After taking Danzo away from the Uchiha compound, Ren began to notice a difference, one that was subtle at first, but unmistakable the longer he walked.
The air felt lighter.
It wasn't something he could quantify with chakra sensing alone, but even that picked up on it. The Uchiha they passed, those standing guard, those tending to the wounded, those simply sitting with their backs against walls, felt different. The suffocating pressure that had clung to the compound earlier, the kind born from years of grievance and resentment, had thinned. It wasn't gone, not completely, but it was no longer choking.
They looked tired, grief-stricken. Some looked hollow, but felt lighter.
Ren glanced down at Danzo.
The man being dragged behind him wasn't screaming anymore. He wasn't cursing. He wasn't even sneering.
He was blank.
Not indifferent, Ren knew what indifference looked like, he had seen on the same man before. This was worse. His eyes were open, unfocused, staring at nothing in particular. It was as if whatever had been keeping him moving, scheming, clawing forward had finally been stripped away.
Ren paused for a brief moment and crouched, forcing Danzo's face up by the chin.
No resistance.
No reaction.
Ren's eyes narrowed slightly. He let his perception spread, then sharpened it, checking layer by layer. Chakra flow, normal. Mind, intact. No distortion, no foreign interference.
No genjutsu.
He straightened again and resumed dragging Danzo along.
"…Damn," Ren muttered under his breath. "They really went all out, didn't they."
Whatever the Uchiha had done in that hour, it hadn't just broken Danzo's body again. It had hollowed him out in a way Ren hadn't anticipated. Not erased, just… emptied.
Eventually, Ren led them out of the village proper, past the outer defenses and into the darker stretch beyond the walls. He raised two fingers to his mouth and blew a sharp, precise whistle.
A moment later, a shadow passed overhead.
The Konoha jonin signal eagle descended in a smooth arc and circled once before landing nearby. Ren tapped the message tag tied to its leg, fed it a brief pulse of chakra, and gestured forward.
"Lead me to Kakashi," he said.
The eagle took off immediately and Ren followed and it didn't take long.
As he approached the location, the smell hit him first, iron-heavy, sharp, mixed with burned earth and lingering chakra residue. When the scene came into view, Ren's steps slowed.
It was bad.
Scattered across the field were fragments of bodies, arms, torsos, unrecognizable remains torn apart by explosions and high-yield jutsu. The ground was cratered in dozens of places, scorched black and cracked open like shattered glass. Trees were snapped or burned down to stumps. The air still trembled faintly with residual chakra.
Ren's expression hardened.
Kakashi noticed him a moment later and moved forward, stopping a short distance away. His flak jacket was torn in places, his clothes stained dark, but he was standing straight and alive.
Ren didn't bother with greetings.
"What happened here?" he asked, his voice low and serious. "Why's it it this bloody?"
Kakashi exhaled through his nose, rubbing the back of his neck. "Calm down. Most of this isn't ours."
Ren didn't relax.
Kakashi continued, "Danzo's agents… they were suicide units. We didn't realize at first. Lost a few people when they rushed us head-on and detonated themselves."
His visible eye darkened slightly.
"After that, we pulled back. Switched tactics. Long-range harassment, attrition, pressure from multiple angles. Took longer, but we broke them. No survivors."
Ren scanned the field again. "…No remains."
Kakashi nodded. "Nothing usable. Most of them took themselves out completely."
Ren let out a slow breath and nodded once. "Good. Then there's nothing to worry about."
He glanced down at Danzo again. "Even if you'd captured them, they would've been useless. Whatever hold Danzo had on them ran deeper than seals. I was just worried he'd hidden something nasty out here."
Kakashi shook his head. "If he did, it didn't surface."
Satisfied, Ren stepped forward and unceremoniously shoved Danzo toward Kakashi.
"Here," Ren said. "A gift. For your first successful large-scale operation."
Kakashi caught Danzo by reflex, then looked down at him and stiffened slightly when he saw the arm, the seals, the state he was in.
