Three days later, Aburame Wafu returned. Taking advantage of the fact that the lady of the house hadn't yet arrived, father and son escaped to an izakaya for a night of heavy drinking. Tetsumaru, a mountain of a man standing at two hundred and ten centimeters, easily drank his father under the table before tossing him over his shoulder and carrying him home.
Another day passed, and the frontline hospital from the Northeastern Theater was finally evacuated back to Konoha. Aburame Aiko returned with the main force.
The family was finally reunited.
Though the streets were far too crowded to celebrate with a meal out—every restaurant was packed to the gills—Tetsumaru took it upon himself to prepare a massive feast at home.
He fried, deep-fried, boiled, stir-fried, and stewed. He braised, steamed, and roasted. From savory sauces to chilled salads, the spread he produced was more decadent and delicious than anything the local restaurants had to offer.
As for the drinks, the atmosphere was relaxed. Not only did his mother refrain from nagging this time, but she even selected a bottle of sweet wine for herself. Wafu was ecstatic, dragging out his entire hidden stash of fine liquor and declaring that no one was leaving the table sober.
Unfortunately, Wafu was the type whose ambition far outstripped his capacity. He was floored after just two bottles, leaving mother and son to finish the meal and chat happily late into the night.
The next morning, Wafu woke up with a skull-splitting headache, only to find that his entire stash had been polished off. The only thing left was a single bottle of sake. The culprit, Tetsumaru, looked completely unfazed as he brought over a glass of strong spirits along with a spread of appetizers, boiled eggs, pancakes, and porridge.
"More?" Wafu recoiled. "No, no... my head is killing me."
"The headache is exactly why you need a glass. A little 'hair of the dog' will clear you right up."
"What kind of nonsense logic is that? I don't believe you."
Wafu shook his head like a rattle, but he eventually folded under Tetsumaru's persistence and downed the spirit.
Strangely enough, after forcing down the drink past his initial nausea, a familiar buzz returned. The queasiness vanished, the discomfort ebbed away, and even the headache seemed to evaporate.
A morning-after drink actually works... even if it leaves you a bit woozy.
Wafu announced he needed to rest and retreated to his room to catch up on sleep.
Once the door was safely shut, Tetsumaru moved quietly into the courtyard. He looked at the clutter of jars, large bags, and crates of scrolls filling the space and let out a massive sigh of relief.
He still hadn't processed all the "logistical shrinkage" he had "picked up" the night before. It would be a disaster if his father saw all this.
Ever since Tetsumaru had vented his frustrations by embezzling from Root, he had been unable to get the idea out of his head. Beyond the simple joy of sabotage, he had managed to "liberate" so much material that he hadn't needed to spend a single ryo on anything—aside from highly specialized equipment—for months. He still hadn't even finished reading through all the stolen files.
Naturally, the moment he arrived back in Konoha, he went out to case the joint.
Root was truly rolling in wealth. In just one year, not only had they replaced all the losses from his last raid, but their inventory had tripled. The scale of their underground vaults had expanded to more than three times what it had been the previous year.
Tetsumaru's mouth practically watered at the sight.
However, the loot wasn't as easy to grab this time. Tetsumaru noted that their management had improved significantly. There were daily cleanings, dedicated personnel for inventory counts, and a full audit every three days.
Worse, they had employed his own clansmen to handle pest control. Kikaichu patrolled every corner, even checking between the pages of documents.
It was an airtight system. Normally, there would be no way to strike.
Fortunately, that level of scrutiny didn't extend to everything. Tetsumaru discovered that the deeper vaults—those containing the highest-level secrets—were off-limits even to standard Root personnel.
Because the security clearance for these rooms was so high, they actually lacked the frequent patrols and audits of the outer areas. It was a natural oversight; even in Root, the more secret a room was, the fewer people had access to it. Those elite ninjas were undoubtedly busy; they didn't have time to count crates and file paperwork every morning.
For Tetsumaru, however, there was still a barrier to overcome. Danzo had protected these thirty-odd vaults with barriers. Not only did they make entry difficult, but they would trigger an alarm the moment they were touched.
Man, they are loaded, Tetsumaru thought as he crouched before a barrier. This was the same Rock Solid Sealing Jutsu used by the Aburame for their summoning vaults—a barrier constructed from ten meters of solid stone.
The Aburame had paid "one Asuma" just for one such barrier. Here, there were twenty-two identical vaults. That was nearly eight hundred million ryo in barriers alone.
Furthermore, there were a dozen vaults with even more advanced barriers, half of which Tetsumaru didn't even recognize. The price tag on those had to be astronomical.
"I don't believe it. I'm getting through this if it kills me." Tetsumaru was annoyed. The thought of the mountain of treasures hidden behind ten meters of stone set his greed ablaze, fueling his determination.
He spent forty-eight hours without sleep, testing, researching, and poring over data. Having participated in the construction of a Rock Solid barrier before and having studied Sealing Jutsu for years, he finally found a flaw.
On the night his parents returned, Tetsumaru broke into fifteen vaults in a single go.
He moved fast, hauling everything he could.
Just take a tenth? Too polite.
If things went missing, Root wouldn't dare make a public scene. The "shrinkage" he caused last year hadn't prompted so much as a whisper. To Root, their secrets were far more valuable than the gold.
A fifth. No more than that, or Danzo might actually lose his mind.
"Good gods, what is this?"
Tetsumaru pulled a test tube out of a crate. Inside the preservative fluid floated a pair of crimson eyes, the single black tomoe clearly visible.
"Sharingan?"
Tetsumaru was stunned. There were so many. He checked twelve tubes, all containing fresh, single-tomoe Sharingan.
"They already started in Year 40? Looks like Danzo was truly traumatized by the Raikage."
