At the very moment Orochimaru launched his plan to destroy Konoha, striking the village and staging a dramatic confrontation with the Third Hokage, his teacher of many years past, deep underground beneath Konoha, inside the Root headquarters...
Danzo Shimura, the man who called himself the darkness of the shinobi world, who claimed all others stood in the light while he alone dwelt in shadow, the man who would take any blame and bear any burden, sat quietly in his chair.
His ears turned slightly, listening to the sounds from above. A flicker of something crossed his eyes.
'Teacher Tobirama. Under Hiruzen's leadership, the village has grown weaker with every passing year. He was never the right man for the title of Hokage.
Under my leadership, the village will return to its days of greatness.
Teacher, I will prove to you that I was right.'
"And so, Hiruzen's reign ends."
After a long silence, Danzo murmured this to himself.
A Root ninja wrapped from head to toe in concealing gear spoke up. "Lord Danzo, when are we to go up and assist the villagers?"
"Hmm." Danzo was silent for a moment, then swept his gaze across the hundreds of subordinates before him and said in a low, steady voice. "It's about time. Go now. But remember, only move when the danger is at its worst."
Danzo understood this much: offering help to someone in mild discomfort was nothing compared to pulling them back from the edge of death.
Only those saved at the last possible moment would feel genuine gratitude deep enough to matter.
"And after you rescue the villagers, make sure to announce my name."
As the shadow of Konoha, many of the village's people had no idea who Danzo was, or that he existed at all. That was a disadvantage if he intended to consolidate power after the Third Hokage's death.
"Go."
Danzo waved his hand.
"Yes, sir!"
The hundreds of Root ninja responded in unison, then scattered like a tide rushing outward. Only a dozen or so remained behind, motionless.
At the entrance to the Root headquarters, Torune and Sasuke had just stepped inside when they saw the hundreds of ninja pouring out past them.
What are they doing?
Sasuke watched with a slight puzzled thought.
Don't tell me they're going to help people.
An inward, cold laugh. 'Danzo, going to help people?
The idea struck him as almost absurd.'
But on reflection, it made a kind of sense. In the original timeline, when Pain attacked Konoha three years later, Danzo had done nothing.
Perhaps it was because this operation hadn't earned him the gratitude he'd hoped for, or not enough of it. And that lack of return had led him to simply watch as Pain burned the village down.
... For my purposes though, this is convenient.
Hundreds of Root ninja would have been a significant problem. With the base this thinly guarded, dealing with Danzo would be far less complicated.
Inside the main hall.
Danzo leaned back slightly in his chair to settle more comfortably, one hand moving slowly over the top of his cane. His mind was working through something.
'Once Hiruzen dies at Orochimaru's hands, all I need is to bring Koharu and Homura around. The title of Fifth Hokage will practically place itself in my hands.'
At that thought, a rare heat kindled in the depths of Danzo's dark, calculating heart.
As he saw it, there were only three people with any real claim to the Hokage position: Jiraiya, Tsunade, and himself.
Jiraiya and Tsunade had been wandering the world for years. The people of Konoha had long since forgotten about them.
Once Hiruzen was gone, with external threats pressing in and internal stability fracturing, even his two old colleagues would have no choice but to back him. Whether they wanted to or not.
Because only he could hold things together.
"Under my leadership, Konoha will walk into a bright future."
A rare heat crept into Danzo's normally unreadable voice.
"Lord Danzo!"
The guard posted outside the door came hurrying in, cutting through Danzo's thoughts. "Yamanaka Fu and Torune Aburame have important intelligence to report."
"Hmm." Danzo gave a small nod. "Send them in."
"Yes, sir."
Within moments, Yamanaka Fu and Torune Aburame entered the hall and offered a bow.
Danzo tapped his cane. "Speak. What is it?"
Fu and Torune exchanged a brief glance. Torune spoke. "It concerns Orochimaru..."
"Hmm?"
Has that snake done something behind my back again?
Danzo's expression shifted with displeasure. "Bring me the intelligence."
"Yes, sir."
Torune rose slowly and walked forward. As he moved, he reached into his pouch. His eyes were faintly glazed.
Danzo didn't notice this. He had already turned back to his own thoughts, trying to work out what might have gone wrong.
Torune and Fu were the two people he trusted most. Careful by nature, they were among the only handful he permitted to come this close.
"Lord Danzo, please take a look."
Danzo gave a small nod and began to extend his hand. Then his expression froze.
Because what Torune drew from his pouch was not a scroll.
It was a glass vial, filled with a colorless, unidentifiable liquid. Inside it, a pair of crimson three-tomoe Sharingan eyes met Danzo's gaze directly.
A Sharingan?
How did he...
Danzo's expression shifted sharply, but before he could react, those three-tomoe eyes began spinning rapidly, the pattern accelerating into something new.
He couldn't make out what the pattern was. The world tilted. His head swam.
The vivid colors of everything before him drained away into flat, washed-out gray.
Secret Art: Transcription Seal!
A technique that seals a specific jutsu into one's own or another person's Sharingan, setting it to activate automatically when a certain condition is met or after a set period of time.
The closer the blood relation between the eyes' owner and the target, the lower the resistance, and the greater the effect.
But the technique requires that the caster has clearly seen the target's face in order to activate.
Over a month ago, when Danzo had appeared before Sasuke, Sasuke had committed his face and build to memory.
Afterward, he sealed a genjutsu into the Sharingan of his mother, Uchiha Mikoto.
The trigger: upon encountering Danzo Shimura, the genjutsu would activate automatically.
Genjutsu: Hellfire!
A genjutsu that reduces the target to a flat paper figure within the illusion, filling their body with the sensation of being burned alive.
This visual-type genjutsu was so powerful that even Kakashi, who had already awakened the Mangekyou Kamui, had refused to face it head-on, evading it with a Shadow Clone instead.
Sasuke's genjutsu ability was perhaps not yet at Itachi's level. But with the Eternal Mangekyou now his, making Danzo lose himself for even a brief moment should not be a problem.
Danger!
The moment the world went gray and his body erupted in fire-like agony, Danzo's mind jolted into alarm. He recognized he was caught in a genjutsu.
He immediately pushed chakra into his right eye's Mangekyou Sharingan and the three-tomoe Sharingan embedded along his arm, and wrenched himself free of the Hellfire.
But the instant he broke free, everything in his field of vision was consumed by a blinding, otherworldly violet lightning.
Danzo's expression froze. His mind went blank.
In the next moment, his right eye erupted in searing pain. The socket was left hollow.
And what remained of the man himself was torn apart entirely by the surging violet current.
"Protect Lord Danzo!"
Only then, as if waking from a daze, did the dozen or so Root ninja nearby react. They drew their weapons and rushed at Sasuke.
"Heh heh heh."
Sasuke ended the dazed Torune with a casual motion, placed the eye he had extracted from Danzo's socket into the glass vial, and looked at the Root ninja charging toward him with a quiet laugh.
In the next instant, the cry of a thousand birds filled the air. Violet lightning erupted around Sasuke in a blazing storm of crackling thunder, the brilliant and sinister light making every Root ninja falter.
Crack crack crack!
The violet lightning condensed into countless needle-like strands and ran through every Root ninja in the room simultaneously.
"Now then. It's just the two of us. We can take our time."
Sasuke turned his head and looked toward the distance, where wisps of ash saturated with immense Yin Release energy were slowly coiling and rising, assembling themselves into the shape of a person.
The corner of his mouth curved upward.
___
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