Kagami leaned back slightly, resting his weight on one hand as he continued to recount his tale. His posture was relaxed, almost casual, but the air around him carried a pressure that made it clear this was anything but.
"Although I had always maintained a relatively cautious attitude toward this… waste of oxygen," he said flatly, his gaze flicking to Danzo for just a heartbeat, "I never truly expected that he would stab a kunai straight through my heart."
His voice didn't rise or shake, it simply grew colder.
"But of course," Kagami went on, "this walking liability has never been capable of finishing anything cleanly." A faint curl of disdain touched his lips. "His strength was pathetic even back then. So even with a kunai lodged in my heart, he couldn't actually kill me."
Danzo's fingers twitched, but Kagami ignored him completely.
"We fought," Kagami said. "Briefly and sloppily. I was injured, bleeding, but still capable. That's when I realized I had underestimated him."
He lifted his gaze, eyes sharp.
"Not his strength," he clarified. "His ruthlessness."
"The kunai," Kagami continued, "was laced with Aburame poison. Not an ordinary strain either, it was a Rinkaichu venom. The strongest variant." His jaw tightened. "The kind that doesn't kill you quickly. The kind that eats away at your system while keeping you conscious."
Hiruzen's face darkened.
"I could feel it," Kagami said quietly. "My limbs growing heavy. My chakra becoming sluggish. My vision narrowing." He paused, then let out a short, humorless breath. "And that was when he decided to prove that he truly isn't human."
Ren snorted softly from Danzo's side, waving Danzo's grotesque arm but Kagami ignored him.
"He leaned close," Kagami said, voice steady, "and told a dying man a lie."
Kagami turned his head slightly, his gaze locking onto Hiruzen.
"He told me," Kagami said, each word measured, "that my death had been orchestrated by you."
Hiruzen's eyes widened.
For the first time since Kagami had begun speaking, raw anger surfaced on the old Hokage's face. His hands clenched at his sides, chakra stirring unconsciously.
But Kagami didn't give him time to speak.
"Of course," Kagami went on, "I didn't believe it at first." His lips twitched, not in amusement, but something sharper. "You were my friend, my comrade. The man our Sensei trusted with the village."
His gaze lowered.
"But poison does strange things to the mind," he said quietly. "Blood loss even more so and hearing betrayal spoken aloud, by the man who had just stabbed you…"
He inhaled slowly.
"That was enough."
Kagami's chakra shifted.
"The emotional shock," he said, "the pain, the rage… it forced my eyes to change." His voice hardened. "That was the moment my Mangekyo awakened."
Danzo's breathing hitched.
"And the moment it did," Kagami continued, "his greed intensified."
Kagami looked directly at Danzo now.
"I could see it in your eyes," Kagami said. "You weren't afraid or surprised, you were excited."
Danzo swallowed.
"You saw opportunity," Kagami went on. "Just another resource to harvest."
Kagami's fingers curled slowly.
"However," he said, "you underestimated me. Or perhaps you overestimated yourself."
A faint, grim smile appeared on his face.
"Because despite the poison, despite the wound, despite the blood loss," Kagami lifted his hand slightly. "I took your arm."
Danzo flinched instinctively.
"I tore it off," Kagami said calmly, "before you could ever benefit from my death."
The silence deepened.
"And then," Kagami continued, the smile fading, "I made a decision."
His hand drifted toward his left eye, where his Mangekyo still blazed.
"I refused to let you have my Mangekyo."
His fingers hovered there, almost reverent.
"So I steeled myself," Kagami said. "And I destroyed it. My left eye was ruined before you ever had the chance to take it, as for my right one…"
His expression grew unreadable.
"I used its ability," he said softly, "to revive myself after you thought you had finished the job."
Danzo finally found his voice.
"That's not possible," he said hoarsely. "I destroyed your body completely." His eye was wide now, frantic. "I burned it. Reduced it to ash. Even the ashes were scattered and fed to wild animals."
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Then Hiruzen's chakra flared.
"Danzo."
The name was spoken in a low voice, but it carried the weight of a mountain.
Danzo recoiled slightly at the sound.
Hiruzen's eyes burned, not with rage alone, but with something far worse.
Condemnation.
