"Idiot!"
Shinichi was slightly startled.
Before he could even react, Danzō unleashed a furious barrage of insults straight at him.
"You arrogant brat who thinks you're invincible now! Playing the hero and trying to cover the rear all by yourself? You think that makes you impressive? Aren't you usually supposed to be the smart one? So why do you suddenly turn into an idiot when it actually matters? You think dying like this would be glorious? Noble? Let me tell you—what you're doing right now is the height of stupidity! A waste! A loss Konohagakure cannot afford!"
Shinichi listened quietly, his expression barely changing. Only after Danzō finally paused did he calmly speak.
"Elder Danzō didn't come all the way here just to scold me, did you?"
"Scold you? I came here to knock some sense into you! Higashino Shinichi, listen carefully!"
Danzō let out a cold laugh, his gaze turning even darker and sharper as he stepped forward and stared directly at Shinichi.
"You think those subordinates of yours are that important? Let me tell you this—every single one of them put together, even multiplied tenfold, still isn't worth as much as you making it back alive! If you survive, you can avenge them in the future!"
"And what about them? Even if they somehow escaped today thanks to your sacrifice, what could they possibly do besides spend the rest of their lives drowning in guilt and regret? Besides asking themselves over and over why they didn't stay behind and die alongside you? Tell me—is there anything more foolish than that?!"
So that's how it was.
In that instant, Shinichi finally understood why Danzō had appeared here.
And so, he spoke.
"So these past years… is that how Elder Danzō has lived as well?"
"What?" Danzō froze slightly, as though he hadn't heard clearly—or perhaps he had.
Shinichi did not repeat himself. He merely looked at him quietly and continued in the same calm tone.
"Asking yourself again and again why you didn't stay behind with the Second Hokage back then."
At those words, Danzō fell silent.
Moonlight filtered through the leaves overhead, scattering across his face in broken patches, and for the first time, that perpetually gloomy, unreadable expression showed the faintest trace of stiffness.
"I don't know what considerations the Second Hokage had when he made that decision back then. As for me, I just want…"
At this point, Shinichi's gaze drifted toward the direction his subordinates had retreated.
"Since I was the one who brought them out here… since they entrusted their lives to me as their captain… then as their captain, I'll do everything I can to make sure they all return alive."
"Perhaps the Second Hokage felt the same way back then."
Danzō looked at the boy before him.
Under the moonlight, Shinichi's expression remained as calm as ever—exactly like it had been five years ago in the cemetery, when he spoke those words to the companion who had lost his father.
As though this was simply the natural thing to do.
As though it should have been this way from the beginning.
And in that instant, Danzō suddenly lost focus for a moment.
In his haze, he saw that silver-haired figure from decades ago turning resolutely in the forests of the Land of Lightning, leaving behind the hope of survival for his disciples.
Then, the edges of that figure blurred and twisted, becoming another phantom image—a young Shimura Danzō at that same crossroads, one who did not hesitate, did not weigh his options, but chose instead to stay behind and fight side by side.
The "other self" that could have existed.
The self he had personally strangled within his own heart.
The self that haunted him through countless sleepless nights.
After two seconds of silence, Danzō suddenly laughed.
The smile looked deeply out of place on his usually ancient-well-like gloomy face, a man who rarely showed any expression at all. Yet within it lingered a trace of release.
"Higashino Shinichi… you really are a lot like my sensei. Usually so calm, so good at scheming and calculating, yet when it truly matters, you always make the least rational choice."
"But… that was exactly the kind of man my sensei was."
Danzō slowly swept his gaze across the surroundings, as though identifying something—or reminiscing about something.
"If that day… I had also…"
The latter half of his sentence grew quieter and quieter until it became nearly inaudible, eventually dissolving into the night wind unfinished.
That hypothetical he had carried for decades—the question of "what if"—ultimately never fully left his lips.
A moment later, Danzō took a deep breath, forcibly pressing all those surging old memories and emotions back into the deepest corners of his mind.
When his gaze focused once more upon the boy before him, it had regained a strange clarity and calmness.
