Deep within the bowels of Root Headquarters, in a chamber where light was scarce and shadows seemed to breathe, Danzo Shimura stood alone.

The air was cold, stale, and heavy—just the way he preferred it. Yet for once, his posture, though still rigid, carried an uncharacteristic stillness… and a faint, almost imperceptible uncertainty.

He had just awoken.

Not from a bed—Danzo had not truly "slept" in decades—but from a strange lapse of consciousness while standing. For a man who trained himself to remain vigilant even in meditation, the fact that his guard had fallen—if only for a moment—was disturbing in itself.

Even more disturbing was what he saw in that moment of darkness.

A vision—no, a memory that had not yet happened—seared itself into his mind:

A boy from the Hidden Rain, eyes ablaze with wrath, pupils rippling into the unmistakable rings of the Rinnegan.

Hatred—pure, unfiltered—poured from those purple eyes like poison, stripping away the layers of cold calculation Danzo had built his entire life upon.

And then… death.

He felt it.

Not as a distant impression, but as a visceral, inescapable truth—bones shattering, breath stolen, life snuffed out in a single, merciless instant.

When he jolted awake, his chest heaved, sweat dampened his collar, and—for the first time in years—his breathing was uneven.

That was when he noticed it.

On his right arm, hidden beneath bandages and the grotesque lattice of Hashirama's cells, one of the embedded Sharingan hung closed. Its light was gone. Its chakra had completely dissipated.

Danzo stripped back the wrappings with swift, practiced motions, eyes narrowing. The surrounding skin looked… younger, the age lines smoothed as if reversed. He studied his reflection in a nearby mirror: faint signs of revitalization across his face, subtle yet undeniable.

The Wood Release cells…? he thought. They had always bolstered his vitality, kept his body functional despite the grotesque grafting of so many Sharingan. But that alone could not explain this.

He knew the truth.

A Sharingan in his possession only went dark when Izanagi had been invoked—when he had already died and rewritten reality.

Yet he had not fought.

He had not bled.

He had simply… closed his eyes.

His mind went still.

Was that dream… not a dream?

Had he been slain once already, in some way his conscious mind could not grasp?

A chill worked its way down his spine, colder than any enemy's blade. For the first time in years, irritation was joined by something sharper—unrest.

He forced his breathing to steady, his expression to return to its customary mask of authority. Quickly, he extracted the dead eye and replaced it with a spare from his private reserves. The new Sharingan blinked to life.

And yet, the phantom sensation of those rippling purple eyes boring into him would not fade.

"Lord Danzo!"

A Root operative appeared silently, dropping to one knee.

"Speak," Danzo ordered, his tone clipped, concealing the undercurrent of disquiet gnawing at him.

"There are two urgent reports," the operative said. "First—Uchiha Sasuke has vanished from Konoha Hospital. All traces of his presence have disappeared. Second—Jiraiya has departed the village. His destination: the Hidden Rain."

Danzo's gaze sharpened at the first piece of news. Sasuke Uchiha. Gone.

His instincts honed over decades pointed him immediately toward one suspect. "Orochimaru…" he muttered. That serpent had always coveted the Sharingan, and a prodigy like Sasuke was too valuable a specimen for him to ignore. The boy's disappearance could only mean the Sannin had moved earlier than anticipated.

But the second report…

Jiraiya. Hidden Rain Village.

Danzo's fingers tightened on his cane.

The vision of those Rinnegan returned unbidden, the same unrelenting hatred from his dream. The name Akatsuki hung in his mind like a blade.

He remembered the early reports: whispers of a man—perhaps a god—leading the Akatsuki from the shadows of the Rain. And if the eyes in his vision belonged to the same man… then the danger was far greater than even he had calculated.

His jaw set.

"Jiraiya… always meddling in matters beyond his reach."

A long pause. Then, in a quieter, more deliberate tone: "Prepare a covert unit. I will personally investigate the situation in the Rain. If the Akatsuki's leader truly possesses the Rinnegan… then I must see for myself just how far his power has grown."

The operative bowed and disappeared into the darkness.

Danzo was left alone once more, but the chamber felt colder than before.

For the first time in years, the old war hawk found himself not thinking of how to control a threat—but how to survive it.

Inside the Hokage's Office, late afternoon sunlight slanted through the tall windows, casting long shadows over the polished desk.

Tsunade sat opposite Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage, a spread of old archives and confidential reports laid out between them. The most prominent among them bore a single name stamped in bold ink: Uchiha Gen.

She turned each page slowly, her sharp eyes scanning the meticulous handwriting, the faded mission logs, the clipped evaluations. But the deeper she read, the more a knot of unease began to twist in her stomach.

"…Strange," she murmured, her fingers pausing mid-turn. Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Old man… some of these entries—some parts of these archives—don't feel right to me."

Hiruzen didn't answer immediately. He sat in silence, pipe resting forgotten on the desk, his gaze distant. Finally, after a long breath, he spoke in a low, almost reluctant voice.

