#danzo shimura

“Naruto,” She finally gave in and looked up from the scroll she’d been reading. “I’m going to be a child.  I won’t have the chakra or the control to kill Danzo like that, let alone get away from the no doubt ANBU and ROOT level forces that would come after me.”

There was a part of her that felt bad about putting a damper on his excitement.  Planning her return and all the things she would try to change had become the bright spot in most of their lives at this point.  Naruto had been offering all kinds of flashy suggestions for how Sakura could take out Danzo, least of all being how she could plummet from the air and crater his office if nothing else worked out.  

He’d been bright eyed and had that chipper tone to his voice that didn’t feel forced or off tune for the first time in what felt like years.  And they’d already had one argument that day about ‘when’ she’d be going back to, so Sakura did her best to only be reasonable and not resentful.

(Sakura was still convinced that she could do so much more if she could just prevent things like Zetsu manipulating Madara and Danzo even rising to power in the first place.  It would take more chakra, but there was a world of possibilities open to a Sakura with her current body and abilities in the far back past.  But Naruto was holding steadfast that she should go back to their childhood, that he wouldn’t fuel a seal that would send his Sakura rocketing into a time where they didn’t get to meet.  Where there was a possibility a Naruto didn’t get to have a Sakura in his life.  Where Team Seven might not have its full roster, which of course got Kakashi’s support.

It was really fucking hard to be upset about the handicap of childhood being forced onto her when her teammates were being sentimental about it.)

“Well,” Naruto scrunched his face in a frown like he didn’t really like his own idea. “Ya could always like- ambush him, secretly or somethin.”

Sakura couldn’t help the snort that came out of her.

“Naruto,” Kakashi sighed from his pile of acquisition forms. “He’s the head of his own secret paramilitant cult in a ninja village, there won’t be any ambushing happening.”

“Especially not in a Konoha that he still has his hooks in.”

“No,” Shikamaru spoke before Naruto could reply to them, dark eyes narrowing and mouth quirking at the specific combination of angles that only occurred when he had a brilliant thought for a particularly vicious strategy. “It should definitely be in a public setting and no one can suspect assassination.”

His eyes moved around the council room they’d commandeered for their planning meeting, till he deliberately met Sakura’s gaze.

“A public death, one with the right audience.” He jerked his chin towards the seats the clan heads usually sat at and Sakura felt her eyes widen with realization.

“As public as possible.” She agreed with a sharp grin cutting across her face.

-

Poison is simple.

A chemical compound, or mixture of various compounds, that when exposed to an organism will damage it in some way.  Often leading to injury or death.

There are countless poisons in nature; they develop as a means of protection or as consequences of environment and diet, while some have been honed as a means of offense or in order to catch prey, there are some that just are, beautiful and deadly.  An existence just waiting to be used.  

Even the basic building blocks of carbon based life can be poisonous in excess, too much water, too much sun, too much of any vitamin or mineral needed for healthy living thrown off balance will poison an organism.

A person could dedicate their entire life to the study and discovery of the toxins of the natural world.

Just as a person could dedicate their entire life to the study and discovery of man made poisons.  Compounds mixed and ratio’d to trigger devastating reactions in the human body.  Plant extracts and molecular shifts that can counteract disease and rot and contamination.  

So much of poison work is knowing and experimenting.

So much of poison work is manipulating the components of the world to build upon and change to the whims of the poisoner.

How a minor molecular change in a salt supply won’t affect taste, the rate at which various pollens disperse in a closed room, the ease with which an enzyme can soften skin, how quickly a bacterium multiplies under radiation, what musks in perfume can catalyze specific hormonal reactions.

So yes, poison is simple.

(Don’t ever let a poison expert hear you say that unless you would like a first hand demonstration of just how complex some poisons can be.)

-

It happens like this.

Sakura knows what bakery the cookies for the Hokage Tower are bought at.

Sakura knows what floral arrangements are provided for village council meetings.

Sakura knows what route Danzo takes to the council room and the bathroom he always visits.

Sakura knows what seat is reserved for him and how much sunlight it receives.

Sakura knows what council members and clan heads sit around Shimura Danzo.

Sakura knows these things with the certainty of someone who spent days and months of her life pouring over budgets and contracts because any detail could be the lynch pin of a plan.  Someone intimately familiar with the routines and schedules of the many cohorts of workers and officials in the village’s political structure.  Someone who spent time in the unwilling service of a man who flaunted his seized position and hoarded power for his so called ‘good of the village’.

Sakura knows how to develop the individual parts of a poison that once combined and exposed to the heat of a human body, cause immediate contraction of the muscles and closure of the windpipe.