The proposal to have Root cooperate had, after all, been supported by documentary evidence personally provided by Yamada Soji.
Using that as an opening, although Danzo could not possibly abduct the boy back to Root's laboratory for experiments under the Third Hokage's explicit prohibition, after several months, he ultimately could no longer restrain his interest in the peculiar Kekkei Genkai possessed by Director Yamada!
Perhaps the youthful memories of personally living through the First and Second Hokage's administrations had left too deep an impression on the Pot King;
Perhaps that terrifying night in the forests along the Land of Lightning's border had planted a seed of craving for power amid the Pot King's self-doubt and self-loathing;
Or perhaps the work environment rooted in darkness, along with the code of conduct passed down through generations of the Shimura Clan, had ultimately shaped the Pot King's personality—a personality drawn straight toward the fallen side of human nature...
In any case, regardless of which of those factors had ultimately played the decisive role, the only certainty was that from the time Danzo formally entered Konoha's decision-making ranks in Year 21, his pursuit of self-improvement had gradually shifted into a peculiar "superposition state" somewhere between arrogance and inferiority.
On one hand, the Pot King seemed to have utterly lost the drive to further hone the Wind Release he already excelled at, turning instead to secret techniques, bloodlines, and summoning beasts. He even defied prohibitions and spent years operating in the unseen gray areas.
On the other hand, he arrogantly treated his own body as a testing ground, raising the stakes year after year and undergoing all manner of extremely risky organ-transplant procedures.
This contradiction in his behavioral logic seemed difficult to explain, but from another angle, it in fact vividly reflected Danzo's fractured