Time Waits for No One

As the Light screen went black, Hiruzen Sarutobi's pipe-holding hand finally dropped powerlessly onto the desk, accompanied by an inaudible sigh.

Naraka's malicious incitement—“Eliminate Hiruzen Sarutobi!”

Though spied through the canopy screen, those words seemed to drill straight into his ears, chilling him to the bone.

Yet what shook his soul even more was Danzo's long, deathlike silence lasting the length of a quarter-hour.

Hiruzen Sarutobi knew Danzo far too well, understanding him as clearly as the lines on his own palm, despite those lines having long since diverged in completely different directions.

Yet that silence was by no means the reaction a careerist should have upon hearing a shortcut to supreme power.

Within that silence lay something he had thought utterly extinguished deep inside the darkness-consumed heart of Danzo.

That image from the canopy screen resurfaced in Hiruzen Sarutobi's mind.

Freezing rain, burning blood. That young, stubborn Danzo batting away his extended hand and coldly snapping, "I don't need you meddling."

Yet in the very next second, standing back-to-back with him, unleashing ninjutsu without reservation against their shared enemy.

That was no hypocritical courtesy, no fragile sympathy, but rather the bond forged between them through countless life-or-death moments of fighting side by side.

An immensely complex and ineffable emotion welled up in Hiruzen Sarutobi's heart.

That emotion held no joy, brimming instead with a heavy, desolate bitterness.

From the very core of this conspiracy to annihilate the Uchiha, from this fleeting hesitation in his rival and old friend who wished for nothing more than to usurp him, he had actually caught a trace of solace?

Danzo, he silently murmured the name, his voice dry.

This discovery filled him with a profound sorrow.

They were meant to have been comrades-in-arms all along, not enemies. What on earth had brought them to this present juncture?

Was it the temptation of power? Was it a divergence in how to protect Konoha? Or was it some evil existence like Naraka, constantly magnifying the fissures between them?

Yet immediately afterward, an even greater sense of helplessness washed over him like a tidal wave.

How ludicrous, how pathetic was this trace of "solace"!

This faint warmth born of the past was utterly incapable of melting the cold reality before him.

It could not stop Danzo from continuing his cooperation with Naraka, nor could it alter the tragic destiny of Konoha marching toward internal fracture.

He felt as though he were watching Danzo stand upon a road leading into darkness, pausing momentarily simply because he caught sight of a small flower from the past by the roadside.

Hiruzen Sarutobi slowly closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, fatigue pressing down upon his eyelids like a tangible weight.

Should he do something about this? Use this lingering affection to persuade Danzo?

No, he knew Danzo; that would only be viewed as a weak provocation and insult, merely accelerating his complete descent into the darkness.

He felt an unprecedented loneliness.

As Hokage, he understood the darkness, yet he had to embrace the Light.

And the old friend who was supposed to bear all this alongside him had chosen to sink into the darkness, and because of that, even hesitated to strike against him.

This was quite simply the cruelest irony of their past camaraderie.

Because this reluctance born of old ties brought no hope, leaving him only to see the inevitability and desolation of the ending all the more clearly.

The pipe in his hand had by now gone completely cold. Inside the office, Hiruzen Sarutobi sat there alone, chewing on this cold and bitter “gift” from an enemy, from an old friend.

Amidst the dead silence of the Root's secret chamber, Danzo sat alone upon his cold stone throne.

The canopy screen's images caused an unusually blank confusion to surface within him.

"Meddling busybody..." Danzo instinctively repeated that cold retort from back then.

Yet this time, the words lost all their power, exuding only a fragile self-deception.

He tried to overwrite these inopportune memories with his own mindset.

Hiruzen had rescued him back then merely to maintain the stability of the front lines, for the overall interest of Konoha, and certainly not for Danzo Shimura personally.

Yes, it must have been so! That man was always like that, constantly tossing about the "Will of Fire" and "comrades" as mere tools to win people over and consolidate his rule!

