Naruto: The Outsider's Resolve: CH_561: First Lead (Patreon)

Aburame Shigeki was thoroughly cognizant that his life had irrevocably changed the moment he and the clan faced the public inquiry. His actions had raised the clan’s wealth and influence, but they had also dragged them into a quagmire of trouble that his earlier contribution couldn’t offset. He accepted his future and fate, whatever it was to be.

And yet, he felt apprehensive sitting opposite Shibi in the latter’s office. He wasn’t expecting to meet the clan head because it was the shinobi academy’s convocation ceremony, and from Shibi’s attire, he had just come from there. He also didn’t miss Shibi telling his assistant to leave early for the day. It was because of Shibi’s reputation that people misunderstood him as someone who didn’t feel emotions under stress; in fact, it was the opposite. He felt like everyone else; he was just better at hiding his emotions and keeping them from tainting his judgment. But right now, even though he sat behind his desk with nary an emotion on his face, Shigeki’s hive could feel the waves of rage pheromones coming off of Shibi’s body.

None of the signs spelt anything good for Shigeki.

“Did you make a deal with Shimura Danzō to withhold aid from the Uchiha clan?” Shibi shot without any preamble.

The words were ice water in his veins.

That name—that night—became exceedingly clear in his memory. Despite the man’s reputation, information about Danzō was hard to come by. Rumours and tales existed, of course, but it was hard to separate truth from fiction. So, when the man approached him with a deal, Shigeki was cautiously optimistic about earning himself a favour from the Shinobi of Darkness. What he had done with the chakra pest was dangerous; he wanted insurance for a rainy day in case he ever needed it, and a favour from Danzō was a powerful card to hold.

Unfortunately, that favour became a liability when Danzō was excommunicated from the Hidden Leaf.

Shigeki was stressed that his dealings with the man would come to light, but when they never did, and the village as a whole seemed eager to move forward from Shimura Danzō after his death, he was convinced that it was all behind him and felt relieved, even if he had done things for that man without getting anything in return.

“So you did,” Shibi said when he got no reply. His tone was neutral, but Shigeki’s hive could feel a wave of bubbling anger. “Do you know what’s worse than repeatedly realising that there are so many things happening in my own clan without me knowing? It’s the fact that I’m finding out about them from outsiders… In this case,” he raised his voice, “from the Uchiha clan head himself, who was livid, and deservedly so.”

Shigeki could no longer hide his emotion and collapsed into the chair. It was all over. Shimura Danzō was a plague that everyone wanted to avoid because he turned everything worse. The clan would now have to prepare for the assumption that the information would be leaked, and they’d have to face even worse allegations, not to mention somehow manage the torrent of rumours that would follow.

“If that wasn’t enough, I met with Lord Hokage afterwards, who made it clear in not so many words that the village is going to see this through one way or another, and that we can either cooperate or go down fighting.”

Shigeki didn’t need to be told where the conversation was heading.

“Why would you do that?” Shibi asked. “None of this was necessary.”

Perhaps just a few days earlier, he would’ve said he did it for the clan, but ever since his imprisonment in ANBU custody, he hadn’t been able to sleep properly, and his circumstances had given him plenty of time to contemplate his life and decisions.

All of it, he had done it for himself.

Shigeki looked at Shibi, younger than he was by a generation and a man who had made a name for himself in the Third Shinobi World War. They dubbed him the “Pride of the Aburame.” People worldwide knew him, respected him, and even feared him. Shigeki had none of that; before the chakra pest infestation, he was only known within the clan. As he grew older, he wondered what legacy he would leave behind after his death. Though more skilled than others in the clan’s hijutsu, he was never an exemplary shinobi. Though a Tokubetsu Jōnin, he wasn’t the type who would bring about administration among others. Even the young ones in the clan, those who were academically inclined and wanted to pursue a career like his, set their eyes on Shibi. He would be remembered within the clan’s annals, but it didn’t seem enough.

But after the chakra pest infestation, the looks people gave him changed. It was rare that people outside the clan ever recognised him before, but after his discovery, he was being invited to gatherings and honoured by people who previously didn’t know he existed.

He had more power within the clan. They held his opinion in the same regard as the clan jōnin.

His life looked more like he wanted it to be.

And that’s why he did it.

“I’m calling a clan meeting,” Shibi said.

