Chapter 532: Danzo
The streets of Konoha were quiet at night, lit only by the scattered glow of lanterns.
Jiraiya made his way back toward the Hokage building with a dinner box in hand, his walk more of a drift than a stride. His eyes were rimmed with dark circles large enough to be their own landmark -- the accumulated mark of consecutive all-nighters.
The dinner was a simple bento from a stall near the village entrance. Whatever warmth it had once held had long since escaped.
Not that it mattered. He didn't have much of an appetite anyway. He just needed fuel enough to keep going through the rest of tonight's work.
Back to the Hokage's office. Back to the documents that never got any smaller no matter how many he signed.
By his own calculation, five more hours on the clock, then he could rest.
Four hours of sleep.
Perfect.
He gave himself this quiet encouragement and kept walking, though his feet didn't pick up the pace in response.
For all that, Jiraiya wasn't complaining.
This was what peace looked like. No wars to worry about. No threats bearing down on the village. No waking up each morning wondering whether today was the day an enemy came over the walls. The whole village was building and growing -- the economy stronger, daily life more comfortable, children's laughter more common. Of course the Hokage was run ragged. Of course there was too much to do.
This was a tremendous stroke of fortune.
He could have sent ANBU to get his dinner. Being Hokage came with at least that much in the way of privileges. But he'd chosen to step outside himself, if only briefly, because he had been sitting in that chair all day and was fairly certain his back end had gone numb. One more hour without moving and he was going to develop some kind of irreversible spinal complaint.
At last he reached the Hokage building, pushed open the office door, and felt around in the dark for the light switch.
The room lit up.
Jiraiya crossed toward the wide desk -- and stopped.
"...You're back again."
A note of tired resignation had entered his voice. Because there, in the broad Hokage's chair on the other side of the desk, an uninvited guest was perched.
A young hawk.
Small -- its feathers still the dusty, unformed grey of a bird that hadn't finished growing. Its talons were sunk firmly into the seat cushion, and those round eyes were fixed on Jiraiya without a trace of alarm, without any particular wariness. Just a profound, uncomplicated certainty that this was precisely where it belonged.
Jiraiya waved a hand at it.
"Shoo! I have work to do. Move along."
The hawk did not move. If anything, its talons pressed a little deeper into the cushion.
They looked at each other for a few seconds.
"...Fine. You win."
Jiraiya decided he wasn't going to argue with a bird. He pulled a chair around to the other side of the desk, sat down, set his dinner out, and started on the documents.
The young hawk settled in the Hokage's chair and produced a low, satisfied sound somewhere between a coo and a rumble.
A short while later -- roughly when Jiraiya had expected it -- a figure appeared in the doorway.
An old man, past eighty, dressed in ordinary clothes. But his body had the bearing of someone who had never stopped training: upright, self-sufficient, requiring no walking stick.
Hiruzen Sarutobi.
The Third Hokage.
"Danzo? Danzo?" he was calling as he peered into the room. "Are you in here?"
Jiraiya looked up from his paperwork with an expression of exhausted disbelief.
"Old man. The stupid bird is over here."
He pointed his pen at the hawk in the Hokage chair. "Is it so difficult to keep track of one animal?"
"Ha ha ha --" Hiruzen laughed -- a sound that held equal parts exasperation and affection. "My apologies, my apologies. I looked away for a moment and it was gone again."
He came into the office and extended his hand toward the young hawk.
"Come now, Danzo. Let's go home. There are good slices of wagyu waiting for you this evening."
The hawk did not budge. Its talons locked into the cushion, and those round eyes fixed on Hiruzen steadily.
Hiruzen tried again, reaching further.
The hawk turned its head away from his hand.
He reached a third time.
The hawk bit him.
"Ow!" Hiruzen pulled his hand back and looked at the small red mark forming on the back of it, somewhere between amusement and helplessness.
Jiraiya watched all of this and couldn't quite help himself. "Old man. Doesn't this strike you as a little strange?"
He set his pen down and looked at the hawk in the Hokage's chair. "That bird of yours has no interest in food, no interest in comfort, and apparently wants nothing out of life except to sit in the Hokage's chair."
He gave Hiruzen a look. "Tell me honestly -- you don't think there's a chance this thing is actually Shimura Danzo reincarnated?"
"Don't talk nonsense." Hiruzen waved the suggestion away and made another attempt at the hawk.
"Although..." He thought about it for a moment, and despite himself, a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Who can say, really?"
The young hawk's name was Danzo.
There was a story behind that.
Not long ago, Hiruzen had celebrated a milestone birthday. His grandson Konohamaru, wanting to give his grandfather something meaningful, had prepared a special gift -- a young hawk, barely out of the nest.
Konohamaru explained that he had bought it from a merchant who claimed the species became extraordinarily impressive with age, the kind of bird favored by nobles and people of distinction.
Hiruzen had not been particularly interested in keeping a bird. At his age, he had seen most things the world had to offer, and the idea of managing a pet seemed more trouble than it was worth. But it was his grandson's thoughtfulness, so he accepted it and kept the bird close.
At first, everything was ordinary. A young hawk was a young hawk -- it ate, it slept, it cried occasionally, nothing exceptional about it.
But as the days went on, Hiruzen noticed something unusual.
This young hawk, small as it was, had eyes that were strangely deep.
Eyes that carried a weight no fledgling should possess.
And within them, a cold and unsettling sharpness -- something that sent a faint chill through anyone who met its gaze directly.
Hiruzen found it odd at first. But then he noticed something odder still: he wasn't put off by that gaze. He found it familiar. The way you feel looking at someone you have known for a very long time. Someone who has been gone for many years.
And so, out of something between memory and sentiment, he gave the hawk a name.
Danzo.
The friend he had grown up with. Fought alongside. Dedicated his life to protecting the same village alongside, before they had walked different roads. The friend who had died on the night of the Uchiha massacre -- the person who carried more of Hiruzen's complicated feelings than almost anyone else he had ever known.
After naming the bird, Hiruzen discovered the strangest thing of all.
This hawk -- this Danzo -- had developed what could only be described as a fixation. It flew to the Hokage's office with persistent regularity. And once it got there, it went directly to the Hokage's chair, and would stay there for an entire day if no one removed it.
As though it had unfinished business with that particular piece of furniture.
Hiruzen didn't know what to make of it. Perhaps it was coincidence. Perhaps the bird simply had an unusual temperament. Perhaps -- well. Who could say.
After considerable effort, Hiruzen finally managed to get his arms around the struggling hawk and lift it. "All right, all right. Enough of this. We're going home. Food, remember?"
The hawk flapped and fussed in his arms, making its displeasure audible, its eyes still angled back toward the Hokage's chair with something unmistakably like longing.
Hiruzen turned toward the door, hawk held firmly against his chest --
BANG.
The office door crashed open with enough force to slam the wood into the wall.
A Konoha ninja stumbled in, face drained of color, forehead slick with cold sweat.
"Something's wrong -- Hokage-sama --!"
His voice carried fear he was making no attempt to conceal.
Jiraiya and Hiruzen both looked up at the same instant.
"What is it?!"
"The village..." The ninja swallowed. His eyes were wide. "The village is surrounded -- by something -- there are so many of them --"
His hand pointed toward the window, trembling.
"They're about to break through --!"