twenty four.
He jogged past the gates, feeling the weight of every passerby’s stare on his back. A distinct sense of Wrongness pervaded as a team of two masked Anbu followed closely behind. They walked into the Uchiha compound under broad daylight like storytail wraiths, strange people that shouldn’t be seen under sunlight.
Shisui suppressed a sigh, the unnerving sight of Anbu masks passing the only cornerstore in the Uchiha district in the middle of the day was not one the clan would forget for a while. Once this was all over he’d never hear the end of it.
With the rest of Anbu being under investigation, and the Uchiha police being booted out to ensure there were no biased investigators, the only trusted personnel available to ‘escort’ Shisui back to his own house were two of the Hokage’s personal guards. At the behest of the Sandaime Hokage-sama’s esteemed cabinet, it was agreed by the hastily gathered investigation team that Shisui would be accompanied when he retrieved the Uchiha clan’s contact from the compound. Shisui would be the one to retrieve them to ensure Uchiha's interests, and the Hokage’s guards to ensure that there would be no ‘coup’ activity.
Shisui kept the happy thought that the entire cabinet and all their bureaucratic bullshit would be washed away after the investigation into Konoha’s inner affairs started. It was the only thing that kept him from launching across the table to punch councilwoman [whatever her name was]
He didn’t like it, but it made sense. As much as his pride itched at being the one to lead the Hokage’s dogs into his clan’s hidden meeting place, it would only lend the clan more credibility as the investigation went on.
He quickly led the two agents past the newer areas of the compound, further from the reconstruction and into the old clan grounds. The small shrine that hid their most secret place and the most securely sealed room in Konoha looked unassuming in the daylight, and without the stream of clanmember’s climbing the steps and disappearing inside it looked peaceful. Shisui flashed his Sharingan at the single shinobi waiting inside to confirm his identity and followed him under the awning.
“This is where you hid her?” asked the one with the long blue Crane mask. They both hesitated before stepping into the roof’s shadow and deeper into the shrine. Their footsteps and voices echoed quietly.
His cousin coughed lightly. Shisui grimaced but didn’t deny the ‘hiding’ bit. They shared a [word] glance before Shisui explained.
“She heavily implied that she’d be forced to kill herself if we tried to capture her, so we’ve kept her under genjutsu and hoped the seals would be enough to keep her unconscious.”
“Is that really safe? Keeping her under for an entire month?” Crane questioned. Her partner stayed silent, probably studying the old seals in the walls as they walked around the cold altar to the back of the shrine, coming to a stop where Shisui knew the trapdoor was.
It wasn't really.
“We didn’t really have another option.” His cousin muttered. He lifted up the tatami mats and flashed his Sharingan at the trapdoor. A tiny seal in the corner flashed almost imperceptively, and the trapdoor opened with a click. He lifted the door and beckoned the guards inside.
“The door locks again from the inside once closed.”
Shisui slipped inside, followed by the Crane mask and Otter. Ei was right where they’d left her, laid out on the floor in the middle of a bog-standard prisoner matrix. It kept her completely still and regulated chakra levels to keep them alive and calm, the same kind that T&I used. Otter stalked over, crouching down to stick a tag in the middle of Ei’s forehead. He swiped a hand through the matrix on the floor and hefted Ei’s slight form over his broad shoulder.
Her head lolls, covering her face with lank hair as the man passes Shisui. With her eyes closed she looked so much more… normal. With her wide eyed stare and general air of desperation gone, she looked a lot less mysterious and much more like any other regular genin.
This entire investigation hinged on this kid, but Shisui wasn’t entirely sure how “alive” she’d be after they took the seal off. He glanced at her discreetly, barely a half second with his Sharingan. Her paths were open still, but worryingly sluggish. The matrix kept her alive, but that particular seal isn't exactly known for the most restful of sleep. The biggest worry that the investigation team had was that as soon as she woke up in a cell Danzo’s slave seal would kill her instantly.
Shimura Danzo allowed the investigation to happen and the bastard knew that they wouldn’t find anything in the Shimura Clan or his public agents. At Itachi’s urging, Fugaku-oji and Mikoto-oba didn’t reveal Ei’s existence until Danzo was truely in custody.
And that’s when Shisui returned to the village, with the matron and her four wards of [small village name] orphanage in tow. Once Danzo had the prison seal applied, whatever chakra flow going from him to the rest of his freak seals must have been staggered. Everything went to shit pretty quickly after that, with seemingly random people in the village dropping dead or disappearing, and it was unclear how many agents Danzo truly had, and the sheer scale of his operations.
