That afternoon.
Hokage's Office.
Smoke curled and swirled like tangled thoughts.
Hiruzen Sarutobi sat alone behind his desk, the embers in his pipe flickering and casting light over his aged face.
He was about to step down, yet memories surged over him like a tide, carrying with them a past so heavy it nearly suffocated him.
Danzo.
The old companion's figure lingered stubbornly in the smoke.
The past churned through his mind once more, every incident wearing away the last trace of warmth he still held for their former "bond":
Those forbidden experiments hidden deep underground, fed by the flesh and blood of their own people;
His tacit approval and even indirect support for Orochimaru's obsessive "research";
The inexplicable disappearance of Shisui's Mangekyō Sharingan, eyes capable of turning the tide;
On the night the entire Uchiha clan had been annihilated, that vague shadow had always seemed to bear his unmistakable trace;
And the Konoha Collapse Plan they had endured not long ago also carried an indescribable air of suspicion.
And that was not all.
In the past, he had chosen to turn a blind eye. He knew that the him standing in the sunlight needed a Root in the shadows, so he had mostly responded with tolerance and compromise. He had thought stripping Danzo of his post was already severe punishment, even viewing it as a concession made to protect the friendship they had forged fighting side by side.
Yet reality had dealt him a brutal slap across the face.
Disbanding Root this time was not merely the removal of a hidden danger. It was also a reckoning for Hiruzen Sarutobi's policies over the past several decades!
It represented every darkness bred by his "tolerance," every blood debt incurred through his "compromise," and every mystery left behind by his failure