"You are right, Danzo," Hiruzen finally said, his voice low, heavy, and deliberate.
"We cannot allow him to grow unchecked, to spread his poison any further. If he snowballs into something greater, then it would not surprise me if one day he dared to threaten me directly. That cannot be allowed."
His pipe clicked softly against the desk as he set it aside. The old Hokage's eyes sharpened.
"We will fabricate a story. A deliberate, convincing one. He will be branded a Kumo spy. The details must be so watertight, so believable, that even Tsunade's words later will not be enough to plant doubt in the wider ranks. Shinsuke," he turned to his son, "those two teammates of his, Kanae and Renjiro—, will be useful for this. You will handle that matter."
Shinsuke gave a short nod, though his face remained pale.
Hiruzen continued, his tone iron. "On the other hand, restraining Tsunade is the key while we deal with him. We will assemble a strike force. A super team, if necessary. ANBU, Root, as many as it takes, hundreds if required, entire available forces. This is the utmost priority now. And the two of you will go personally." His gaze swept from Danzo to Shinsuke, letting the weight of his words sink in. "The boy must die. Even if it costs Tsunade's life in the process."
The room fell still.
"Ideally, restrain her. Later, I can frame it as aiding a spy, disrupting the Hokage's law during wartime. That would give me the public leverage to bury her inside a shinobi prison after sealing her chakra. But…"
Hiruzen exhaled, smoke curling once more. "If it proves impossible… then let her accompany her little new friend to the grave."
Internally, he clenched. 'Tsunade, do not blame me. You chose this path yourself.'
But beneath his hardened mask, a flicker of something else twisted inside him.
Her betrayal, the sheer speed of it, gnawed at him more than he wanted to admit.
Decades of careful molding, shaping her into a loyal disciple, were cast aside in days for a boy she barely knew.
It was more than a setback; it was a personal slap in the face. A stain he had never foreseen.
And the humiliation of it cut sharper than any blade.
Hiruzen's voice lowered again, but the weight in it only deepened.
"However, do not be rash in this matter. It is delicate, and one wrong move could backfire catastrophically. Until the story is fabricated to perfection, ten out of ten in detail and strength, we do not move. Until the strike team is the strongest we can field, and until the circumstances are flawless, we hold back."
He tapped the desk once with his finger, slow and deliberate.
"But do not let this drag on," he added sharply. "A few weeks at most. No longer. The longer that boy breathes, the more time he has to plant himself deeper into Tsunade's world, to grow in strength, and to spread his roots into places we cannot see. I will not allow that."
The silence after was suffocating.
Shinsuke inclined his head once, already turning over in his mind the mechanisms.
Danzo's eye narrowed, calculating, but his expression was otherwise unreadable.
Inside, though, both men understood the message well.
The boy had just been elevated to the highest category of threat, inside the village, and even more than some external threats, one they could not ignore, and one they could not afford to mishandle.
The room had already been heavy with their plotting, their voices low and sharp as they went back and forth, hammering out details of the fabricated Kumo-spy story, weighing every angle.
An hour stretched into many more as the reports of fronts against Iwa and Kumo were sifted, counterintelligence measures reviewed, whispers of Kirigakure's movements and Sunagakure's readiness were dissected.
It was business as usual, the cold machinery of Root and ANBU in motion, one focused on the shadows beyond the borders, the other on the shadows within.
But then, three deliberate knocks at the door.
The sound cut through the air like a kunai. All three men's gazes shifted in unison.
None of them had expected an interruption here.
Shinsuke's brows knit faintly, but he moved first. "Enter."
The door opened, and in stepped Hisamichi Nara, face obscured under the featureless mask ANBU preferred.
His steps were brisk but unhurried, as if he knew that whatever he brought was urgent enough to excuse the breach of protocol.
"Hisamichi?" Shinsuke spoke, puzzled but measured. He waved him closer. "What is it?"
The man bowed once, then straightened. His voice came flat, but the words carried the weight of a thunderclap.
"Our operatives embedded around the Daimyō's court just sent confirmation. The Daimyō, along with several of his close family and retainers, have been… taken."
Shinsuke froze. Danzo's eyes narrowed. Hiruzen's pipe paused halfway to his lips.
"Taken?" Shinsuke pressed, his tone demanding clarity. "By who?"
Hisamichi's next words detonated in the chamber.
"By Kazuo Senju. And the five other surviving, long-time Senju retainers, placed there all those years ago. They moved this morning. Coordinated. Silent. With a few other helpers. Every member of the Daimyō's immediate household was secured. Even the extended family and staff in nearby estates, in the capital, are under their hold. It is clean. No leaks until now. Our people only managed to confirm hours after the fact. We have no confirmation on the rest of the royal family scattered in the nearby towns of his central feudal territory yet."
"What!?" Danzo snapped, rising halfway out of his chair, cane striking the floor like a spear. His eyes blazed, disbelief bleeding into anger.
Even Hiruzen's composure cracked. His fingers dug into the armrests of his chair, knuckles whitening. For the first time in years, his face actually paled.
The pipe tumbled from his mouth, rolling across the desk before clattering to the floor.
Shinsuke sat stunned, the words still sinking in. "The Daimyō… the entire royal family…"
Hisamichi nodded once. "Yes. And their message is clear."
The silence was suffocating until Hisamichi's calm voice delivered the knife.