The Sannin Jiraiya was being summoned back to the village to look at the damned seals, but it had become increasingly clear as the investigation stretched on that very few people besides Danzo knew what their seals did. Since Ei herself didn’t know what kind of seal she had, Itachi wasn’t able to figure it out from the memories he gleaned. Tenzo was able to be investigated in the same way as Ei, but another agent managed to kill themselves from inside the genjutsu. An attempt was made to investigate using Yamanaka jutsu, but the bodies cremated themselves, and that whole side of the investigation sorta fell through once the Yamanaka clan head said that he was aware of an agent in his own clan.
With Danzo under lock and key, his clan was safe from whatever that plan was supposed to be. Ei was the only agent T&I knew of that had clearance to the higher level secret operations Danzo had going on, the only people they’d discovered so far were the ones that terminated themselves, the remaining public figures from the unit formed during the Second War, and the unsealed liaisons they’d found through investigating Konoha Orphanage. Anbu shinobi with relevant information and Tenzo’s old information had been helpful so far, but they’d hit a roadblock once the rest of The Foundation caught on and disappeared.
Once Ei was unsealed, and if she was able to confess, hopefully, the investigation would finally get a move on.
Ei would be safe soon too. She’d done so much for his clan and even the village, and now Shisui could repay the favor. No matter what Ei said about debts, Shisui could help his friend.
Shisui flickered directly into T&I’s entrance once he was out of the compound, the two agents following after him. They quickly descended into the lower levels, past all the other offices and record rooms into the deepest, darkest parts of Konoha. The room was filled with Konoha’s elite. Sandaime-sama looked ridiculously small and old standing beside Fugaku-oji and Morino-san [whatever the interrogation guy is called], but he still looked at every part of the strong imposing figure carved into the mountain above them. The rest of the shinobi were the hardened, straight-laced kind of people Shisui was lucky enough to have never met in his career and a single medic nin.
Even in the cold room, Shisui could feel the sticky prickle of sweat on his scalp. He padded over to stand by a solemn Fugaku as Otter deposited Ei onto the chair in the other room. Shisui held his breath as he watched the shinobi through the two way glass clamp jutsu-covered chains onto Ei’s ankle, only releasing it once Fugaku laid a hand on his shoulder.
It was a disturbing sight, a single genin laid out in the most oppressive interrogation chamber he’d ever seen in his life. He would be the one to break the Sharingan Genjutsu in a moment, in hopes that a familiar chakra would keep her from terminating herself in panic. Though he would have liked to think Ei wouldn’t do that, he couldn’t know for sure. Neither Shisui nor Tenzo could safely guess what Ei would do once she woke, so they would play it as safely as possible.
“What now?” Shisui asked quietly. All the times Shisui glimpsed a shadow of a personality behind Ei’s veneer of professional grace had endeared him to the little nerd. The atmosphere didn’t call for any jokes, and he couldn’t shake the fear that his new friend might not see the end of all her efforts.
“They are going to cut off Shimura Danzo’s chakra for a short time and unseal the witness. Then you can fulfill your role and break the genjutsu.” Morino Ibiki growled.
[blah shisui in room now]
The mednin gave the O.K. signal.
Shimura Danzo was sealed.
Shisui leaned over the cold table to peel the tag off Ei’s forehead. He twitched, seeing her eyelids flutter as the last inch of paper left her skin. The rest of the seal matrix on the chair dissolved with a slight hissing sound as the remaining chakra burned itself off. With the Sharingan, he could see the brief pulse as the seal in her throat stuttered in response.
She was instinctively trying to break out of the genjutsu. Shisui thought in bafflement. Even after being under the illusion for so long, Ei was still aware of being under the genjutsu. (ei is button mashing to skip the cutscene, delete later)
Ideally, he’d try to let the effects of the restraint seal wear off before dispelling such a harsh jutsu, but they were on a time crunch. Leaving Danzo completely cut off from chakra would kill him, and Fugaku-oji hadn’t been able to convince the Hokage to execute him without testimony from their contact.
Shisui huffed a sigh before reaching to peel one of her eyelids open, forcing her listless eyes to look at his Sharingan.
“Kai.”
Her chakra networks flooded with chakra. Shisui yanked his hand back as she jolted forward with a strangled inhale. She leaned over in the chair, folding over the table and breathing harshly. She shivered, rattling the chains on her ankle and making the curtain of hair around her face quiver.
Shisui let her be for a moment, glancing at the med-nin at the ready in the corner.
Ei mumbled something, one twitching hand coming to rest at her temple.
“Can you repeat that?” He asked evenly. It wasn’t good that she came to so quickly. The shock to her system could have fried something in her head, but the rush of chakra and quick recovery made him think that she had been under a similar genjutsu before.
“- gone.” She whispered.
“What is?” Shisui questioned. He glanced at the two way mirror spanning the length of the room hesitantly, before shuffling over to stand at her side.
