Danzo sat perfectly still, his eyes fixed on the smoke curling from Hiruzen's pipe, his cane angled neatly by his side.
Outwardly, he was the picture of calm.
Inwardly, his chest burned like acid.
He had never told Hiruzen about his failed, unauthorized attempt on the boy.
How could he?
To admit it would hand his oldest rival leverage for years to come, especially during this important war.
The truth was bitter enough that he had risked one of his greatest pieces in Root, one of the most carefully groomed weapons in his entire arsenal, and lost him.
He was even embarrassed to say it, to be honest.
Junsaku Yamanaka had not been just another operative.
He had been a blade sharpened in silence, a secret Danzo had hidden even from Hiruzen's all-seeing eye, an unseen hand that could bend souls at decisive moments.
A man who could have turned the tide of battles, bent Kage to hesitation if used at the right moment, or shattered the mind of a rival commander with a single unseen strike.
Danzo had intended him, more precisely, his hidden powers, to be a card played only once or twice in his lifetime, at the moments when history itself needed to be nudged.
Perhaps even against Hiruzen, or someone of that caliber.
And yet a 13 year old teen had cut that card from his hand and burned it before he could even lay it down.
Danzo remembered the night he received the report, the details brought to him with trembling voices.
He had nearly wept blood.
His hand had shaken around his cane with such fury that the wood creaked beneath his grip.
Not since the day the title of Hokage slipped from his grasp had he known such humiliation.
The worst of it was that he had calculated the risk at almost nothing.
Barely a ten percent chance of failure, if that.
Junsaku's strength, the careful conditions, the boy's broken mind example when a genjutsu attack was used just months before, it had all pointed to a perfect success.
He was doing it for Konoha, and to not make him a stumbling block in his follow-up plans, as his intuition always warned him against the boy.
The strike should have ended Ryusei quietly, cleanly.
Instead, he had been dealt a figurative roaring slap in the face, one that still left his pride stinging.
Ryusei had not only survived, but he had twisted the attempt into his own advantage.
Danzo could see it clearly now.
He had only done it because Danzo left him no choice.
By unleashing Junsaku on him, Danzo had forced the boy into a corner, into killing one of Root's highest assets.
That act alone all but guaranteed harsher reprisals than ever before, perhaps even suspicion that Hiruzen himself had been behind it.
Out of that fear, the boy was alarmed more than ever and gambled desperately.
He revealed his full strength, seized public merit, and turned the tables.
Now his reputation would shield him, making his death way more difficult to arrange in the chaos of the coming war.
That was the bitter irony.
Danzo's own strike had created the very protection around Ryusei that now restrained him.
And it was why he didn't dare tell Hiruzen.
It made it way more difficult for Hiruzen to plan his death next.
Among Konoha's jōnin circles, the whispers were already spreading.
They said a boy had fought Tenzo to a standstill.
They said he had saved Kusagakure's leader, that he had turned Iwa's schemes into ashes.
Danzo and Hiruzen had tried to choke those voices in the shadows, but fame had a way of slipping through cracks.
If Ryusei died suddenly now, many more eyes would linger than before, too many minds would ask questions.
Although he hadn't done it all alone, and many of the follow-up actions weren't his hand directly, the survivors' accounts were clear.
It was his initiative that set the whole chain in motion, his push that made the situation snowball from then on until today, where Kusa's and Grass Country's attitude toward them changed so much eventually.
And in the end, it was he who struck the finishing blow and even carried the enemy's corpse back as a rallying symbol, turning it into a morale boost for everyone who saw it.
Danzo's knuckles whitened around his cane.
He kept his face blank, but inside, he swore he would never forgive being cornered like this.
To be bested, even indirectly, by a thirteen-year-old child, it gnawed at him like rust eating through steel.
And yet, in front of Hiruzen, Koharu, and Homura, he said nothing. Silence was his only shield.
Hiruzen, of course, had no idea what storm was brewing inside Danzo's mind.
His own regret was sincere enough, though his gesture of "stepping down" toward Danzo, presenting himself as the humble and wise leader, was more performance than truth.
Koharu and Homura bought it without question, but inwardly, Hiruzen's thoughts weren't far from what he had spoken.
Danzo did have a point. That much was undeniable.
'Have I truly lost my intuition?' Hiruzen wondered, the thought cutting deeper than he expected.
'Is this what Danzo gained, buried in the earth as the leader of the unseen roots of the Konoha tree, while I remained above, among the leaves, basking in the sun as Hokage? Have I lingered too long in this endless bureaucracy and rites, dulled my instincts as a shinobi without even realizing it?'
The admission stung, but it was there all the same.
His impression of Danzo, ever so slightly, rose in that moment.