Everyone present felt the shift immediately.
It wasn't dramatic. There was no explosion of chakra, no roaring pressure like a storm breaking loose. It was subtler than that, and far worse.
Hiruzen's chakra rose.
Just a sliver of his killing intent leaked out, unrestrained for the briefest of moments, and the world seemed to tense in response. The air grew heavy, as if the night itself had suddenly remembered who ruled this village for decades.
The people in the compound stiffened instinctively, their bodies reacting before their minds could catch up. Somewhere deeper in the village, far from this clearing, people who had nothing to do with tonight's chaos felt an inexplicable dread crawl up their spines. Veterans paused mid-step. ANBU faltered on rooftops. Even civilians stirring in their sleep turned restlessly, hearts pounding for reasons they couldn't explain.
This was the killing intent of a man who had survived wars, buried generations, and held Konoha together through sheer power.
Then just as quickly, it vanished.
Hiruzen reined it in with visible effort, shoulders sinking slightly as though the weight of it pressed back down on him instead. His breath came slow and controlled, but his eyes… his eyes were dark.
"How could you do this?"
The question was quiet.
Hiruzen took a step forward, his gaze locked on Danzo as if the man were something diseased, something he had only now realized had been festering beside him for decades.
"How," he repeated, voice low, rough around the edges, "could you do this?"
This time, the words carried something raw, something stripped bare.
For all his mistakes, for all his compromises and hesitations, Hiruzen Sarutobi had still believed one thing with absolute certainty.
That Kagami Uchiha had been his friend.
The one he owed the Hokage seat to. The one who had stood beside him when Sensei fell. The one who had set aside clan hatred and political gain to stabilize the village alongside Mito. The man Hiruzen had searched for relentlessly after his disappearance, burning resources, manpower, and goodwill in the vain hope that Kagami might still be alive somewhere.
And now he was being told…
No.
He was being shown, that Danzo hadn't just killed Kagami for his Sharingan.
He had destroyed his body.
Burned it.
Reduced it to ash.
Fed those ashes to animals.
The sheer desecration of it made Hiruzen's stomach churn.
Danzo had done a perfect act, he had stood beside Hiruzen during memorials, offered quiet reassurances, acted the part of a man mourning a fallen comrade.
And Hiruzen had believed him.
The realization hit harder than any accusation Kagami had thrown at him earlier.
Only now, only now, did Hiruzen truly understand just how thoroughly he had been fooled.
His hands trembled faintly at his sides.
For years, he had told himself that Danzo was a product of his failures. That by indulging him, by hesitating, by not acting decisively enough, he had pushed his friend further into the darkness. That Danzo's cruelty was born from warped loyalty, from a desire to protect the village at any cost.
What a convenient lie it was.
No.
A man like this didn't need to be pushed.
His heart had always been black.
Danzo hadn't done those things for Hiruzen.
He had done them because he wanted to.
Every assassination, every experiment, every atrocity committed in the shadows, Danzo had framed them as necessities, as burdens he alone was willing to shoulder. And Hiruzen, in his guilt and exhaustion, had accepted that narrative because it absolved him of having to act.
Because it let him believe there was still something human left in his old friend.
The truth was uglier.
Danzo had simply used Hiruzen's authority as a shield and Hiruzen had let him.
Realizing that, that the guilt he had carried for decades had been misplaced, hurt in a way that words couldn't describe. It wasn't relief or vindication.
It was revulsion.
Hiruzen looked at Danzo now and felt no sorrow.
Only disgust.
His voice, when he spoke again, was steady, but it carried the weight of finality.
"I thought," Hiruzen said slowly, "that I had failed you." His eyes narrowed. "That I had let you fall."
He took another step forward.
"But you were never falling, were you?" he continued. "You were always like this."
Danzo tried to speak, lips parting as if to defend himself, to twist the narrative one last time, but no words came out. For once, even his talent for manipulation failed him.
Hiruzen exhaled, long and weary.
"I feel no guilt for what you became," he said quietly. "Only shame that I allowed you to stand beside me for so long."
The night was silent.
Ren crunched another piece of popcorn, eyes hidden behind his sunglasses, watching it all with unsettling interest and for the first time since this night began, Danzo Shimura understood something with absolute clarity.
