The silence in Hanzo's austere receiving chamber stretched, thick and heavy as the humidity that clung to every surface in Amegakure. The only sound was the relentless, gentle patter of rain against the fortified windows, a constant, dreary symphony that was the village's heartbeat. Hanzo did not move, his imposing frame a statue behind the menacing grille of his breathing apparatus. His eyes, sharp and reptilian, remained fixed on Danzo, but behind them, his mind was a whirlwind of calculation and alarm.
"What problem?" Hanzo's voice was a carefully controlled neutral, but a faint, metallic echo from his mask betrayed a hint of tension.
Internally, his thoughts raced.
'What could he possibly know? What loose thread has he found?'
He respected Danzo Shimura in the way one respects a venomous snake—from a distance and with extreme caution. He had, in the past, even labelled him a "friend," a term that in the shinobi world meant a useful ally of convenience rather than a confidant.
But he was under no illusions.
Danzo's reach was infamous, his network of spies and informants a legend in the shadows. If Danzo was here speaking of a "problem," it was not a hypothesis; it was a threat wrapped in the guise of an offer.
"Stop acting coy, Hanzo," Danzo said, his voice a dry rasp that seemed to absorb the room's moisture.
"I am not here to pry into your affairs. In truth, I am here to help you far more than I am here to ask for your help."
The statement did not reassure Hanzo. It terrified him. His entire strategy for Amegakure was built on isolation and clandestine growth. While the major and minor villages bled each other white, Ame would remain neutral, its strength growing in the shadows, its economy bolstered by war profiteering and its shinobi honed without the attrition of a frontline war.
By the time the dust settled, the Village Hidden in the Rain would no longer be a minor player but a power capable of rivalling any of the Five Great Nations. For Danzo to insist he had a "problem" meant the Konoha shinobi had not only pierced this veil of secrecy but had identified a crack in the foundation—a crack Hanzo himself might not even be fully aware of. This was a catastrophic security breach.
He remained silent, his posture rigid, giving nothing away. He would not volunteer information. He would make Danzo show his hand.
Seeing his counterpart's stony silence, Danzo's hand moved with a flicker of motion almost too fast to follow. There was no puff of smoke, no grand gesture. One moment, his hand was at his side, the next it was holding a small, tightly wound scroll, produced from one of the numerous storage seals undoubtedly hidden beneath his robes. He extended it toward Hanzo.
"I must say," Danzo continued, his tone taking on a veneer of false admiration that was more insulting than sincere, "I am genuinely proud of the work you have been doing here in Amegakure. You have built a fortress of industry and resilience out of a swamp. It would be a true tragedy… a great waste… to see it all come undone."
Hanzo knew he was being mocked, but the barb was irrelevant. His entire focus was on the scroll. He took it, his grip firm. The paper was dry and crisp, utterly untouched by the pervasive damp of the room. He unrolled it, his eyes scanning the contents with the rapid, comprehensive intake of a master strategist.
What he saw there caused a reaction so violent it bypassed his legendary self-control. A flash of pure, unadulterated fury contorted the features around his eyes. It was there for only a fraction of a second; a tightening of the brow, a sharp narrowing of the gaze, but it was enough. It was a crack in the impregnable armour of the Salamander.
Danzo's lips, thin and severe, twitched almost imperceptibly, the ghost of a smirk trying to form. He saw the reaction and noted it with immense satisfaction before schooling his own features back into impassivity.
The scroll contained more than information; it detailed movements, meetings, and a growing ideology within his own village. It named names he knew too well—three idealistic, troublesome brats and their growing band of followers.
It outlined their rhetoric of peace, their condemnation of his rule, and most damningly, it contained chillingly accurate predictions of their planned actions.
It was a blueprint for a coup.
Hanzo's hand clenched. The scroll in his grip grew damp from the moisture in the air, the ink beginning to blur at the edges before the entire document dissolved into a pulpy mess in his fist, its purpose served. He let the remnants fall to the floor, where they were absorbed by the damp stone.
"Are you sure about this?" Hanzo asked, his voice dangerously low, the hum of his breathing apparatus the only other sound.
"Those three brats preach about peace," Danzo said, his voice dripping with contempt. "But it is your throne they are coming for. Their peace would be built on your corpse. And we," he paused, correcting himself with a subtle shift, "or rather, I, cannot let that happen. Your strength, Hanzo, however self-serving, provides a stability that is currently… useful."
Hanzo was trapped in a moral and strategic vice. He did not trust Danzo as far as he could throw him. This was undoubtedly a play for Konoha's benefit, a way to manipulate Ame into the war on Konoha's terms by eliminating a potential future threat.
Yet, he could not ignore the intelligence. It was too precise, too damning. The threat was real. Danzo had not come to ask for help; he had come to offer a warning in exchange for future cooperation. The information was the down payment.
He was left with no good choices. To ignore it was to risk everything he had built. To act on it was to become a pawn in Danzo's game. But in the hierarchy of threats, an internal rebellion was far more immediate and dangerous than a shadowy Konoha elder.
"What do you want?" Hanzo finally relented, the words tasting like ash in his mouth.
A cold, triumphant light flickered in Danzo's single eye. A smile, thin and utterly devoid of warmth, finally touched his lips. "What I need will be confirmed to you through secure channels at the appropriate time. For now, simply be prepared. When my communication arrives, you will understand. And you will act."
With that, Danzo stood. He moved with an eerie, deliberate grace, gathering his stark white cloak and pulling the hood back over his head, once again becoming the anonymous, ominous figure who had arrived at the gates. He walked toward the door, but paused just before the threshold, not bothering to turn back and look at the leader of Amegakure.
"I hope," Danzo said, his voice echoing slightly in the metal-lined room, "that Hanzo-sama will make good use of the information. Ensure that this… little problem… is taken care of. Permanently."
Then he was gone, leaving Hanzo alone in the oppressive silence.
For a long moment, Hanzo did not move. The only sign of the tempest within him was the slow, deliberate tightening of his fist until the reinforced leather of his glove creaked in protest. The anger was a cold fire in his veins. He had been outmanoeuvred, his sovereignty insulted in his own home. He had been made to feel like a petty lord receiving orders from a foreign power.
With a sudden, violent motion, he reached up and unclasped his breathing apparatus, pulling it away from his face. His true features, hardened by decades of rule and battle, were contorted in a rage he no longer had to hide. He took a deep, unfiltered breath of the damp Ame air.
Almost instantly, the air shimmered. An ANBU operative, identical to the one who had greeted Danzo, materialised from the shadows, kneeling on the spot where Danzo had stood, head bowed in perfect submission.
"Hanzo-sama," the faceless operative intoned.
Hanzo stared down at the kneeling shinobi, his mind made up. Danzo wanted him to be a weapon? So be it. But he would also be a scalpel. He would excise his own tumour and in doing so, perhaps gain a measure of revenge against the man who had so arrogantly delivered the diagnosis.
"Send a message," Hanzo commanded, his voice a low, venomous growl.
"To whom shall it be directed, Hanzo-sama?" the ANBU asked, not looking up.
Hanzo's eyes glinted with a dark, ruthless light.
"To the Akatsuki."