He cracked his eyes open and bent halfway over the table while preparing a cup of tea. Dishes from the day before piled inside the sink and random clutter from the Fire Capital littered the kitchen countertop. He didn’t wait for the water to finish bubbling before tipping out the kettle’s contents into a red mug and leaving the kitchen as he found it. The living room was in an entirely different condition: save for his unpacked suitcase shoved into the corner of the room and his suit from the abysmal dinner hanging limply over the door, it was completely bare.

He collapsed onto his couch with a low grunt, careful not to spill any of the tea onto the carpet. Common sense dictated that spending a day in self-flagellation was not healthy behaviour—but common sense wasn’t stopping him from feeling to blame for his situation. Konohamaru’s tantrum was a symptom of something much more harmful: there was a tangible distance between himself, and the people he loved and cared for.

So, with nothing else to do, he latched onto what-ifs, managing to crawl his way out of bed. The first thing he did was look around his lifeless apartment, walking across the cold wood, a stranger in his home. Asuma saw his reflection in the television screen ahead of him, slouched and slack.

The heat from the tea barely registered as he took sip after sip, its warmth radiating across his body. His mind slowed to a crawl and though his eyes looked straight ahead, he couldn’t see anything, nor could he hear anything—meaning he missed the first knock at the door.

The second snapped him out of his self-constructed purgatory and Asuma nearly dropped his mug on the third; the tea sloshed dangerously against the sides of his mug as he shot to his feet.

Who had come to see him of all people?

He crept to the door, looking through the peephole, staring blankly at a man he hadn’t seen in years. Like Grannie, he’d grown older and more wrinkled, the cross-shaped scar on his chin had faded a little, but it stood out on his bronzed skin. By the looks of it, the bandages that wrapped around his head now extended down to his right arm… but that eye remained the same.

It frightened him as a child; he never quite understood how it could be that fierce but as an adult—a shinobi—he understood exactly why and it was all the more reason to question why the Shinobi of Darkness was at his front door.

“...Elder Shimura,” he said, carefully stepping aside to allow him in.

“Are you not going to invite me in, Asuma?”

“Make yourself at home, Elder Shimura. You know my home is yours.”

“Much obliged.”

Danzo gave him a small smile and entered the house cane-first. He left his shoes by the closed door and looked at Asuma; the corners of his lips curved up.

He was already painfully conscious of how empty his home was. Danzo looking around in silent judgement only made it worse—but there was little he could do now that he was past the threshold. Reaching the living room, Danzo looked between the couch facing the television and the armchair facing the dining table, lowering himself into it.

“Can I get you anything? Tea or coffee?”

Danzo rubbed his scar with his thumb and index finger. “What kind of coffee?”

“It’s the Daimyo’s special blend,” he confessed. “I’m not one for coffee so it’s been sitting in my cupboard, but he gave it to me as a gift.”

“I see. I’ll have the coffee then.”

Asuma entered the kitchen and prepared it absent-mindedly. He pulled a mug down from the topmost shelf of a cupboard and poured out the coffee, bringing it back to the living room. Danzo took the offered mug with a smile and sniffed the steam wafting out of it.

“Indeed,” he hummed, “this is an exquisite blend. How did you know I took my coffee black?”

“It’s… part of the method.” Asuma swallowed his shock—he’d been so preoccupied with trying to figure Danzo out that he forgot to add milk and sugar. “The Daimyo told me that it was best taken that way.”

Danzo smiled pleasantly and closed his one eye. Asuma picked up his half-empty mug and sipped the fragrant tea, waiting until he’d finished the now-lukewarm drink to breach the silence. “While this is nice and all, I’d like to know what it is I can do for you, Elder Shimura.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“Ironically, this particular visit is little more than a social call.” Asuma raised an eyebrow in disbelief and Danzo smiled. “Is it wrong to visit my friend’s son?”

“When you haven’t seen him since he was eleven?” he snorted. “Yes.”

“Are you truly upset that I stopped coming?” Danzo’s lone brown eye shone amusedly.

“No, just curious. Why did you stop coming?”

“It was not my choice. Following the Fourth’s tragic death… your father and I had a disagreement on what direction our village should move in. Militarily, we were—are—the weakest we’ve ever been. The only reason the other villages didn’t make any open moves against us was because of the Sannin—but thanks to the Snake, that defence fell apart. The rest of the Elemental Nations have no clue that the Slug Princess has abandoned our village but they will find out eventually.”