"You're right, Tsunade."

Her eyes sharpened at the admission. "You mean you know him?"

A flicker of old memory passed through Hiruzen's expression. He nodded slowly, then reached into the bottom drawer of his desk. From within, he pulled a bundle of sealed, dust-lined papers tied with aged string.

"I am… not entirely unfamiliar with Uchiha Gen," he said, as though each word weighed more than it should.

Tsunade leaned forward, curiosity pushing past her unease.

"In fact," Hiruzen continued, "as early as his days in the Ninja Academy, Gen sent us letters. Many of them."

"Letters?" Tsunade's brows lifted. "I've combed through his entire file and there's nothing like that recorded. Just a short essay buried in his student history."

Hiruzen gave a bitter, self-deprecating smile and shook his head. "Because he didn't send them openly. He hid them—inside school assignments, journal entries, even casual essays. A very subtle method, but one clearly meant to be read by the village's leadership."

Tsunade's frown deepened. "You're saying… he used Academy homework to communicate directly with the Hokage's office?"

"That's right." Hiruzen set the bundle down on the desk, his voice heavy with the weight of hindsight. "At the time, we dismissed them as the ramblings of a lonely child. We thought he was simply seeking attention. That was… a grave mistake."

There was a rare note of shame in his tone. "If we had taken those words seriously—if we had seen what he was trying to show us—perhaps things would not have reached the state they're in now."

He let out a slow sigh. "Back then, Gen still trusted us. He still believed the higher-ups could be reasoned with. He wrote about his clan's future, about ways to avoid the path that would lead to their destruction. He tried to give us warnings. Solutions."

Hiruzen's eyes dimmed. "…And we ignored them. Worse still, we were unfair to him."

Tsunade's jaw tightened. "What exactly did he say during his Academy years?"

Wordlessly, Hiruzen broke the seal on the old bundle. The scrolls inside gave off the faint, musty scent of paper that had been stored too long. He spread out a neat stack of handwritten essays, their ink faded but still clear.

"See for yourself," he said quietly.

Tsunade took the top one and glanced at the title—her brow arched almost immediately.

'Uchiha, Too, Has Great Love.'

"…What kind of title is this?" she muttered under her breath, more to herself than to Hiruzen.

But as she began to read—carefully, line by line—her expression shifted. The handwriting was that of a boy, still rough and unpolished, but the voice behind it was startlingly mature. The tone was soft, almost gentle, but the thoughts were far older than the hand that penned them.

In the essay, Gen spoke of the misunderstandings and walls between the Uchiha and the rest of the village—not with bitterness, but with clarity. He suggested that if the village's leaders approached the Uchiha with more openness, with honest communication and recognition, the tension could be dissolved. Not only could the two sides coexist, but they could thrive together.

By the time she reached the final paragraph, Tsunade found her lips pressed into a thin line.

A boy in the Academy had written this. And the leadership of Konoha… had left it to gather dust.

When she finished, Tsunade laid the paper down and sighed. "This isn't the voice of an extremist—it's the voice of someone with rare clarity. Why didn't you act on this?"

Hiruzen's eyes closed briefly. "Because at that time, Gen was no prodigy—just an unremarkable Uchiha child, not even awakened to his Sharingan. And…" His voice faltered. "…I chose to ignore him."

The confession hung heavy in the room.

He went on, slower now, as if the words themselves were reluctant to leave. "As he wrote more essays, I… sent Shisui to observe him."

"Shisui?" Tsunade's frown deepened. "Why would you involve him over something like this? Was a child's opinion really so threatening?"

"The Uchiha were already on edge," Hiruzen said. "And Gen's words—calm as they seemed—could be taken the wrong way by the wrong ears. I feared he might, unintentionally, become a catalyst for unrest."

Tsunade's jaw tightened. Or perhaps you just didn't think a child had the right to speak on matters between the clan and the Hokage's office. She didn't voice it, but her eyes made it plain.

Hiruzen continued. "Shisui confronted him. They argued. Shisui warned him that what he was doing violated the village's rules."

Tsunade's voice hardened. "So he threatened a defenseless boy."

"Shisui believed his mind was… unnatural for his age. That he might be manipulated. He even recommended arrest and investigation."

"Arrest? For this?" Tsunade's hands tightened on the edge of the desk. "These essays are nothing but concern for the village—clear-headed, constructive, even selfless. How could that possibly warrant suspicion?"

"I didn't approve the arrest," Hiruzen said quietly. "But… I failed him in another way." His eyes dimmed. "I arranged for him to receive a failing grade. He couldn't graduate. And after that… he never returned to the Academy."

Tsunade stared at him. "That's no different than exile. For a child like him… it may have been worse."

Her voice was low now, but the disappointment in it was sharp as glass. "You had a boy who reached out in good faith—and you crushed it under protocol."

Hiruzen didn't argue. He only looked down at the scattered pages, as if the weight of them might bow the desk.

If only he'd known…