The wind on the cliff tasted of absence. Not air, but opportunity missed, life wasted, power unclaimed. It carried traces of Minato's chakra—gone, but lingering, like a candle snuffed yet warm enough to sting. The Yellow Flash had flickered out, leaving the village exposed.
Danzō Shimura leaned on his cane, slow and deliberate. A crow froze mid-perch, then snapped its wings and vanished into the wind as if acknowledging authority. Roots shivered faintly beneath him. Click. Click. Click. Not walking—counting. Planning.
He did not flinch at the crater below. His eyes measured the village, calculating.
"Too many fools with too little vision," he murmured, almost to himself. "The Fourth left holes. The Third will fill none of them. And I…" His fingers brushed the cane, tapping the rhythm of inevitability. "…I will decide what survives."
Kneeling behind him, silent in the dirt, was the boy.
Kinoe. Claimed from glass and shadow. Chest rising only when Danzō allowed it. Eyes empty. Still. Waiting to be written upon.
A thread of awareness ran beneath those vacant eyes, a flicker of pulse—a whisper of fear, curiosity, and something unnamable. He felt it, but knew better than to act.
Danzō did not turn. His voice rasped against the evening air, measured, unyielding. The King does not ask permission to speak.
"Hiruzen came to me," he said, gaze fixed on the Hokage monument. Stone faces, immobile, indifferent.
"He offered the hat. The robes. The Duty. I did not ask. I did not seek it. I was running from it."
He lifted the cane and pointed to the tower, red paint darkened by dusk.
"When it reached me… I had seen it already. The desk. The papers. The smile for lords who cannot distinguish the edge of a kunai. I lived it before it could bind me. I measured it."
He struck the cane against rock: crack.
"I had it all. And I understood immediately. That was a larger prison than the one I had just left."
Turning slowly, he studied Kinoe. The boy's mask lay aside. Eyes wide, vacant, reflecting nothing but shadow. Kinoe's pulse skipped. A quick tightening in his chest. Danzō flicked his gaze toward him, just long enough for Kinoe to taste the command beneath the calm.
Danzō extended a hand, palm up, close to his face, inspecting it like a map only he could read.
"I will not waste time on work. On meetings. On bowing. On petitions for acknowledgment—or affection."
A sharp, dry laugh: jagged, without warmth. Kinoe shivered.
"I have all the leverage in the world. I am the king, boy. I control the underworld. I decide where, when, and by whom action is taken."
He swept a hand toward the forest, toward the hidden tunnels of Root beneath the village, dark veins in the soil. Leaves stirred without wind. Even shadows of passing clouds seemed to bend around him.
"The Aburame boy. The Yamanaka heir. The Uchiha prodigy. I do not need a family. I have a legion."
Danzō shook his head.
"What am I to do? Chase petty shinobi for another's Will of Fire? I make the rules. I issue the currency. I deal the cards."
From his robe, he drew a scroll, old and damp with the scent of earth and the First Hokage's chakra. Secrets of Wood Release, passed into the hands of the calculated.
He dropped it to the dirt at Kinoe's knees.
"The surface is a child's playground," Danzō said. "They play at peace. They play at morality."
A stag beetle crawled near his sandal. He pressed down. Crunch. Kinoe's stomach flipped.
"Only the roots that burrow deepest survive the winter." He pressed the cane harder, listening to the small snap of stone giving way.
His gaze returned to the monument. The empty space where Minato's face should have been. Hiruzen picking up the hat again, too weak to let go.
"The Third attempts to drag us back into the cage," Danzō said. "Eliminate him."
Kinoe picked up the scroll. No question. No pause. Its weight pressed insistently into his palms. Every crease, every rough patch traced lineage, power transmitted like blood. Kinoe's fingers lingered longer than intended, feeling the subtle pulse of Wood Release beneath the surface.
A shiver ran up his spine. It wasn't excitement, not fear—something new, like air before a storm. He registered Danzō's presence again, just a flicker: awe, fear, something indistinct yet vital. He swallowed. The scroll hummed faintly.
Wood Release flared quietly. The boy vanished into the earth.
Danzō stood alone. Eyes on the village, on the "studio" where Hiruzen would spend his remaining days signing papers and pretending to command.
A sneer touched his lips. Old fool. The wind shifted, carrying the faint scent of smoke from the village below. He inhaled it like a challenge.