“Things aren’t that dire, are they?” asked Asuma.

Danzo raised his only visible eyebrow. “All we have left of the legendary trio is the Toad Sage—and we both know he is rarely in the village. So, where does that leave us? Tell me, what did your father do when the Cloud delegation attempted to kidnap the Hyuuga heiress underneath our noses? Did he gather our strength and have their war-mongering Kage face retribution? No, he readily offered the life of Jonin Hizashi Hyuuga.”

Asuma stared at his empty cup of tea in thought before looking up. “What was he meant to do, Elder Shimura? We didn’t have the manpower to go against the Cloud—not after the Nine-Tailed Night.”

“That is not what I’m saying. It’s simply an example of the reason why your father and I do not get along anymore.” Danzo took a moment to breathe. “...I mean no offence when I say this, but it is what I think: Hiruzen should not have taken the hat after the Fourth died. He’d grown too soft, and if that wasn’t bad enough, he allowed his grief to blind him and ignored the cliff that our village is hurtling towards…

“I mourned the Fourth too—but not like your father. I did not know him personally, only professionally, and here is what I thought: Minato Namikaze was the ideal shinobi—the ideal Hokage. There is a time for diplomacy and a time for strength; Minato Namikaze—no, the Fourth Hokage—knew this. As did your father… once,” said Danzo, stopping to take a sip of his drink. “That day has long since passed.”

“...Why are you here?”

Danzo smiled. “To the heart of the matter, then. I’m here to talk about you. As one of the Daimyo’s shinobi retinue, you acquired a bounty of 35 million ryo and are listed in every Bingo Book besides ours. And, towards the end of your tenure, you put your duty as a shinobi above personal ties—that is something I respect, Asuma.”

The night he fought his sworn comrades to the death pushed itself past the surface. He, Chiriku, Nauma, Tou, and Seito had fought the others until only he and Chiriku remained.

Involuntarily, he looked up and found a grim understanding in Danzo’s eyes.

“What do you want, sir?” he hissed, in no mood for beating around the bush.

“Patience,” he said, and still, Asuma found no pity in his eyes—only understanding. “The Cloud has let us be after the Hyuuga Affair, but what of the other villages? The Fence Sitter and his ilk will not break the peace, even if they could; they left the war with the heaviest losses. By their own making, the Mist is a non-factor, and that only leaves the Sand, who is our ally, whatever good that brings us.”

The Sand was forced into an alliance with the Leaf at the end of the war, but instead of building back their forces through missions and funding, the Wind Daimyo limited the Sand’s funding and outsourced many of their high-paying missions to the Leaf.

To Asuma, it wasn’t a question of if the alliance would break down, but when.

He looked at Danzo. “We’re not much better. Our military isn’t so hot, and the only reason we’re doing so well—comparatively—is because of our good relationships with the smaller villages through trade and joint missions. That, and Lord Atsuhiko likes us a lot.”

“You sell yourself short,” said Danzo. “He is fond of the Leaf because of you. Your actions secured the backing of Daimyo Atsuhiko for years to come. What we need is ideal shinobi who embody the creed, not glorified samurai stuck to notions of honour and kindness.” Their eyes met and Asuma blinked owlishly at the implication that he could be the shinobi ideal like the Fourth was; Danzo smiled and clasped his sleeve-covered hands in his lap. “Asuma, I would like to invite you to my residence next week—for tea.”

“Why?”

“Because you returned at the perfect time and returned with achievements, accolades, and strength. This village needs more jonin-ranked shinobi to dissuade anything like the Hyuuga Affair from ever happening again. If the Cloud did it once, who’s to say the Stone won’t do the same—or even the Sand.”

“And you think I can be the one to do that?” Asuma held back a laugh at the implication. “You overestimate me, Elder Shimura.”

“Do I? To me, you’re underestimating yourself.” He rose with his cane in hand. “I look forward to hosting you.”

Asuma followed him to the door and returned the older man’s nod, watching him return to the heart of the village from the balcony. Danzo was an unexpected disturbance, a man he didn’t expect to see in a thousand years.

Returning to the living room, he collapsed onto the sofa and returned to staring at his reflection on the television screen.

“The ideal shinobi, huh?” he muttered.