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"-. Shimura Danzo, Commander of ROOT .-"

"-. July 23, 6 ANB .-"

Days of grand events were simultaneously the best and worst times to carry out sensitive operations. This once, however, the pretenders to power had made the mistake of giving him time to specially tailor his contingencies. His co-conspirators may believe they were on equal footing, but they were wrong despite how daunting their techniques and self-aggrandising their ambitions. Orochimaru did well in creating his new arm and the Sharingan implantations, but his service did not suffice to elevate his goals above childish dreams, less so in skirting the limits of a double agent by presuming to pit his two masters against each other. The world of the shinobi was filled with a myriad of techniques, but you could not compete with might alone. One could not settle for just mastering the various techniques, one had to go beyond even the powers of ninjutsu to unite the shinobi world. The new Akatsuki ostensibly agreed with that principle, but their methods were bold and crude, and so their shadowy leader – for all that he pretended otherwise – would either prove their bluff empty or earn the universal enmity that even S-rank shinobi could not withstand for long. His technique was troublesome, but a jutsu known was a jutsu half-way to being neutered.

Danzo admittedly still lacked a method for developing a counter, but such were the risks when the original time frame got upended by a chaos agent. And even the commoner ultimately served his part in distracting from Root's true activities. Every resource and shinobi and time wasted on protecting him from Danzo's non-existent retaliation was one factor removed from play. He mourned the previous board which would have allowed him to isolate the Uchiha clan and eliminate them with few to no consequences to the other shinobi bloodlines. But the Sharingan was already a greater price to pay than any of the others, so he would not balk at the added costs of securing Konoha's preeminence.

By the end of the day, the Uchiha would learn that propaganda wasn't enough to earn a place in Konoha, the other clans would be too outraged – and distracted – to associate with them any further, the commoner would finally be off the board one way or another, and Danzo would deniably be in possession of the leaders of the next generation, whose own families could no longer be relied upon to instil the principles on which Konoha's future depended. Even Hiruzen had succumbed to the call of pretentious idealism, their former teammates mindlessly following along in his wake. And so it fell to Danzo to make the best of what little time he had left. Time to plan, to misdirect, to set up every contingency needed to finally excise Konoha of Tobirama-sensei's mistake.

Then the Compliant Golden-Hooped Rod smashed through the ceiling and straight through Danzo's chest.

CRUNCH.

What-where-why-?

Darkness claimed hi-

"I-Izanagi."

The genjutsu restored Danzo to life just as Sarutobi Hiruzen landed amidst dust and smoke on the debris that had once been the ceiling.

What is he doing here? He should be in his office, fretting over his crystal ball!

"So, you managed to dodge it."

No I didn't, Danzo thought with shock he didn't show as he stumbled to his feet behind his destroyed desk. Hiruzen was clad in his black war attire, spun the Adamantine Staff to a ready position behind him and did not seem wise to his attack's success. Did he not witness the Izanagi? If so, he still had the element of surpri-the Staff grew tenfold right in his face!

CLANG

"Cease!" Danzo strafed and deflected it with a kunai. "Hiruzen, what are you-?" Danzo whirled around to stab at the sound of a thousand chirping birds-

Hatake ducked beneath his swing and drove the palm wreathed in the Lightning Cutter straight through his heart.

Izanagi!

Danzo revived three meters back and just barely managed to dodge out of the way of the Adamantine Staff when it made to gore him a third time. If he hadn't chosen to keep one of his arm braces unsealed today just in case… "What is the meaning of this, Hiruzen?!" How had he found out, what did he know, how had he made it so close without-

"Sir, there is Uchiha chakra in his bandaged eye socket and two more in his arm," Owl reported as he dropped behind the Third. "The latter faded to nearly nothing each time he was struck, but the chakra in his arm is also strange, and I cannot see the rest of it."

Danzo grimly jumped with his back to the corner and tried to keep both Hiruzen and his Anbu in his sights as best he could.

"So you likely have more, and each will result in the same perfect regeneration – no, reversal, some manner of technique encroaching on the bounds of Yin-Yang release." Sarutobi instantly deduced the secrets of his trump card with complete nonchalance. "And given the gold I glimpsed under your sleeve but cannot sense even with Umino's echolocation, I'm guessing you're wearing sealing braces to prevent chakra drain. How fast can you get them off, I wonder?" Danzo felt a chill go down his spine. "I hope you didn't think I believed you all the times you reported finding our missing Uchiha already eyeless, Danzo. I suppose it was too much to hope that you would be less troublesome in death than you were in life. Enma."