Shigeki knew what that would entail. Shibi had already decided, but he needed to present it to the other clan higher-ups before he could proceed. If his contributions were real, he would have hope, but since he caused the mess—and the meeting with the Hokage—the clan had only one way to proceed.

It was over.

———

The day after the convocation ceremony, Takuma was back in his office. His secretary stood by his table, handling his communications one by one.

“This is marked as ‘for-your-eyes-only’, but it’s not an official internal memo.”

Takuma pulled out the small memo from its envelope, both standard stationery items used by ANBU. The words written in the messy handwriting brought a smile to his face. One of the operatives he worked with on the anti-ROOT initiative had since transferred to the Hokage’s ANBU; yesterday, he was part of the protection details for the Hokage at the shinobi academy and had been kind enough to pass along some observations.

A short chat between the Uchiha and Aburame clan heads.

An off-the-record meeting between the Hokage and Aburame Shibi.

Though the operative didn’t comment on what was talked about in either conversation, Takuma didn’t need their contents to know an approximation of what was talked about.

“Next, please,” Takuma said, fishing a lighter from his desk drawer and setting the paper and envelope on fire before tossing them into the bin.

“This is from Tern,” the secretary said, handing him a sealed scroll.

Takuma’s eyes shone because it wasn’t time yet for Tern’s regularly scheduled report, which meant she had found something that couldn’t wait. He undid the special seal, which only a squad leader or above from the Domestic Branch could remove, and gave the intel a quick scan.

Seeing the expression on Takuma’s face, his secretary asked, “Is it good news?”

“Hmm?” Takuma tore his eyes away from the scroll and contemplated the question for a moment. “Depends on who you ask. Overall, yes, I think it’s bad news,” he said, turning his eyes back to the scroll, missing the confused look she gave him because she couldn't see how it could be bad news if it made him smile.

After his secretary left, Takuma sat for the next fifteen minutes reading the scroll in complete silence before getting up, walking to the map display table, carefully moving the map into storage, and replacing it with a map showing the western portion of the Land of Fire in some detail. He took some red markers and began placing them on locations noted in Tern’s report.

As soon as he was able to wrap up the aftermath of the ROOT extermination and pass on the leadership of the former anti-ROOT squad to Boobook, he began his work on the future Sand’s Invasion of the Hidden Leaf Village. As a lieutenant, he couldn’t be on a long-term field mission, so after working on it as much as he could from the village, he assigned it to Tern. It took half of his maximum clone output a full week to scrounge up existing intel to create a plausible reason for him to assign an objectively valuable operative on a long-term mission to occupy a significant amount of her time. He was glad that Itachi trusted him as much as he did because the reason he created for Tern to go on a mission was shoddy at best. He also had to give Boobook extra funding in return for occupying one of her operatives.

However, in the months Tern had been making frequent trips to the western block of the Land of Fire, she hadn’t found anything relevant, actionable, or exciting. Takuma had all of this knowledge, but no way to get it out without questions regarding the source, something he couldn’t provide. He needed genuine, naturally occurring intelligence; otherwise, his knowledge held close to no value.

If he were a Foreign Branch operative, he’d be in a better position because of the different, more suitable access, but he still doubted it would’ve helped. If the Foreign Branch knew something, Takuma would’ve heard about it now because of the feelers he had put out for similar information.

Recently, he had been thinking of planting information for ANBU to discover, but he couldn’t guarantee that it wouldn’t be traced back to him. Slipping a letter to Mikoto about the dangers to the Uchiha clan was one thing, but ANBU was a beast that would ignore his anonymous warning as they did with the hundreds of grey mail they got every year.

Even if Takuma could route his warning through his unit and have it taken seriously, he would need something substantial for the higher-ups to recognise the claim's legitimacy; as powerful as an ANBU lieutenant's position was, it wasn’t enough.

Takuma stepped away from the table and gazed upon the scattered red markers. Individually, they were a cluster of minor waystations, market hubs flanking trade routes, and other commercial towns. But as he looked at them together, the cluster resolved into a spine that ran east to west. Every settlement sat just off a trade route to siphon provisions or hold a huge population hostage, but simultaneously, just secluded enough to have distances from large garrisons or concentrations of Leaf shinobi.

He didn’t need Tern’s assessment at the end of the scroll to recognise what was before him.

Someone was planning an extraction corridor.