Ren smirked faintly. "Don't get used to it. There'll be more operations like this in the future… but don't expect gifts every time."
Kakashi stood there for a long moment, Danzo's weight slumped awkwardly in his grip, the man barely conscious, barely present. The receding night sky stretched endlessly above them, stars faint behind drifting smoke and residual chakra haze. Kakashi tilted his head back slightly, as if trying to look past it all, and spoke again, his voice quiet but steady.
"You know… after this campaign, I realized something."
Ren didn't answer. He didn't need to. He leaned against a broken slab of stone, arms crossed loosely, eyes half-lidded. This wasn't a conversation that needed interruptions. Kakashi wasn't talking to Ren so much as he was finally allowing himself to speak.
"When a person becomes a shinobi of the village," Kakashi continued, "they're expected to make sacrifices for the village. Not hypothetically. Not in speeches or ceremonies. Real sacrifices. Lives, blood, things you can't take back."
He glanced down at the battlefield again, at the scorched earth, the remains that hadn't even earned the dignity of a recognizable form.
"They're shinobi of the village. They take missions from the village. And they're expected to complete them."
His grip on Danzo tightened for just a fraction of a second, then loosened again.
"Today, I was handed command. I knew what that meant. I knew that if things went wrong, people would die. Some of them did." His jaw tightened, but his voice didn't waver. "As the leader, that responsibility fell on me. The orders, the formations, the decision to pull back or push forward."
He paused, then let out a slow breath.
"But that's the life of a shinobi. Facing the consequences of your decisions."
Ren's gaze shifted slightly, attentive now, though he still said nothing.
Kakashi's voice softened, turning inward.
"My father… all this time, I thought I understood what happened. I thought he refused to abandon his comrades. I thought that was the whole story."
A faint, humorless smile tugged at his lips.
"But today, I realized something else."
He looked down, his visible eye darkening.
"Yes. He refused to abandon his comrades. But he also refused to complete his duty. He refused to face the consequences of his responsibility."
The words hung heavy in the air.
"I'm not saying my father's death was justified," Kakashi added quickly, almost reflexively. "What was done to him afterward, the rumors, the isolation, that was wrong. Unforgivable."
His hand trembled slightly before he steadied it.
"But…" He hesitated, then continued. "He might've been a good person. A great comrade. Someone people trusted with their lives."
He exhaled quietly. "But he wasn't a good shinobi."
The admission landed harder than any shouted accusation ever could.
Ren closed his eyes briefly. Kakashi was right.
The unspoken rulebook of shinobi, the one no academy taught, the one etched into blood and loss, was simple in its cruelty. A leader didn't just protect those close to him. A leader had to weigh lives. Had to choose who lived and who died. And then live with that choice.
Sakumo Hatake, for all his strength and brilliance, had made his choice out of fear of loss. He saved his comrades, but in doing so, he abandoned the mission. And if that mission had truly been critical, if it had been one that decided the fate of the village, then saving ten lives might have endangered thousands.
That didn't make him evil. But it did make him unfit for the role he'd been given.
Ren opened his eyes and looked at Kakashi again. There was no judgment in his gaze. Just understanding.
"Strength isn't just about power," Ren said quietly. "It's about bearing the weight of what you choose."
Kakashi nodded once, slowly. "Yeah."
He looked at Danzo again, at the twisted irony of the man who had destroyed Sakumo's name while hiding behind the excuse of 'the village.'
"I spent years hating everything my father's death," Kakashi said. "Thinking about the rules of being a shinobi. Later I learned what it meant to be a good person. However for people like us…"
He let out a tired breath.
"We need to maintain a delicate balance of both things, I think that's the real lesson I learned from all of this."
Ren didn't argue.
Sometimes, understanding came too late. Sometimes, it came only after walking through blood and fire. But when it came, it changed everything.
The night was quiet again and somewhere in that silence, Kakashi Hatake finally let go of a burden he'd carried since childhood, not by forgetting his father, but by understanding him.
