As the Canopy Screen went black, Hiruzen Sarutobi's hand, still holding his pipe, sank onto the desk in the Hokage's Office. He let out a sigh too faint to hear.
Naraka's malicious temptation echoed in his mind: "Get rid of Hiruzen Sarutobi!"
Though Hiruzen had only watched it through the Canopy Screen, the words seemed to have been whispered straight into his ear. A chill ran through him.
But what shook him even more was Danzo's deathly silence, which had lasted a full quarter of an hour.
Hiruzen Sarutobi knew Danzo as well as he knew the lines of his own palm, though their paths had long since diverged.
That silence was not how an ambitious man should have reacted to a shortcut to supreme power.
Within it was something Hiruzen had thought long extinguished in Danzo's heart, swallowed by darkness.
The scene from the Canopy Screen surfaced again in Hiruzen Sarutobi's mind.
Cold rain. Hot blood. A young, stubborn Danzo slapped away Hiruzen's outstretched hand and said curtly, "Mind your own business."
Yet the next moment, Danzo stood back-to-back with him, unleashing Ninjutsu without restraint against their common enemy.
It was no hollow courtesy or fleeting sympathy. It was a bond forged through countless moments when they had fought side by side, their lives on the line.
An emotion too tangled to name rose in Hiruzen Sarutobi's chest.
There was no joy in it, only a heavy, bitter sorrow.
Was he truly finding a trace of comfort in that moment's hesitation from the man at the heart of the plot to destroy the Uchiha, his old friend and bitter rival who longed to take his place?
"Danzo," he mouthed, his voice dry.
The realization filled him with profound sadness.
They should have remained comrades, not become enemies. What had brought them to this? The lure of power? Their differences over how to protect Konoha? Or had an evil being like Naraka kept widening the rift between them?
Then an even greater helplessness washed over him like a tide.
How absurd that scrap of "comfort" was. How tragic.
That faint warmth from the past could do nothing to dispel the cold reality before him.
It could not stop Danzo from working with Naraka, much less change Konoha's tragic course toward tearing itself apart.
He pictured Danzo on a road into darkness, pausing for an instant because he had glimpsed a small flower from the past beside the path.
Hiruzen Sarutobi slowly closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. Weariness weighed on his eyelids.
Should he do something? Use what remained of their friendship to persuade Danzo?
No. He knew Danzo. Danzo would see it as a weak attempt to provoke and humiliate him, and it would only drive him deeper into darkness.
He felt lonelier than he ever had before.
As Hokage, he knew darkness existed, yet he had to embrace the light.
The old friend who should have borne that burden with him had chosen to sink into darkness instead, and had become hesitant even to strike at Hiruzen.
It was the cruelest possible mockery of the bond they had once shared.
That reluctance, born of old affection, offered no hope. It only made the inevitable, sorrowful end all the clearer.
The pipe in his hand had gone completely cold. Hiruzen Sarutobi sat alone in the office, turning over this cold, bitter "gift" from an enemy who had once been his friend.
In the deathly stillness of Root's secret chamber, Danzo sat alone on his cold stone seat.
The images from the Canopy Screen left his mind in a rare state of blank confusion.
"Mind your own business..." Danzo repeated his icy reply from years ago without thinking.
This time, though, the words had lost all their force. They sounded like feeble self-deception.
He tried to bury the untimely memory beneath his usual reasoning.
Hiruzen had saved him back then only to keep the battle line intact, for Konoha's interests as a whole. It had certainly not been for Shimura Danzō himself.
Yes, that had to be it. That man was always talking about the Will of Fire and his comrades. It was all a way to win people over and secure his rule!
Yet the genuine concern buried deep in his memory, and Hiruzen's unhesitating resolve as he used his body to block the Kunai, pierced every cold argument Danzo had built for himself like a red-hot needle.
A deeply unwelcome feeling crept over him: self-doubt.
Could I really bring myself to strike Hiruzen? The thought bit into his heart like a venomous snake.
It was not fear of failure, nor a flaw in his plans. Could the past he had always scorned still hold him back?
He had tried to assassinate Hiruzen Sarutobi before, but those attempts had been more like tests. He had never truly believed a few ordinary Ninja could kill a Hokage.
His gaze fell unconsciously on his wrinkled, scarred hand. It was the hand that had slapped away Hiruzen's offer of help all those years ago.
"Naraka? If the Canopy Screen is showing the truth, then where are you now?"
Shimura Danzō's voice was thick with doubt about everything he thought he knew.
Outside Konoha, beneath the veranda of a Hot Spring Inn in a small town.
Princess Tsunade leaned against the railing in boredom, swinging a nearly empty flask of sake between her fingers. With her other hand, she idly toyed with the cold Sealing Necklace at her chest.
Then the Canopy Screen showed young Shimura Danzō fighting alongside her teacher, the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi.
"Pfft."
As Tsunade watched, she suddenly burst out laughing. Tears of mirth even welled at the corners of her eyes.
She wiped them away with the back of her hand and nudged Shizune with her elbow. Shizune sat stiffly beside her, watching the Canopy Screen with a worried expression.
"Hey, Shizune, look!" Tsunade pointed at the younger Danzo on the Canopy Screen, her voice full of teasing wonder, as though she had discovered a new continent.
"Who would've thought that old man Danzo wasn't half bad-looking when he was young? If you ignore that rigid, rotten personality of his, anyway!"
"Look at those moves, that cool scowl... Tch. What a shame he grew so twisted and turned into such a shady old bastard."
Shizune had been concentrating on the horrifying information revealed by the Canopy Screen: the Uchiha's plight back then, and Danzo's collusion with an unknown Demon.
Tsunade's sudden interruption caught her so off guard that she almost failed to respond.
"Huh? L-Lady Tsunade!" Shizune's face flushed at once. Flustered and embarrassed, she waved her hands.
"Wh-what are you paying attention to? Th-this isn't the time for that!"
"Elder Danzo is working with something terrifying, and he's plotting something just as terrible!"
"And... and commenting on an elder's looks..."
She looked at Danzo's profile on the Canopy Screen, a face that could even be called handsome, then thought of the gloomy, inscrutable leader of Root today.
She simply could not connect the two. Lady Tsunade's priorities were beyond her understanding!
Tsunade paid her no mind. She took another swig of sake and wiped her mouth with a bold sweep of her hand. A flicker of complicated nostalgia crossed her eyes.
"Hmph. Facts are facts."
"Back then, those old guys... The old man nagged all day, but you could count on him."
"That idiot Jiraiya was a pervert, but you couldn't fault his strength."
"Orochimaru was creepy all the time, but at least he was a genius."
Her voice gradually softened, carrying a loneliness that was easy to miss. "Even Danzo was a stubborn hard-liner back then, but at least he still seemed like a Ninja who could walk in the sunshine."
Then she turned back to the Canopy Screen and watched the two old men, now firmly on opposing sides, fighting back-to-back as they once had.
She shook her head. Her voice regained its usual briskness, though it held the weary perspective of someone who had seen too much:
"Time really does a number on people!"
"It doesn't just make you old. It can turn your heart hard and black, too!"
"Come on, Shizune, stop looking like the sky's falling! Once we get back to the village, we might be the ones who have to deal with that shady old bastard Danzo!"
Before you continue