Chapter 165: On the Subject of Minato Namikaze
The office door opened. Light spilled through the gap, and then filled the space as it swung wide.
Sakura's green eyes moved freely across the room — the old man at the desk, the papers in front of him, the walls bearing a map of the ninja world and photographs of the First and Second Hokage. Sparse. Purposeful.
"You're here."
Danzō looked up from his documents as she pulled a chair over and sat without being invited.
"What did you want?"
Arms crossed. Eyes fixed on the bandaged eye socket — or rather, on what was underneath it.
Shisui Uchiha's eye. Kotoamatsukami. The most powerful genjutsu in the Uchiha lineage — able to rewrite a person's motivations from the inside, invisible in its application, effectively undetectable.
Sakura felt no particular concern about it.
As her understanding of yin and yang release had deepened, she'd become increasingly comfortable with both natures. The Sharingan, at its core, was a yin release product. Whatever its individual capabilities, genjutsu-type Sharingan techniques were the category she feared least.
Itachi's Tsukuyomi had been broken out of by Inner Sakura dragging Sakura's consciousness through it by sheer force. She had reason to believe Kotoamatsukami would present similar — similar — difficulties.
Probably.
"You wrote this very well."
Danzō slid the document toward her.
The yellowed exam paper. Her handwriting, unmistakably.
One pink eyebrow rose slightly. A flash of challenge in the green eyes.
"And?"
At her tone — the undisguised hostility — Danzō exhaled.
"I'm sure Hiruzen has spoken poorly of me in your presence."
She waited without responding. If he had more to say, she'd hear it.
"There was a time — myself, Hiruzen, Kagami Uchiha, and others — following the Second Hokage to the Land of Lightning for ceasefire negotiations. The Gold and Silver Brothers ambushed us. Tobirama-sensei said someone needed to stay behind. To give everyone else a chance to escape."
He paused, settling into the memory.
"I was about to step forward. Hiruzen was faster."
"Tobirama-sensei wasn't actually selecting a volunteer. He was selecting the next Hokage."
"Because I didn't speak first — that position was lost to me."
"From then on, Hiruzen was the tree that grows in the sun. I was the root buried in the ground."
Sakura tilted her head.
"So you think that's unfair?"
Something moved in Danzō's expression.
"Of course it was unfair! One step! One moment, and everything went to him!"
"If Hiruzen had done an adequate job, perhaps I could accept it. But look at what happened during his tenure—"
"Sakumo Hatake's suicide. Orochimaru's defection. Jiraiya and Tsunade leaving the village. The Nine-Tails incident. The Fourth Hokage's death. The Uchiha massacre."
"Does none of that say anything to you?!"
"The only reason the village survived it is that Konoha's foundations were strong enough to absorb the damage. But I couldn't stand by and watch him squander everything we built!"
In the bright light of the office, Danzō's figure seemed almost impressive.
Sakura looked at the exam paper in front of her. It had acquired some of his saliva during the speech.
It's contaminated now. Can't keep it.
Also: if you're going to throw mud at someone, at least make sure your own hands are clean.
The Uchiha massacre had Danzō's fingerprints on it. Orochimaru's path had Danzō's fingerprints on it. The Nine-Tails incident — where had the Root been? Where had Danzō been?
But she didn't say any of this.
She watched him and waited for the actual ask.
"So. What do you actually want, Danzō-sama?"
"You still don't see it?"
He leaned forward slightly.
"Staying with Hiruzen leads nowhere good. Sakumo, Orochimaru, the Uchiha — those are your examples."
"But if you join Root—"
He straightened.
"I'll take you as my student immediately. Everything I know, passed to you without reservation. And the entire Root apparatus will be at your disposal."
Sakura's eyes moved. Just slightly.
Danzō felt a flicker of something.
There it is.
She's too intelligent not to understand the value of keeping options open.
Even Hiruzen couldn't have fully captured her loyalty—
"But the old man is raising me to be the next Hokage."
Her voice was thoughtful, slightly puzzled.
"Does Danzō-sama think Root is a better position than Hokage?"
"Or does he think the Hokage can't deploy Root when needed?"
The confusion she'd performed was a very precise blade.
The words Danzō had been about to say caught in his throat.
"Hokage?"
He recovered.
"Minato Namikaze thought the same thing. And where did that lead?"
"He died."
"Hiruzen can use the Dead Demon Consuming Seal. Why didn't he use it himself? Why did he allow a young man to sacrifice himself when an older one could have done it instead?"
Sakura exhaled quietly.
"Does Danzō-sama genuinely believe the Fourth's survival would have changed anything?"
Danzō paused.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Let me explain."
She cleared her throat.
This is a public service. Free of charge.
"Minato Namikaze was the Fourth Hokage. The Nine-Tails' jinchūriki was his wife."
"The Nine-Tails incident occurred during his watch. Even if he survived — what then?"
Danzō looked at the girl who had apparently shifted into lecture mode and tried to work out when this had stopped being his conversation.
"The seal on a jinchūriki is weakest during childbirth. Even Lady Mito sealed the Nine-Tails into herself after giving birth. The second Nine-Tails host had the tailed beast sealed into her from childhood."
"Strictly speaking — a female jinchūriki attempting to give birth is a serious risk. And Minato allowed it anyway."