The Adamantine Staff suddenly extended downward straight through the floor.

CRASH.

The floor caved in. The paralysis seal Danzo had nearly finished charging was rendered to so much refuse. Danzo landed on his feet but had to dodge debris for his life – windstylegreatbreakthrough!

Owl narrowly failed to reach him with his Gentle Fist before the wall of wind blasted him backwards, Badger was nearly bisected by Danzo's wind-coated kunai, and then Hatake nearly got him with the Raikiri again if not for Danzo ducking and blocking at just the last minute, freeing himself of one of the braces instead. "Wind Style Shuriken!"

Hatake dodged the worst of it, but not all, not enough to avoid slowing down.

Danzo made it through the trap door and then finally his Root agents got between him and the attackers, allowing him to think instead of react as he continued running deeper into the bowels of his base. How did Hiruzen find out, he wondered, mind racing as he fumbled at his last arm brace as best he could on the move, they were by necessity thick and ungainly. My silence seals are full proof, and my Anbu plants would have-

The corridor tried to bite him.

He was able to counter the earth technique with wind just enough to smash through, only to stumble on the wet floor beyond. Curses! The pipes were bursting all around him, he could hear them – "Water Style: Water Formation Wall!" He burst the pipes closest to him and formed his defense just as the water shark bust in his path from around the corner. Activate demolition seal! The floor ahead split and collapsed, and Danzo managed to run under and beyond the clashing water jutsu with just inches to spare.

Activating the demolition seal in the ceiling of the next section closed off the hallway behind him. Cracks rumbled through it immediately – Hiruzen's earth technique, how close was he?! – but Danzo could not afford to pay it more mind. The part of his base he was heading to lacked plumbing by design. He didn't resort to mutually assured destruction lightly, but his best agents were away to insinuate themselves among the Anbu around the Uchiha grounds in preparation of framing Akatsuki for the bloodshed and heir abductions, so he had no choice.

He reached the fork in tunnels and made a split-second decision.

The corpse room is too risky. Torune had nowhere near the control he needed for the Jar of Poison jutsu yet. More importantly, most of the seal defences had been lowered in preparation of adding the corpses from today's operation. A confrontation there would spell disaster. If the Rinkaichu escape, even Izanagi might not be enough.

He turned left and rushed to the store of poisons instead, discarding his last arm braces in his sprint.

He burst into the chamber to the sight of the interior in complete disarray, the lighting system defective, and the one jar of Torune's bottled poison cloud technique nowhere to be found.

He barely had time to wonder how Hiruzen had known to secure this place before the floor caved in and Danzo fell down into the bottom-most training arena. What? Impossible, Hiruzen is too much of a bleeding heart to destroy that room when – unless he doesn't know what is inside!

He landed on his feet in the great hall of proving. Hiruzen can't have known what was – what should have been in there, Danzo thought dimly as he blew the dust away with a wind technique. The poison dust would have spread to the entire level if the phial shattered, he'd never have risked breaking the containers in that chamber. This is too sloppy.

Danzo's frustration finally escaped his control. He let loose his glare, though he didn't know where Hiruzen was in the darkness. His chakra went out in a wave, but unlike other times it went unchallenged. Hiruzen wasn't here to posture this time. Danzo sensed no shinobi nearby, and he was not rattled enough to think anyone besides Hiruzen could hide so effectively. "If this is because of that damned civilian, all your conviction is misplaced."

"Oh no, I'd hope my Anbu would at least be competent enough to know if you took any further steps. Though just for curiosity's sake, was he correct to suspect your Root of sabotaging his furniture?"

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"No." Danzo said truthfully. His agent had layered a decay seal unto the wall, but never activated it. The accident with the Uzumaki boy should not have happened, it surely was the doing of the fox, the seal needed checking, and it wasn't just his own bias saying so. Doctor Hirano was appropriately loyal and knew not to speak of classified information, but that was nothing that midnight drugs and genjutsu couldn't sidestep. A realisation swept over him then. If he doesn't know any of this, perhaps there are other things he doesn't know. "Though I am certainly beginning to regret my restraint."