"Go."
He spoke softly, his tone casual, as though he were merely stating something utterly ordinary.
Shinichi was momentarily stunned, looking at him in confusion.
"I'll handle this place."
Danzō paid no attention to the boy's surprise. His voice was quiet, so quiet it almost sounded like he was speaking to himself.
"This time… I'll do it."
He looked at the boy before him, as though he were speaking to Shinichi.
And also to the teacher from decades ago who had silently waited for his answer.
And perhaps even more so, to that hesitant young man from long ago, standing within this deadly forest, endlessly struggling within his own heart.
Finally, slowly, word by word, he completed the unfinished half of the sentence—as though filling in a blank space that had stretched across countless years, or fulfilling a promise that had come far too late.
"This time… it's my turn."
The moment those words left his mouth, Danzō seemed to awaken completely from a long, muddled haze—as though he had finally broken free from every shackle binding him, as though the knot buried in his heart for decades had at last come undone.
"Elder Danzō?"
Danzō ignored him. Instead, he slightly turned his head toward the seemingly empty darkness beside him and spoke calmly.
"You may come out now."
Swish!
Without a sound, thirty ghost-like figures instantly appeared around them and dropped to one knee in perfect unison. They were the elite Root operatives he had brought with him on this mission, all bowing their heads as they awaited orders.
"Protect him." Danzō's voice remained utterly flat. "At all costs, escort him safely out of the Land of Lightning!"
The leader… was planning to stay behind alone?
For the briefest instant, all thirty Root members showed traces of hesitation and shock. But years of training and absolute obedience immediately crushed every stray thought. They lowered their heads in unison, forcibly swallowing every question and concern before responding in deep voices: "Yes, sir!"
"Kid."
Only then did Danzō turn toward Shinichi. A trace of something almost gentle appeared on his face—a rare expression that vanished as quickly as it came.
"Live well."
After saying that, he no longer lingered. He turned decisively and walked toward that darkness which had devoured his teacher and imprisoned him for half his life.
"Elder Danzō!"
Shinichi frowned tightly and instinctively stepped forward.
Almost at the same moment, the two nearest Root members shifted in front of him and raised their hands to block his path.
"Captain Shinichi, please stop."
"You people…"
Shinichi's gaze swept across the Root operatives before him.
"You're really just going to stand there and watch your leader walk off to die alone?"
The Root members fell silent for a moment before one of them finally answered in a low voice: "These are Danzō-sama's orders. Captain Shinichi, please do not make things difficult for us."
"And what if I insist on making things difficult for you?"
At those words, the entire group sank into uneasy silence.
Though the boy before them was young—young enough to be called a child—his strength was undeniable. If he truly refused to cooperate, there was little they could actually do to stop him.
And just as the atmosphere reached that delicate stalemate, Danzō, who had already walked several steps away, suddenly stopped.
He did not turn around. Standing with his back to everyone, he spoke in a deep voice tinged with both the helplessness of an elder toward a stubborn junior and the relief of someone who had finally come to understand something.
"That's enough, competitive little brat. Just go with them obediently."
"This old man… is only going to fulfill a promise that's been delayed for decades. To reclaim something… that should have belonged to me from the very beginning."
As the words fell, he began walking again.
This time, there was not the slightest hesitation in his steps.
Yet his final words still rode clearly through the night wind into Shinichi's ears.
"No matter whether this old man returns this time or not…"
"You must become Hokage!"
Leaving behind those words, Danzō's figure completely merged into the darkness ahead.
Moonlight fell across his gradually receding shoulders, casting his shadow upon the ground—lonely, yet straight as a blade finally drawn from its sheath, determined to sever every chain binding it.
Shinichi said nothing more.
Nor did he try to force his way past the Root operatives blocking him.
He simply stood there in silence, his gaze following that back figure—straight as a blade, yet carrying an indescribable loneliness and resolve—as he walked step by step into that darkness that seemed capable of swallowing everything whole.
Until, at last, he became one with the darkness itself.
