Renjiro reviewed all three possibilities, his EMS allowing him to replay the relevant details repeatedly. Each was plausible; none was satisfying. Then he identified the fundamental problem; Orochimaru was paranoid, was intelligent, and understood evidence chains. A transaction ledger connecting him to Hashirama cells was dangerous for Orochimaru too. If Minato launched a full ANBU investigation, Orochimaru's network could be exposed, his laboratories could be found, his collaborators could be captured, his movements could become traceable.
Renjiro leaned back and rubbed the bridge of his nose, the tension in his skull a physical reminder of the mental exertion. The problem wasn't whether Orochimaru could have betrayed him; the problem was whether Orochimaru would leave such a dangerous trail. The Sannin hated being controlled; Danzō would be acquiring enormous leverage over him. Orochimaru would only accept such an arrangement if the immediate payoff was enormous.
Even if Orochimaru sold me out, Renjiro concluded, obsessing over what he gained doesn't solve my problem. Understanding the snake's appetite doesn't break the cage.
He stopped looking backwards. He began looking at Danzō.
Renjiro turned toward his strategic board, the large map of Konoha and its surrounding territories that dominated one wall of his study. The active threat wasn't merely whoever created the original evidence; the immediate threat was Danzō. He reconstructed the council proceedings, the failed mind-probe motion, Inoichi's refusal, the clans rallying, Minato's veto. But Danzō had still achieved something; Renjiro was suspended and had seven days before the council reconvened.
Renjiro recognised this as a strategic position rather than a defeat. Danzō knew that circumstantial evidence wasn't enough; the clans were watching, Minato was sceptical, and Inoichi would oppose another mind-probe attempt. Therefore, Danzō could not simply repeat his opening move; he had to change the board before the next council.
Renjiro thought through what an aggressive strategist did when his first attack failed; escalate, create urgency, manufacture evidence, remove alternatives. He predicted that Danzō could produce a fabricated witness; a Root operative, a captured courier, a tortured intermediary, a brainwashed witness. Someone could testify that Renjiro knowingly exchanged information or materials with Orochimaru. The witness would provide what the physical evidence currently lacked; a human narrative, an emotional story that would make the accusation feel real.
A physical document could be disputed; a witness could make the story believable.
Renjiro's analysis became darker. Danzō benefited from wartime fear; if the borders remained calm, the emergency rhetoric would weaken. Therefore, Renjiro considered whether Danzō could manipulate the situation; delayed supplies, compromised logistics, intentionally exposed patrols, selective intelligence leaks. A bloody border incident would allow Danzō to argue that Konoha needed decisive leadership, that its commander was under suspicion, that enemies were exploiting internal weakness.
Renjiro realised Danzō would be willing to sacrifice soldiers to strengthen his political argument. The thought was chilling, but it fit the pattern of the man's career; Danzō had always been willing to make sacrifices for what he perceived as the greater good.
A third possibility emerged; a false-flag sabotage attack inside Konoha. Potential targets included supply depots, communications facilities, barrier infrastructure, and military archives. Forged Uzumaki cypher seals could be planted afterwards, creating an apparently direct connection between Renjiro and the sabotage. His fūinjutsu expertise made such evidence believable; his association with Uzumaki sealing techniques gave Danzō a convenient narrative.
Renjiro's analysis converged on a single conclusion. Danzō's weakness wasn't that he was unintelligent; it was that he thought in terms of acceptable sacrifice. To Danzō, a damaged outpost was acceptable, a dead courier was acceptable, a ruined warehouse was acceptable, political instability was acceptable. Anything was expendable if Renjiro was removed.
He's willing to burn the outer branches just to kill the leaf he hates, Renjiro thought, the realisation carrying a cold certainty.
Yet something didn't fit. His instincts refused to settle, a nagging sense that he was missing something important. The timing bothered him; several events seemed too precisely positioned. The puppet assault, the strange Suna-linked activity, the transaction evidence, the sudden appearance of the scroll, Danzō's immediate ability to weaponise it. These might not all be independent events.
He asked himself how Root had located that specific transaction site, why the evidence was still there, how Root had acquired it, why Orochimaru hadn't been more careful. His EMS reconstructed the timing, but the answer didn't come. That absence itself became suspicious.
Danzō is dangerous, Renjiro thought. Orochimaru is dangerous. But neither possesses the kind of omniscient positioning this sequence seems to require.
He remembered the recent mechanised assault on Konoha; multiple barrier points being probed, the lack of visible puppeteers, the strange nature of the attack. He connected it with the earlier confrontation in Lightning Country, wondering whether the attacks were merely separate events. Then his transmigrator instincts began pulling at the canon timeline.
He stopped looking at the evidence on the desk. Instead, he looked at the date.
