The Hodgepodge Shinobi: A Gacha-Gone-Wrong Adventure

The meeting room in the Hokage Tower was dim, despite the morning sun pouring through the wide windows. Heavy drapes had been drawn halfway across the glass, leaving the chamber half-lit, casting the elders and shinobi councilors in uneven shadow.

Hiruzen Sarutobi sat at the head of the curved table, flanked on either side by the highest-ranking minds in the village — and a few of the most dangerous. To his right sat Tsunade, arms folded and jaw tense. Next to her, Jiraiya leaned back in his chair, chewing a toothpick like it was keeping him awake. Further down, Orochimaru sat with his fingers steepled, eyes half-lidded and predatory. On Hiruzen's left sat Danzo, perfectly still, his visible eye unreadable beneath the brim of his half-shadowed face.

Then came the civilian councilors — three of them, overdressed and overconfident — who had already spoken far too much.

"I'm just saying," droned Homura, a man whose wealth had grown fat off war contracts. "If the boy survived a high-chunin-level ambush alone, we can't just ignore that. We need to consider the possibility of bloodline potential—perhaps even a rediscovered clan ability."

"It could be monetized," said Councilor Tekada, a plump man with a pinched voice. "Researched. Stabilized. Perhaps even replicated."

Tsunade's hands tensed on the table. "He's not a tool, he's a child who watched his team die in front of him."

"A child with a body count," Danzo murmured, not bothering to look up.

"Self-defense," Tsunade snapped.

"No one is disputing that," Hiruzen said firmly, silencing the murmurs. "But the circumstances are… unsettling."

"He's not in the records," Orochimaru said at last, his voice a slow drag of silk across razors. "No clan history. No bloodline traits. Nothing to suggest the kind of chakra potential needed to reduce a man to pulp with his bare hands. Unless, of course…" He smiled thinly, "…we're dealing with something new."

Jiraiya snorted. "Or we're just dealing with the usual mess this village makes of orphans. Kids tossed into squads too fast, trained too little, then blamed when something breaks."

"Something did break," Danzo said, his voice like ice cracking. "And we'd be fools not to investigate it properly. A genin with no family and no oversight exhibiting unstable destructive capability? That's not a child. That's an asset — or a threat."

"Danzo," Hiruzen said in warning.

Danzo leaned forward slightly, his fingers laced. "All I'm saying, Hokage-sama, is that Root has the infrastructure to analyze and contain volatile chakra sources in a safe, controlled environment."

"You mean cage him in a cell and bleed him dry," Tsunade growled.

"You mistake security for cruelty."

"I mistake you for a human being," she snapped back.

"Enough," Hiruzen said, raising his hand. "We are not turning this into another Danzo-versus-everyone match. This is about the boy."

"He didn't even know what he was doing," Tsunade said, her tone softer now, but no less fierce. "He's not some cold-blooded weapon. He panicked. He blacked out. It was instinct. Whatever technique or transformation occurred, it wasn't deliberate."

"Or so he claims," Danzo muttered.

Tsunade glared at him. "He was traumatized. I watched him throw up when the memory hit. He had a full-blown panic and cardiac response."

"Is that why he's still unconscious?" asked Homura, skeptical.

"He woke up," Tsunade said. "Briefly. Long enough to confirm what I suspected — he doesn't remember the fight. Or at least, not clearly. The enemy was dead before he realized what he'd done."

Silence stretched for a moment.

"Could he be a sleeper agent?" another civilian asked, this one in purple robes with a gleaming signet ring. "Some kind of buried programming? You've all heard of Rain's experiments—"

"We're not chasing ghost conspiracies," Jiraiya cut in. "The real question is: what do we do with him now?"

Orochimaru smiled faintly. "I'd be very interested in observing him more closely…"

"No," Tsunade and Hiruzen said at the same time.

Danzo tapped a finger against the table. "I maintain that Root's secure facilities—"

"He's not going to Root, and he's not going to a lab," Hiruzen said firmly. "He will remain under medical observation for now. Monitored discreetly. No pressure, no interrogations, no branding him a danger until we know something. And unless he demonstrates a deliberate hostile transformation again, he will continue to be treated as what he is: a traumatized genin. Nothing more."

Danzo's eye narrowed, but he said nothing.

"Is he going back into the field?" Jiraiya asked.

"Eventually," Hiruzen said. "But not yet. First, he heals. Then we see what's left."

Tsunade leaned back in her seat, her jaw clenched, arms crossed. "He doesn't need questions right now. He needs a chance to breathe."

"He won't get many of those," Danzo said softly. "Not in this world."

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Did I get these characters right?