"…then I will personally correct you."
The last words were calm, but the menace beneath them was unmistakable.
Rin did not turn around.
"I understand," he replied evenly, and stepped out through the iron door.
---
The heavy door closed behind him with a dull thud.
The two Root operatives escorted him back the way they had come, still silent, still vigilant. The underground passage, the hidden turns, the secluded route—Rin committed every detail to memory.
Only after he emerged back onto the familiar streets of Konoha did they vanish without a word, melting into the shadows as if they had never existed.
Rin exhaled slowly.
So it really was Danzo Shimura.
Just as ruthless, just as arrogant, and just as convinced that everything and everyone existed to be "used for Konoha."
"Watching me, huh…" Rin murmured.
If Danzo truly believed surveillance alone would be enough, he was underestimating the Uchiha.
---
Back home, Rin locked the door and sat down by the window.
The entire conversation replayed in his mind, word for word.
Danzo hadn't forced him into Root—not yet. That meant two things:
First, Danzo still needed him alive and intact.
Second, Danzo believed Rin's growth could still be controlled.
That was the opening Rin had deliberately left.
"If I grow too fast," Rin thought, "I'll become a threat. If I grow too slowly, I'll be 'discarded.'"
A thin line—razor-thin.
But walking on the edge was something the Uchiha were good at.
Danzo wanted loyalty.
Madara had wanted dominance.
And Rin?
Rin wanted freedom.
---
Elsewhere, deep beneath Konoha.
Danzo sat alone in the dim chamber.
"The pride of the Uchiha…" he muttered.
A faint, humorless smile tugged at his lips.
"So be it. Grow, then. Prove your worth."
"If you truly reach the level of Uchiha Madara, I will either use you…"
"…or erase you."
---
That night, Rin stood in his backyard, looking at the corner where the iron box was buried.
White Zetsu.
Root.
Danzo.
Different forces, different motives.
Yet all of them had turned their eyes toward him.
Rin clenched his fist.
"Then come," he thought coldly. "Watch me. Test me."
"But remember this."
"I am not your pawn."
Above Konoha, clouds drifted slowly across the moon.
Unseen by anyone, a pair of eyes opened briefly in the darkness—
Calculating.
Waiting.
The game had begun.