Tetsumaru once thought the Third Raikage wasn't that fast—mostly because his son was faster, as were Shisui, the Yellow Flash, and the Second Hokage. There were so many freaks faster than him.
But after personally taking a hit from the man, he realized that "not fast enough" was a relative term for monsters. For an average ninja, the Raikage was a force of nature. Even if you obstructed his vision or predicted his movement, your body simply couldn't keep up with his rhythm.
When a "God of Speed" hits you, your first instinct is to buff your stats. Tetsumaru had his Eye of Truth for dynamic vision; Shimura Danzo naturally set his sights on the eyes that could see through anything.
By a stroke of luck, the two best eyes in the world—the Byakugan and the Sharingan—belonged to clans right inside Konoha.
The Byakugan was locked behind the Caged Bird, making it impossible to steal. That left the Sharingan as the only target.
So, a box of twelve pairs of eyes was "normal," right?
Of course not. These were twelve pairs of single-tomoe eyes. Do you know what that number implies? Not every Uchiha Genin awakens their eyes, and certainly not every one who awakens them dies in battle. Even among those who fall, it's rare for both eyes to remain intact.
Twelve complete sets of single-tomoe eyes meant that nearly every Uchiha Genin who had awakened their eyes and died in the war had their eyes harvested and brought here.
It was depraved.
In the best-case scenario, Root was shadowing every Uchiha on mission, snatching their bodies the moment they fell, gouging out the eyes, and then framing the enemy before silencing them.
But Root wasn't known for being law-abiding. Why bother with the middleman? The easiest way was to tail them, wait for an opening, kill the Uchiha yourself, and then stage a battle scene.
If the Root ninja had a shred of conscience, they might bring along an enemy corpse to make it look like a "mutual kill," turning the victim into a hero who died taking the enemy with him.
Tsk tsk. No wonder the Uchiha became so unwilling to take missions later on, hiding in the village and dealing with petty civil matters. You really can't blame them.
Tetsumaru rubbed his chin. Suddenly, he felt he could afford to take a little more.
If something this scandalous went missing, Danzo would be terrified. He'd search for clues in secret, but he wouldn't dare bark too loud. If the ANBU or the Police Force found this stash, Root would be shut down overnight. Danzo wouldn't be able to "expense" his costs for five years—and without village funding, he couldn't afford to keep his army for a single month.
Having made up his mind, Tetsumaru hauled away half of the inventory from every vault. He even swiped a massive amount of regular consumables from the lower-level storehouses—testing equipment, tools, medicine, scrolls, and more.
As a final "courtesy," he left behind a crude, handmade bomb to help Danzo "destroy the evidence."
The problem was the volume. His prepared underground warehouse was overflowing, and he'd run out of Sealing Scrolls. The final portion had to be piled in his own yard, filling half the massive space.
Worse, in the exhaustion of a night-long heist, he had accidentally left the crate of Sharingan in the courtyard. If his father saw that, there would be no explaining it away.
That was why he'd used the breakfast and the spirits to send his dad back to bed. He spent the next few hours frantically digging a new warehouse and transferring the goods.
By the time he finished, the grass in the courtyard was matted and crushed. Tetsumaru stared at it, too tired to move. He simply released dozens of insects to "mow" the lawn and erase the evidence before stumbling inside to sleep.
That afternoon, a dull explosion echoed through the village. It was a small sound, almost unnoticeable to the public, but the shift in shinobi movement was massive. Until nightfall, masked ANBU were seen darting across the rooftops.
Tetsumaru remained calm. The tunnels he'd used to move the goods had been backfilled. Any tracking method based on chakra was useless against him; he could spot a chakra rune a mile away and had scrubbed his trail clean.
As for other methods—scents, hormones, pheromones—no one could out-Aburame an Aburame. He had cleaned those too.
If there were tracking methods he didn't recognize, he simply didn't take the item. He had plenty of loot already, and his greed was temporarily sated. Cunning and caution protected his haul far better than recklessness.
As he predicted, the matter was suppressed. It had no impact on the village at large. Root would continue to investigate, of course, but without a lead, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack—nothing more than Danzo's lingering spite.
In a year, it would be forgotten. Danzo might add a few more locks, but Tetsumaru would have improved by then, too. He'd find a way back in.
Honestly, harvesting this 'leek field' every year or two is so profitable, I'm starting to think I shouldn't kill Danzo yet.
Body bags were dragged away one by one, and the blood on the floor was quickly washed away with Water Style. However, being underground, the metallic scent of blood lingered in the air.
Shimura Danzo glared at his subordinates, his voice venomous. "Investigate. Investigate in secret. Even if you have to flip Konoha upside down, find that thief."
"..."
No one spoke. Even the brainwashed Root ninjas had common sense. It had been over twenty-four hours. Without a trail, the only way to find the goods was to join forces with the ANBU and conduct a house-to-house search of the entire village.
Danzo didn't even suggest that plan to the Hokage. Instead, he had to report the explosion as an "accident" caused by improper storage and faulty explosive tags.
To keep the matter quiet, Danzo had to stand there and take a verbal lashing from the Hokage, who questioned Root's management and demanded immediate reforms.
Then, the Hokage cut Root's budget for the next two months by half and vetoed several expensive projects.
"If you can't maintain order, the money will just go up in smoke," the Hokage shouted. "You must prove Root's competence to me before you apply for a budget restoration, Danzo!"
Recalling Hiruzen's dressing-down, Danzo's rage simmered. He'd already executed the ninjas responsible for the warehouse, which had sated his bloodlust slightly, but he still breathed heavily as he suppressed his anger.
He dismissed the low-level ninjas, leaving only a dozen high-ranking members—his kinsmen, confidants, and strategists.