Inside the Hokage's office, smoke filled the air, covering Hiruzen Sarutobi's exhausted face in a gray haze.
The distant cheers from the celebration outside drifted through the window, but they did nothing to drive away the gloom weighing on his heart.
The pipe between his fingers trembled slightly, just like his chaotic thoughts.
Orochimaru... had really returned but he had returned in this way, directly joining the Uchiha.
It felt like a silent slap across the face of his former teacher.
It was both mockery and karma.
Just then, someone knocked on the office door.
The knock was light, yet carried a strange rhythm. It was nothing like Danzo's usual gloomy and hurried style.
"Come in."
Hiruzen suppressed the turmoil inside him and forced his voice to remain calm.
The door opened.
Danzo walked in alone, leaning on his cane.
There was no Orochimaru behind him, not even a single member of the Hokage Guard.
The air inside the office instantly froze.
Hiruzen's gaze passed over Danzo and locked onto the empty hallway behind him, as though he wanted to pull out the person he both wanted and feared to see.
After several seconds of silence, he slowly shifted his eyes back to Danzo.
The hope in his eyes was extinguished like burning coals drenched with cold water, quickly turning to ashes before giving way to uncontrollable anger.
"Danzo..."
Hiruzen forced the words through gritted teeth, his voice low and dangerous.
"I gave you temporary command over the Hokage Guard, not so you could take them for a stroll outside the Uchiha headquarters! Where's Orochimaru? Tell me! Where is he?!"
He slammed the desk so hard that the ashtray jumped.
"What exactly were you doing?! You can't even handle something this simple anymore? Or are you so afraid of facing Uchiha Chiya that you don't even dare show yourself? What happened to your ambition of becoming Hokage?!"
This was naked humiliation, the method Hiruzen had used most effectively to control Danzo for decades.
He kept dangling power and ambition in front of him, making him believe that maybe next time he would finally become Hokage, keeping him willing to carry out every dirty task hidden from the light.
But today, Danzo's reaction was completely different.
There was no humiliation, greed, or unwillingness flashing through his single eye.
He did not lower his head to make excuses or promises.
Instead, he let out an extremely faint, yet bone chilling sneer.
"Heh..."
Danzo raised his head. His lone eye calmly looked at the furious Hokage, carrying even a trace of pity.
"Hiruzen, even now, you're still trying to manipulate everything, including me, with such a laughable method?"
Hiruzen froze, almost believing he had misheard.
Manipulate?
That word had never before been spoken so directly during the decades of unspoken understanding between them.
"What do you mean?"
Hiruzen's voice rose slightly in both shock and anger.
"My meaning is perfectly clear."
Danzo's voice remained terrifyingly steady, as if he were stating an unrelated fact.
"Orochimaru is a missing nin who voluntarily returned to Konoha. He has been personally accepted and placed under supervision by Uchiha Clan Head Uchiha Chiya.
The entire process complies with Article Three of Clause Seven of the village's Wartime Emergency Regulations. It is completely legal.
I, Shimura Danzo, have neither the authority nor the reason to storm the Uchiha Police Force and demand that they hand him over simply because of one verbal order from you.
The Hokage's authority should not be used to break the rules established by the village itself."
These flawless, righteous words struck like the sharpest kunai, piercing straight through Hiruzen's expectations.
His eyes widened as if he were seeing his old friend for the very first time.
"Rules?! Legal?!"
Hiruzen laughed in anger, his laughter filled with disbelief and rage.
"Danzo! You're talking to me about rules?! While you were running Root, how many things did your men do that broke the rules?
Do you want me to remind you one by one? Back then you assassinated radical members of the Uchiha, framed Kumogakure for it, secretly withheld war supplies that were supposed to be distributed among the clans, and even...
You secretly contacted Orochimaru to obtain his forbidden research! Which of those followed the rules?!"
He abruptly stood up and leaned forward, glaring at Danzo as he searched for the familiar panic or darkness in his eyes.
"And now you're pretending to be a law abiding citizen? I told you to get him because I was giving you an opportunity! A chance to suppress the Uchiha, seize Orochimaru's research, and strengthen your own position!
When I step down in the future, don't you understand what that would mean for your chances of becoming Hokage?!
Yet you actually... Actually came back empty handed?!
Tell me, what were you thinking?!"
Hiruzen scolded him in a low voice.
He believed those words would awaken Danzo's obsession with power.
But he was wrong again.
Not only was Danzo unmoved, he even took a step forward.
There was no trace of greed left in his eye.
Instead, a strange and icy flame burned there, a nearly fanatical sense of justice completely twisted by Kotoamatsukami.
"The Hokage position? An opportunity?"
Danzo's voice suddenly became passionate, yet remained chilling.
"Hiruzen, do you really think I'll still be fooled by your empty promises? Like dangling a carrot in front of a foolish donkey, one it can never eat, making me do every filthy deed for you?!"
"You!"
Hiruzen was momentarily speechless.
"You're right. Root isn't clean."
Danzo slammed his cane onto the floor with a dull thud, cutting Hiruzen off.
"But every operation, every sacrifice, every time I dirtied my hands, I told myself it was for Konoha! It was to eliminate hidden threats to the village!
It was so you, the Hokage sitting in the sunlight, could continue maintaining your false image of light!"
His voice carried decades of resentment, yet Kotoamatsukami subtly guided all of it toward a completely new direction.
