Shimura Danzō Lies in Wait

Inside the hospital, Jiraiya stroked his chin, his eyes sharp. "What a coincidence. We were just about to settle accounts with him after the funeral, and there he was, overcome with grief at the funeral. Then his powers happened to clash, and he turned into... a tree?"

"That's a little too convenient. Could he have staged this whole thing to get himself off the hook?"

Tsunade carefully checked Danzo's vital signs in the ward again. "I don't think he's faking it."

"You can't fake changes at the cellular level. His genes are breaking down and restructuring."

"By my calculations, at this rate of transformation and physical decline, he has five years at most."

"After five years, he'll lose every human trait and become a real tree, perhaps one containing an enormous amount of Chakra."

At that, she even made a rare joke, edged with dark humor. "Who knows? That huge, strangely lush tree in Konoha Park that takes several people to wrap their arms around in the future Canopy Screen might be Elder Danzo."

Jiraiya stared for a moment, then let out a snort of laughter. His smile soon faded into a complicated sigh. "What an ironic end. So what are you going to do with him? Just let him 'grow' here?"

Tsunade's expression turned serious again, with a trace of exhaustion. "Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu came to see me just now."

"They made their position clear. Since Danzo's ended up like this and doesn't have long to live, they want me to stop pursuing his past wrongs, including the ones we only suspect."

"After all, Danzo did accomplish a great deal for Konoha behind the scenes, especially during the First and Second Shinobi World Wars."

Tsunade paused, her voice cold with reluctant compromise.

"In exchange for dropping all