The meeting over, Kakashi had just returned to the Hokage’s office when Sai came in.
It was evening. An orange afterglow poured into the room.
“I was attacked earlier,” Sai said, once Kakashi was seated at his desk.
“What?” Sai’s words erased his exhaustion from the meeting.
Sai informed the Hokage that on his way back from speaking with his informer and asking him to find the top-level people Sai had selected from the Bingo Book, he had been attacked by two masked men.
“They were strong. I wanted to at least secure one of them, but…”
One had fled, the other had blown himself up.
“Self-destructed…”
“But it wasn’t a self-destruction he was prepared for,” Sai asserted.
Kakashi gaped at him.
“At one point, I secured the man and attempted to question him. I gave him some bait: if he talked, I’d take his cooperation into consideration when dealing with him later. But when he started to say something…”
Something unusual happened to his body and he exploded.
“There was something like a curse mark on the back of his neck. I think that’s what triggered it.”
Kakashi brought his hand to his chin. Trying to speak, triggering a curse mark—it reminded him of a certain someone.
“It sounds like Danzo, doesn’t it? That whole thing,” Kakashi said.
Sai nodded. “It did actually resemble the method he used to bind us.”
Shimura Danzo had once ruled the Anbu from behind the scenes. He fought Sarutobi Hiruzen for the seat of the third Hokage and lost. After that, he created an independent organization within the Anbu called Root and schemed to rule the village. Sai had been a member of Root.
Danzo embedded curse marks on the tongues of Sai and the others in Root. The effect was that the instant they tried to say anything about Root or Danzo, they would become paralyzed and unable to speak.
“So then the men who attacked you were also bound by their boss’s will. Although the effect’s totally different. I mean, self-destruction versus paralysis.”
“And there’s one more thing,” Sai said. “In the middle of the fight, my attackers were suddenly cloaked in Tailed Beast chakra.”
“Tailed—” Kakashi’s eyes flew open. “Really?”
“Yes. The men themselves didn’t transform into Tailed Beasts, but their chakra increased explosively to become a robe that covered their bodies. And on that chakra robe—it was small, but it was a tail.”
Kakashi groaned. “How does someone who’s not a jinchuriki get the power of a Tailed Beast?”
“And both of them.”
“If we’d been able to examine the body, we might have learned something, but he self-destructed.”
“Which could also mean that someone didn’t want us to be able to examine it, so they set the curse mark for an explosive death.”
Kakashi closed his eyes and racked his brain. Danzo’s way of doing things, the timing of the attack on Sai, and the meeting earlier—Kakashi’s intuition was telling him something.
“Sai, did you talk to anyone about the fact that you were looking into this matter?” he asked.
“No, no one. Why do you ask?”
“If you didn’t talk to anyone, then why were you attacked?”
“What?”
“The enemy found out you were looking into this and attacked you to prevent that. So then, where did they get that information? They couldn’t have just happened to overhear you talking with your informer and decided to attack you in a panic.”
“That wouldn’t have been possible. I take every precaution when I contact an informer.”
“Then that means the enemy knew you were looking into this before you went to see the informer.”
Sai fell silent at Kakashi’s words. Finally, a small “oh” slipped out of him. “After you gave me the order here, I went to the Anbu reference room to look into the incidents.”
“The Anbu reference room?”
“Yes. There’s a record of me visiting it. Someone could learn from that record that I was interested in these incidents.”
“Indeed, they probably could,” Kakashi agreed.
“But, Master.” Sai lowered his voice. “Then that would mean the perpetrator is someone in the Anbu.”
Their eyes met.
“Actually,” Kakashi said, “I just got back from a budget meeting with the village government, and it looks like the Anbu’s getting a budget increase next term.”
“The Anbu is.”
“Mm-hmm. Tsumiki Kido from the Anbu touched on these attacks in the meeting too. He stressed how it was urgent to strengthen the Anbu now of all times. Both the daimyo and Master Homura were at the meeting, so he managed to secure a nice budget for his Anbu. You see what I’m getting at here, Sai?”
“Master, that’s…” Sai swallowed hard. Apparently, he was seeing the same potential plot as Kakashi.
“The Anbu caused the incidents, and the Anbu got a budget increase by using those incidents as a talking point. Basically, performing a part in their own play.”
Sai was speechless.
“Thinking about it like this,” Kakashi continued, “all kinds of things start to make sense. That’s why the daimyo and his advisor were targeted. If they wanted to stir up a sense of crisis among the upper echelons, then attacking those upper echelons would be the simplest way to do it. And the daimyo’s route and the guard plan that day were top secret; only the Anbu knew them. It would have been hard for anyone outside to find out the details. But if we assume the perpetrator was in the Anbu, then all of that’s neatly resolved.
“The method makes sense. A single kunai thrown. And the slashing attack too—shallow, a single long sword. If they had done any more than that, the whole village might have been called up to hunt down the perpetrator. They needed to keep the attacks small enough for that not to happen.”
“And Kido did all of that…”
“We can’t say that for sure yet,” Kakashi cautioned. “But I believe he’s guilty.”
“Kido was always said to be the person who held Danzo’s purse strings. I heard that whenever one of Master Danzo’s plans was put into action, the money needed was basically all raised by Kido behind the scenes.”
“I’ve heard that too.”
All of Danzo’s scheming and plotting—against the Uchiha clan, against Akatsuki—would naturally have required a fairly large sum of money. They had likely paid off people providing information during intelligence activities, and any kind of long-term movement or large-scale infiltration required an equally large financial commitment.
Kakashi didn’t know how much of the legitimate Anbu budget had been diverted to Root, but even with the Anbu budget, Root had to have had several fundraising routes that were Root’s alone. Kido had been responsible for one or maybe all of these. He had stood alongside Danzo, so it wasn’t a stretch to imagine the two men would have shared the idea of binding their subordinates with a curse mark.
“So the man holding the purse strings for Root comes out onto center stage once Root is gone,” Kakashi murmured, turning his gaze back to Sai. “Would you focus on Kido? Right now, he’s our best suspect.”
“Understood.”
“But if you feel you’re in the slightest danger, pull back immediately. Our enemy’s failed in an attack against you once already. They’ll come at you even more seriously next time.”
“All right.” Sai nodded and instantly disappeared from before the desk.
Once the younger man had left his office, Kakashi leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. “Lot of things going on right now for some reason,” he muttered to himself, before a communication ninja came running in.
“Lord Hokage. A falcon has come with an urgent message from Suna,” she said and handed him a small scroll before racing out again.
He opened up the scroll.
On it: Uchiha Sasuke had appeared in Sunagakure, made contact with terrorists. After negotiating, he had killed a terrorist.
“Oh, no.” Kakashi shook his head. “This is just too much.”