The Unacknowledged Disciple

After walking out the door, Danzo could no longer hold back his anger. He had spent so many years fighting for Hiruzen Sarutobi and given so much for the village! Why couldn't he become Hokage?!

Hadn't Hiruzen only secured his position as Hokage with their help?

Yes, he wasn't as strong as Hiruzen, but he wasn't that far behind!

Why?!

The angrier Danzo became, the more he kept it off his face. He hurried back to the Root Base beneath the ground.

But he didn't go straight to his office to check the latest intelligence. There was no point anymore.

Monkey had ordered him not to interfere with the peace talks. Under the circumstances, there was no way for him to sabotage them.

So he went somewhere else.

Root's experimental lab.

He stormed into the lab without so much as knocking. But the refined-looking man conducting an experiment inside wasn't surprised at all. He continued working in silence, carefully adding liquid from a dropper into a test tube. As he swirled it, he asked, "The teacher didn't agree?"

Orochimaru asked. He didn't oppose offering Kirigakure generous terms for peace, and he agreed to give them a portion of the mission assignments. After losing so many shinobi, Konoha couldn't handle all the missions in the short term anyway.

But they could at least demand some compensation, even if it was only a single coin. They could take a firm stance and make clear that even if they were willing to let it go, Kirigakure still had to pay for what it had done.

What did it mean to practically beg the other side for peace?

He was ready to head to the front at any time and use his strength alongside Minato to intimidate the Land of Water, so it wouldn't dare say it planned to join forces with Kirigakure and Iwagakure.

With Li Ke, Minato Namikaze, and himself, Kirigakure wouldn't stand a chance of resisting.

From Danzo's expression alone, Orochimaru could tell that their teacher had rejected Danzo's plan to make Kirigakure pay. His own request to go to the front had probably been rejected too.

"That's right. Hiruzen is getting weaker by the day! A few dead shinobi, and he gives up such a good opportunity!"

Danzo struck his cane hard against the ground. He was deeply dissatisfied.

Orochimaru fell silent for a moment.

"Afraid of death?"

He looked at the test tube in his hand. It held a solution for cultivating cells, made with a new formula for growing Wood Release Cells.

But before he could create a new Wood Release shinobi, Konoha had already gained one.

Thinking of how his teacher feared death, he smiled.

His teacher wasn't afraid to die. He had become Hokage precisely because he didn't fear death. But he was afraid of the people around him dying.

Under his leadership, Konoha had grown increasingly docile, because he had handed all its fangs to the man standing before Orochimaru.

"Perhaps."

He sighed and looked at Danzo.

"I'm running out of test subjects, Danzo. If you want Wood Release shinobi, you'd better send me more subjects."

Danzo shook his head in silence.

"Impossible. There are only so many subjects who meet your requirements. Now that a treaty is about to be signed, my Root no longer has the ability to abduct people from other countries' villages, so..."

Danzo left the rest unsaid, but Orochimaru understood.

He was silent for a moment before asking, "Who's in charge of negotiating peace with Kirigakure? Is it Jiraiya?"

He tried to sound unconcerned. Danzo, however, flashed a cruel smile.

"It's Minato Namikaze."

Orochimaru fell silent again, then nodded.

"I understand. I'll help find some test subjects. For now, I have enough."

He neither agreed nor denied it, but he already knew: the person his teacher had chosen truly wasn't him.

Danzo only sneered before leaving.

He had merely meant to remind Orochimaru that he and Hiruzen were never on the same side, so that Orochimaru would help with the Wood Release experiments.

After Danzo left, Orochimaru clenched his hand. The test tube shattered, but he didn't care. There was only one thing on his mind.

Why...

Why did it have to be Jiraiya's disciple?

Looking at the glass across from him, at his own distraught reflection, Orochimaru couldn't help asking, "Teacher... what are you afraid of?"

He didn't understand. Hiruzen Sarutobi, his teacher, should have understood his thoughts and feelings better than anyone!

After a moment of silence, Orochimaru left his lab. His mind was too unsettled to focus, so he decided to see how the village was doing.

But as he walked through the streets, all he saw was pain and sorrow.

Everywhere he looked, there was death. Death, and more death.

Almost every family with a shinobi had lost someone. In the few families that hadn't, he could hear injured shinobi crying.

The farther he walked, the quieter he became, and the more restless he felt.

Death was the thing that inspired the most fear, and the thing that caused the most sorrow. Once someone died, nothing remained.

Before long, he found himself standing before Konoha's Memorial Stone. Seeing the rows upon rows of shinobi graves behind it, he fell even quieter.

At the Memorial Stone, he looked at the countless names, the names of his subordinates, the names of those who had once called him classmate, sir, senior, or teacher. He couldn't help lifting his head.

A light rain began to fall, and he heard a muffled sob.

The voice was familiar. Orochimaru didn't even need to look to know who it was.

It was Tsunade.

She was leaning against a gravestone, covering her face as she wept. But no one could call her weak at that moment—not in a cemetery where countless others were grieving too.

"Teacher... your decision will only make the next war even more brutal..."

He ran his fingers over a name on the Memorial Stone: the name of his first disciple, Nawaki. For a moment, Orochimaru had no idea how he could face Tsunade.

She had entrusted her younger brother to him with such hope, but he had let him die on the battlefield—right in front of him!

He...

Orochimaru clenched his fists. He didn't know what to do. He had almost forgotten what Nawaki looked like, and even the sound of him calling Orochimaru—

"Teacher!"

The call startled Orochimaru. His eyes widened as he turned around, only to see Anko trying to hold an umbrella over him.

Mitaraishi Anko.

"Teacher?"

Anko stared at Orochimaru in surprise. His reaction had startled her, and she couldn't understand what had happened.