Konoha Year 51, October 13.
Three days had passed since the Nine-Tails' rampage. The funerals for the Fourth Hokage and Kushina were over, and the village had begun its slow, orderly recovery.
Grief still hung over the people for their Hokage and loved ones, yet the Third Great Ninja War had only just ended. Farewells had become part of life. The dead are gone. The living must keep walking.
The streets were busy, the air heavy.
At the village center, beneath the solemn faces on the Hokage Rock, stood a building marked with the character for Fire. The Hokage Building. The nerve center of Konoha.
In its conference room, four people sat in loaded silence.
The hawk-eyed old man facing the floor-to-ceiling window tapped his cane and struck first. His uncovered eye drank in the village with a greedy shine.
"Sun, this is the Hokage you picked. No sense of the bigger picture. His wife dies and he throws away the village to die with her. Hmph. If you had listened last year and chosen Orochimaru, we would not be a laughingstock."
"A Hokage of the leading village falls not in war but to an internal beast riot. The other villages are laughing."
"Signals from the forward posts say those brutes in the Cloud already heard the Fourth is dead. They are stirring. The war we just ended may ignite again."
"All of it is your fault, Hiruzen. The Fourth you picked was far too willful."
Hiruzen Sarutobi, spent and gray, lifted his head. His long brows slowly knit. Though the years had etched lines into his face, at fifty-six he still stood on the last edge of his prime. He had abdicated less than a year ago. His silence alone thickened the air until the room felt like a sealed jar.
Only when Danzo Shimura's gaze wavered did Hiruzen speak.
"Danzo, a question for you. In the crisis of the Nine-Tails' rampage, only I and the Fourth fought. Where were you? Where was Root? And where was my student, Orochimaru?"
His voice sounded almost casual, yet the other two in the room felt the volcano under the words.
Danzo had prepared his script. He snorted softly.
"Hmph. Hiruzen, you are old. You are not as sharp as before. Did you not notice the Nine-Tails' eyes?"
His fingers brushed the bandages around his own. Seeing the two advisors furrow their brows in imitation of thought, he sneered inside. Two cowards who froze on the battlefield at the fox's first roar, now pretending to think.
He ignored them and pressed on.
"Those were Sharingan. Clear as day. This riot involved that cursed clan."
"The instant I spotted those tomoe, I acted. I led Root to the Uchiha compound to suppress them and prevent any move against the village."
"As for Orochimaru, you called him your beloved student. Ask yourself where he went. He left Root long ago."
"Foolishness." Hiruzen's rebuke cracked like a staff on stone. "You panicked over a pair of inexplicable tomoe. The Uchiha have been under ANBU and Root watch for years. If anything had shifted, we would know."
"You dragged every Root operative to pin the Uchiha, and froze two of our arms at once. You cut Konoha in half. If not for your decision, the Fourth and I would not have fought alone. The Fourth would not have needed to sacrifice himself to seal the fox."
Seeing Hiruzen's anger rise, Koharu Utatane broke in. She had long disapproved of the Third and Fourth's soft line on the Uchiha.
"Hiruzen, I think Danzo did not err. Lord Tobirama warned us. The Uchiha are Konoha's greatest hidden danger."
"In times of chaos, keeping the Uchiha under sight is the safest course. And the Fourth's handling did show greenness. The Nine-Tails was grave, but not worth the price of a Kage's life. What do you think, Homura?"
"Spilled milk does not matter now. We must convene the jonin council at once and choose a new Hokage. The village cannot go a day without a shadow. We won the Third Great War, our momentum is high. We must steady the people before the other villages react or all our gains will slip away."
Homura Mitokado pushed up his glasses, the picture of moderation. Yet by skimming past the blame he placed himself with Koharu and Danzo. Of Tobirama's four students, these three had always been firm believers in the Uchiha-as-evil thesis.
Hiruzen sighed, tired to the bone, and drew on his pipe. Smoke lifted and blurred his eyes.
Those three tomoe in the Nine-Tails' eyes stuck in his throat like a bone too.
Danzo bristled at Homura's suggestion for an election, then snapped awake. This was his moment. He sat up straight and cleared his throat.
"Wise words. I second. As for candidates, I must speak. I once backed Orochimaru. Yet in this crisis he was absent and gravely derelict. Therefore I will step forward and nominate mysel—"
"No need." Hiruzen tapped ash from his pipe and cut him clean. "I have already sent word to the daimyo. Given the danger, I will temporarily return as Hokage. I have also dispatched men to recall Jiraiya and Tsunade. Once they return, we will hold a new selection."
Danzo's single eye went wide. So that thick-browed monkey had already moved the daimyo and even planned the next Hokage while sitting there looking like a grieving widower. The Fire Shadow's office was darker than Root. The title Lord of Darkness did not belong to him after all.
He opened his mouth to fight, but Homura and Koharu hurried to agree. The room filled with syrupy praise. "Hiruzen, you think of everything." "You can serve another ten years."
From the corner of their eyes they watched Danzo's face curdle like bad milk and smirked inside. If Hiruzen returned, they remained advisors above all. If Danzo took the Hat, who knew where he would sweep them. Who would pay their pensions then.
So with three smiles and one scowl, the highest seat in the village was decided like a note scribbled and tossed. As for the jonin council's opinion, none of the four considered it necessary.
Seeing there was no more room to turn, Danzo swallowed the bile, and his gaze grew darker.
Fine. If the big prize is gone, there is still the small one to fight for.
"Next. The Uchiha. Their district must be moved. They sit too close to the center. The Nine-Tails appeared inside the village this time. I do not want the next time to be in front of the Hokage Building."
"Agreed." "Seconded."
Hiruzen opened his mouth, then closed it again.
"Finally, the Fourth's child. I propose placing him in Root. I will forge him into the finest tool."
"A jinchuriki should be a jinchuriki. Your method of filling them with love is laughable. If Kushina had served under me, there would have been no marriage, no pregnancy. She would have devoted her life to the tree called Konoha. That is a flawless host."
The two advisors exchanged a look. True enough. No love, no baby, no fox rampage.
Hiruzen slammed both hands on the table and rose. The old monkey's face went black.
"Impossible, Danzo. I will never let your hand touch Naruto. He is the Fourth's only child, the son of a hero. I will raise him myself. He will light the Will of Fire like his father."
Koharu and Homura saw the storm and sealed their lips.
Danzo met Hiruzen's stare without blinking. "But—"
"No buts, Danzo. Do not forget who the Hokage is."
Silence.
At last the black flame in Danzo's eye sank. He turned and left. The door slammed like a gavel.
"You will regret this, Hiruzen."
In the striped light of the corridor, his fingers crushed the cane until deep grooves marked the wood, then slowly loosened.
Hiruzen. I supported you for years, sweeping every obstacle from your path, burying myself in the shadows for your sun to shine. You refuse to choose me as Hokage, fine. But you cut me off twice in one meeting. Unforgivable.
A whisper like a demon's breath slid through the dark.
"You will regret it, Hi… ru… zen."
On that last cut syllable, his shadow seemed to snip in two. The dark swallowed him whole.
Perhaps it snipped the last thread of bond as well.
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