Hiruzen looked up from his ball and found Danzō standing in his doorway, and almost had a heart attack despite him being the one who called.
"Danzō," he said, slowly lowering his hands. "You know, most people knock. Some even wait for me to say 'come in'."
Danzō wasn't in the mood for nonsense, especially after being disturbed from his project, and got straight to the point.
"Hiruzen, did something urgent happen?"
Hiruzen raised a weathered hand. "Wait for Koharu and Homura. They should be—"
"I'm aware of where they should be," Danzō cut in, narrowing his eyes. "They're both inside the village. Closer to this building than me. And yet, here I am, who was outside the village training ANBU, standing before you while they're apparently taking the scenic route in an emergency summon."
Hiruzen puffed on his pipe. "They'll be here."
"It's been over ten minutes." Danzō's tone suggested this was both a personal insult and a national security crisis. "If the village was under attack, we'd have repelled the invasion, held a funeral for the fallen, and rebuilt the walls before those two remembered which building the Hokage works in."
Hiruzen didn't respond, but internally he was doing the math. If I were actively being assassinated right now, called for backup... would I be dead and buried before they showed up?
He knew he was being dramatic. Probably.
Just as the silence was becoming truly unbearable, the door swung open. Koharu and Homura entered together.
Together?
Hiruzen's eyebrow climbed high, but he quickly squashed the thought, because if there was something worth knowing about his oldest friends, his ANBU would have mentioned it.
Danzō, however, was doing Danzō things inside his head—which is to say, he was constructing an elaborate conspiracy theory complete with diagrams, motive analyses, and worst-case scenarios.
They arrived together. How convenient that two council members who were allegedly in different locations would synchronize their entrance with such precision. Either they were meeting privately before this summons, discussing matters they don't want Hiruzen or me to know about, or they've been coordinating their movements for some time now.
He glanced at Hiruzen, catching the tail end of that eyebrow raise before the Hokage smoothed his expression into something resembling relaxation.
Foolish, Danzō thought. He actually dismissed it. Probably thinks nothing happens in this village without his precious crystal ball and ANBU noticing. As if those are infallible.
His mind continued spiraling down its well-worn paranoia tracks.
Koharu and Homura have access to the same intelligence networks I do. If they wanted to meet without detection, they absolutely could. This changes things. A unified voting bloc forming without my knowledge? The balance of power in this village just shifted. Hiruzen may not see it as a threat, but that's why I'm here.
I'll need to increase surveillance. Their servants, their ANBU guards, their communication channels. Their garbage, even. Something is developing here, and I will know what it is before it becomes a problem for... the village's security.
Outwardly, Danzō was the picture of composed authority, right up until he opened his mouth.
"How fortunate that you both arrived at the same moment," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Saves us the time of waiting twice."
Koharu's face cycled through approximately fourteen expressions of displeasure before settling on her default setting: mild disgust at everything that wasn't a specific Uchiha she had complicated feelings about.
Danzō was definitely not that Uchiha, and they both knew it.
"Always so quick to judge, Danzō," she snapped, not letting the sarcasm slide even an inch.
"Some of us believe in arriving prepared rather than rushing in blindly like—" she paused, clearly searching for a comparison insulting enough, "—like a man who thinks of everything with absolute distrust."
Homura nodded sagely, which he did whenever Koharu spoke because he'd learned long ago that disagreeing meant a grudge.
"If we're both here now," Koharu continued, "the reason for the delay is irrelevant. It'll be better to discuss what has gathered us here."
Danzō's eye twitched. Irrelevant? She calls delays in emergency summon irrelevant? And these are the people running the village?
The tension in the Hokage's office was really high, as high as it could be when his three friends were present.
Hiruzen could hardly blame them, you put three men who've spent years perfecting the art of not liking each other in a room together, and this is what you get.
The original Tobirama squad had been him, Koharu, and Homura. Kagami, Danzō, and Torifu had joined up later, each for their own reasons.
And ever since those early days, the two factions had circled each other like suspicious cats.
They'd saved each other's lives more times than anyone could count.
They'd trusted each other with their backs in situations where one wrong move meant a shallow grave in enemy territory.
But some people just weren't meant to get along, no matter how much blood they'd spilled together.
Danzō was the kind of guy who'd hold a grudge against a rock for being in his way, and the other two? Hiruzen could just say they returned the favor.
"Enough." Hiruzen's voice cut through the room with an authority he rarely needed to exercise. "I already have a headache that could fell a lesser man. I called you here to discuss actual problems, not to reenact your squabbles like children. If that's all you're going to do, then save me all the trouble and leave. I'll face the incoming disaster myself."
Here's the thing about Hiruzen, the man could have a personal vendetta against you, and he'd still greet you with that warm smile and offer you tea.
The fact that he was showing actual emotion? That wasn't just bad, that was catastrophic.
Danzō, who knew his oldest friend better than anyone, gave a sharp snort and lowered himself into a seat without another word.
Koharu and Homura exchanged glances. Homura frowned as if remembering something, but they followed suit.
"After they returned from the Land of Water," Hiruzen began, and everyone immediately understood who they were, "I went to speak with Mito-sama. You all know about it. Azula was there before she... departed under less than ideal circumstances. And both of them gave me cause for serious concern."
I don't like where this is going. Danzō's instincts, honed through years of paranoia, were screaming at him.
"Azula made no secret of her ambition for the Hokage position. Mito-sama appeared to be supporting her, at the very least, she wasn't maintaining the neutrality we'd expected." He paused, looking into their eyes. "And that's not even the worst part."
He took a long, dramatic drag from his pipe. A storyteller's instinct, even now.
"Azula's ambition isn't for some distant future. She wants to be Hokage now. And I trust you all understand what that means."
An Uchiha? As Hokage? The very thought sent Danzō into an internal spiral of outrage. Absolutely not. The idea is—
Koharu, meanwhile, was wrestling with a different kind of poison. Something bitter and green coiled in her chest before she could stop it. A female Hokage? At her age? Does she think running a village is the same as wrangling her clan into submission?
Only Homura remained relatively untroubled, which would have surprised anyone who knew him.
But if you understood Azula's story, really understood it, her wanting the most powerful seat in the village wasn't ambition, it was inevitable. The only surprise was that she hadn't made her move sooner.
"Last night, she left for the Kumo frontlines without my knowledge or authorization. I only found out when she walked straight out of Tsunade's tent completely in the open, heading toward her family's direction."
"And here's where it gets truly unsettling. She and Tsunade vanished this morning. As of now, I have no concrete word on their whereabouts, but I received a report that I'm certain connects to them."
Another pause and another puff of smoke.
"There are signs of a battle going on near Kumo's main base in the Land of Frost. Our intelligence operative wouldn't get closer, he said the fighting was unlike anything he'd ever witnessed. The intensity of it, apparently, defied description."
He looked at each of them in turn.
"So. Anyone want to tell me I'm overreacting?"
(END OF THE CHAPTER)
It's a new week, don't forget to vote, and I have a new work yet again, give it a try