ones.
Someone somewhere would still be willing to sell them weapons, ink, and other materials, but everything would come at a steep markup. If someone wanted to hire ROOT, how would they go about it? They didn't have a building with their name on it that one could visit. The deals at those levels were handled by underworld fixers who procured services for their clients' needs.
What if Takuma made it so that most fixers wouldn't even want to touch ROOT? How would they get jobs to earn the funds they needed to sustain themselves, let alone grow?
That was the type of hostility Takuma wanted to instil, because facing that type of hostility, it would be foolish to have ROOT's base of operations in such an environment.
"Danzo will not, in any circumstance, leave the Land of Fire," Takuma declared to the room.
Everyone seemed to be confused about where his confidence was coming from. Even Boobook from the anti-ROOT initiative and Tern from the Shimura clan didn't seem to understand his statement.
"Listen to the words I'm about to say carefully. You must understand the man you're trying to bring down," Takuma said, looking at everyone in the room. "More than anything, Shimura Danzo desires the Hidden Leaf to be strong—stronger than the other hidden villages, stronger than the Fire Daimyo and his samurai. And he thinks he's the only one who can accomplish it because, in his eyes, the Hidden Leaf is weak. At the end of the day, ROOT is merely a means for him to achieve his goals. Before, it was to influence things in the manner he saw fit for the Hidden Leaf. Now, he's using ROOT to get back to the Hidden Leaf and take control.
"What he truly cares about is this village. It's his life obsession. He was kicked out of the village; imagine how it would feel if he were forced out of the country. No, he wouldn't allow that to happen. Even if it's disadvantageous, he'll stay, because leaving the country would mean accepting that he and his goals have regressed."
If Danzo were young, he might have considered a tactical retreat, but at his age, he had to know that he didn't have the time. If he wanted to make meaningful changes to the Hidden Leaf, he needed time, and for that, he required a position of power as soon as possible.
At this stage of life, Danzo's only choice was to progress.
"He also knows that he can't take the village by force. Even if ROOT somehow gets powerful enough, without the clans, he'll never become the Hokage."
It would be impossible to gain control of the village without that internal support. Even if ROOT somehow gained enough power to lay siege on the Hidden Leaf Village, it wouldn't matter if he made an enemy out of everyone.
A Kage might be a military dictator, but power, for all its worth, was given. The clans, the shinobi, and the civilians gave power to the Kage. Without their willingness to follow the rule, the position of a Kage would be worthless.
"It shouldn't come as a surprise to you that even now, there are forces who'd support Danzo. They might not voice their opinion or help him in any way, but if Danzo gains a realistic chance at becoming Hokage, they'll be there… Now imagine how those people would feel when they hear that Danzo was forced to abandon the Land of Fire? Will that inspire confidence in him? Would they still think that he might be a strong leader?"
"…He'd be trapped," said Hippo.
Takuma nodded. "The only way out for Danzo is to get stronger, and I'm not going to allow that to happen. ROOT's only future is to slowly choke to death while we squeeze the life out of them."
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