"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."
— Mark Twain
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[Third Person POV]
Otis licked his lips, dry and cracked. If this fossil thinks ropes and a chair are enough, he's more senile than he looks.
Danzo's single eye slid from the Root operative back to him. His brow furrowed in quiet displeasure.
That was when Otis saw it—his hands again. The tremor. Barely there, almost invisible, but real. Danzo masked it well, but Otis had always been good at noticing cracks.
It wasn't fear of him. Not exactly. No, it was something else. The way Danzo looked at him wasn't just calculation—it was hunger. Desperation. As if Otis was some missing piece he needed, a puzzle shard lost in the dark.
Danzo stepped closer, the cane's shadow stretching long across the damp stone.
"Do you know what you are, boy?"
Otis tilted his head, smirk splitting the blood at his lips.
"Ugly? Annoying? Hungry?"
A flicker of irritation crossed Danzo's face, but it vanished as quickly as it came. He leaned heavier on his cane, studying Otis like some rare beast he'd finally caught.
"You are a key," he murmured. "A way forward. Perhaps even… salvation. For me."
The words made bile rise in Otis's throat. He spat blood to the side, the red splash nearly striking Danzo's sandal.
"Salvation, huh? Funny. You don't strike me as the holy type."
He barked out a laugh, raw and jagged, tearing at his throat.
Danzo leaned closer, so near Otis could see the wrinkles carved around his hidden eye, the rot etched into his skin by years of ambition. His voice dropped low, colder than the damp air of the cell.
"You don't have a choice."
Otis's smile didn't fade—it sharpened.
"Funny. That's what they all say… right before I prove them wrong."
And there it was again. The tremor in Danzo's hand. Just for a heartbeat.
That thought clung to Otis as exhaustion finally dragged him under, his head sagging forward into the dark.
***
Meanwhile, Konoha was already burning with whispers.
Root shinobi, disguised as civilians, had slipped into the streets to spread poison. Tales of a boy—a monster—who had slaughtered innocent villagers in Kibana. Men, women, even children. They painted him as a murderer, a rapist, a fiend, staining his name with every crime they could conjure.
The villagers latched onto the stories with desperate hands. They were already uneasy under the weight of shinobi authority. Now their unease found a face. Murmurs became curses, curses became shouts. Shouts twisted into hatred.
Civilians began glaring at every shinobi in sight. Every ANBU suppressing the rumors looked, to their eyes, like a jailor protecting a criminal. Fear was contagious. Anger was gasoline. And together they spread faster than the Hokage's office could smother them.
Hiruzen's ANBU scrambled through the streets, intercepting Root operatives one by one. But for every whisper silenced, ten more had already escaped into the wind.
And in the Hokage's tower, Sarutobi Hiruzen sat with his pipe unlit, his gaze heavy.
Otis had been taken.
The villagers were in uproar.
And Danzo… Danzo was already moving his pieces.
[First Person POV – Hiruzen]
I sat in my office, the weight of the hat never feeling heavier than it did today. Outside, the village hummed with unease — no, not unease… fear. Fear directed at a boy. At Otis.
Reports from Kibana were scattered across my desk. Pages soaked with ink and death. Civilians torn apart, bodies left like discarded scraps. The truth had already slipped loose.
I had ordered Koharu and Homura to bury it beneath seals and bureaucratic walls. But whispers had already become voices, voices into cries. Fear spreads faster than fire, and anger always runs behind it. Suppressing it now would be like trying to cage smoke with bare hands.
I closed my eyes for a breath and told myself one thing.
I will not let another Sakumo happen again. Never again.
Sakumo Hatake. The White Fang. A man broken not by enemies, but by the very people he bled to protect. The village had turned on him, spat on his name, whispered until he silenced himself forever. I watched a hero die not by blade, but by shame.
I will not allow that story to repeat itself. Not with Otis.
I barked the orders again, sharper this time — every ANBU and shinobi was to suppress the rumors. Contain them. Muffle the voices that screamed for blame, for vengeance. It was like trying to smother fire with my own bare cloak, but what choice did I have?
My eyes drifted to the window, to the rooftops and alleys where civilians already gathered in angry knots. The population of civilians outnumbered shinobi ten to one. A crowd in fear was dangerous, a crowd in anger was lethal. And when the two mixed, they were a storm that even the Hokage's power could not stop.
I clenched my pipe until the wood groaned. The scent of stale tobacco lingered, mocking me with the calm it used to bring.
The shinobi world would hear of this soon—Konoha's "monster child" who slaughtered innocents. They would all drink the lie eagerly. But that wasn't the blade at my throat.
No, the true danger lay closer.
The daimyo and his court of nobles.
They would seize this chaos like hungry wolves. The civilians' fear was their tool, their weapon to carve away the power of the Hokage, of the shinobi. They were parasites draped in silk, waiting for any chance to sink their teeth deeper into the veins of this village. They had always waited for a moment like this.
And Danzo… Danzo would stand with them. He always had. He always would. That was why I could not act without proof. One wrong strike, and they would cut off Konoha's funding.
--
(A/N)
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