____________
Inside the Hokage's office, nothing had changed since Danzo entered.
Volume Thirteen still rested on the desk, and moonlight continued to stream through the window, while Danzo stood before Hiruzen as though he had come for a formal meeting rather than a conversation between two men in the middle of the night.
Danzo spoke.
"We need to talk about your student."
Hiruzen remained silent for a moment before raising his eyes toward him.
"Orochimaru hasn't done anything."
"Yet."
Hiruzen's expression stiffened slightly.
Danzo didn't need to say anything more. A single word was enough to make the difference between them clear.
To Hiruzen, the future shown by the manga was a warning.
To Danzo…
It was an intelligence report that had arrived early.
…
Danzo moved toward the window.
"Orochimaru will become a rogue shinobi, establish a village, ally himself with Sunagakure, infiltrate Konoha, and then use Edo Tensei against you."
He turned slightly.
"How many signs do you need before you consider the man a threat?"
Hiruzen sighed.
"You're talking about a man who doesn't exist yet."
"He exists."
"You know what I mean."
Of course he did.
The Orochimaru sitting inside the Art Store today had not founded the Sound Village, had not abandoned Konoha, and had not attacked his teacher.
He was still a shinobi of Konoha.
Still one of Hiruzen's students.
Danzo spoke coldly.
"And that is precisely why now is the right time to act."
Hiruzen raised his eyes toward him.
"Act how?"
Danzo didn't answer immediately.
That alone was enough to sharpen Hiruzen's gaze.
"Danzo."
"I said we should monitor him."
"You didn't say that."
Silence lingered for two seconds.
Then the corner of Danzo's mouth moved slightly.
"You would have assumed the worst no matter what I said."
"Because I know you."
"And I know you."
Danzo returned to the desk and placed his hand on Volume Thirteen.
"That's why I'm here."
…
Hiruzen looked at the hand resting on the cover.
"What do you mean?"
"You'll try to save him."
Hiruzen didn't deny it.
Danzo continued.
"You'll talk to him, watch him, and search for the moment when he begins walking down that path."
He raised his eye toward Hiruzen.
"Because when you look at Orochimaru, you still see the child you trained."
Hiruzen didn't like the way he phrased it, but he couldn't entirely deny it either.
"He's my student."
"He's a shinobi of Konoha."
Danzo corrected him coldly.
"There's a difference."
Hiruzen's eyes narrowed.
"Perhaps to you."
"To the Hokage as well."
…
For a moment, the only sound inside the office was the faint wind outside the window.
Hiruzen understood Danzo's position.
Part of him even knew that Danzo wasn't entirely wrong.
If he ignored his relationship with Orochimaru and looked only at what the manga had shown them, the conclusion was terrifying.
The problem was that Hiruzen couldn't ignore that relationship.
Nor did he want to.
"If you punish a man today for a crime he'll commit years from now, you may become the very reason he commits it."
Danzo didn't look convinced.
"And if you wait until he commits it, the village may pay the price."
Their eyes met.
Neither of them was talking about the manga anymore.
They were talking about the decision they would begin making from this very night.
Hiruzen wanted to understand Orochimaru better.
Danzo wanted to discover what he was hiding.
The difference seemed small…
But it wasn't.
…
Hiruzen finally spoke.
"We'll monitor him."
Danzo's eyebrow rose slightly.
"But Root will not go near him."
That tiny change vanished from Danzo's face.
"Hiruzen—"
"This isn't a negotiation."
The Third pointed toward the volume.
"The manga gave us a chance to learn about a possible future, not a license to turn everyone who commits a crime in those pages into a criminal in the present."
Danzo fell silent.
Then he said:
"I hope you don't remember those words when it's already too late."
Hiruzen didn't answer.
Because he hoped for the same thing.
…
At the same time, hundreds of kilometers away from Konoha…
Sunagakure was no more peaceful.
Inside the Kazekage Building, the lights of the meeting room remained on despite the night having long since settled over the desert.
Volume Thirteen lay open on the table.
But no one was reading it.
They had read enough.
The Third Kazekage sat at the head of the table, while Chiyo and Ebizo sat on either side.
The head of the Intelligence Division and several high-ranking Sand shinobi were also present.
Rasa, meanwhile, remained silent in one of the nearby seats.
One question dominated the room.
How had Orochimaru ended up wearing the face of Sunagakure's Kazekage?
…
One of the advisors finally spoke.
"I think we're looking at this in a worse way than we should."
Chiyo turned toward him.
The man continued.
"The future showed an alliance between Sunagakure and the Sound Village. If Orochimaru leads the Sound, then it's possible that his disguise was part of an agreed-upon plan."
