Naruto : A Fool's Errand.

The civilians and shinobi who were being tortured by the sharp water droplets turned needles all screamed and caused a maddening symphony that sent chills up the spines of the shinobi that managed to protect themselves using various items or jutsus.

As everyone read through the papers in the harsh weather, three tall, thick, wooden stakes suddenly dropped out of the sky as they were embedded into the Hokage tower in the village.

The stakes were all tall enough for everyone else to view from elsewhere in the village and they were all illuminated by pillars of light that shone down from the small gap in the dense rain clouds hovering above the village.

The shinobi that were around, quickly all realised that they were trapped inside a genjutsu with Shikaku being the first to direct all the ANBU members to try and break away from it.

He looked around and in a single glance deduced that the incident had something to do and was related to Danzo and the ROOT since all the pamphlets that each person trapped in this genjutsu had details about secret experiments that were conducted on various children kidnapped in the village.

Shikaku had known about the recent sightings of the little girl 'ghost' around the orphanage and the Hokage's orders about keeping a close watch on her.

This had led him to prepare and learn about all the incidents that involved this orphanage but it had left him with a sour taste, since it involved the ROOT taking away the children in the orphanage, often by force as long as they met their requirements.

And while Shikaku didn't believe in ghosts, he did know that there were several jutsu in the world that he had no idea about.

'Perhaps this is just an attempt at destabilising the hard-earned and hard-kept peace in the village after the Uchiha tribe was massacred.'

'But I hope it is just that…'

'The worst case scenario would be that another village has already taken advantage of our inattention in the real world.'

Shikaku attempted to break out of the genjutsu but he couldn't and so could neither of his ANBU members.

That was when they all heard a soft voice ring throughout the village.

The voice came from the top of one of the stakes that were buried in the Hokage office and it revealed a little girl sitting on the edge of the wooden stake.

"As long as you bring all the perpetrators of violence against children in this village and sacrifice them on these stakes by nailing them to it. I will let you all go." The little girl said in a sweet childish voice, her tone not reflecting the seriousness of its contents at all.

But Shikaku did his best to not appear terrified by the strength of the girl that was able to put an entire village of highly trained shinobi into genjutsu and asked by posturing to be braver than he actually was.

"And what happens if we don't?"

The girl looked at Shikaku directly causing him to shiver for a second but the girl responded to his question with a proper answer.

"For every minute here that you delay in bringing the perpetrators to justice, one child from the great clans will die in the real world."

The eyes of all the shinobi widened.

Each clan's heartbeats sped up and they all clenched their fists since their future was on the line here. Even Shikaku was worried about his son.

After all, apart from being shinobi who protected the leaf village, they all also protect their children who were the cause of their smiles and their anchors to the village.

But before the situation could turn rowdy, Shikaku spoke softly, "Could you please give us a little bit of time to deci-"

"No. Did you allow those children to fulfil their one last wish while kidnapping them from the orphanages and people's homes?"

The question was met with silence and so the child continued.

"So don't expect me to give you any time."

As soon as Mito's words dropped, chaos and panic erupted everywhere.

All the shinobi quickly started banding into groups according to their clans as they searched for their children and started to keep themselves safe.

But Mito appeared merciless.

As soon as the first minute passed, one of the children's eyes rolled back as they floated to the top of the wooden stakes that had penetrated the Hokage office.

The first child to get captured was one that a lot of people recognised because of her peculiar look and her shy nature.

It was Hinata.

"NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" Hiashi instantly screamed with worry, fear and a profound sense of horror gripping his heart as he tried grabbing Hinata but found his fingers simply passed through her body.

Hinata didn't make a single move or protest. It appeared as if she wasn't even in control of her body anymore after she started floating towards the tall stakes, towards the little girl waiting for her on them.

In front of everyone's shocked gaze, Mito raised her hand and tore away the Hinata's head from her body.

Hinata's body fell on top of the stake and blood leaked out of her neck, staining the wooden stakes a deep crimson red, while her head rolled down from the tall height and fell into the Hyuga clan as it stopped right before Hiashi's legs.

Suddenly, the threat that Mito had warned them about wasn't just a threat anymore, it became a sickening reality.

The scenario in the genjutsu suddenly took a turn for the worse as the shinobi started to grip their children tightly as they all glared at the little girl on top of the wooden stakes with seething hatred.

"What happened? Are you waiting for your child to die before you act?" the little girl taunted.

Receiving no answer she spoke once again, "Alright, for each minute that the perpetrators of this act are missing from the stake, I will kill five children instead, and after that, it'll be ten, then twenty and so on."

Everyone's eyes shrank as a sentiment of fear started to ripple in their hearts.

Outside the genjutsu, Mito looked in the direction of the ROOT's headquarters before quickly entering the spirit world and reappearing inside the ROOT headquarters.

Shinobi inside it were all rushing about, trying to get to the village after Hiruzen had fired a flare to signal for help.

Mito went unnoticed by everyone there because she was hiding in the walls as soon as she sensed someone appearing near her while she carried out the simple task that Tachibana had given her.

'Why did he ask me to stick so many explosive seals in this place?'

'Does he want to erase the whole mountain off the face of the planet or something?'

Mito continued to stick various explosive seals onto other walls while hiding them behind the various wooden posts that were holding up the structure that had been carved into the mountain.

After about fifteen minutes of hard work, Mito was done with sticking all the seals that Tachibana had given her.

'*Phew* all done. Now I can lift the genjutsu…' Mito thought before using the spirit world once again to move through to the village where she saw Hinata searching around and trying to wake everyone up from their genjutsu state while working with Hiruzen.

She hadn't revealed to Hiruzen everything that had happened inside the genjutsu and chose to work with him to help break the genjutsu instead.

Hiruzen was just about to break the genjutsu with Hinata's help since she could precisely block Shikaku's chakra points to stop his chakra flow.

But Mito looked at it and just shook her head, 'He's slow…I guess he's lost his edge now that he needs help from a child.'

She snapped her fingers once to produce a soft *click* before the genjutsu immediately shattered and she vanished from her location as if she was never there.