The Undesired Second Chance

Chapter 52: Rotten Roots

Danzō considered the report on his desk, another negative: still alive, then.

It is... improbable, that the individual in question has not yet died. The seal was to be placed on the target without proper warning, trusting that a civilian's loose tongue would sort out the problem on its own. It was simple enough to broaden the trigger phrases to make activation all the more likely; both to ensure he woulddie, and still be able to justify the death as a matter of operational security. Once dead, the man's corpse could simply be collected for further investigation of the reported dōjutsu interaction. Or the lack thereof, technically.

And yet... the target still breathes.

Danzō didn't oversee the application of the seal personally, of course, as he could hardly be expected to monitor every minor task. Especially when his time was better spent on other matters. Though, annoyingly, those matters included non-trivial effort to ensure that the Namikaze brat's interference would lead to no other leaks.

While the young jonin certainly has potential—one would need to be bothblind and ignorantto miss that—his foolish ideals would lead to his death sooner or later. Sooner, if needs must.

Being made to release one civilian curiosity was shame enough, to lose any of the valuable projects would be unacceptable.

He set aside the report; if the subject was still breathing come the end of the week, there were other options that would get him back in their custody, whether alive or dead scarcely mattered. Whatever secret of chakra or biology that had somehow enabled a simple civilian to evade the Byakugan wouldbe unraveled, and taken for his own. In due time.

Regardless, this messhas no bearing on current operations—at least not beyond the impact it has had on his mood.

The village always had priority.

Another scroll detailed the events of an attempted sabotage, two Root agents sent to disrupt enemy supply lines at the border of the Land of Earth. They had been discovered by a scouting team from Kusagakure, but had successfully disguised the resulting deaths as an intrusion from the Land of Rain. A suitable improvisation. He would take that into account when determining their punishment for failing the original mission.

Freshly inked brush in hand, he began marking over key details in the report—leaving enough information for his records, but blotting out key specifics. There is nothing particularly incriminating in this report, but others more thoroughly blackened blend better among censored scrolls than those left untouched.

A tremor of chakra through his security seals indicated an unexpected arrival: one of his agents, but not one scheduled to report. Before permitting entry, Danzō made a point to finish marking out the scroll. The ink dried quickly, and everything was tucked away in short order.

Finally, as he temporarily lowered the seals rimming his personal office, he called, "You may enter."

The door opened silently, and his shinobi was swift to kneel on the opposite side of his desk. "Commander. The Hokage requests your presence."

That's... surprising.

"Time?"

"Immediately, sir."

Danzō scowled, considering the implications—the causes, the why. It was not often that the Hokage felt he had to speak with himimmediately, let alone actually sent for him with orders explicitly saying so.

He debated the merits of simply delaying, just ten or so minutes, to investigate why this unexpected meeting would be so urgent. It couldn't actuallybe an emergency, with the war or the village itself; there was no possible way his agents would have missed something of that degree.