It was the same kind of damp, heavy rain in Konoha Year 42, September.
Danzo stood at his window, staring toward the Ninja Academy in the distance.
Today the place was buzzing. Sakumo Hatake's son was graduating early. Five years old. The youngest graduate in Konoha's history.
A genius.
Danzo turned the word over in his mind.
Kakashi Hatake.
His father was the White Fang of the Leaf—feared across the shinobi world—until one foolish choice destroyed him.
The boy was probably fragile right now. Lost. Full of cracks.
Danzo saw an opening.
He would pull the child in while he was still raw and aching, before anyone else could shape him. A boy with that kind of talent and that much pain would make the perfect blade for Root—sharp, obedient, and his.
So Danzo left his house and headed for the cemetery.
Kakashi had been going there almost every day lately.
But the moment Danzo reached the edge of the graveyard, he stopped.
He felt the faint, familiar ripple of chakra above Kakashi. Telescope Technique.
Hiruzen was watching.
Danzo slipped deeper into the shadows and killed his presence. He would wait until the old man looked away.
He never got the chance.
Another boy appeared instead.
He walked in from a different path, holding a dark umbrella. Without a word, he lifted it over Kakashi's head, shielding him from the sudden downpour.
Higashino Shinichi.
Danzo recognized him. The kid who had carried rocks to the Academy on opening day a few months back and caused a scene. Even Hiruzen had noticed. Danzo had checked his file—orphan, civilian background, no bloodline, nothing special—and lost interest.
Then the boy beat Kakashi in the practical exam. That had been mildly surprising.
Still, Danzo felt no real pull.
Too loud. Too obvious.
True weapons stayed sheathed. They trained in the dark until no one saw the edge coming.
Kids who needed the whole world to know they were different never amounted to much.
Then he heard them speak.
About missions. About comrades.
Danzo listened without expression.
The black-haired boy's words about getting stronger and changing the rules sounded nice. Empty, but nice. Youthful bravado. Everyone said things like that until they saw real death, real betrayal, and the ugly machinery adults actually ran.
Danzo was ready to dismiss it all.
Until Kakashi asked his question.
The same question Danzo had heard once before.
His breath caught.
Memories slammed into him without warning.
That night. His teacher's back disappearing into the trees. Never coming back.
The hesitation that lasted a single moment and became a cage for the rest of his life.
The step he never took.
The words he never said.
Every quiet night since, Danzo had asked himself the same things.
What if he hadn't hesitated?
What if he had stepped forward like Hiruzen?
What if he had actually said it?
He would never know what his teacher would have thought.
He had lost the approval. Lost the chance to become Hokage. Lost something he still couldn't name but felt missing every single day.
After that, he walked only in shadow. Used darker, bloodier methods to prove he was right and to fill the hollow that one moment of silence had left behind.
The things you cannot claim when you are young will trap you for the rest of your life.
The rain kept falling.
Danzo stood frozen in the dark as the scene in front of him blurred with the one from decades ago.
Then the boy under the black umbrella spoke.
Clear. Calm. Absolute.
"I'll take the rear."
The words cut straight through the rain and landed in Danzo's chest like a blade.
He went rigid.
That sentence—the one he had screamed inside his own head for years but never managed to say out loud—had just come out of a child's mouth like it was the most natural thing in the world.
No hesitation. No struggle. Just quiet certainty.
As if it had always been obvious.
As if his teacher were standing there again, using this boy's voice to say what Danzo had never been able to.
Rain slid down the leaves and onto Danzo's shoulders. He didn't feel it.
Long after both boys left, Danzo remained in the shadows. The rain eventually eased. The sky darkened further. Only then did he turn and walk away.
He didn't go after Kakashi that day.
The idea had already been washed out of him.
In the years that followed, Danzo thought of Higashino Shinichi from time to time—especially that sentence at the cemetery—but he never acted on it.
Until two years later.
He heard the news.
The boy had created his own A-rank, seal-less ninjutsu during the Academy opening ceremony. Hiruzen had taken him personally.
Danzo set down the report in his hand.
The resemblance was too strong.
Too much like his teacher.
For the first time in a long while, something fierce and hungry stirred in him.
He would train the boy himself. Shape him into the kind of shinobi Tobirama had been.
He dropped everything and went straight to the Hokage's office.
"No."
Hiruzen's answer was immediate and final.
"Danzo, you know what this child could become—"
"I see it clearly."
"Then let me guide him—"
"Danzo." Hiruzen cut him off, voice hard. "I said no."
Danzo stared at his old friend and rival. He had never seen that kind of iron in Hiruzen's eyes before. No room. No discussion. Not even the courtesy of softening the blow with their long history.
"You'll regret this," Danzo said coldly.
He turned and slammed the door behind him.
The sound echoed down the corridor for a long time.
After that, every report about Shinichi's "distractions"—the cooking contest, the manga, the noise he made in the village—only fed the resentment Danzo already carried. He watched the boy pour time and talent into things that had nothing to do with becoming strong, and every update made the anger burn hotter.
It stayed that way until today.
Until he sat at the meeting table and read all three reports the boy had written.
Until he saw the cold, precise analysis. The way the child cut straight to the core of how the world actually worked.
A sage.
Danzo stood at his window now, watching the night rain. The usual hardness had left his face. Only complicated, quiet regret remained.
The same will—the kind that steps forward in impossible moments without needing to think.
The same talent—the kind that turns abstract understanding into real, working systems.
The same sharp clarity—the kind that looks past noise and sees the bones of how power and nations move.
"You really are a lot like him, sensei…"
He spoke softly into the rain.