Ren reached out and gave Kakashi's shoulder a firm pat. His voice was calm, almost conversational, but there was weight behind every word.
"It's good that you understand," Ren said. "If this had happened when I was the Hokage, things would've played out differently. It might not have ended in death, but your father would've been punished. Harshly." He paused, then added without malice, "Because that's what responsibility demands."
Kakashi didn't flinch, he listened.
Ren continued, "You understand this at your age. That already makes you different from him. You'll become a better person than your father ever had the chance to be." His gaze sharpened slightly. "And more importantly, you'll be a good shinobi, not just a good man."
He tilted his chin toward the half-conscious Danzo lying between them like discarded refuse. "So," Ren asked casually, "you wanna kill him or not? We're short on time."
Ren glanced east. The horizon was already beginning to pale, the first thin line of dawn cutting through the darkness. Night was ending. Loose ends had to be tied now.
Kakashi's posture shifted.
The reflective stillness vanished, replaced by something colder, clearer. Resolve.
"Of course," Kakashi said quietly. "Even if my father failed as a shinobi… he didn't deserve to die like that." His visible eye narrowed as he looked down at Danzo. "He is the reason my father died."
There was no hesitation.
Kakashi's hands blurred through a rapid sequence of seals. Chakra surged violently, lightning screaming into existence around his palm.
Chidori.
The sound tore through the battlefield, sharp and merciless.
Kakashi stepped forward and drove his hand straight through Danzo's chest.
There was no speech, no last words. Just the brutal certainty of lightning piercing flesh.
Kakashi held the strike, arm buried deep, until the resistance faded completely. Until Danzo's body went limp. Until the chakra signature sputtered out and vanished as Izanagi burned away another stolen eye.
Danzo's corpse dissolved into nothing.
A heartbeat later Ren flickered.
His foot lashed out, kicking Danzo's newly reformed body mid-run and slamming him face-first into the dirt. Ren grabbed his ankle before he could even orient himself, yanking him back with casual ease.
"Told you," Ren said lightly, crouching beside him with a grin. "Your escape attempts are getting old."
Danzo wheezed, eyes wide with pure terror now. There was no rage left. No schemes. Just the creeping realization that this really was the end.
Ren leaned in closer, his voice low enough that only Danzo could hear.
"Well," he said cheerfully, "your lives are finished, old man. It's finally time to say goodbye to your roach-like existence."
He stood, hoisted Danzo by the ankle once more, and turned back to Kakashi.
"Kakashi," Ren said, his tone shifting from mockery to command, "gather all your men. Return to the village."
Kakashi straightened immediately.
"Starting today," Ren continued, "you work under old man Shikaku. You'll learn the ropes. Mission allocation. Command logistics. How to move shinobi units without bleeding them dry."
He met Kakashi's eye squarely.
"Three years from now, on the day I take over as Hokage, you'll become the Jonin Commander."
Kakashi's breath caught for just a fraction of a second.
Ren smirked. "Your days as a lazy slob are over. I expect you to work hard. Is that clear?"
Kakashi dropped to one knee without hesitation, fist to the ground in proper shinobi formality.
"Yes," he said firmly. "Your order has been received."
Ren nodded once, satisfied.
Without another word, he turned and began dragging Danzo back toward the village, the rising sun casting long shadows behind them.
Kakashi remained kneeling.
He stayed that way until Ren's presence faded completely, swallowed by the morning light. Only then did Kakashi rise to his feet.
Behind his mask, he smiled.
His days of rest were over.
But for the first time in a long while, Kakashi Hatake didn't feel dread at the future.
Only anticipation.
~~~~~
{This thing about Sakumo, I got this idea from a person among you guys only, I don't remember the name, but they wrote what I expressed in this chapter about Sakumo and I think they were right, this was the reason I had made this Kakashi bit slightly longer than I had expected and given this a whole chapter, but now, we've also developed Kakashi's character, which will be good for the future.}