Elemental Countries LoV style
Himiko Toga, after the collapse of the League, stumbles on a weird thing while she and Twice Kun are looking for somewhere to hide. They’re the only ones left. Everyone else is dead or caught… even all those MLF arseholes. Not cute, the lot of them.
And… and now she’s HERE… where ever here is and Jin kun’s nowhere to be found.
Also, also, she’s TINY. Looking at her little hands she can’t be more than five. Maybe six. And this is the clearest she’s been able to think in YEARS.
Or Himiko is tossed into the elemental nations and comes across a teen Shimura Danzo who is dying from poisoned injuries in the middle of a war.
His blood was yucky but she was hungry and he could tell her where she was and how to get somewhere safe. She didn’t want to go back. There wasn’t anything to go back to!)
By taking the teen’s form she is able to drag him to somewhere safe as his injuries don’t show up on her when she changes and blood contaminants don’t affect her.
(They caught Greenies Mummy and made him trade analysis on them to get her back. He put in a few dodgy things but one of the MLF was able to go over them and pick those out. Most of them anyway… so they learned a LOT even if it made the cutie Greenie REALLY mad!)
Because she’s so small and young, she has to keep doing it so she’s knackered by the time she reaches the ‘base’ with him.
She falls over from Quirk exhaustion and he just falls over, too injured and poisoned not to.
Konoha takes her in though Danzo’s body doesn’t heal all the way and he can no longer go out into the field.
Himiko, despite her lack of Chakra, becomes his protege. Needing blood isn’t the weirdest Kekkei Genkai requirement ever after all and there’s LOTS of blood around.
Since it isn’t Chakra based, the usual disruption techniques don’t work either. So she’s like the ultimate infiltrator… even if she does need blood regularly to keep it up.
Danzo knows he can’t ever be Hokage. Not like this but he can be the shadow ruler and raise the next one.
Himiko HAS learned some stuff though.
And one of them is to take care of your resources. It’s the little bits needed to make up big bits so you can’t waste the little bits just like that! The little Clans need protecting and they need to make more of them because if they don’t all the special stuff they can do will be gone.
Danzo blinks.
While pawns can be sacrificed, doing so arbitrarily is stupid.
He should know better.
He DOES know better.
What the hell was he doing?!
Danzo becomes the shield for the smaller Clans. Their representative.
Root still happens but the training is less about taking kids from Clans and more about taking the half-feral, slightly trained street kids and turning them into something useful. Street folk are a drain on village resources after all.
With him to guide them Orochimaru and Himiko will do very well. He takes in all those who are unaccepted or unwanted by the Clans… or who just need to not be visible for their own safety.
He isn’t planning on taking over Konoha but there needs to be balance. There needs to be shadows for the light to shine, roots to support the great tree.
Uzu is attacked and Konoha, already beleaguered, can’t afford to send anyone… but Root can.
And Root does.
Uzumaki are a resource.
They aren’t enough and aren’t strong enough to save the Village, but they CAN make sure the Uzumaki know Konoha will welcome them, take and shield them until they are strong enough to return.
Konoha will shield their civilians as it does it’s own. They are sister villages after all.
It is Root and Danzo who have their loyalty… not the Sandaime who did nothing. Could not afford to do anything.
Sandaime is slipping.
He is not well.
They are no longer unified in purpose.
Namikazi’s raising to Hokage can’t come fast enough…
Orochimaru and Himiko will rule the underside.