He began mentally reconstructing where he was in the original timeline; Minato was Fourth Hokage, Kushina was pregnant, her pregnancy already visibly advanced. The Nine-Tails' birth-event was no longer some distant possibility. Renjiro's mind began moving from political chronology to canon chronology, the pieces clicking into place with terrifying precision.
He realised the current events were happening much closer to the Nine-Tails attack than he had initially allowed himself to believe. His mind flashed through his knowledge of the original story; the pregnancy, Minato's position, the coming birth, the attack, the masked man, the Nine-Tails.
Then one thought stopped everything.
Kushina's labour is approaching.
His breathing changed, his eyes remaining active, the EMS spinning with cold precision. He completed the thought, the words forming in his mind with devastating clarity.
That means… he is already here.
Silence. The room seemed to contract around him, the shadows deepening, the weight of the realisation pressing against his chest like a physical force. Obito Uchiha was alive. And if Obito was already active, Zetsu must potentially be involved; Madara's contingency was potentially already moving.
The realisation reframed the entire chapter of his analysis. Renjiro remembered the original Nine-Tails attack; Obito attacking while Kushina's seal was vulnerable, Minato confronting him, Kamui giving Obito an enormous tactical advantage. But this timeline was different. Konoha had two Hiraishin masters; Minato possessed the technique, and Renjiro had mastered it. Two teleportation specialists fundamentally altered the battlefield; Obito could not simply isolate one target as he did originally. Renjiro's presence created a second mobile countermeasure.
Renjiro considered his own capabilities; EMS, Perfected Kinetic Vision, spatial tracking, advanced sensory abilities, Adamantine Chains, superior fūinjutsu knowledge. Most importantly, Renjiro was a more capable sealing specialist than Minato in certain aspects. If Kurama was released, Minato could coordinate teleportation while Renjiro focused on containment. Their combined battlefield roles covered each other's weaknesses.
Obito could not simply fight them both. If Obito attacked with both Minato and Renjiro fully prepared, the odds of success collapsed. Therefore, Obito's logical solution wasn't "defeat Renjiro"; it was "remove Renjiro from the board before the attack."
This was the moment the political conspiracy began making tactical sense. Renjiro reexamined everything through that lens; his suspension, Danzō's accusation, the mind-probe attempt, the evidence, the surveillance. If Renjiro was politically isolated, he could not command, could not freely investigate; his credibility was damaged, his relationship with Minato was strained, his movements were being watched. And most importantly, he was no longer standing beside Minato when Kushina's seal became vulnerable.
It wasn't Orochimaru who gave Danzō the cells, Renjiro whispered, the words barely audible. His thoughts moved toward the only entities that fit the pattern; Zetsu, Obito, the shadow organisation around Madara. He didn't have proof, didn't even know exactly how they had obtained the material, but the strategic logic suddenly made sense.
He admitted the critical unknown; how had they obtained the cells? How had they known about the transaction? How had they known precisely which evidence would destroy his credibility? He couldn't answer that, but he no longer needed to believe Orochimaru was the mastermind. The possibility of an external manipulator explained the otherwise disconnected pieces.
The realisation didn't make him feel victorious. It made him feel more trapped.
He knew something that sounded completely impossible. If he walked into the Hokage Tower and said that Madara's apprentice had survived, that Obito possessed Kamui, that Zetsu was manipulating events, that Kushina's child would trigger the Nine-Tails attack, nobody could verify it. Worse, Renjiro was already under investigation, having just been accused of collaboration with a dangerous S-rank defector. Making extraordinary claims now would reinforce Danzō's narrative rather than destroy it.
His knowledge could save Konoha, but because he couldn't prove how he knew it, the knowledge was nearly useless. He couldn't simply tell Minato the future, couldn't reveal his transmigrator origins, couldn't produce Obito as evidence. Until he had physical proof, he had to operate indirectly.
Renjiro looked at the calendar. Seven days. Exactly 168 hours until the council reconvened. But now the countdown had two layers; seven days until Danzō's next political attack, a few months until Kushina's labour and Obito's attack. The two timelines overlapped strategically. Danzō's immediate political campaign might be the mechanism that created the isolation Obito needed.
Renjiro clenched his fists, his anger transforming into something colder; purpose, calculation, predatory focus. He reached over and extinguished the desk lamp.
Click.
The room disappeared into darkness. Only the twin crimson sigils of his Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan remained visible, their light reflecting faintly across the surrounding scrolls and maps. The surveillance ANBU outside remained unaware of what had just changed. From their perspective, Renjiro was suspended, confined, under observation. They didn't realise his mind had just moved several steps ahead of the investigation.
Renjiro looked toward the silhouettes of the ANBU through the window, his expression cold, his eyes burning with predatory intensity.
Seven days, he thought, the words carrying the weight of a promise. You only keep a beast in a cage if the bars can hold him.
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