Chapter 505: A Grave Loss

Fujin continued analyzing, 'Compared to that, the Chidori is a bit easier. While my Chidori isn't as good as Kakashi's Chidori, it's only a matter of time before it becomes as good as his. Actually, even without it, my current level with Chidori is sufficient to poke holes or overwhelm the usual defenses. The only time I'd struggle would be if I try going head-on against another Chidori or a Rasengan or go up against a defense at the level of Gaara.

In addition, I also managed to create a 1 finger lightning jab by taking inspiration from the 3rd Raikage's attack. Though it is nowhere near his level, it'll continue improving.

My initial plan with the Lightning Release was to have a combat system like this. I did create some more jutsus to help out with defenses and for some other uses. What I didn't expect was that I would get the Blade of the Thunder Spirit. It allows me to fight comfortably from a range as well.

It was indeed a very helpful gift as it directly resolved the issue of me not having good mid and long-range jutsus. I was overly dependent on the Lightning Beam and the False Darkness jutsus. And, neither was strong enough to threaten an Elite Jounin. Now, it is a completely different story with the amplification the sword provides me. Looks like my Lightning Combat System is almost complete.'

A smile formed on Fujin's face. Unlike with Wind, he had received very little help to improve his Lightning jutsus. Reaching such a level with just himself was a great accomplishment.

Fujin let out a yawn and muttered to himself, 'It's late at night. I need to sleep. There is still some exhaustion from the soldier pill. Tomorrow, I need to see what happens after Danzo finds the dead bodies.

If nothing serious happens, I need to start working on creating the Eight Trigrams Divination Seal. I'll have my clones work on it while I train Flying Thunder God and the Eight Inner Gates.'

Fujin went to sleep. The night was very peaceful in Konoha. However, no one knew the storm that would soon hit the higher-ups in the village!

The next day, a Root ninja visited one of the four bases on a routine visit. When he entered it, his eyes widened as he saw two Root ninjas lying dead. He immediately sent a clone to inform Danzo.

Within a few minutes, Danzo and 8 Root ninjas arrived at the base. Root ninjas dying inside Konoha was a huge matter. Danzo bent down and began observing the two dead bodies. So did a couple of other Root ninjas, one of whom was a medical ninja.

The medical ninja said, "They died without any struggle. There is only one small injury on their foreheads which looks to be made by a senbon piercing through their head. Their opponent should have been much stronger than them."

Another added, "There is no senbon inside this room."

Danzo's eyes landed on the two small holes in the walls. He walked towards them. Immediately, everyone else noticed them as well. Danzo said, "The senbon were thrown with a lot of power. Not only did they pierce through their heads, they also pierced through the wall. Follow this hole to see where the senbons are."

A couple of Root ninjas immediately disappeared. A frown appeared on Danzo's face as he analyzed, 'One of these two is at the Jounin level. Yet, he died in the same manner as the other. Who attacked them?'

Danzo fell into deep thought. He had a bad feeling. He wondered, 'Did an enemy village send a spy? But, who'd send such a strong spy into Konoha? And, how did they find the location of this hidden base and manage to enter without triggering any alarms? Something doesn't add up.'

The Root ninjas returned and reported, "Lord Danzo, the trail ends on the other side of the base. There are two deep holes, but there is no senbon in either of the holes. However, the holes aren't damaged. I don't understand how anyone would retrieve them."

Danzo's frown deepened. He immediately followed them. It was as they said. There were two tiny holes that were about 3 meters deep. However, there was no senbon inside them. And, there was no sign of any external damage to the hole for anyone to remove the senbon.

Danzo immediately began analyzing, 'Did the attacker retrieve the weapon as it would leave clues? However, removing a weapon from here isn't easy unless the attacker is a puppet master. Another possibility is that it wasn't a senbon and instead was a chakra-based attack that is similar to a senbon. Perhaps made of wind or ice.'

As Fujin had guessed, it wouldn't take long for Danzo to figure out what had happened. After all, in terms of experience, Danzo was leagues ahead of Fujin. Even more so when it came to acting in the dark.

One Root ninja suddenly appeared behind Danzo and reported, "Lord Danzo, I inspected the injury. The insides of their head are hit by Lightning. I suspect that their memories can no longer be read. I inspected the holes in the wall as well. They also show signs of Lightning damage as well. I suspect that they were attacked with a Lightning-enhanced senbon."

Danzo said, "I see. Call Yamanaka Fu here and have him inspect their memories to see if their memories can still be read."

Danzo secretly deactivated the seal on their brains that was responsible for attacking anyone who tried to read their memories.

He continued analyzing, 'An Elite Jounin or a rank S who can use Lightning enhanced senbon assisted by someone skilled in controlling puppets. Or, someone using Shadow Clones to achieve the same effect. Is it an external scheme? Or is it someone from within the village?'

An image of a certain silver-haired ninja appeared in Danzo's mind. However, Danzo couldn't see any reason why he would do something like this. More importantly, the bad feeling he was getting had only gotten worse, but he didn't understand where it was coming from. He asked the ninja who informed him about the dead bodies, "Did you visit the other 3 bases?"

The Root ninja answered, "No, Lord Danzo. This was the first base I visited."

Danzo immediately instructed a couple of ninjas to collect any and all evidence there. The remaining ninjas followed him. To their shock, the next two bases were in a similar state. The situation in those two bases was nearly identical. After inspecting for some time and leaving behind more Root ninjas to gather any evidence left behind, Danzo and 3 Root ninjas headed towards the last base.

As they did, even Danzo became a bit nervous. He thought, 'I haven't heard anything from the last base either. There were 9 ninjas there. If they also met the same fate...'

Danzo didn't particularly care about the lives of his subordinates. During the Great Wars, many of them would die frequently while doing extremely high-risk missions behind enemy lines. However, that was a different era. Danzo had several hundred ninjas in Root at that time. And, Danzo could freely recruit hundreds of talented kids and train them to replace the dead Root ninjas.

Unfortunately for him, it was no longer the case. Hiruzen had been hard on the Root after the Uchiha massacre. He didn't have many subordinates. Losing 15 subordinates in one go would mean that he would lose more than a third of his manpower!

In actuality, that was even worse than it sounded. Danzo thought, 'Though I had 41 subordinates in Root, many can't be deployed due to their duties. Losing 15 would mean that I would lose more than half the forces that I could deploy for missions... It will be a grave loss for Konoha if they are dead.'

Another aspect was that Danzo couldn't recruit any kids either. He had managed to get his hands on slightly more than a hundred kids from the Land of Water, but they were still in training. It would easily take half a decade for some of them to meet the minimum requirements of taking a Root mission. The remaining kids could take an even longer time.

In addition, Danzo couldn't kidnap any more kids from the Land of Water. Both the Mizukage faction and the Rebel faction had noticed the cases of children going missing and understood that someone was kidnapping young kids. Despite their conflict, both came to a tacit understanding and began taking action to prevent such incidents, making it extremely risky for Root to continue their operations. Danzo had long withdrawn his subordinates from the Land of Water as he didn't want to lose the few capable Root ninjas he still had under his command.

Danzo's group finally reached the last base. Every single person, including Danzo, was stunned by the sight!