"Don't tell me you 'had no choice' but to secretly join Root as well."
Hiruzen Sarutobi tilted his head, his gaze sliding to the Yang Release clone standing to Konome Taketori's right, silent from start to finish.
The clone's expression was gloomy. A bandage-wrapped greatsword was strapped to her back. Root's uniform and a black cloak hung from her shoulders. There was no matching strange pattern on her forehead either. The two looked identical, yet at a glance they didn't feel like the same person at all.
Compared to Konome's ash-gray eyes, bright as stars, and her radiant, almost otherworldly presence, the clone's delicate face seemed plain and unremarkable.
"It really was unavoidable," the Yang Release clone said, glancing sideways at the main body.
Between illusion and reality, their chakra cores were still linked, the connection pulsing without pause.
The gap between them had grown so large that she no longer dared to assume they were still fully in sync. Only after seeing Konome nod did she stop the encrypted "silent channel" between them and untie the pitch-black blindfold over her eyes.
Hiruzen's eyes narrowed.
He had no idea what medicine these two were selling. He watched coldly as the Root-clad Konome moved, saying nothing.
Until the Yang Release clone lifted her face toward him and opened those crimson eyes, the pinwheel pattern inside them spinning like a four-bladed windmill.
"Mangekyō!"
Hiruzen stared at the sinister black-and-red eyes. His breathing caught in his throat, and his gaze instinctively shifted away by a fraction.
Of course he understood what the Mangekyō Sharingan meant.
Uchiha Madara. The masked man from the Nine-Tails' Night. Uchiha Shisui. Uchiha Itachi.
Every Mangekyō was different, strange and terrifying in its own way.
He didn't know all of their abilities, but Shisui had personally told him about Kotoamatsukami, a genjutsu that could silently rewrite a person's will and win without fighting. The strongest illusion in the shinobi world.
"How do you have the Mangekyō Sharingan?"
Hiruzen turned his head, not daring to meet those eyes directly. His voice was tight with agitation.
A moment ago she claimed Hyūga blood and Kaguya blood. Now she produced a flawless Mangekyō.
Her mother was Hyūga, her father was Kaguya. Was her grandfather Uchiha too?
At this rate, if she suddenly used Hashirama Senju's Wood Release, he wouldn't even be surprised.
"This is my shadow clone. How could it have the Mangekyō? Don't panic, sensei. She's only under Kotoamatsukami."
Only under Kotoamatsukami?
Hiruzen looked again at that four-bladed pinwheel pattern. It really was Shisui's design.
For a moment, he didn't even know what to say. This disciple had frightened him so many times that numbness was beginning to set in.
"I'm not young anymore," he muttered. "I can't take shocks like this."
"Sorry," Konome said, not too big and not too small a joke. "Your disciple is still young and didn't think it through."
Then her smile faded, and her eyes sharpened into seriousness.
"I joined Root because I was forced by Konoha's Hokage Advisor, Shimura Danzō."
"Mhm."
Hiruzen nodded without surprise. After working alongside Danzō for decades, he understood better than anyone how hard and domineering that man could be.
So the moment Konome said it, he believed her.
He could even guess the script.
First, an invitation to join Root, delivered by people who cornered you. If that failed, threats and inducements. If that still failed, they found your weak point, and if necessary they simply abducted you into Root.
After that came long-term conditioning, breaking down personal will, turning you into one of them.
More or less, always like that.
Though he did remember one oddball from a few years ago, an ANBU who claimed to admire Danzō and insisted on entering Root voluntarily. The name was…
Arashi, maybe?
That kind of freak was rare enough that the impression had stuck.
Seeing Hiruzen accept it so easily, Konome licked her lips and swallowed the evidence she'd been about to present. Danzō's reputation was so rotten that accusations didn't even require proof. That spared her a lot of arguing.
But from another angle, it meant Hiruzen wasn't ignorant of Root's rot. He might even know more than she did.
If Danzō could run wild in Konoha, then her teacher was far less innocent than he looked.
"To cure my Bloodline Sickness, I went to Konoha Hospital to find a way to learn medical ninjutsu," Konome continued. "But Danzō colluded with the chief physician, Chihaya Tōru. They tricked me into an empty forest and used Kotoamatsukami on me…"
The Yang Release clone pointed to her blood-red eyes and recounted exactly what happened that day, step by step, without hiding a single detail.
When Hiruzen heard that Danzō's right eye was Kotoamatsukami, and that Konome had escaped disaster by using the nature of a shadow clone, a reflection made of chakra, then turned the tables and infiltrated Root instead, his face darkened like storm clouds.