"Funny you should mention restraint," Hiruzen said, not sounding amused in the least.

What is he stalling for, damn him? And damn me for needing the time just as much. "I have never done less than obey the Hokage's commands to the letter."

"Indeed, you never disobeyed my commands, none that I didn't explicitly warn you against, perhaps, you just trampled the spirit of my rule whenever you could."

Hiruzen's voice sounded casual, as if the man was waking alongside him instead of bringing down his entire base down around him in a tide of destruction nipping at his heels. Danzo ignored it, though, in favour of the much more meaningful realisation that came over him. Hiruzen isn't this sloppy, which means he didn't know what was in that room.

"Do you know why I've let so much slide, Danzo?" Hiruzen's voice came from everywhere and nowehere.

Danzo's mind reeled under the next realisation. The only way Hiruzen would have risked the collateral damage is if he didn't know what was there. My security wasn't compromised. The realisation should have been emboldening, but instead Danzo just felt a chill. And if my security wasn't compromised, that means Hiruzen didn't know my base's layout when he attacked. What else doesn't he know? And if he doesn't, why attack now at all?

"You're the one who helped Orochimaru with his experiments. You're the one who abducted the children and then used him as a scapegoat. Do you have his tongue sealed like the rest of these children? You stole Konoha's brightest for decades and I let it go. You sidelined the Uchiha during the Kyuubi attack and I let it go. You tried to stage a coup and I let it go. You tried to have me assassinated and I let it go. How much else did you do to undermine this Village? How much did you do to undermine me? How many snakes did you spread among the leaves? How many stakes did you drive between me and my most trusted? How much sin is enough?"

A speech? Here? Now? Hiruzen would never waste time unless he felt there was no urgency elsewhere. Yet here he was, and he had his best Anbu with him wreaking havoc instead of out on counter-action. He… he doesn't know what I've planned – he doesn't know about today's operation!

"All this time, I've been acting in the interest of my survival, because there is no one capable of leading and protecting Konoha if I die. There's no one to preserve the peace between the nations if I die. That's what I told myself. I have to survive, I told myself. I just have to survive until the next Minato emerges from the next generation. The status quo we have right now is the best state the world has ever been in, preserving it is the best I could hope for, I told myself."

He doesn't know about today's operation, Danzo realized with a shiver of disbelief. This was worse than anything he'd ever imagined. The most important event of their age, all ruined because Hiruzen decided now of all times to grow a conscience. Two black ops organisations conducting sensitive operations involving the same objectives without being aware of each other's activities. Two conflicting agendas clashing over the same objective without either side knowing about each other.

Danzo had never faced a worse disaster.

"I was going to wait until the next generation produced a worthy successor to finally do away with you and this disease you've inflicted on our village and the world, Congratulations, Danzo. You've successfully convinced me that it's worth risking all of that to remove you now."

Danzo finally snapped. "I've convinced you of nothing! The moment you succumbed to that commoner's pretentious idealism was just the last straw! The only thing you've fallen prey to is your own bleeding heart. That is the only thing undermining this village!"

"Not the village. Just its seedy underbelly. Just you. Though you're right that my bleeding heart paved the way. Intercepting my own order to the Uchiha during the Kyuubi attack was high treason. I should have killed you the moment the Kyuubi was resealed."

Danzo scoffed. "You will sing their praises? Do you have any idea how much trouble those Uchiha cause me? How much of my manpower I have to waste cleaning up their messes and retrieving their eyes before our enemies do?"

"You will stand there and pretend it was not self-interest? Really?"

Mockery. It made Danzo grit his teeth. Hiruzen had never mocked him. He'd never dared. "Tobirama-sensei should never have made you Hokage. As always, it falls to me to fix his mistakes."

"Don't be ridiculous, your way of fixing sensei's mistakes reached its expiration date twenty years ago, it is the fatal weakness of any clandestine faction with high turnover, everyone knows that."

