Zaman

Chapter 23

Danzo's office was dark. He had chosen a room deep in the bowels of the Hokage Tower's basement as a commitment to his role as the Shadow Hokage; the environment needed to fit the occupation, after all. He had no windows nor any mode of glancing out at the outside world and the only light in the space came from the feeble orange glow of an ancient overhead lamp. Despite the bleak environment, Danzo's office was impeccably guarded by countless wards and seals. In Minato Namikaze's brief tenure as Hokage, Danzo had specially requested unbreakable security seals that warned him of any approaching chakra signature as soon as the person was within jutsu range. They worked perfectly. Not even Shisui Uchiha–the prodigy whose skills had proven so wonderfully useful–could evade the sensing capabilities of those seals and Danzo was perfectly confident that no one ever would.

Even after his soft-hearted contemporary, Hiruzen's, death, Danzo remained in his office. He would venture up to the official Hokage's office on occasion to make formal announcements, but the picture windows and more-often-than-not open door would never fit his needs. So for most hours of the day, Danzo resided in his office, ruling Konoha as it always should have been: with an unrelenting iron fist.

Just as on any typical day, Danzo only sensed the chakra signatures of his ROOT agents milling around the lower levels of the Hokage Tower and nothing else. That, though, failed to explain the incipient figure opposite his desk, a curved mask manifesting just before his eyes. As a well-trained shinobi, Danzo did not flinch, his hand instead flying to the scroll beneath his desk that alerted his ROOT agents of danger.

"I would recommend against that," the figure said, body fully manifested.

A man stood before Danzo, clad in a long black cloak, his stance relaxed. An unruly mess of black hair was visible from behind his curved, orange mask which revealed only one eye.

"We both want the same thing, I assure you." The man remained perfectly still, waiting for Danzo to move his hand from the warning scroll. "I assisted Itachi in the Uchiha Massacre, after all."

Danzo did move at that, clasping both his hands and placing them on his desk as a motion of good-will.

"Ah, so the boy was assisted after all," Danzo mused. As a shinobi, conversation was just another battlefield and betraying emotion with your voice left yourself open for an attack. Danzo was a master of both the physical shinobi arts as well as the psychological. He left no openings. "Then you too are an Uchiha, are you not?"

Danzo's disdain for the Uchiha was no secret. He subscribed to his sensei's view on their capricious and proud nature and he believed that his decision to order the Uchiha Massacre was one of the better things he had done for Konoha. That being said, he was not above using Uchiha as pawns; once they were dedicated enough to a cause, Danzo could twist them in any way he wanted, as made evident by both Itachi and Shisui. He was able to manipulate Shisui's absolute adoration of Itachi perfectly and he gained his most powerful weapon from it. Itachi had been more difficult and continued to prove so as time went on. His love for Sasuke had been both a point of manipulation as well as a point of danger for Danzo. Now with Sasuke out of the village, Danzo could not be sure of the control he had over Itachi. This new man might have to be his next Uchiha pawn.

"I am sure you are wondering who I am," the man said, beginning to pace slowly in front of Danzo.

Danzo crinkled his visible eye in some semblance of a smile. "If you wanted me to know, you would tell me," he replied. "If you did not want me to know, I would simply find out myself."

"You are quite confident." The man's tone seemed to humor Danzo. "I am Madara Uchiha. I suspect that may change some of your plans with me."

Danzo frowned. Madara Uchiha was long, long dead–a fact that Danzo was particularly pleased about. He had been the root of Uchiha madness, after all. But the shinobi arts were an ever-growing field and surely someone as awfully powerful as Madara could find a way to extend his lifespan. That being said, his entire persona could be a bluff. Masquerading as Madara Uchiha was bold to the point of being ludicrous, but its absurdity made it genius. Regardless of if the man was Madara or not, he had already managed to do something Danzo had previously considered impossible: get through his seals undetected. The man was, without a doubt, powerful.