And could no longer be seen.
...
Some time later, the night had grown even darker.
The thunder echoing through the mountains of the Land of Lightning became increasingly dense and violent, as though the heavens themselves were enraged.
A lone figure walked neither quickly nor slowly, steadily making his way into a forest pass deep within the mountains—a place so familiar it needed no recognition.
After all these decades, the forest had not changed.
The same trees.
The same stones.
The same night so thick it seemed impossible to dissolve.
As though time itself had stopped here, waiting for someone to return and finish the words left unsaid… to finish the things left undone.
The silent figure stood there, seemingly lost in thought, seemingly trapped in memory.
And in his ears, it was as though that desperate roar from decades ago rang out once more—the self-reproach he had only ever dared scream within his own heart.
'Say it! Just say it already!'
'Why?! Why couldn't you say it?!'
Decades ago, when faced with the life-and-death choice of who would act as the decoy to lure away the enemy, the younger version of himself had struggled endlessly within his own heart.
And in the end, because of his cowardice and hesitation, he never managed to say those words aloud.
Now, decades later, in the same place, under the same circumstances, with the same man involved, he once again stood upon this land facing the exact same choice.
But the difference was—
He was no longer young.
And this time, he no longer hesitated.
"Of course I should be the decoy. You are all the young inheritors of the Will of Fire who will protect the village in the future!"
His teacher's voice seemed to cross time itself, ringing once more beside his ears.
"You're all still young. Your time will come eventually. Until then, hold on to your lives."
Back then, he had not understood the deeper meaning within his teacher's words.
He had only been drowned beneath overwhelming guilt and helplessness.
In the decades that followed, he hid himself within the deepest shadows of Konohagakure, arming himself with schemes, calculations, and ruthlessness. His heart grew increasingly cold, numb, and twisted, while the meaning behind those words seemed buried forever alongside his teacher's death.
Until this moment.
Until he personally made the very same choice and stood once more upon this land that had haunted him like a nightmare for half his life.
At last, Shimura Danzō understood.
Wherever leaves dance, fire endures eternally.
The flames would continue illuminating the village, allowing new leaves to sprout forth.
Teacher… now I too am following in your footsteps, protecting the village's young buds.
Just as you protected us back then, it is now my turn to protect those young people who represent the village's brand-new future.
To let the village's youth become the true pillars who will bear the future upon their shoulders.
At that thought, a faint smile appeared at the corner of Danzō's mouth.
The smile shed the gloom and darkness that had shrouded him for years, revealing instead a kind of clarity and openness that belonged to a distant, youthful age.
Slowly, he removed the black-gray kimono draped over his body, revealing the brown combat armor beneath it.
This was the armor worn by the spirited young man he once had been.
The very same armor he had worn on that deadly night decades ago.
But after that night, Danzō had put it away.
Though he had preserved it carefully and occasionally taken it out to wipe it clean, he had never worn it again.
He had believed he would never wear it for the rest of his life.
That armor—and the passionate, hot-blooded version of himself who once wore it—would remain buried forever in darkness.
Yet before setting out tonight, almost as if guided by fate, he had taken it back out and solemnly put it on once more.
Perhaps, somewhere deep down, he had already been waiting for this moment.
Waiting for a chance to stand upon this land once more not as the leader of Root, but as "Shimura Danzō" himself, and finally complete that long-overdue conversation—with his teacher, and with the hesitant version of himself left behind in the past.
Danzō took a deep breath.
The March air was still cold, but it could not extinguish the fire growing hotter and hotter within his chest.
His heart, numb for decades, suddenly beat once.
Then again.
And again.
Faster and faster.
Not fear.
Not cowardice.
It was something he had forgotten for decades—something he had almost believed he would never feel again.
Hot blood.
"Hahahahaha…"
A low laugh escaped uncontrollably from his throat.
At first, it was only a suppressed rumble.
Then it grew louder.
More unrestrained.
Until it finally became a hearty, uninhibited roar of laughter, as though he wished to wash away the gloom that had burdened him for half a lifetime.