And still, he had no idea what truly churned behind Danzo's calm facade.
Eventually, Hiruzen exhaled heavily, then spoke, his voice calm but edged like steel.
"You were right, Danzo. I underestimated the boy far too much, for far too long. And now we stand at nearly the worst possible outcome."
"Still, not all is lost. The war changes everything. It gives us cover, chances. In war, deaths are countless, suspicions are few. Perfect timing to bury him without notice."
"Once the regular shinobi forces are dispatched, far more of ANBU and Root will be freed. All it takes is placing him on the right front, under the right commander, surrounded by the right people. Whether it's enemy hands that finish the work, or ours, will hardly matter."
"I promise you, this disturbance, this developing 'cancer' inside our walls, will not survive beyond a few more months."
His hands folded together on the table, his face sharp as a blade in the lantern light.
"Orochimaru is the best choice. Kumogakure's northwestern front is also the most dangerous," Danzo said suddenly, his voice calm, though his eyes carried a strange gleam when he spoke the name.
Danzo and Orochimaru had already reached their own consensus in secret.
Orochimaru now led a special division within Root, one meant to assist him in experiments and other purposes while he commanded the Kumo front, like helping him achieve merits, and helping him recruit many of the statined shinobi there for his personal faction for the future possible Hokage election, after all, it was the best time.
Orochimaru always acted almost like a secret vice-leader of the Root, under the orders of Hiruzen, but now he was granted far more autonomy than anyone else by Danzo, too, as part of their overall deal.
They had already whispered of what powers to pursue, of research to undertake. None of it had been shared with Hiruzen.
Danzo had strongly recommended Orochimaru as the front commander earlier in the week, though he realized it hadn't even been necessary.
Hiruzen already intended to give his prized pupil the most dangerous battlefield. Between Jiraiya and Orochimaru, Hiruzen's faith was always in the latter.
Orochimaru had been placed in Root originally to monitor Danzo, a shadowed counterpart meant to balance him.
Yet the man had his own designs, and their personal agreements were kept hidden from the Hokage.
Orochimaru himself had advised caution, results first, then disclosure to Hiruzen.
"Better to approach the village with proof," he had said, "than to gamble for resources without it." It was sound advice, and Danzo had agreed.
It would have been foolish to approach Hiruzen with their experiments without results; he had grown too pedantic in recent years, too cautious to entertain unproven ideas.
But it would have been just as foolish not to exploit the village's resources, funding, and logistics, once they had something tangible, using that leverage for their own purposes.
Hence, Orochimaru had advised patience: show results first, demonstrate potential, then reveal enough to secure support. At that stage, he was certain Hiruzen would agree.
After all, it was not that Hiruzen was not power-hungry anymore. He was simply bound by his pedantry and overly concerned with reputation in recent years.
So, only if the benefits outweighed those concerns by a margin, he would yield. Both Orochimaru and Danzo knew him well enough to be sure of it.
Their other goal, however, maneuvering to make Orochimaru the next Hokage, remained a complete secret between them.
For now, Danzo kept only one true deputy at his side: Tatsuma Aburame, an elite jōnin, more bodyguard than second-in-command.
Root worked best under tight central control, every thread bound to Danzo's hand.
He had earned his reputation as the "darkness of the shinobi world" by taking missions himself, often moving alone with only Tatsuma beside him.
Orochimaru had once been that close as well when they restrained each other, before the war shifted everything.
Root was Danzo's creation, built from the ground up, and he was still a generation older than Orochimaru.
Yet Orochimaru had the support of the Hokage, and his combat strength already far eclipsed Danzo's.
It was no surprise that his personal faction within Root was slipping beyond Danzo's absolute control.
But since they had struck firm agreements, Danzo tolerated it, for now.
Even so, the loss of Junsaku gnawed at him.
That Yamanaka had been meant not only as another deputy commander, but as a silent counterweight, someone who could have watched Orochimaru closely and restrained him if needed, watching over the implementation of their agreement on that frontline.
Danzo could not remain there for long personally, of course, he had other tasks across the shinobi world, regarding this war, and he had to avoid drawing Hiruzen's suspicion.
Without Junsaku, Danzo hence would have to rely on other, less perfect instruments.
He had capable Aburame operatives in Root's upper ranks, chosen not for loyalty alone but for practicality; their insects and tracking skills suited Root's operations well.
More importantly, they lacked the political weight and combat power of the Nara, Akimichi, or Yamanaka clans, too deeply tied to the Hokage's camp.
Danzo's mind drifted briefly to a younger Inuzuka talent who had recently emerged in Root.
The older teen showed promise. Perhaps, in time, he too could be molded into something useful.