"The Senju faction demands Konoha immediately cease all attempts on Ryusei Senju's life. They warn, should harm come to him, even by accident, the Daimyō and his entire family, and royal surname members will be executed. The Land of Fire will collapse into chaos."
The words seemed to hang in the air, burning.
Hiruzen's nails gouged into the wood of the chair. His breathing thickened, labored.
This was beyond insubordination. This was treason at the highest level.
"Impossible…" he muttered hoarsely, though his own eyes betrayed that he knew it was entirely possible.
The Senju had been waiting, biding their time. And this… this was the strike. He wondered how they even managed to contact the boy, and exactly when?
Was it on some of his missions? They would have to investigate. After all, it couldn't have happened inside the village, as those six didn't have such reach obviously.
Danzo slammed his cane down again, his voice sharp as a blade. "Senju filth…!" He could hardly contain the fury.
"To dare take the Daimyō hostage… They mean to strangle the village in its own cradle! And all for that boy—" His words broke off into a hiss, jaw clenched tight.
Shinsuke swallowed hard. His mind raced with consequences.
Without the Daimyō's approval and help, they could not mobilize resources. Without the Daimyō's legitimacy, the Hokage's word could even be questioned by allies and subordinates.
And if word leaked out, if even a whisper of this reached the other villages, the Land of Fire would be seen as leaderless, fractured. The vultures would descend.
Hisamichi added quietly, twisting the knife further. "Kazuo and his men left one condition. They would not hinder the central court operations and Konoha's war effort. They will keep the Daimyō 'safe' and maintain appearances, so long as Ryusei is left untouched. Their silence depends on his survival. In their words… 'This is the cost for decades of betrayal.'"
Hiruzen's teeth ground audibly. He leaned forward, the weight of decades of control slipping from his shoulders in one moment.
"Tsunade…" he muttered, his eyes narrowing dangerously. "…She is at the center of this. She must be. She allowed him to move or contacted them directly. That boy alone could never—"
Danzo cut him off sharply. "It doesn't matter how. It matters that it has happened. If we move clumsily, we risk exposing this entire catastrophe. Do you understand? Kumo, Iwa, Kiri, Suna, if they even suspect the Daimyō is compromised, they'll descend on us like wolves. The rest of the local nobles from around the Land of the Fire will scatter. They'll all burn the nation to ash before we can even move."
Shinsuke finally spoke, his voice low, tight. "Then we are trapped. We cannot move against the boy, not openly. Not even covertly, not while the Daimyō's throat is under the Senju's knife. We have to somehow solve that first."
The three men sat, the air thick with a dread unlike any battle report could bring.
Hiruzen closed his eyes for a brief moment.
His voice, when it came, was stripped of warmth, colder than ever.
"So be it. If Kazuo Senju wishes to use the Daimyō as his shield, let him. But this changes nothing. It only delays. Only 6 people are bound to leave some opening. Continue the plan to frame the boy, but withhold acting on it for now."
He opened his eyes again, dark, hard. "We will wait. We will rebuild the plan. Eventually, when the moment comes, we will strike with everything at all of them."
But even as he spoke, his hands trembled ever so slightly against the chair. Because for the first time in years, Hiruzen felt his control slipping, not just over one boy, but everything.
Danzo's hand still trembled against his cane, knuckles white. His voice dripped with venom.
"That fool Daimyō… all those years ago, who told him to keep those Senju relics at his side? Six strays, nothing more. And now look at it, he's sharpened them into a blade at our throats. They weren't a potential knife against Konoha at all; they were a knife waiting for his own neck, and he never realized it."
Hiruzen's eyes narrowed, but he did not disagree. In his mind, the exact same thought twisted bitterly. 'Foolish Daimyō. Always pretending wisdom, yet surrounding himself with corpses of a dead clan. Playing with old names for prestige, never realizing the danger of letting them linger so close to power.'
But still, he could not voice the truth gnawing at him. For all his authority as Hokage, he had no right to dictate whom the Daimyō employed in his household guard. That had always been the private affair of the feudal line. Even he had refrained from overstepping there.
And besides, the six had been nobodies. Far from the standards of Konoha's elite jōnin, closer to relics than threats.
What could six men accomplish, even if they still bore the Senju name? Surrounded always by Anbu watchers, Hyūga eyes hidden in the walls, Yamanaka infiltrators, sensors combing the air, there had never been any reason to move against them.
Not worth the risk of displeasing the Daimyō.
Yet here they stood, after decades, holding the royal family like prisoners in their own lands.
Hiruzen's thoughts darkened further. 'Thirty years… did they plan this from the start? Did they truly endure in silence, gain his trust, spread their tails, collecting every detail, every pattern, every weakness of the Daimyō's household, waiting for the perfect moment?'
The idea unsettled even him. Such patience, such long-term plotting, was rare outside of shinobi trained from birth. And yet… perhaps they had.
Perhaps what began as survival, a faint dream of Senju revival, had twisted into this contingency: not to rebuild, but to protect one boy, the last scrap of their bloodline.
Hiruzen's lips pressed into a hard line.
'If that's the case… then everything has shifted. They've abandoned their own ambitions and pinned it all on him. That brat is no longer just a child. He is their banner.'
The room fell quiet again, the weight of those words lingering.
For the first time, the three men truly felt the scale of what had been set in motion by them.