There would be no mercy.
Not from Kagami.
Not from Ren.
And not, finally not from Hiruzen.
Danzo swallowed hard, throat bobbing as he realized this truly was his last chance.
His eyes never stopped moving.
They darted to the treeline, to the shadows, to the gaps between Kagami and Hiruzen, to Ren's grip on his arm. Every instinct he had honed over decades screamed at him to run, to scheme, to twist fate one last time. But his body didn't move, it couldn't.
So he spoke instead.
"No, Hiruzen," Danzo pleaded, his voice rough but urgent, layered carefully with practiced desperation. "It was all for the village. Everything I did, it was for Konoha."
His words came faster now, spilling out as if momentum itself could save him.
"Kagami was too strong," he continued, turning his head just enough to glance at Kagami without meeting his eyes. "His influence was already rivaling yours in ways you didn't even notice. The clans listened to him, the elders respected him, the shinobi trusted him."
He laughed weakly, almost hysterically. "If I hadn't acted, your position would have been in jeopardy sooner or later. The balance would have collapsed."
Danzo leaned forward slightly, "I did it to protect the village. To protect you. I spared you from having to act against your own friend."
For a moment, there was silence.
Then, Hiruzen broke.
Tears slipped down his weathered face, unrestrained, glistening in the dim moonlight. His shoulders trembled as he raised both hands and covered his face, fingers digging into his own skin as though he could claw the truth out of himself.
"Did you ever," Hiruzen whispered hoarsely, "really think to talk?"
His voice cracked.
"To ask?"
He lifted his head slightly, eyes red-rimmed and unfocused, staring at nothing and everything all at once.
"If you had done that," he continued, each word heavy and slow, "you would have known."
Hiruzen's hands fell limp at his sides as he turned, shaking, to face Kagami.
"You would have known that Kagami already told me," he said, voice breaking completely now, "that if it ever came to it, if the village stood on the brink of rebellion because of me and him, he would leave."
Danzo froze.
Hiruzen went on, barely breathing between sentences. "He said he would go rogue and disappear. Carry the blame himself while still working for the village in the shadows."
His eyes squeezed shut.
"He never wanted the Hokage position," Hiruzen whispered. "Never. Not once. He only wanted what was best for the village."
A choked sound escaped his throat.
"Oh, Kagami…"
Hiruzen's legs finally gave out.
The Third Hokage, The Professor, The Second God of Shinobi the man who had stood unshaken through wars and disasters fell to his knees in the dirt.
"I am truly sorry," he sobbed openly now, tears dropping onto the ground. "You did so much… you gave so much… and I…"
His shoulders shook violently.
"I let the trust Sensei placed in me fail," he continued, voice barely audible. "The trust Mito-Sama placed in me. The trust you placed in me."
His head bowed low.
"I'm not even human," he whispered. "I don't deserve to be."
The clearing felt unbearably quiet after that.
Ren stood beside Danzo, still holding him firmly, and for once tonight… he wasn't amused.
He watched Hiruzen, the strongest man he knew, the man who had been a constant pillar in this village for decades, cry like this, completely broken by guilt and regret.
Without realizing it, Ren's grip on Danzo tightened.
Danzo winced, but Ren didn't notice.
His gaze drifted upward instead, past the branches, past the compound, to the vast, endless night sky. Stars stretched on forever, cold and distant, indifferent to the suffering below.
Ren closed his eyes for a moment.
A thought surfaced quietly, uninvited.
'Is this what emotions do to people?'
Even to someone like Hiruzen.
Even to someone who had survived wars, loss, betrayal, and power.
All of this… because he had wanted to hold onto control. Because he had wanted to be more than a caretaker. Because he had succumbed to greed, one of the simplest, ugliest sins.
Ren exhaled slowly.
'Then wouldn't it be easier,' he wondered, 'to just let it all go?'
No attachment.
No regret.
No hesitation.
'Would it feel lighter to not feel anything at all?'
His mind drifted further, dangerously so.
'If I don't feel like this… if I don't let guilt or attachment weigh me down…'
~~~~~
{Right now, the fic is at a fork road, from here onwards, either it would go on to become one of best Naruto fics on the platform, or…}
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