Recruitment and Counterintelligence

Danzo quickly received detailed intelligence on the failed ambush. Yahiko's sudden display of immense strength and the suspected Anbu personnel taking custody of the defeated prisoners at the end both came as great surprises to him.

Although losing several hundred elite operatives again pained Danzo greatly, he did not dare demand the prisoners from Nawaki. Assassinating an allied delegation and sabotaging an alliance treaty were grave crimes, especially in Konoha, where it would easily remind people of the Second Hokage's death in an ambush. If the matter were exposed, given Nawaki's cunning, Danzo would definitely be the one left suffering.

Therefore, though Danzo felt deeply aggrieved, he decided to pretend nothing had happened. He also ordered all information on the captured Root members destroyed. With the Cursed Tongue Eradication Seal as an added safeguard, as long as he did not incriminate himself, he was not afraid of Nawaki finding any leverage against him.

And the events that followed unfolded just as he had expected. Neither the Rain Ninja delegation that had been attacked nor Nawaki, whom he had framed, mentioned the assassination, as though nothing had happened.

After all, if this matter came out into the open, the alliance between Konoha and Amegakure would inevitably develop cracks. For all three sides, pretending it had never happened was the best choice. Nawaki also understood that this incident alone was not enough to utterly destroy Danzo. Still, he remembered it, intending to settle all accounts with Danzo at some point in the future.

Since he did not know that Nawaki could break his Cursed Seal, Danzo did not suspect why the Anbu had taken the prisoners away. In his eyes, they merely wanted to interrogate them for intelligence. He had already discarded those failures as expendable pawns.

Instead, Yahiko's unexpected eruption of