Shisui's death had always been a mystery.
Hiruzen had once suspected Uchiha hardliners killed him.
He had never imagined it was Danzō, coveting that Mangekyō's power, deliberately murdering him.
If Shisui had lived, Kotoamatsukami could have controlled Uchiha Fugaku and mediated from within. The Uchiha's resentment would not have boiled so violently.
The clan would never have been pushed all the way to extermination.
In a sense, it was all Danzō's fault.
But if one traced the root of it…
"I understand," Hiruzen said, exhausted, nodding slowly.
His expression grew heavier, but he still did not erupt.
"That's it?" Konome couldn't believe it. "You… just 'understand'?"
She had told him Danzō wanted her to stab him in the back.
And he was still sitting there, lukewarm, neither hot nor cold.
If this were Kirigakure, the Shimura clan would have been wiped out already.
Watching Hiruzen's soft, bullyable posture, Konome finally understood why Danzō dared to act so arrogantly.
Using Kotoamatsukami to control the Hokage's personal disciple, at the smallest scale, was harming Konoha's shinobi. At the largest scale, it was attempting to overturn Konoha's leadership. That was treason.
And yet Hiruzen swallowed it.
No wonder Danzō always believed Hiruzen was unfit to be Hokage. How could someone so weak lead the strongest village in the shinobi world?
The First Hokage. The Second Hokage. Even Danzō.
Any one of them was harder-edged than Hiruzen.
At least when Kumogakure attacked students, it was Danzō who led covert retaliation. Konome had never heard of any meaningful results from Hiruzen's condemnations.
Faced with his disciple's disappointed gaze, Hiruzen dodged and wavered, yet in the end he still didn't say how he would punish Danzō.
"I'll warn him."
"No need," Konome said, turning her head away, no longer willing to look at that weak face.
She had fought hard to earn Danzō's trust. If Hiruzen warned Danzō now, Danzō would come for her instead.
And Root, already more than half in her hands, would gain new variables.
Relying on others was never as good as relying on herself.
She and Hiruzen had been master and disciple for only a handful of days.
It could never compare to decades of friendship between Hiruzen and Danzō.
"If one day Danzō is killed by me…" Konome stared straight into Hiruzen's eyes, demanding an answer. "Would you move against me?"
"…"
Silence was the clearest answer.
Hiruzen's face was full of unspeakable loneliness and conflict. He could feel the hope in Konome's gaze steadily turning into sharp disappointment.
Only then did he truly understand the pressure she'd faced earlier, when he came charging in to condemn her.
"Don't provoke Danzō," he said, unable to meet her eyes. He turned his back. His posture looked bent, almost hunched. "Focus on developing your jutsu and curing your illness."
Even he knew how powerless those words sounded.
"Can you tell me," Konome asked from behind him, "why you protect Danzō like this?"
Her voice echoed at his back.
The feeling was like crossing time itself, countless voices overlapping with hers, questions, doubts, anger.
Orochimaru. Tsunade. Kakashi.
So many had asked him the same thing. Every time, it dragged him back to a memory he could never erase.
He lifted his head and looked up at the sky. Golden sunlight washed over his aged face, as if time rewound, pulling him straight back to the turbulent years when he first became Hokage.
Konoha Year Thirty-Seven.
ANBU underground base.
Three ANBU sat around a table, chatting. An old man in a mask, hair white and scattered, dropped into a chair. He raised his hand and drove a kunai into the wooden tabletop in one savage thrust.
The ringed handle trembled, vibrating with rage.
"What right does Hiruzen Sarutobi have to be Hokage? Back in the day I followed the First and Second through countless battles, built this village with my own hands.
He was still pissing in the mud!
And don't forget, Konoha is full of secret techniques and bloodline clans. Senju, Hyūga, Uchiha, they're all here. Why would the Sarutobi clan ever get to sit on top?"
His voice boomed through the hollow room. From his words alone, it was obvious he was a Senju shinobi.
"I heard the Second left his dying instruction," another ANBU replied, removing his mask to reveal sharp, deep-set features. His tone carried the same lack of respect. "Are you saying you doubt the Second's judgment?"
"Bullshit," the Senju elder spat. "Who heard the Second tell them to make Hiruzen Hokage? It was only the story those bodyguards told.
They were supposed to protect the Second. And what happened? They came back in one piece and left the Second behind to cover the retreat on the battlefield.
If I don't kill those bastards, I'm doing them a favor."
Hearing that, the old Senju grew even angrier. He had fought alongside the Second for years. The more he revered him, the more his fury burned.
