The corridor was a pocket of stillness in the otherwise churning Hokage building. Renjiro had chosen this place deliberately. Far enough from the crowds to be private, close enough that any disturbance would be noticed—though not, perhaps, in time.
He turned to face Shiori, his expression calm, his posture relaxed. But his eyes, dark and unreadable, held a different story.
"So," he said, his voice flat, "why did you nominate me?"
Shiori met his gaze without flinching. Her composure was practised, the product of years spent navigating spaces where a wrong word could end a career—or a life.
"Why not?"
Renjiro's eyes narrowed. The response was a deflection, a way of buying time, of testing his reaction. He had seen it a hundred times in negotiations, in interrogations, in the careful dance of politics.
"Don't," he said, and the word carried an edge that had not been there before. "This isn't a game. I want a direct answer. And I'd appreciate it if you went straight to the point."
Shiori's smile faltered. She had expected resistance, perhaps, but not this—not the cold, absolute certainty of someone who would not be played with.
"We wanted to draw a line," she said finally, the lightness draining from her voice.
Renjiro's brows narrowed. He said nothing, letting the silence do its work. The pressure built, invisible but tangible, pressing against her like a physical weight.
"The two known candidates," Shiori continued, her words coming faster now, as if she were trying to outrun the silence, "were Minato Namikaze and Fugaku Uchiha. Minato is a war hero, Hiruzen's implicit successor. Fugaku is the strongest clan-backed candidate, the only clan leader with a real merit-based challenge." She paused, gathering herself. "The outcome was expected to be decided between the two."
Renjiro's expression did not change. "I still don't see my role in this."
Shiori's jaw tightened. "Both sides attempted to sway us. To pressure us. To strong-arm the neutral faction into supporting their candidate." She met his eyes. "We refused to be controlled."
"So you nominated me instead?" His voice was dry, cutting, openly displeased.
"That's your strategy? Assert independence by putting forward a name no one expected?"
"We wanted to show that we wouldn't bow to pressure," Shiori said, her voice rising slightly. "That we could think for ourselves. That—"
"Then why didn't you ask me?"
The question landed like a blade. Shiori's mouth opened, then closed. Her composure, so carefully maintained, cracked at the edges.
"We assumed—" she began.
"You assumed I would refuse."
She did not deny it. Could not. The silence was her answer.
Renjiro turned away, his gaze fixed on the shadows pooling in the corner of the corridor. His mind was racing, but his voice, when it came, was calm—too calm.
'Idiots,' he thought. 'They assumed I would refuse. They didn't even give me the courtesy of a conversation. They used my name, my reputation, my standing—without consent, without warning, without any consideration for the consequences.'
'Do they think I'm that naive? Do they think I'm that easy to manipulate?'
He turned back to face her, and his expression had changed. The calm was still there, but beneath it, something colder was stirring.
"You used my name without my consent," he said, and each word was precise, deliberate.
"You wasted my time. You wasted the village's time. And you damaged my reputation—because now every clan head, every elder, every political player in Konoha is wondering whose game I'm playing."
Shiori's face paled.
"That wasn't our intention—"
"Your intention doesn't matter." He stepped closer, and she stepped back, her heel hitting the wall. "What matters is what you did. And what you did was treat me like a tool. A piece on your board. Something to be moved without asking."
"Renjiro-san—"
"You said I deserved to be Hokage." His voice was soft now, almost conversational. "In your speech. You said I embodied the Will of Fire, that I represented merit over bloodline, that I was the future of the village." He tilted his head.
"Did you believe any of that?"
"Yes."
"Then why didn't you ask me?"
She had no answer.
Renjiro was silent for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice had changed—flatter, emptier. The voice of someone who had stopped pretending to be patient.
"What's stopping me from killing you right now?"
His Sharingan activated.
The world shifted. The space between them suddenly charged with the particular pressure of a dojutsu that had seen battlefields, that had ended lives, that had looked into the eyes of enemies and watched them die.
Shiori froze.
Her mind, trained for crisis, raced through the possibilities. He wouldn't. 'He couldn't. We're in the Hokage building. There are ANBU nearby. The celebration is happening just a few halls away. He's bluffing. He must be bluffing.'
But the cold certainty in his eyes said otherwise.
'He's not bluffing. He's actually considering it. Weighing the consequences. Calculating the cost.'
"You wouldn't go that far," she said, and her voice was steadier than she felt. "We're in the Hokage building. The ANBU—"
"Do you know anything about me?" Renjiro interrupted, his Sharingan spinning slowly. "What am I even asking, of course, you must have researched me. Before the nomination. Before your speech. You must have dug into my record, my history, my capabilities."
She said nothing.
"Then you know about my ANBU background." He stepped closer. "You know about the training. The techniques. The methods that don't leave marks, don't leave witnesses, don't leave anything except questions that no one knows how to ask."
Shiori's breath caught.
"I could kill you," Renjiro said, and his voice was calm, almost gentle, "twenty times over. No—thirty times. Without moving a muscle. Without anyone in the next room knowing. Without leaving a single trace that could be traced back to me."
He let the words settle, let the weight of them press against her chest.
"I've done it before. Not often. Not casually. But when it was necessary." He tilted his head. "The question is whether this is necessary."
Shiori's hand, pressed against the wall, trembled.
"A handful of shinobi in this village could stop me," Renjiro continued, his voice still calm, still conversational. "If I decided to kill you here and face the consequences head-on. A handful. Even fewer could contain me."
He stepped closer, close enough that she could feel the heat of his body, could see the patterns of his Sharingan reflected in her own wide eyes.
"You should have thought about all of this," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper, "before you tried to use me as a tool."
He pulled back slightly, his expression shifting from cold threat to something almost reasonable.
"I told you earlier that I'd appreciate it if you went straight to the point." He met her eyes. "So I'll ask you again. Directly. Who really put you up to this?"
Shiori's face went pale.
"How did you—"
"Choose your next words carefully," Renjiro interrupted. "Your life depends on them."
The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating. Shiori's mouth opened, closed, opened again. Her mind raced, searching for an escape, a deflection, a lie that would save her.
There was none.
"Danzo-sama," she whispered.
The name landed in the quiet corridor as a stone dropped into still water.
Renjiro's Sharingan did not waver. His expression did not change. But something behind his eyes shifted—a recognition, a confirmation, a cold acceptance of a truth he had already suspected.
"Danzo," he repeated, and the word was flat, empty. "Of course."
'So he really wants to draw a line...' Renjiro mused.
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