"But what about you, Hiruzen? How did you repay that loyalty?"
Danzo stared directly into Hiruzen's eyes, every word striking like a venomous snake.
"You enjoyed the order and convenience Root brought from the shadows, but you never truly trusted me. You never truly intended to hand the Hokage position to me!
You only used me, my ambition, and my methods to strengthen your own power!
The moment I lost my usefulness, or the moment I threatened you, you would discard me without hesitation, just like you abandoned Orochimaru!
Just like when you silently allowed me to force the White Fang into despair! Just like when you clearly knew Orochimaru was violating the village's rules with human experiments, yet covered it up and pretended not to know until it could no longer be hidden before abandoning him as well!"
"Enough!"
Hiruzen's face turned deathly pale as he shouted.
"Why should I stop? Because your guilty conscience can't take it anymore, my dear Hokage?"
Danzo continued pressing forward. His words became even sharper as he dragged one buried secret after another into the open.
"And what about the Uchiha? How did Uchiha Kagami die? Do you really know nothing about it?
He was the only Uchiha who truly believed in the Will of Fire and was willing to get close to the village leadership!
He was also our comrade! Can you really wash your hands of his death?!
Now that Uchiha Chiya has risen, he has won the war with his strength and won the people's hearts, yet you've become afraid again.
You're afraid he'll threaten your position. That's why you're so eager to seize Orochimaru and use him as a bargaining chip against the Uchiha.
Hiruzen, when did your vision become so narrow?!"
"It wasn't me! It was the advisors!!"
Hiruzen instinctively defended himself, though his voice trembled ever so slightly.
"So it's always their fault? And you're forever the innocent, helpless Hokage who only acts for the greater good?"
The mockery on Danzo's face had almost become tangible.
"Save those excuses, Hiruzen! Every act of silent approval, every hesitation, every so called unavoidable choice only encouraged the darkness!
You are the Hokage! The power to make the final decision has always been in your hands!
You chose compromise. You chose balance. You chose to maintain an order that only appeared stable while it had already rotted from within!
You betrayed our teacher's expectations!
You also betrayed every ninja hero who sacrificed everything for you and for this village!!"
This series of accusations struck Hiruzen's mental defenses like the fiercest Lightning Style.
He stumbled backward and crashed into the desk behind him, sending documents scattering across the floor.
His mouth opened, his breathing turned ragged, yet he realized he could not say a single word in response.
Every sentence Danzo spoke was like a mirror, reflecting every compromise, every helpless choice, every dark decision, and every bit of hypocrisy throughout Hiruzen's years as Hokage.
Everything he had buried deep within himself and wrapped with the Will of Fire and the greater good was mercilessly torn open.
He looked at Danzo, this familiar yet unfamiliar old friend.
The greed and schemes that once filled Danzo's eyes were gone.
Only a cold, fanatical, and incomprehensible sense of clarity and justice remained.
That gaze frightened Hiruzen more than any conspiracy ever could.
An overwhelming shock, mixed with unprecedented guilt, engulfed him like a tidal wave.
For the first time, he realized that perhaps it had been his years of indulgence, manipulation, and silent approval that had created Danzo's darkness and driven Orochimaru into a corner...
And now, karma had finally arrived.
"You... you..."
Hiruzen pointed at Danzo with trembling fingers, his voice dry and hoarse.
"You've gone mad, Danzo... Do you even know what you're saying?!"
"I'm perfectly clear, Hiruzen."
Danzo looked at him coldly. His voice had become calm again, but sounded even more resolute.
"Clearer than ever before. I finally see your true nature, and I finally understand who can truly lead Konoha toward strength and light. Not a coward like you, who is bound by the past and corrupted by power."
He paused before delivering each word like a final judgment.
"You can keep that Hokage position. I, Shimura Danzo..."
"Don't care about it anymore!"
With that, he did not spare another glance at Hiruzen's pale face, filled with shock and despair.
He turned without hesitation, leaned on his cane, and strode toward the door.
"Danzo! Stop right there!"
Hiruzen used the last of his strength, trying to hold onto the final remnants of his authority.
The only answer he received was Danzo's unwavering back, followed by...
Bang!!
The heavy door to the Hokage's office slammed shut with all of Danzo's strength.
"Danzo, you'll regret this!!"
Hiruzen's furious roar echoed through the hallway, as if marking the complete collapse of their decades long relationship.
Inside the office, Hiruzen stood frozen amidst the mess. Danzo's final words, "Don't care about it anymore," and the thunderous slam of the door continued echoing in his ears.
The distant cheers of the celebration drifted in through the window, but now they sounded unbearably harsh and impossibly far away.
He slowly collapsed back into his chair, completely powerless. The pipe in his hand had long since gone out.
Sunlight shone through the window onto a face that seemed to have aged ten years in an instant, revealing nothing but shock, confusion, and... guilt that reached deep into his soul.
Danzo...
Had truly changed.
Changed into someone he no longer recognized.
Could it have been because of his meeting with Uchiha Chiya just now?
For the first time, Hiruzen felt a chill that reached his very bones.
It did not come from any powerful enemy.
It came from within the village itself, from the Uchiha Clan Head whom he had never truly understood, yet who now seemed to have everything under his control.
He had lost.
Not because Danzo had betrayed him.
But because he had been defeated by the consequences of every choice he had made throughout his life.
The office was left with nothing but deathly silence and the sound of heavy, painful sighs.
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