"Damn it! Is that old fox Sarutobi trying to finish me off?!"
In the dark recesses of Root headquarters, Danzo slammed his fist into a stone wall. The impact cracked the surface, sending dust and chips tumbling to the ground. His eye blazed with fury—but it wasn't Uchiha he hated most today. It was Hiruzen Sarutobi.
While Andrew from Uchiha had embarrassed him in public, Danzo knew the Uchiha weren't involved in the theft of Kakashi's Sharingan. Which meant the one who'd sold him out... was none other than Sarutobi himself.
"You dare turn the entire village against me after everything I've done for Konoha?" he muttered through clenched teeth. "You're the one who's betrayed me, Hiruzen."
But his anger was quickly overtaken by pain.
"Tch—no... not now!"
Danzo gritted his teeth as his right arm began to pulse and twitch violently. The skin writhed like a bag of worms beneath the bandages, and he collapsed to one knee, gasping.
The Hashirama cells embedded in his arm had begun to run amok.
Years ago, in a desperate bid for power, he had taken cells from the First Hokage and grafted them onto his own body. The experiment had been orchestrated by Orochimaru and was far from stable. The arm granted immense power—but it was a ticking time bomb.
Ordinarily, Danzo suppressed the rampaging nature of the cells by embedding two Sharingan directly into his arm—a brutal method, but effective. Now that his last viable Sharingan had been forcibly removed...
The cells were rioting.
In a panic, Danzo rushed into his hidden lab and retrieved two vials containing weak, deteriorated Sharingan. They had lost most of their potency through experimentation but were all he had left.
He embedded them into the slots on his arm. The cells calmed, but only just.
"Damn it… this is unsustainable," he rasped, sweat beading down his forehead. "Without a strong Sharingan, these cells will devour me from the inside."
He stared at the warped, pulsating limb—his so-called trump card—now reduced to a liability. If it weren't for the suppression effect of the Sharingan, he feared he'd suffer the same fate as the other failed subjects… transforming into a tree.
And he wasn't ready to become compost just yet.
"Curse you, Hiruzen… You ruined everything. Just to cling to your throne... even after retirement, you had to step on me. You've driven me to a dead end!"
Danzo's lone eye flashed with venom. "And Uchiha… don't think this is over. I will get my hands on another Sharingan. And when I do… you'll pay for humiliating me."
The Next Morning – Hokage Building, High-Level Conference Hall
Every prominent clan in Konoha had gathered under the Hokage's summons. Seated around the circular table were the heads of Hyuga, Nara, Akimichi, Yamanaka, Aburame, Inuzuka, and others.
Fugaku was absent. Instead, Andrew stood tall as the Uchiha representative, joined by the fourth elder. His expression was unreadable, but his presence was imposing.
Everyone knew why they were there.
Kakashi's Sharingan. Danzo's betrayal. And the Third Hokage's miscalculation.
As Hokage, Hiruzen couldn't afford silence. So he summoned them all—not to punish Uchiha, but to clear the air and restore what little authority he still held.
Andrew scanned the room with a half-smile. "So this is how Hiruzen Sarutobi tries to save face—by turning his blunder into political theater."
He didn't fault the Hokage's move. In fact, he respected it. Hiruzen was cunning—he wasn't just trying to pacify Uchiha. He was trying to send a message to every clan present.
Even a power like Uchiha could be brought to heel—or so he wanted them to believe.
But the truth was that Sarutobi was cornered. The moment he lost the moral high ground, he lost the ability to command obedience.
Hiruzen rose from his seat, visibly weary, but with a composed tone.
"This meeting has been called for a reason I believe all of you are aware of."
"Regarding the incident involving Elder Danzo's assault on Kakashi Hatake and the subsequent attempt to implicate the Uchiha clan, all relevant information has been documented in the scrolls before you."
He gestured to the sealed scrolls on the table. One by one, clan heads began to read.
"As Hokage, I have already stripped Danzo of his elder status. This meeting is to formalize that decision and, more importantly, to offer a public apology to the Uchiha clan—whom I wrongly suspected."
His words hung heavy in the room.
The others exchanged glances. This was rare—even unprecedented. Sarutobi was known for his diplomacy, not for apologies.
Andrew leaned forward slightly. It was time to press the advantage.
"We, the Uchiha, accept the apology."
Hiruzen blinked. He hadn't expected that to come so easily.
"However," Andrew added smoothly, "we have two requests. First, we ask for the full release of our family's backlogged subsidies and allowances, which have been withheld for years. Second…"
He paused.
"…we request full access to the Sealed Book."
The chamber went silent.
Even Hiruzen looked up sharply. He had anticipated financial compensation—but this? It struck a nerve.
The Book of Seals was Konoha's deepest vault of forbidden jutsu.
Jutsu like the Shadow Clone Technique, the Reaper Death Seal, and the Eight Inner Gates were all recorded in its pages.
Allowing Uchiha to study it? That would give them access to techniques that could drastically tilt the balance of power in the village.
"Andrew…" Hiruzen began cautiously, "the Sealed Book is not open to public access. It contains forbidden techniques too dangerous for—"
"We're not the public," Andrew interrupted. "We're the Uchiha. One of the founding clans of this village. The only reason we've been denied access is because of suspicion and exclusion. If this meeting is meant to restore trust, then give us the same rights as other clans."
He let the silence linger.
"Or… are we still considered enemies?"
Hiruzen's jaw tightened. He couldn't refuse—not now, not in front of every clan head. That would expose the hypocrisy in his apology and reignite the flames he was desperately trying to smother.
"You'll have access," he finally said. "But reading rights will be granted only to those Uchiha who pass a review by the Council. The jutsu in that book are dangerous—abuse cannot be tolerated."
Andrew nodded. "We accept those terms."
The rest of the meeting proceeded with rote formality. The clan heads unanimously supported Danzo's dismissal. Some were simply appeased by the show of justice. Others had always distrusted Danzo and were glad to see him fall.
When the final decree was stamped, Danzo Shimura was officially removed from power.
Outside the Meeting Hall – Later That Day
Andrew and the fourth elder walked side by side through the Hokage building corridor. Light filtered through paper windows, casting long shadows across the floor.
"That went surprisingly smooth," the elder murmured. "You even got the Sealed Book."
Andrew chuckled. "If you hit a wall hard enough, even Sarutobi knows when to stop pushing back."
"What about Danzo?"
Andrew's eyes flickered. "He'll lie low for now. But he's desperate. He's weak. And most of all… he's dying to reclaim his pride. He'll make a move again."
The elder frowned. "Do we prepare for war?"
Andrew shook his head. "No. We prepare for revolution."
In a forgotten room beneath Root headquarters, Danzo stared into the dim candlelight. The whispers of failure clawed at his ears, and his cursed arm pulsed beneath the bandages.
"I'll get it back," he whispered. "A new eye. A better eye."
And in the distance, in the depths of his secret laboratory, the remaining eyes soaked in preservation fluid glimmered faintly.
The game was far from over.
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