He had found it.
He had finally found the most precious thing he had lost in this forest on that deadly night long ago.
At the same time, someone stepped out from the woods.
No—
Not stepped out.
Appeared.
As though he had always been there, waiting for a very long time.
The man was young, handsome, with a straight back and proud posture. He wore that same brown combat armor, his chest rising and falling violently as though he had run for a very, very long time.
As though he had wandered this forest for decades, yet never managed to escape its labyrinth.
And now, at last, he had walked out of the forest that had trapped him and arrived before Danzō.
One old.
One young.
Separated by decades of time, they silently looked at one another within this deadly forest.
The young man looked at him, chest still heaving, lips trembling slightly as though trying to say something.
The words he had never managed to say.
Words buried for decades, lodged in his throat, festering into a scar within his heart.
Danzō looked at him and suddenly smiled.
The smile was light and gentle, like moonlight rippling across water.
"It's alright now," he said softly.
The young man froze for a moment.
Then he smiled too.
A clean, untainted smile, as though he had never stained his hands with blood, as though he had never walked those dark paths.
He raised his hand.
Danzō raised his as well.
Their hands crossed the span of decades and clasped together softly.
And in that instant—
The two became one.
The young Danzō finally walked out of the forest that had imprisoned him.
And the old Danzō finally stepped out from the darkness that had numbed him.
At long last, they had become whole again.
Here.
At this very moment.
They finally achieved the reconciliation delayed for decades.
The current Shimura Danzō was both the leader of Root who had endured endless darkness and carried the burden of a heavy past…
And the young man who had finally escaped that forest in spirit and rediscovered his original passion.
He was no longer merely a shadow defined by "Root."
Nor merely a prisoner drowning in the failures of the past.
He was simply a shinobi named Shimura Danzō, standing here, preparing to complete something that should have been completed long ago.
"Come."
Danzō muttered softly to himself.
There was not the slightest fear in his eyes—only a rock-like determination.
He lifted his gaze toward the dark forest ahead.
There, countless black figures were pouring forth like a tide, completely sealing off the narrow mountain pass where he stood.
It was a force of Kumogakure pursuers drawn here by his earlier burst of unrestrained laughter.
The moment those Kumogakure shinobi clearly saw the lone figure dressed in Konoha's old-style armor, all of them faltered briefly.
"It's Shimura Danzō!"
"Konoha's Darkness!"
"Why is he here?!"
But Danzō paid no attention to their reactions.
From his not particularly sturdy body erupted an overwhelmingly powerful surge of chakra.
Like a volcanic eruption, the chakra burst forth from his lean frame, and the shockwave it generated blasted the gravel beneath his feet in every direction.
A gigantic vacuum wind blade condensed into existence, compressed to the absolute limit and radiating blue-white high-frequency vibrations.
With the savage force of something capable of tearing apart everything in its path, it slashed violently forward!
Almost at the exact same instant the massive wind blade shot out—
Danzō drew the tachi from his back in one smooth motion.
One man.
One blade.
And the next moment, his figure transformed into an afterimage that tore through the night itself as he charged head-on toward the Kumogakure army before him—a force thousands of times greater than himself!
With one man's body, he blocked the advance of a thousand troops!
With the blade in his hand, he severed the chains of the past!
With the blood spilled tonight, he honored the death pact delayed for decades!
And then…
He would meet his teacher openly and without shame.
...
Meanwhile, dozens of kilometers away, along a ridge near the border of the Land of Lightning, an elite Konohagakure force of roughly eight hundred shinobi was racing through the night at full speed.
But at that moment, the figure at the very front of the group suddenly felt his heart jolt without warning, and his body abruptly halted.
"Third-sama?"
Seeing this, the Konohagakure elite shinobi following behind him also stopped one after another.
Hiruzen stood there motionless, his gaze seeming to pierce through layer upon layer of mountains and endless darkness, as though trying to see something far away.
A moment later, the Third Hokage withdrew his gaze and spoke in a deep voice.
"It's nothing. Continue advancing."
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