Chapter 58.3- Gamer of the Desert

“Why did you do it?” I asked her the second she woke up./ That wasn’t the question I had in mind. I wanted to ask about the bastards that raped her. I wanted to ask about Danzo. I wanted to ask about a million other things.

“I had no choice. Danzo-sama gave an order, and I could not refuse” She froze.

“How…”

“Did you say his name? Every seal he had on you is now gone.”

She looked flabbergasted. Shocked beyond belief. She said so, I just smiled.

“You’ve seen me do things with seals that we all thought were impossible. Top you truly think that the seals that decrepit old bastard made would have been anywhere complex enough to ev en act as a stumbling block?” I asked with some amount of exaggerated confidence. The two points I’d gained in fuinjutsu from twang his seals apart have taken me into the high 80s so I was now at the level that there were probably few seal masters in Uzumaki history who could claim to have ever been on my level. To put it in perspective, I had fuinjutsu mastered up to the same degree as Hiruzen Sarutobi had had ninjutsu. I could do things that no one alive would have any chance of understanding. Jiraiya prided himself on being a seal master. The best things he had Orochimaru could cook up would fall apart before me. They didn’t count as rivals. Not even as colleagues.

“You still haven’t answered my question.” I probed further. Mebuki’s gaze fell to the side, unable or unwilling to meet my gaze for any longer.

“I already told you. He ordered it. I had to. You saw the seals.”

“I saw the seals, indeed. And as much as I beleive Danzo to have been stupid, I doubt he ordered you to set the village on fire, beginning with the part of the village that housed most of the jounin and was most likely to be saved.” I asked.

“He ordered me to use my access to sabotage the village. I interpreted my orders as I saw fit.” There was a smirk on her face then. I was right.

“So you were trying to get caught”

“Of course. Your siblings are wonderful. But they’d have stood no chance if I was trying”

“But that still doesn’t answer my real question. Why did you do it?”

“You’re asking about spying on you? Hiding it? All those things? I had no choice. Danzo ordered me to join Suna’s medical program so I could steal research on Suna’s infamous poisons for him, but then I met you. I sent it back in my report and he ordered me to endear myself to you by any means necessary. It was just a mission. But it became more at some point. You were so lonely. Just like I was. I was lonely as well. When you graduated from the academy and left to continue going on missions, I thought it was done. But then you became Kazekage. And you appointed me as your Secretary. I wanted to say no. I knew that Danzo would have me use the position to betray you, but I could see how lonely you were when you made the offer. I just couldn’t do it. So I worked for Danzo, but I helped you as well. I kept him from trying to assassinate you and helped to foil some of his less important plans, but I cupid not openly work against him. When he ordered me to destroy the village, I fought against the orders with all I had, and that was the best I could do.” I nodded at her words. Her voice never cracked as she spoke. It was clear, robotic, and monotone. It showed the root training that she’d done so well to hide for so long.

“Enough on that. Give me the names of the guards who touched you” I asked, not able to keep the part of my brain that demanded vengeance silent any longer.

“Do you assume they gave me their names while they did what they did. Like one of them took off my shirt while saying hello, my name is Hiro?” She snarked.

I flushed at her words, unable to come up with an adequate reply for her sarcasm.

“Well, luckily for us, they were that stupid. I can give you a list. But on one condition”

“What?”

“I want to kill them myself” She said. The joyful girl I remembered from the med nin training academy was nowhere to be found. In her place stood the cold Danzo-trained root operative.

“I can agree to that.”

“So what is going to happen to me?” She asked.

“Well, I ought to fire you at the very least. But the only issue with that is that I can not let it be known that my Secretary was a spy against Suna’s interests and I never noticed. That kind of thing tends to ruin people’s estimations of their Kage, you know? Besides that, the Elders would take any chance to pry whatever power they can from me. Having one of my own turn to be a traitor would be a coupe they would not hesitate to take advantage of.” I explained.

“So you will keep me? Quite a few people saw me light the fires, you know?”

“Yes, that is problematic. My present plan is to just say a Yamanaka that worked for Danzo managed to use a hidden entrance from my father’s time as kazekage to sneak into the village and take over your body.”

“No one will buy that”

“They will. I even have a body to show them”