She shuddered, bending over and letting her head rest on the cold table. Shisui hovered a hand over her shaking shoulders, He beckoned the med-nin over as her gasping breaths turned to sobs.
“The chakra- from the seal. It’s-” Ei lifted her head, meeting Shisui’s blazing red eyes with her familiar bug eyed stare. She gulped in air like she was drowning, choking on her gasps as she fought to get her words out.
She was smiling.
Her grin stayed fixed on her face even as tears spilled over her cheeks onto the floor and she struggled to stay upright in the chair. She sputtered over whatever she was going to say, gripping the table with one hand, the other pressed into her head with bloodless fingers.
“It worked.” She whispered. Ei turned her head, watching the approaching med-nin and keeping Shisui in her sights.
“Yeah, your insane plan worked.” Shisui grinned back. Ei made a noise at that, somewhere between a keen and a giggle.
“But! you’ll have to take a breath before you give yourself a heart attack kid.” Shisui said lightly, gently prying the hand off her head. With his finger on her wrist, he could feel the jack-rabbit beat of her pulse, making him consider the possibility. He layed her hand palm up on the metal table.
“The seal is still there if you’re worried about that, it’s just being suppressed for now.” Shisui said slowly. “You were kept unconscious under that Genjutsu for 34 days, you’re probably feeling the muscle soreness from that.” Shisui explained. Ei nodded, not noticing or not caring that he had touched her at all, just keeping her gaze on the medic-nin.
The med-nin held her hand out, letting Ei see the chakra gather on her palm before she pressed it lightly to her shoulder.
“Muscle soreness.” Ei muttered in disbelief.
“What?” Shisui questioned.
Ei shook her head, another shuddering inhale wracking her form. Shisui stepped back, watching in mild concern Ei let the med-nin check her vitals. Ei complied with everything they did, but she watched with an intense focus, only moving to keep both the medic and Shisui in view. She didn’t look away from the woman until she had stepped back, and then the full force of her shaky focus was back onto Shisui. Ei hadn’t protested or shown any visible sign of discomfort, and whether that was her regular compliance or leftover wooziness from being under seal for so long, he wasn’t sure. It was worrying either way. Her breaths had calmed, but a few stray tears still ran down her face.
“Danzo has been restrained, and they’ve cut off his chakra supply so that you’ll be able to talk freely without the use of sharingan. We’ve got about- four-ish hours.” Shisui said, sliding into the metal chair opposite of her at the metal table.
The mednin wrapped some sort of tag onto her arm under Ei’s watch, and after activating it left shortly.
“So, are you up to answering questions?” Shisui asked lightly, mentally reviewing the questions he was supposed to ask as the door closed behind the med-nin. Seeing Ei now, he was already tossing half of them out. She straighted in the chair, despite how much it must have strained her muscles. She looked like she was waiting for orders or something. It reminded him far too much of a dog sitting at their owner’s side.
“I can give my report now.”
Shisui raised his brow at the phrasing. “Alright. Why don’t you start with how you joined the Foundation?”
Ei blinked at him. She glanced at the mirror to the left, and back to him. An obvious tell, but he didn’t know what kind of message it was meant to convey.
Who could she sense on the other side? He wondered.
“I did not join, I was chosen.” Ei said hesitantly. Her face smoothed out into an even expression, somewhat marred by the disheveled hair.
“...and how does that work?” He asked with a strained voice.
She glanced again at the mirror.
“You are being interrogated,” Shisui reminded, “but you can answer a different question if trying to recall that is too taxing for now. I don’t doubt that you’ll be questioned again after this.”
Ei hesitated again. “I can recall it well. I just-, I do not think I am allowed to give all the specific circumstances.”
Shisui blinked. “Are you saying that I don’t have the clearance?”
She nodded.
He could practically see the gears turning in her head as the seconds ticked by. “If you are here then you are likely being allowed access.” She reasoned. Shisui narrowed his eyes at the phrasing.
“I will begin then,” Ei announced, drawing herself up in the chair to report. “My name is Ei, and I lived in the Konoha Orphanage at the time of the Kyuubi Attack on the Hidden Leaf.
bleh belh blebn. Danzo is dead and ei is free as a bird. Haha. bird. sky kanji, I'm soo funny .,
With the haze of his chakra gone, everything was brighter. Louder colors and bigger swashes. They didn’t have that foggy coating of grime on top, and they were even more vibrant than before. Shisui’s signature across from her felt much more alive, less like a black river and white ash, more like cool deep blue-black spring waters and the deep warm greys of hearthstones.
Through the cotton-packed wall around her head, Ei could sense the slight amusement from Shisui, the surprise- Green-Blue, and anger, bubbling- Yellow, the life in the rocks around them- Annoyance, brighter than before.
