Danzo Shimura was gone.
He had vanished down the forest path, taking with him every answer he'd come for.
Kakashi remained where he was, staring after the direction the old warhawk had disappeared. His face betrayed nothing.
To pacify the outside, one must first pacify the inside?
Danzo was right.
The question was—who exactly counted as the "inside"?
Or rather, who did Danzo believe the "inside" included?
When a man's ambition outgrew the hand that fed it, he was already teetering on the edge of ruin.
"Senpai, are you okay?"
Tenzo stepped out from behind a nearby tree, his voice laced with worry. He had stayed hidden the entire time, only daring to emerge once Danzo was truly gone. Facing his former commander again stirred a storm of complicated feelings he couldn't quite name.
"I'm fine," Kakashi answered, pulling his gaze away. His tone was as even as ever.
"Let's get back to training."
Tenzo followed in silence, eyes fixed on Kakashi's back. His heart felt strangely heavy. Though nothing had been said outright, the conversation he'd accidentally overheard carried a single, unmistakable truth:
Hatake Kakashi did, in fact, want to become Hokage.
"What's on your mind?" Kakashi asked without turning around, as if he could feel the stare boring into him.
Tenzo jolted. He shook his head quickly. "N-nothing… I just never imagined that you, senpai, would…"
"Would dream of sitting in that hat like some snot-nosed kid?" Kakashi finished for him. The corners of his visible eye crinkled—he was smiling under the mask. "We're Konoha shinobi. Isn't that kind of ambition supposed to be normal?"
"…Yeah, I guess you're right."
Tenzo's shoulders loosened. For the first time that day, a real smile broke across his face. His senpai didn't seem the least bit bothered that he'd eavesdropped on something so dangerous.
"Come on," Kakashi said, already walking. "Water Release training waits for no one. You're going to be working your ass off."
"Leave it to me, senpai!"
Tenzo's spirits lifted instantly. He jogged to catch up, voice bright and loud.
Time, as always, spared no one.
In the days that followed, while Kakashi and Tenzo threw themselves into Water Release training, Dodai returned to Konoha once more—this time looking like a man who'd been dragged behind a horse for a hundred miles.
Unlike his previous visit with an entire delegation in tow, he came alone.
Hokage Conference Room
"It's only been a few days, Dodai-dono," Hiruzen Sarutobi said from the head of the table, his tone carrying the polite concern of a host. "You look exhausted. Please, take care of your health."
The minister from Kumogakure was a shadow of the man who had stood here five days earlier. His skin was sallow, his eyes threaded with red, the crow's-feet at their corners etched deeper than before. He radiated bone-deep fatigue, the kind that came from carrying a weight too heavy for any one person.
"Thank you for your concern, Hokage-sama." Dodai's voice scraped out, hoarse and dry. He skipped the pleasantries entirely. "We… have reached a decision."
The air in the room seemed to freeze.
Hiruzen's expression stiffened for just an instant—this answer had come far sooner than he'd prepared for.
Hokage Building – Rooftop
A cool breeze swept across the roof.
The silver-haired jōnin stood at the railing, watching the small Kumogakure contingent depart under Dodai's lead.
"To pay that kind of price for a thousand prisoners… Dodai's got some guts," Kakashi remarked, voice perfectly level.
"It's not Dodai who has guts," Hiruzen corrected, taking a long draw from his pipe and exhaling a thin stream of smoke. "It's the daimyo of the Land of Lightning and the Fourth Raikage standing behind him. One hundred billion ryō in reparations, an entire port city—just to end this war."
"Don't forget the hard cap often thousand shinobi and a complete set of Lightning Release techniques passed over as a bonus," Kakashi added. "They really carved a chunk out of their own hide this time."
The Third Hokage's tone grew heavier. "Unlike the other great nations, the Land of Lightning's daimyo has always backed Kumogakure without reservation. That's the only reason they could afford to gamble everything."
"Admirable," Kakashi said—and meant it, which was rare enough to notice.
Save the people and the land will follow; save the land and lose the people, and you lose both. He'd underestimated the Raikage and the daimyo's resolve. In the end, people were the only foundation that mattered. Everything else could be bought back if you still had the hands to hold it.
"Our next moves might need adjusting after concessions this drastic," Hiruzen sighed.
"But the victory is still Konoha's," Kakashi replied, turning to lean his back against the railing. "We didn't crush Kumogakure completely, but we crippled them. After bleeding that much, climbing back to relevance… that's going to hurt."
His voice cooled. "Besides—do you really think they'll honor that ten-thousand-shinobi limit?"
"Of course not." Hiruzen gave a short, humorless laugh. Kumogakure's reputation for keeping promises was the stuff of punchlines across the Five Nations.
"Then when they break the treaty," Kakashi continued, "what do we gain, Hokage-sama?"
Hiruzen's eyes sharpened behind the smoke, locking onto the deceptively lazy man beside him.
A casus belli.
The war had barely ended, and Kakashi was already looking fifteen moves ahead.
"The Land of Lightning just took another beating. They won't dare cross the line while they're still licking their wounds," Kakashi said, the breeze ruffling his silver hair. "But give them a decade, maybe less, and they'll rip that treaty to shreds the moment they think they can win. By then Konoha will have superior resources, economy, and military power across the board. There'll be no excuse to lose."
The pipe in Hiruzen's hand trembled—just once—before the old man's gaze turned predatory.
"When that day comes… we'll be the ones cutting the next piece of meat off their bones."
Kakashi allowed himself a thin, almost imperceptible smile and said nothing more.
It would take the Land of Lightning at least fifteen years to recover anything resembling their former strength.
In fifteen years, Hatake Kakashi had no intention of still being just a jōnin.
And Uzumaki Naruto—at eighteen years old—sweeping across the Land of Lightning like a orange-clad calamity? The outcome wasn't even in question.
Seeing that Kakashi had fallen silent, Hiruzen let the tension ease from his shoulders. A lighter, almost teasing note entered his voice.
"Enough about state affairs for now. When are you planning to settle your personal ones?"
Nothing escaped the Professor's eyes. Even Asuma had started picking up on the weird tension around "Light." The old Hokage, of course, had noticed weeks ago.
Kakashi arched a brow, genuinely caught off guard that the Third would sink to gossip.
This old man has a mischievous streak after all.
The image of a certain white-haired, golden-eyed woman flashed unbidden through his mind.
"No rush," he answered, shrugging. "I don't have any plans in the near future."
She might be over five centuries old on paper, but to him she still looked—and acted—like she had all the time in the world.
He could at least wait until she hit five hundred and eighteen.
Hiruzen let the subject drop without pushing. A thick scroll appeared in his hand—nearly as fat as his forearm—and he tossed it over.
"Here. I've already reviewed it. No issues."
Kakashi caught it one-handed. His eye narrowed slightly as he read the five gilded characters across the seal.
Lightning Release Secret Techniques
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