Everyone was asleep at home, and only the fur ball on the sofa in the living room perked up for a moment, ears perked up, but when he recognized the almost silent, familiar footsteps and smell, he calmed down and continued sniffling.
Cautiously creeping toward the basement stairs, I grabbed a couple of sandwiches from the kitchen that had been thoughtfully left by one of the women and quickly went downstairs, dressed in one of the spare sets of field uniforms stored there just for such occasions when it was better not to go into the room where the main set was hanging.
I grabbed a couple of standard sets of seals just in case and hung the scabbard of my weapon behind my back, so that I could quickly grab it in case of anything, instead of pulling it out of the seal, and hurried to the gathering place of the night raid, but only after I had created one shadow clone, which immediately slipped away.
Along the way, there were other clan fighters streaming in from their neighborhoods, among them the Hyuga, as always in their clan's snow-white robes, as if they were afraid of not being noticed, although on normal missions the clan members used normal ninja uniforms, distinguished only by the color of their eyes.
The Nara, as always, were in no hurry, and I was the first one to arrive, standing a little to the side, nodding to the Hokage's apprentice and the commander.
The clan fighters, however, were only a small part of the still Konoha - Hiruzen hadn't been stingy with the operation and had allocated about a hundred and fifty Anbu operatives, with the vast majority of them being medium chakra reserve jonins, as if they weren't all the veterans of the organization that were present in the village at the moment.
Together with Hyuga, Aburame, and Nara, the number of people involved would be well over two hundred, and the presence of three S-rank shinobi, even if I were to sit in the back, would be unnecessary to take a base that could hold no more than a hundred Root operatives, along with new recruits who could hardly stand a chance against the genin, let alone those present, which meant the old monkey was pissed.
It's not every day that you find a situation out of control and an old associate amassing his own personal army under your nose.
But remembering the events in the council chamber, I smiled bloodthirstily and inwardly marveled at the grace and dexterity of Shenesu's plan.
He had chosen the protagonist very precisely and calculated the reaction of his colleagues, literally forcing his recent comrades-in-arms to be on opposite sides of the barricade, then adding fuel to the fire and risking practically nothing. All I had to do was inform my uncle of Danzo's secret base outside of Konoha's walls.
If Shenesu hadn't given me the slightest hint, I could have taken it as a happy or unhappy coincidence for one one-eyed shinobi. If Sarutobi were to be thrown off the throne, the clans would be guaranteed to remove his clique from power, preventing them from pursuing their own harmful policies.
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