Chapter 11 – You'll regret this
The morning light had just begun to bloom, the first rays of dawn bleeding across the horizon.
A lone figure, cloaked in black from head to toe, stood quietly beneath the trees. Through the narrow gap between his hat brim and high collar, he gazed at the fading silhouette of a boy walking into the distance.
He adjusted his thick-rimmed glasses out of habit, and a faint, almost amused smile curved his lips.
Even the most cunning schemer cannot match a fool's moment of inspiration.
As the old saying goes: "To think without learning is perilous, to learn without thought is useless."
No matter how gifted one might be, finishing six years' worth of coursework in one is, at best, the mark of a brilliant child — not a sage.
And in a shinobi village, that education was mostly confined to combat and tactics.
Critical thought? Politics? Dialectics?
They were never part of the curriculum.
To grasp the world's truth with such a narrow scope of knowledge — it would already be a miracle if one ended up merely exhausted and disillusioned.
Far more often, that kind of mind would drift toward extremity… and self-destruction.
"Show me, Itachi," Aizen murmured softly.
"Let me see what kind of storm you can conjure."
The gentle smile faded from his face.
He raised his sword and, without hesitation, plunged the blade into the chest of a masked Root operative lying at his feet.
The man's eyes bulged wide in pain, his breath ragged as he caught sight — through the cracking lens of his mask — of a strange, swirling shape within the attacker's eyes. It wasn't the typical three-tomoe Sharingan.
All around him, the forest floor was littered with bodies — Root agents fallen in eerie silence, no signs of struggle on their corpses.
This massacre hadn't begun with Itachi's infiltration.
By the time he arrived, this was already the scene that awaited him.
And no one had noticed.
Only when the final survivor — whose heart happened to be on the right side — began to draw his last breaths did Aizen calmly flick the blood from his blade and turn away.
Moments later, the metallic scent of death lured other Root shinobi to the area.
Their arrival was soon followed by shouts, movement — the chaos of discovery.
The curtain had risen.
---
Within minutes, a squad of masked operatives surrounded the scene.
At their center, a tall, one-eyed man with a bandaged arm stepped forward, his steps slow and measured.
It was Shimura Danzō.
He lowered his single visible eye, surveying the field of death before him — the eerie stillness, the perfectly executed kills, the blood pooling at the roots of the trees.
There wasn't a single sign of resistance.
Nearby, the lone survivor — the operative called Badger — lay on a stretcher, barely clinging to life as two medical-nin struggled to stabilize him.
Sensing Danzō's presence behind them, one of the medics immediately rose and bowed respectfully.
"Lord Danzō."
Danzō's voice was cold, stripped of emotion.
"No need for ceremony. Can Badger still be saved?"
The medic's face went pale. Sweat beaded at his temples.
"I'm sorry, Lord Danzō. His left lung and major artery were both pierced simultaneously. By the time we found him, it was already too late. Were it not for his reversed heart position, he would have died from the very first strike, so..."
The words trailed off as Danzō stepped past him without a glance.
He stopped beside the stretcher and looked down at the dying operative's wounds.
Two cuts — clean, precise, and deadly.
His eye narrowed.
This was no style of the Konoha sword schools.
It was something far colder, far more refined — a blade technique he did not recognize.
Throughout the entire village, there were only a few famous sword styles — the Uchiha style, the Moonlight style, and the Hatake style. That narrowed down the suspects considerably.
What's more, Root had only recently begun its full surveillance of the Uchiha clan.
It took only a moment for Danzō to piece it together.
Still, he crouched down beside the dying operative, clasping the man's trembling hand as his voice dropped to a cold, measured tone.
"Badger. This will be your final mission. Tell me—who killed you all?"
In the fading light of his vision, the Root operative's eyes flickered with desperate clarity. His instincts flared, wringing out what little life remained in his broken body. He clutched Danzō's wrist and rasped through bloodied lips:
"Sha… Sharingan…"
"Different shape… tomoe… didn't see the face…"
"S-sorry, Lord Danzō… I… couldn't…"
His voice trembled. Each word came weaker than the last. Blood welled up from his mouth and splattered onto Danzō's chest.
But Danzō didn't flinch.
He let the blood stain his fine robes, gripping Badger's hand tightly until the very end.
"Different tomoe patterns… killing an entire squad in an instant?" he muttered.
Even as he spoke, a chill rippled through his heart.
That unit had been led by three jōnin—twelve Root operatives in total.
And yet, not a single full corpse remained.
Danzō's mind flashed to his old comrade—Uchiha Kagami.
"Could it be… the power of the Mangekyō Sharingan?"