Yet deep within his memory, that genuine care, that unhesitating resolve to block a kunai with his own flesh, pierced like a red-hot needle through every bit of cold logic he had constructed for himself.

A sensation of extreme discomfort quietly spread—it was self-doubt.

Could I really bring myself to raise a hand against Hiruzen? This thought bit fiercely into his heart like a venomous snake.

It was not out of fear of failure, nor due to flawed planning, but rather because that past which he sneered at could still trip up his footsteps?

He had attempted to assassinate Hiruzen Sarutobi in the past as well, though those few occasions were more of a probing test rather than a genuine desire to successfully assassinate a Hokage with just a few ordinary shinobi.

His gaze instinctively fell upon his own wrinkled and scarred hand. It was this hand that had once batted away Hiruzen's extended helping hand.

"Naraka? If the canopy screen is true, then where are you?"

Danzo Shimura's tone was filled with existential doubt.

Outside Konoha Village, beneath the veranda of a Hot Spring Inn in a small town.

Princess Tsunade leaned against the railing in sheer boredom, dangling a nearly empty flask of sake by her fingertips while her other hand absentmindedly fiddled with the cold sealing necklace resting upon her chest.

When she saw the imagery on the canopy screen of a young Danzo Shimura and her teacher, the Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi, fighting side by side.

"Pfft."

As Tsunade watched, she suddenly couldn't help laughing aloud, the corners of her eyes even leaking a trace of moisture brought on by the mirth.

She casually wiped it away with the back of her hand and nudged Shizune, who was sitting straight beside her with a worried expression, watching the canopy screen.

"Hey, Shizune, take a look!" Tsunade pointed at the figure of the young version of Danzo in the Light screen, her tone filled with the wonder and banter of someone discovering a new world.

"I never would've imagined that old geezer Danzo, back when he was young—setting aside that rigid, stinky temper of his—actually looked quite decent!"

"Just look at this footwork, this cool aura of posing with a poker face... Tsk, what a pity. How on earth did he grow so crooked over time, turning into such a shady, hidden old schemer?"

Shizune was concentrating intensely on analyzing the terrifying information revealed by the canopy screen—the plight of the Uchiha back then, Danzo's collusion with unknown demons.

Suddenly interrupted like this by Lady Tsunade, she almost failed to react at all.

"Eh? Tsu... Lady Tsunade!" Shizune's face instantly flushed red, flustered and embarrassed as she gestured wildly.

"What... what on earth are you focusing on! No... now is really not the time for this!"

"Elder Danzo... he's cooperating with such terrifying things, and plotting such terrifying matters!"

"And... and judging a senior's appearance..."

She looked at Danzo's side profile on the Light screen, one that could even be called handsome, and then thought of the gloomy and eerie "Root" leader of the present day.

She simply couldn't connect the two, feeling only that Lady Tsunade's focus was entirely beyond all reason!

Tsunade, however, unconcernedly poured down another gulp of alcohol, wiped her mouth boldly, and a trace of complex nostalgia flashed through her gaze.

"Hmph, a fact is a fact."

"Those old geezers back then—though the old man himself babbled all day long, he was genuinely dependable."

"That idiot Jiraiya was lecherous, but his strength was truly undeniable."

"That bastard Orochimaru, though gloomy all day, was at least a genius."

Her voice lowered slightly, carrying a trace of imperceptible desolation. "Even Danzo... though he was a hardliner back then too, at least he was still like a shinobi capable of walking in the sunlight."

Immediately afterward, her gaze turned once more toward the Light screen, watching the scene of those two old men who had now completely turned against one another fighting back-to-back.

She shook her head, and though her tone recovered its usual crispness, it also carried a bit of worldly-wise irony:

"Ah, time really is a ruthless blade!"

"Not only does it urge people to age, but it can also harden and blacken a person's heart!"

"Alright, Shizune, stop looking like the sky is falling! After all, once we return to the village, it might just be our turn to deal with this shady old bastard Danzo!"