"Keep your voice down," the companion on the other side hissed, reaching out to press him down and flicking his eyes repeatedly toward the doorway.
Only then did they notice two figures stopping at the entrance.
Hiruzen Sarutobi, wearing the Hokage's robe.
And Shimura Danzō.
"What did you say?" Danzō's neck flushed red as he stepped forward, ready to argue.
But Hiruzen grabbed him and forcibly dragged him away.
"Tch." The laughter inside the room grew louder, more brazen. "What Hokage?"
"Hiruzen, those people…" Danzō's face looked awful as his friend hauled him away.
As the Second's disciple, he had always been treated like an honored guest by the great clans. When had he ever suffered humiliation like that?
"Don't be rash," the young Hiruzen said, shaking his head.
Only after sitting in the Hokage's seat did he understand how crushing the pressure truly was.
Konoha was the strongest village, overflowing with secret-technique clans and powerful shinobi.
Don't think that was purely a blessing.
These clans had clashed since the Warring States era. Even though Hashirama Senju's might forced them to set grudges aside, the contradictions never vanished. Now the signs of internal conflict were sprouting again.
And outside the village, Konoha held the richest land.
The other Four Great Villages watched like wolves.
On the surface, even after losing the First and Second, Konoha still looked strong. But under the weight of enemies within and enemies without, it was standing on the edge of its most dangerous era. One wrong step and it could fracture.
"Konoha's situation is unstable," Hiruzen said. "We can't act on impulse. Those are veteran shinobi who made great contributions when Konoha was founded.
Arguing with them, what do you gain?"
"Then what do we do?" Danzō's energy deflated.
Old and stubborn, they couldn't be beaten and couldn't be cursed. By seniority, they were elders.
Aside from Sarutobi and Shimura support, the two of them only had a handful of bodyguards.
The major clans controlled their own territories, autonomous like villages within the village. The so-called Hokage and Hokage Advisor were practically hollow shells and signature machines, with neither manpower nor real authority.
Hiruzen's eyes flickered with calculation, already mapping the terrain.
"Sensei once said politics is gathering every force you can. Pull your friends and the undecided to your side and make them strength. Destroy your enemies completely so they can never become a future threat."
Hearing that familiar line, Danzō felt a spark of understanding, but it was still blurry.
"Who's an enemy? Who's a friend?"
"Simple." Hiruzen formed a droplet of water on his fingertip and drew on the corridor wall outside the ANBU room as he spoke.
"I became Hokage. Anyone capable of competing for the Hokage seat is our enemy. And anyone who has no qualification to become Hokage is someone we can win over."
"You mean…"
"Nara, Akimichi, Yamanaka, Aburame, Inuzuka, the mid-tier clans. Hatake, Kurama, Yūhi, Tsukikage, the smaller clans. And the civilian geniuses of Konoha."
Hiruzen kept drawing, his eyes growing brighter.
Those mid and small clans had no right to compete for Hokage. That meant no direct conflict with him. If he offered them convenience and bound them into a tight interest group, they would naturally support him as Hokage and help him check the great clans like the Hyūga and Uchiha.
"The strength of a shinobi village is its vast number when united," Hiruzen said. "We may not have Sensei's individual power, but if we unite every mid-tier clan, small clan, and civilian force in Konoha, we can suppress those great clans who act alone and obey no one.
That's the wheel of the era. No one can stop it."
"That makes sense!" Danzō slammed his fist into his palm, fired up.
In an instant, the tangled web of Konoha's factions became clear. Friend and enemy drew sharp lines. His blood began to boil, eager to carve out a grand achievement.
"Danzō," Hiruzen said quietly, "I need your help."
"Say it," Danzō answered at once.
The young Hiruzen looked at Danzō's bright eyes. In his own gaze was struggle, grief.
He knew that no matter what he asked, his closest friend would agree without hesitation.
And because he could already see the tragic consequences, the words at his lips refused to come out.
Danzō's excitement cooled, slowly, as if frost spread across it.
He stared at Hiruzen's conflicted expression. Then he remembered the conversation they'd just had.
Between them, some things didn't need to be said.
"To win over the mid and small clans, you have to act personally as Hokage," Danzō said, forcing a gentle smile. "Only then will they believe in your sincerity."
"And as for the dirty work, the trouble of suppressing the great clans…"
He lifted his chin slightly, as if that was nothing at all.
"Leave it to me."
He and Hiruzen both understood what that meant.
The great clans' roots ran deep in Konoha. If Danzō struck at them, he would become an enemy to the entire village, boxed in on all sides, unable to take a single step freely.
Even the Shimura clan would be dragged into the fallout.
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