His lone visible eye lingered on Badger's lifeless face. After a long silence, Danzō finally said in a low tone:
"You've done well, Badger. Konoha will remember your sacrifice."
As his leader straightened and turned away, Badger let out his final breath, his gaze softening with a trace of relief before his eyes finally closed.
The other Root members stood motionless.
Their faces were expressionless, mechanical — yet behind that mask of obedience, a faint ripple of something almost human stirred in their eyes.
Danzō had bound these men with more than orders or fear.
He had bound them with conviction — his shadowed vision of Konoha's "peace."
But the moment he rose to his feet, the image of the fallen soldier had already vanished from his mind.
He was thinking ahead — coldly, sharply.
"This… is the perfect opportunity."
That was his first thought.
Since the previous year, for reasons unknown, the Uchiha clan had delayed their coup preparations. The act, whether strategic or cowardly, had earned them a small reprieve in the eyes of the Konoha Council.
Even Danzō's calls for preemptive action were met with fierce opposition.
Even his current surveillance of the Uchiha was unauthorized — done without Hiruzen's approval.
Everything he'd ordered so far had been his own doing.
But now… if the Uchiha had struck first—
"At last," Danzō thought, his pulse quickening.
"At last, I have them cornered. These parasites of Konoha will finally be cut away."
Suppressing his rising excitement, he stormed toward the Hokage's office.
---
BANG!
The door slammed open.
Hiruzen Sarutobi looked up from his paperwork, his brows knitting instantly.
When he saw who it was, he sighed in weary resignation.
The aftermath of Orochimaru's betrayal had already stretched him thin.
The village's chain of command was strained — too many of their strongest shinobi were dead or gone.
Jiraiya and Tsunade were still wandering abroad, and now Danzō was here again, as always, adding to his headaches.
He exhaled a long, tired breath.
"Danzō… what is it this time?"
"What is it?" Danzō's voice thundered, his single eye blazing.
"Hiruzen! How much longer are you going to sit on your hands about the Uchiha?!"
Hiruzen's expression shifted at once.
"The Uchiha?"
Before he could say another word, Danzō slammed a thick folder onto the desk.
"Look for yourself!" he barked.
"Root's surveillance team was ambushed last night — twelve operatives dead, three of them jōnin! They didn't even last a single exchange!"
"Do you have any idea what this means, Hiruzen?" His voice rose to a furious pitch.
"This isn't defiance. It's rebellion! It's a coup! They've already started killing our men!"
The Third Hokage's eyes narrowed sharply.
Even his years of calm couldn't hide the gravity in his expression now.
He snatched up the report and flipped it open.
Across the room, a masked ANBU operative standing quietly to the side stiffened in disbelief.
Itachi.
His eyes darted toward the file in shock.
Last night? Twelve Root agents dead?
That… that couldn't be.
Shisui said he'd "take care of it." Don't tell me…
No, impossible. That wasn't Shisui. It couldn't be.
As confusion churned inside him, Hiruzen's voice cut through the silence — cold and measured:
"'A stranger with a Mangekyō Sharingan'...?"
He murmured the words, his brow furrowing as he shot a quick, wary glance at Itachi.
Then, facing Danzō, his tone turned grave.
"Danzō, you're basing this on a single dying witness. You're jumping to conclusions!"
"This matter requires proper investigation. Send the bodies to me — ANBU will take over from here."
Danzō's expression twisted in outrage.
"Hiruzen, we've already been attacked on our own soil, and you still want to investigate?!" he snapped.
"And you'd have ANBU—outsiders—handle Root corpses? Are you mad?! You'd expose classified information!"
"We must strike back before they do it again!"
Hiruzen slammed his pipe down. His tone was suddenly steel.
"Enough! If Konoha starts shedding blood within its own walls again, do you know what will happen?!"
"One man's act does not represent the entire Uchiha clan! This will be handled peacefully!"
"Impossible!" Danzō barked back.
"Root will never sit and wait to die!"
"Root," Hiruzen countered, his voice cutting through the air like a blade, "exists to protect the Leaf—not your ego. And it is not your private army!"
The words hit Danzō like a strike to the chest.
For a moment, even he faltered, his lips trembling with restrained fury.
"Hiruzen…" he hissed, his voice trembling with rage.
"You'll regret this."
Hiruzen met his gaze coldly, speaking each word like a hammer blow:
"I am the Hokage."
That single sentence was enough to silence him.
Danzō's jaw tightened, his fingers twitching around his cane — the old, familiar burn of humiliation surging in his chest.
Without another word, he spun on his heel and stormed out.
The door slammed behind him, echoing through the Hokage's office.
And in that echo, Konoha's shadow grew just a little darker.