E.
Ei watched the two men seat themselves at the table. She stiffened when the Hokage walked in, despite having sensed him already.
The Sandaime was dwarfed by the taller Uchiha patriarch, but it made him no less intimidating. She kept her gaze on the Hokage’s face, respecting his authority first despite the urge to cringe away. Looking away from the most powerful shinobi in the room is always a bad move, even if Ei could sense them better then she could see them.
Sandaime-sama commanded respect in a way that the Uchiha Clan head did not. Ei felt like she should be standing taller and doing everything she could to measure up to whatever the Hokage seemed to see in her. Like forge fires that tempered steel.
It wasn’t all that different from Danzo, who’s thick cloying chakra threatened to choke her out, clouded her eyes and coalesced her to inhale the smoke, made her stand up and be guided through the rolling flames, merciless eyes watching as she coughed on the hot ashes. Like a slow ievitable forest fire, sucking oxygen into the currents of flame rushing through the underbrush, steady flames consuming anything not worthy of standing in the forest beside the tallest trees and the oldest rocks.
Maybe the Will of Fire was what lended fire to their burning gazes. A burning something that seemed to exist in every face but her own.
“Hokage-sama. Uchiha-sama.” Ei bowed in her seat, as deep as she could. Dodging their combined gazes for a moment and showing her respect at the same time. She bowed deeper for the Hokage, remaining folded over awkwardly. There seemed to be some tension hanging between Fugaku and the Hokage, like coming off the tail of argument.
“You are not surprised by my presence as the others were.” The Hokage remarked lightly.
“I could sense your chakra throughout the investigation Hokage-sama. I had assumed that my association with the Jinchurriki and my avoidance of the topic while Uchiha Shisui lead discussion would be addressed at the latest convenience.” Ei intoned. She didn’t rise to the bait, the mention of the others. Any other foundation agents here weren't her concern.
Her only power came from the knowledge she held, and she’d hoped that by dodging every attempt at questioning her involvement with the Jinchurriki by Shisui would lead to getting the Hokage’s attention.
Ei knew that the Hokage would be involved in questioning higher up’s within the Foundation in the wake of Danzo’s execution. She’d hoped to get more information about it by gaining his attention but had managed to land herself back in the investigation room instead.
The Hokage cleared his throat. “At ease.” Ei lifted her head, settling her gaze squarely on the old man. She didn’t have to look up much, but that hardly placed her on even ground.
“I came to address the debt owed to you. Your involvement led to our clan’s survival and as it’s head, I owe you a great debt.” Uchiha-sama said. Ei fought a grimace when he inclined his head toward her.
It would be rude to refuse debt from a clan head. And most un-shinobi-like.
“I know that you are opposed to the idea. Shinobi do not like debts. However, on my honor as clan head, I cannot let your deed go unacknowledged.” Fugaku said. Ei got suspicious as he kept talking.
“Obviously, as the last of Danzo’s involvements come to light, more details will become hidden again. Knowledge of my son’s investigation into the deepest parts of the Anbu will stay hidden. The public can never know about the disappearances from the orphanages,” Fugaku gave a sideways glance toward the Hokage, “it would spread unease. The Daimyo would be angry.”
Ei had a feeling that she was being offered a weapon. He was politicking.
He stood. “So, I offer my clan’s support to you. You may choose to use it or not, but our clan will never forget your support.”
Ei blinked. He was offering her a way out. She’d never disappear again. “Thank you, Uchiha-sama.” She said, stunned. He acknowledged with a nod, walking out of the room and leaving her alone with the Hokage.
[action before hereef]
“I appreciate your discretion in keeping the village’s greatest power a secret, even as the rest of our village’s dirty laundry is aired out.” He said evenly.
Ei expected a sterner face when she looked back up. Her insolence, trying to negotiate freedom with her own Hokage, is the kind of thing Danzo would have punished her for. Ei hoped that her Hokage would not be that sort of man.
“Uzumaki Naruto is not a weapon, and I will ensure that such a thing would never happen. He is a little boy.” Ei declared.
The Hokage chuckled lightly. “Good. I would have hoped your will would have stayed the same.”
They were testing each other.
“You forgot me.” Ei retorted.
“You died, child.” The Sandaime Hokage replied.
Ei made a vague noise of agreement and looked away. Staring down at the table like she could find the answer written in the years of scratches and Yellow-confusion-grey embedded in its surface. Ei had died.
“Naruto hasn’t forgotten me.” Ei ventured. She said it not as a challenge, but like a reminder.
The man huffed, retrieving a pipe from the depth of his robes. “How convenient for the both of us, hm?” He said, inhaling the sweet smoke.
and then they went out for icecream and everything was nomral yaayyyyy
_____________________