The Hokage’s office was quiet when the door slammed open without a knock.
Hiruzen didn’t look up right away.
Only one person in the village would dare enter like that.
“Danzo.” Danzo crossed the room in a few strides and set a folder down on the desk hard enough to rattle the pen holder beside it.
“I assume you’ve read the academy evaluations.” “I read every evaluation that crosses this desk.” “Then you understand why I’m here.” Hiruzen finally looked up, pipe still resting between his fingers, unlit.
“Enlighten me anyway.” “Four names.
Kakashi Hatake.
Obito Uchiha.
Haruto.
Shizuku Uchiha.” He tapped the folder once.
“All four belong in Root.” Hiruzen set his pipe down slowly.
“No.” “You haven’t heard my reasoning.” “I’ve heard your reasoning before.
Repeating it won’t change anything.” Danzo’s jaw tightened, but his voice stayed level.
That was, Hiruzen had learned decades ago, Danzo shouting was Danzo losing.
Danzo calm was Danzo already three steps ahead.
“The Hatake boy has technical precision near the level of a jōnin.
Left where he is, that talent gets shaped by sentiment instead of discipline.
It is a waste of his talent.” Hiruzen said nothing, so Danzo continued.
“The civilian boy — Haruto — has great chakra reserves and good combat intuition; letting him sit at the academy is a waste of his talent.” Danzo’s eye — the one still working — moved down to the next name.
“The Uchiha boy, good talent, good foundation, great chakra reserves.
That kind of talent is not something you let mature unsupervised.” Hiruzen’s expression didn’t change, but something behind it hardened.
“And the girl.” Danzo said it quietly.
“She has the highest chakra reserves in the academy and placed #1 for almost every single test.
Talent like that can only be nurtured by root.” Hiruzen finally stood, and though he was shorter than Danzo, the room seemed to grow smaller under his pressure.
“The answer is no.
It was no the last time you brought me a folder like this, and it will be no the next time.” “You say that as though restraint has served this village well.
We are on the edge of the third shinobi war, Hiruzen.
Every year we hesitate to develop our strongest children properly is a year our enemies do not.” “They are not weapons.” “A weapon,” Danzo said, “is most effective before it develops hesitation.
Sentiment is a luxury this village cannot afford.” For a moment, neither man spoke.
“Two of the four are Uchiha,” Hiruzen added, quieter now.
“Fugaku would take it as a direct move against his clan if Root so much as approached them without his knowledge.
You’d be starting a fight inside the village while we’re still fighting one outside it.
Is that truly the trade you want to make?” A dark expression flickered across Danzo’s face “The clan’s paranoia is not my concern.” “It will be the day Fugaku brings it to my office instead of yours,” Hiruzen stated Danzo closed the folder with an angry expression.
“You will regret this, Hiruzen” “Danzo, I am the Hokage” He turned toward the door, then paused with his hand on the frame.
The door slammed behind him as he left.
Hiruzen sat back down slowly, the weight of the exchange settling into his shoulders in the particular way only Danzo ever managed to leave behind.
He picked up his pipe again, lit it this time, and sat with the smoke for a long moment before pulling a blank requisition form toward him.
He wrote a short note, sealed it, and called for his attendant.
“Send word to the academy,” he said.
“I want those four children’s training records flagged for direct review.” The attendant bowed and left without asking why.
Hiruzen looked back down at the folder Danzo had left an impression of on the desk, though not the folder itself.
Danzo never left evidence lying around, not even accidentally.
Four children.
Two Uchiha, one civilian, and a boy whose only crime was being talented in the wrong village.
— None of it reached the children, of course.
That afternoon, Obito was loudly insisting that he’d nearly beaten Shizuku the last time they sparred, a claim Shizuku neither confirmed nor bothered denying.
Haruto was trying to talk his way into being paired with her for the next tracking exercise, on the theory that her instincts made for excellent cover.
And Shizuku, walking a half step behind the rest of them, noticed a man near the academy gate who didn’t quite belong there, in plain clothes, no forehead protector, watching the students filter out with scrutinizing eyes.
——————————————————————————————– My bad for the short chapter today ——————————————————————————————–