"You dare throw that commoner's words in my face!" Everyone knows that, everyone knows that, everyone knows - Danzo crushed his doubts with practices ease, then sneered derisively, that was truly the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard. "Surely even you cannot be so foolish, Hiruzen! Everything Hashirama achieved was in spite of his own beliefs! The crisis today is rooted in his unilateral actions. Tobirama-sensei is the only reason his brother's foolishness did not end Konoha the moment he was gone! Like him, I will use unilateral action to fix his mess. I loved our sensei every bit as much as you, Hiruzen, but he was wrong." Wrong to let Hashirama walk over him, wrong to show the Uchiha clemency after Madara's tantrum, wrong to make you Hoka-

"In that we agree."

What?

"It is clear, at this point, that I have lost the Will of Fire."

Danzo gaped. "What did you just-"

"You've shown me my folly quite thoroughly, Danzo. I have no more hope for my students. There is no point waiting for Kakashi when he has plateaued. Itachi, too, would take too long. I cannot afford to wait anymore Enma."

"Wind Release Vacuum Serial Waves!"

Danzo's counterattack collapsed the entire far side of the chamber, but he still almost failed to bring his kunai up to intercept the Adamantine staff as it came down upon his head.

"Shimura Danzo. For treason against Konoha, I sentence you to death."

"I can't let you do this, Hiruzen!" Danzo grunted but managed to hold the staff at bay. "Even if it claims my life, I cannot let you drag Konoha any further down this path!"

"Better no path than yours."

"Hahaha, indeed!" Danzo's outrage finally boiled over in derisive laughter. "All your life you've tried and failed to walk the path sensei laid out for you, and now that you've failed, you're going to turn away from everything you once believed in because of some… some civilian?! All this clemency, do you not know he plans to leave Konoha, spitting in your face, will you allow him that as well?!"

"Yes."

Danzo reeled the hardest he ever had, shocked. "Then you are truly lost!" Danzo jumped back and quickly ran through the handseals he didn't think he'd ever need. "Seal Release!"

The world shook as the self-destruction seal on the base was suddenly activated-

CLANG

Danzo barely managed to block the Adamantine Staff from extending forth right through his head. He'd barely had enough time to wonder about the best way to flee before Hiruzen stopped- before he- "You fool, you would still brawl? In mere minutes this base will come down around both our heads!"

"That's fine. Today, for one last time, I too shall risk my life!"

Danzo's eyes widened. "Y-you would rather we both die than let me flee?"

Finally, Hiruzen's grim gaze thawed. "Danzo, Danzo, Danzo. Don't flatter yourself."

"What-"

"Katon: Karyū Endan!" "Futon: Renkuudan!" "Suiton: Suiryudan!" "Doton: Doryudan!" "Raiton: Rairyū no Tatsumaki!"

Shadow clones! "Earth Wall, Water Formation Wall, Wind S-URK- Iz-!" IZANAGI!

Danzo rematerialized-

SHING-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRUNCH- "HUGH!"

Danzo barely evaded the first five replicas of the Adamantine Staff and nearly lost his Sharingan arm to the sixth. He chose to take it in his chest instead, feeling it crush his ribs and lung and heart, his spine shattering as he di– I-izanagi!

Danzo rematerialized as far away as he could from the origin of the staff, panting heavily, clutching at his arm as another Sharingan closed forever. I need a Byakugan, Danzo thought, reeling. I need to be able to revive past obstacles, if I could rematerialize in another room-

"Congratulations, Danzo. You've finally got what you wanted. All that time of wanting to drag me into the same darkness as you, you've finally succeeded. You've turned me to your way of thinking. I've decided to do as you do and ignore all decency, all common sense, disregard the letter of the law entirely. After all, I am the Hokage. I am the law. And the law says you must be neutralized for the good of Konoha and all other people and places in this world that need the light to thrive. Today, I will finally excise Konoha of Tobirama-sensei's mistake."

Danzo recoiled. The world rumbled. Rocks and dust and debris fell all around them. "Hgh!" Danzo grabbed his forearm. The Hashirama cells writhed against his will, pressing and vicious. "Those are not your words to say!"

"The opinions of traitors are irrelevant."

With a snarl of rage, Danzo charged in, kunai giving way to tanto coated in razor wind. Where had the poison gone? Where were his reserve troops? Where was Oroochimaru?! "Underestimating me will be your last mistake!"

Hiruzen blocked his charge completely and knocked him aside, face grim as the staff multiplied around him, once, twice, nine, eighteen times. "Then we shall both die as ninja should, alone in the dark!"