Root's Crimes Exposed

When the door to the deepest chamber of the Root base opened, the temperature underground seemed to drop.

It was no ordinary storeroom.

Thick layers of seals covered the walls. Drainage channels ran through the floor, and cultivation tanks and filing cabinets filled the room. Green solution sloshed inside glass tanks. Some had cracked, spilling liquid across the floor and into the drains.

Uchiha Tekka led his people inside but said nothing at first.

Naruto stood in the doorway and saw half a pale arm floating in the first tank.

Wood-like patterns covered its surface.

The label beside it read: Hashirama Cells adaptation sample. Failed.

The second tank held a perfectly preserved Sharingan.

Beneath its serial number, the source was listed as: recovered from battlefield.

Farther in were more eyes, limbs, Cursed Seal samples, and records of experiments on children.

None of it was rumor.

It was right in front of them.

A young Uchiha officer behind Tekka covered his mouth, his eyes bloodshot.

He had found the names of his clansmen in a filing cabinet.

Not just one.

A whole list.

Some had died on the battlefield. Some had vanished. Others had been recorded as killed in action.

Now their eyes were here.

When the Third Hokage reached the chamber doorway, he stopped.

He saw the tanks, the labels, and the list in Tekka's hand. His face slowly turned ashen.

Danzo trailed behind, dragged by a Chakra arm. The bleeding from his severed arm had been crudely stopped, but no one had treated him.

Naruto threw him into the middle of the chamber.

"Explain."

Danzo sat up against a tank, his gaze dark.

"Konoha needs power."

Naruto pointed at the children's records.

"Did you need these children too?"

Danzo gritted his teeth.

"War won't stop just because you pity them."

Naruto went to the nearest filing cabinet, pulled out a scroll, and unfurled it.

"Orphan screening."

"Emotional detachment training."

"Cursed Seal implantation."

"Postmortem processing."

With every item he read, the faces of the Konoha Ninja in the chamber grew grimmer.

Naruto tossed the scroll to the Third Hokage.

"Lord Hokage, read it all."

The Third Hokage caught it, his fingers stiff.

An approval record appeared at the bottom.

His name was not on it.

But it bore a routing stamp from the Hokage Office.

That meant someone had sent the document through the Hokage system.

Even if he had never opened it himself, he could not claim to have known nothing.

Naruto walked toward another row of cabinets.

A seal covered one cabinet door.

It read: Jinchūriki observation records.

The Third Hokage's eye twitched sharply when he saw those words.

Naruto tore off the seal.

There were more scrolls inside than he had imagined.

They began on the day he was born.

Nine-Tails seal status.

Chakra fluctuations.

Dietary responses.

Emotional records.

Social contacts.

Behavioral changes after rejection.

Every scroll was meticulously detailed.

The title of one struck Naruto like a blade.

"The Effect of Isolation-Induced Distress on Nine-Tails Jinchuriki Compliance."

Naruto opened it.

The first page read:

"After prolonged rejection, the subject shows heightened responsiveness to rare acts of kindness. Recommend maintaining moderate isolation to prevent the subject from developing independent judgment prematurely."

No one in the chamber spoke.

This was more than surveillance.

They had treated a child's suffering as an experimental variable.

Naruto held the scroll in front of the Third Hokage.

"Third Hokage."

"You didn't read this one either?"

The Third Hokage's lips moved.

No sound came out.

Danzo sneered from the floor.

"Hiruzen, why pretend this is the first you've heard of it? The Jinchūriki had to be controlled. You and I both knew that."

The Third Hokage whipped his head around. "Shut up!"

Danzo looked at him.

"Now you decide to speak up?"

"When the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki was placed in your care, didn't you also accept that keeping him isolated was safest?"

Several ANBU exchanged looks.

Naruto did not lash out.

He rolled the scroll back up and handed it to Tekka.

"Take it outside."

Tekka looked at him.

Naruto's gaze swept over every filing cabinet.

"Take all of it outside."

"Make it public on Central Street."

The Third Hokage's face changed.

"No!"

Naruto looked up.

"Why not?"

The Third Hokage stepped forward. "These are village secrets. Revealing them will destabilize Konoha."

Naruto stared at him.

"The victims don't deserve to know, but the criminals are afraid Konoha might be shaken."

"Is that the Will of Fire?"

The Third Hokage had no answer.

Naruto did not argue further.

He turned to Tekka.

"Will the Konoha Military Police Force bear witness?"

Tekka was silent for two breaths. Then he handed the arm implanted with Sharingan to an officer beside him.

He bent down and lifted a crate of files.

"Move them."

At his command, the Konoha Military Police Force went to work.

Several Konoha Jonin hesitated at the doorway.

They were neither Uchiha nor Root.

They knew revealing these records would shake the village. But they had also seen the records of the children in those tanks.

One Jonin walked in and picked up a second crate.

Once one had moved, another followed.

The Third Hokage watched, his shoulders seeming to buckle under the weight.

Danzo glared at Naruto.

"You'll destroy Konoha."

Naruto crouched in front of him.

"I'm not the one who destroyed it."

He reached out and patted Danzo's face.

"You're the ones who hollowed out its foundations."

Crate after crate of Root files was carried up from underground.

Long tables were hastily set up in an open area on Central Street.

The Konoha Military Police Force lit torches and spread the scrolls out for everyone to see.

Human experimentation.

The handling of orphans.

Uchiha eye transplants.

Jinchūriki isolation observations.

The withholding and transfer of living expenses.

Every document had stamps, dates, and the names of those who had handled it.

At first, the onlookers pressed forward to read.

As they read on, no one moved closer.

Some covered their mouths and cried.

Others turned to search for the names of relatives who had gone missing years ago.

A shopkeeper who had once cursed Naruto sank to his knees, his face white as paper.

Naruto stood before the tables and watched them.

He took no pleasure in their regret.

Regret was too little.

They had yet to pay a price.

Tekka pulled a red, sealed scroll from the last crate of files. His expression suddenly changed.

"Naruto."

He handed over the scroll.

"This isn't a Root experiment record."

Naruto took it.

The seal on the scroll read:

"Inventory of the Seized Estate of Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki."

The Third Hokage went rigid.

Naruto raised his head and looked at him.

"So this is where it was."