Scrying with Blood

To One Point

Last Time:

With an eager curiosity Lucy took the book, which glowed for a split second without her seeing, and skimmed it. Every page made her more concerned, "Wake up, Loki! We need to leave now!" everyone deadpanned as Lucy basically resorted to slapping Loki to try and wake him, but she had a good reason to be in a panic ...

XXXXXXXXXX

Danzo scowled, "This is ridiculous ... we would've found something at this point if she was here." He glowered as his recruits finished disposing of another dead Stone ninja. "Time is running out. We'll be noticed if we stay much longer-" A kunai that was thrown at him was blocked by one of his ROOT agents. "Shit!" He screamed just before the hideout place was swarmed by stone ninjas.

"Danzo-sama! Run!" A ROOT agent yelled in a panic before being cut down by a Stone ninja.

Of course, Danzo immediately took off to save his own skin, "How the hell did they know? The trail should've lead them away from here and into the trap first! We should've been warned!" Danzo growled furiously.

It was the very strategic trap he used so many times before without any problems. He places his army or team on one side of the village, but creates a trail leading the village occupants away and into an alarm seal. In fact, the Stone ninjas should've been lead by the tracks and body parts to the opposite side of the village. The Stone ninjas should've tripped the alarm seal there. Those from Konoha should've had ample time to get away. It was the perfect plan so what went wrong?!

While traveling in the direction that will get him back to the safety of Konoha he was joined, one by one, by the few surviving ROOT agents. However, after only three days of travel the group ran into someone else. Someone bloodied a weak, but despite the injuries was still very recognizable.

"Hiruzen?" Danzo's eyes narrowed. In his mind there were two things that could've happened to explain all of this.

One: Hiruzen betrayed him and sold him out to Stone, but his remaining ROOT agents in Konoha discovered it and attacked him.

Two: Something happened back in Konoha and it lead to Hiruzen needing to get away.

While the first possibility wasn't likely because it wasn't as refined as a backstabbing could be there was always that chance. Hiruzen was capable in very effective betrayals. Danzo knew if the man wanted him dead it'd be much cleaner. However, the timing with this and the incident with Stone were too perfect to not be connected and only Hiruzen knew his tactics. Since there wasn't a clear answer he decided to cautiously assist his friend even though betrayal was still very much a possibility. After all, it was more useful to hold a knife behind your back as you heal a potential backstabber over just killing a potential ally.

Hiruzen fell to his knees in front of Danzo, "I found you ... Konoha isn't safe ... Jiraiya-" The Sarutobi started coughing up blood not aware of Danzo's suddenly very pale features. Of course, Hiruzen wasn't surprised to see his ally's horror when he did finally notice. "Yeah ... Jiraiya knows, we can't go back."

All the weight of the situation hit Danzo so hard that he too ended up on the ground, "How the hell did this happen?" Suddenly, it made sense. Orochimaru might've told Jiraiya his tactics before the snake sage was murdered.

"It came out of nowhere... I never even knew he was in the village or about the rebels ..." Hiruzen groaned in pain as he thought back.

Flashback

There was an eerie silence in the hokage tower, but Hiruzen just desperately buried his head in his paperwork to ignore it. He knew what that silence meant. It was the precursor right before another wave of ghostly terror. This time he could hear the steps leading to his door, but just tensed not daring to look up at terrifying Minato ghost that has been terrorizing him for months now.