"When the Nine-Tails broke its seal, Minato didn't prevent the outbreak in time. The village suffered enormous damage. Elite ninja were lost. Civilians died. His wife was dying."
"He was the Hokage. The jinchūriki was his wife. The Nine-Tails outbreak happened on his watch, in his village, because of a choice he made. That responsibility doesn't go anywhere."
How does this girl know classified material at this level, Danzō thought, directing several layers of his feelings toward Hiruzen.
"The Nine-Tails could have been sealed without the Dead Demon Consuming Seal. We know this because what Kushina carried was a Four Symbols Seal, not the Dead Demon version. The techniques existed."
Sakura adjusted her nonexistent glasses.
"So why the Dead Demon Consuming Seal?"
A perfectly timed pause.
"Good question," she said, answering herself.
"How was the Fourth Hokage's marriage?"
Danzō blinked. "...Quite good, I suppose."
He recalled — Kumogakure had once attempted to kidnap Kushina. A twelve-year-old Minato had gone alone to retrieve her.
"Correct. Minato loved Kushina. Deeply."
"The seal could have been performed without dying. He chose the lethal version."
"Danzō-sama."
She looked at him with patience.
"He died for love."
Danzō sat with this.
He understood love as a mechanism — the most effective leverage he had over his Root members was precisely the vulnerabilities that love created. Familial bonds. Friendship. Attachment.
He was probably the person in the world most aware of how much damage love could do.
But a Hokage — abandoning the village he'd just allowed to be devastated, choosing death because he couldn't bear to face the consequences?
That's not the behavior of a leader. That's—
Wait. Responsibility.
"I can see Danzō-sama has found the key point."
The girl looked at him with serene satisfaction.
He'd just been called a classmate. By a twelve-year-old.
He opened his mouth. She continued before he could use it.
"During his tenure, he allowed a childbirth that resulted in a catastrophic seal failure. He failed to prevent the Nine-Tails from rampaging. The village was severely damaged. Upper-level ninja were killed — tokubetsu jōnin, standard jōnin, even people at the level of Yūhi Kurenai's parents' generation. Many of the veterans who survived the Third Shinobi World War died that night. His wife was dying. A newborn son he'd just become father to."
"The weight of his responsibilities as Hokage. The weight of his failure as a husband. A child who'd just made him a father. All of it at once."
"He looked at his wife dying in his arms."
"Felt her going cold."
"Looked at the village in ruins."
"Thought about what would be said about him afterward."
"And made a decision."
"Dying like this — taking responsibility, sacrificing himself — was preferable to surviving with what he'd done and what would follow."
"He trusted the Third to handle the aftermath. The death would be noble. The blame would fade. The story would be clean."
The office was quiet.
Danzō found himself doing something he rarely did: considering a version of events he hadn't considered before.
What if it was actually—
Wait. We were talking about Hiruzen.
When did this become about Minato?
Oh. I brought up Minato.
"So," Danzō said carefully, "you think the Fourth Hokage chose death because he couldn't bear the pressure?"
"Who knows? I'm not him."
"But Danzō-sama has personal experience with what an uncontrolled narrative can do to a person."
The teapot on his desk caught her eye. She considered it briefly and decided against.
"Certainly. The White Fang's situation—"
He stopped.
He looked at Sakura.
She was looking back at him with an expression that was not quite a smile.
He'd just confirmed something without being asked.
"Danzō-sama clearly understands how words can cut down even the most capable people," she said pleasantly.
She stood.
Before throwing mud at Hiruzen, he might consider whether his own record was clean.
Sakumo Hatake's story. If Sakumo had lived, Minato never becomes the Fourth. Danzō's fingerprints were on that too.
He'd miscalculated — eliminated one obstacle and found another one waiting behind it.
"Don't bother trying to dirty the old man's reputation. Clean your own first."
She turned toward the door.
"You think you can just leave?" Danzō's voice sharpened.
He rose slowly. The single eye cold.
"Why not?" She looked back at him. "My mom wants me home for dinner."
"You should eat too, Danzō-sama."
Pink hair at shoulder length, one hand playing idly with a strand of it. Green eyes completely unbothered by the threat.
"Though I forgot — you don't have parents, do you."
"No mom to go home to~~~"
The office door, which had been the only exit, suddenly had Root members filing through it from the outside — filling the room, surrounding her on all sides.
"Insolence toward your superior! This is a capital offense!"
"Seize her!"
"Kay~"
Pop.
A cloud of smoke appeared in the center of the ring of Root members.
When it cleared: nothing.
A shadow clone.
Sakura had made the swap somewhere on the way in, during a moment when her escort wasn't watching closely enough. She'd been uncertain about her ability to resist Kotoamatsukami under ideal conditions — the shadow clone had seemed like appropriate caution.
Results: satisfactory.
Danzō stared at the empty smoke.
Haruno Sakura.
He wanted to file a complaint with Hiruzen. He didn't have grounds.
The no parents remark had landed somewhere.
Somewhere real.
Meanwhile, the actual Sakura was sitting at her family's dinner table, being talked to firmly about something by her mother, pushing food around her bowl with a faint smile.
As for whether Danzō would find ways to inconvenience her parents:
If her parents lost so much as one hair to anything connected to him—
She'd take Root apart from the foundation, and then she'd deal with Danzō personally.
(Chapter End)
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