Ebizo folded his arms.
"You're suggesting the future Kazekage allowed him to take his place?"
The man hesitated.
"Not necessarily like that, but… perhaps the disguise was necessary to reach the Hokage."
Another shinobi spoke.
"From a military standpoint, the plan is clever."
He didn't like the looks the others gave him, but he continued.
"The Kazekage can sit beside the Hokage without raising suspicion. If Orochimaru is Sunagakure's ally, then that's the best possible way to place the operation's strongest asset directly inside Konoha's defenses."
Silence fell.
No one liked the idea.
But they couldn't say it lacked logic.
…
Chiyo was the first to break the silence.
"There's one small problem with that theory."
They looked toward her.
She placed a finger over the image of Orochimaru after he had torn away the Kazekage's face.
"Where is the real Kazekage?"
No one answered.
Chiyo smiled, but there was no amusement in it.
"That's what I thought."
The advisor looked back at the page.
"Maybe he's somewhere else."
"Maybe."
Ebizo spoke.
"Or maybe he's dead."
The room seemed to grow colder despite the desert heat outside.
…
The Third Kazekage remained silent.
Ever since the end of the volume, he had been hearing the same two theories in different forms.
Alliance.
Betrayal.
Cooperation.
Manipulation.
Sunagakure had clearly participated in the attack.
Baki knew about the plan.
Sand shinobi were moving inside Konoha.
Gaara, Temari, and Kankuro were part of the team present there.
None of that could be denied.
But at the heart of the operation…
A man from the Sound Village was wearing the Kazekage's face.
The Third finally spoke.
"Assume it was an alliance."
The whispers stopped.
"Sunagakure and the Sound agreed to attack Konoha. Orochimaru needed a position that would allow him to approach the Hokage, and we provided it."
He looked toward the advisor who had defended the theory.
"Up to this point, I can accept your argument."
Then he tapped a finger against the page.
"But I'll repeat Chiyo's question."
He raised his eyes.
"Where is the Kazekage?"
…
The man had no answer.
This time, Rasa spoke.
"There's something else."
Everyone looked toward him.
"Baki was waiting for the signal."
Ebizo nodded.
Rasa continued.
"And when Kabuto made his move, he understood that the time had come. But the Kazekage sitting on that platform wasn't the Kazekage of the Sand at all."
He paused for a moment.
"Who was actually leading the operation?"
The Third Kazekage didn't like the way the question was phrased.
Because he liked the possible answer even less.
…
One of the senior shinobi spoke.
"Sunagakure isn't a village that can be manipulated by a single man."
Ebizo turned toward him.
"That's a nice sentence."
The man's expression darkened.
Ebizo continued.
"But the manga doesn't care about our pride."
He pointed toward the volume.
"It shows what happened."
Baki was cooperating with Kabuto.
Sand forces were attacking Konoha.
And Orochimaru was wearing the Kazekage's face.
"If this is an alliance between equals, we'll find out later."
Then his eyes narrowed.
"But right now, there's a possibility we shouldn't ignore simply because it's humiliating."
Chiyo finished the thought for him.
"That Sunagakure believes it's using Orochimaru… while Orochimaru is the one using Sunagakure."
…
One of the shinobi gritted his teeth.
"That's impossible."
The Third Kazekage looked toward him.
"Why?"
The man froze.
The Third didn't raise his voice.
"Because we're a Great Village?"
The man didn't answer.
"Being a Great Village doesn't make us immune to deception."
The Third Kazekage closed the volume with his hand.
The sound was soft, but it silenced every whisper in the room.
"The problem isn't that Orochimaru is powerful."
He looked at the faces around him.
"The problem is that somehow, he managed to put himself in the place where the most important man in Sunagakure should have been sitting."
He didn't need to explain who he meant.
The Kazekage's seat.
…
Chiyo leaned back.
"At least there's one thing we know."
Ebizo looked toward her.
"What?"
"Whatever our future relationship with Orochimaru is… it won't be simple."
Ebizo smiled bitterly.
"Brilliant deduction."
Chiyo shot him an irritated look.
"Do you have anything smarter to add?"
"Yes."
He pointed toward the closed volume.
"I don't trust a man who can wear the Kazekage's face that easily."
This time, no one objected.
Even those who saw the operation as clever military cooperation couldn't rid themselves of the question the volume had left behind.
Where was the real Kazekage?
____________
Upcoming chapter titles (spoilers):
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Chapter 255: Orochimaru's File!
Chapter 256: The Man Who Does Not Fear the Future!
Chapter 257: The World Beyond the Five Great Villages!
Chapter 258: The Student Who Has Yet to Commit His Crime!
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