Another Uchiha!
"I've long said, the Uchiha are Konoha's greatest source of instability!"
Danzo's left eye narrowed into a thin line, a cold light faintly flickering: "Let's talk about this Uchiha Ging."
"Yes." Aburame took root and gathered intelligence in advance, narrating in full detail... Roy's date of birth, school performance, battlefield performance, including today's school bombing incident, leaving nothing out.
Danzo listened quietly, waiting until Aburame took root finished reporting. He spread out the intelligence, pushed it in front of him, and then asked slowly: "Why did Hiruzen appear at the school today?"
It's not graduation season for the ninja school, and as the principal, he doesn't usually make early appearances.
Perhaps it was a sudden whim?
Aburame took root secretly guessed: "Should we assign two people to keep an eye on him?"
Danzo said nothing... The Hokage is busy with affairs every day and wouldn't have the leisure to go to the ninja school to play with a group of children not yet on the stage.
Danzo knows his childhood friend and "bosom buddy" too well... He never does anything useless, especially considering... Just yesterday, the Uchiha held a clan meeting, and afterward, he showed great concern for Uchiha Ging, even if it meant specially visiting the ninja school...
Danzo pondered for a while, sinisterly rejecting Aburame's suggestion... A stronghold is always first breached from within...
"Keep an eye on Uchiha Ging, and also on the Uchiha clan meetings; Roots... still needs its own Uchiha!"
"The teacher's granting of their autonomy was the biggest mistake."
Not only Danzo, but also Koharu Utatane, Homura Mitokado, and even Hiruzen Sarutobi... They've all been very displeased with this for a long time!
A nation within a nation, what nonsense is that?!
The old man's left eye opened and closed, giving Aburame's proposed list a sidelong glance: "Have you prepared the list I asked you to select?"
"Currently, there are three targets being evaluated." Aburame took root, took out a file from his bosom, and respectfully placed it in front of Danzo: "From the young generation, Uchiha Kagami... Uchiha Obito... perhaps they're both suitable."
To approach the Uchiha's core decision-making circle, with decent talent, and valued by the Uchiha clan, Aburame took root thought carefully, and only these two came to mind.
But these two are one is a staunch supporter of Uchiha Fugaku, and the other is a student of that Minato Namikaze whom Hiruzen is particularly fond of...
Danzo frowned, giving Aburame a dissatisfied glare: "Anyone else?"
"There's another, Uchiha Shisui."
Danzo directly skipped over the files on Kagami and Obito, flipping to the third file, showing a lively, cheerful little boy, while listening to Aburame say: "He's very close to Uchiha Ging, his grandfather Uchiha Kagami, was once your classmate, but... he's too young."
Kagami? Danzo's mind instantly conjured up an image of a face with clear eyes, momentarily dazed as he looked at Uchiha Shisui with a wide smile and two little tiger teeth similar to Kagami on the file... The old man recalled the teacher's past evaluation of Kagami... "He's one of the few Uchiha who truly embodies the Will of Fire."
Highly cherished by the teacher and the First Hokage...
Danzo grasped Shisui's file, squinting his eyes: "We'll go with him."
Young age is never the problem, rather it's easier to cultivate than those set in their ways by age; of course...also easier to...indoctrinate!
"Begin contact now, and soon, I'll find a reason to place him into the Anbu."
Once he passes Hiruzen's test, integrating him into "Root" through Anbu becomes much easier.
"Yes!"
Danzo waved his hand, and Aburame took root wisely retreated.
"Squeak~" went the sound of the door.
Chopsticks scattered on the ground lay lifeless, the meal also long gone cold... Danzo lost interest, after such a detailed report, he was completely disinclined to eat, so he leaned on his cane, exited the room... and arrived at a damp and dark underground laboratory.
The lab had a row of neatly arranged jars along the wall, where various corpses were immersed; some stared with eyes wide open, eyeballs protruding... some furrowed their brows, grotesquely curled in agony... some terrified, seemingly having suffered unimaginable torment in life... yet they all eerily and uniformly sprouted branches, the branches with leaves covered, transforming them all into half-human, half-tree monsters!
"You came." A sinister voice whispered, like a snake spitting its tongue, unexpectedly sending shivers down one's spine.
With his back turned to Danzo, a slender figure with purple eyeshadow extending to the nasal wings, and earrings shaped like magatama, his exposed neck skin showed a sickly pale... Orochimaru was leaning on the laboratory table, "repairing" a man, who was tied, gagged, and panicked but desperate, "whimpering," as a syringe slowly but steadily injected cells into his chest, recording his transformation from human to "half-human, half-tree," finally unable to withstand the vitality of the Hashirama cells, drained of life, completely dead.
He turned his head towards Danzo, his elongated golden pupils revealing an uncontrollable look of inquiry... "I need live humans, more and stronger humans, preferably... ninjas."
Danzo didn't answer, just squinted at Orochimaru, after a while he asked: "Is there hope?"
"Almost, I've already touched upon the essence, as long as there are enough test subjects," Orochimaru's mouth curled up with confidence: "I can find the right person to recreate [Wood Release]!"
[Wood Release] is the kekkei genkai that only the First Hokage could master, and was Senju Hashirama's most crucial asset in suppressing the Uchiha, controlling the Tailed Beast, forcibly melding Konoha's clans together, thereby earning the title of "God of Shinobi"!