"Lacking what…?" Hiruzen Sarutobi stared at the cigarette between his fingers, then smiled. "In what way?"
Danzo Shimura froze.
He meant combat.
But since he'd finally opened his mouth and asked, he might as well ask everything he wanted to ask.
A chance to get "tutored" by Hiruzen didn't come often. Even a Hokage aide had pride.
"All of it," Danzo said. He knew Hiruzen would understand.
"Combat-wise, your current setup isn't wasting your talent," Hiruzen said, giving his old friend's shoulder a light pat.
"Your Wind Style is refined enough that you can fight at mid-range, long-range, and up close. And since you've worshiped Tobirama Senju as a model since you were a kid, your close-quarters isn't bad either."
He paused, eyes sharpening.
"But when you run into someone who's beyond normal combat power, you're missing one thing. Room for error."
Danzo listened without blinking.
Hiruzen spoke like he was casually counting items off on his fingers.
"Take the Kage from the major villages."
"The Third Tsuchikage and the Third Kazekage can both fly. The Kazekage's Iron Sand defense is especially strong, and it lets him probe safely and gather a lot of intel."
"The Third Raikage's durability and speed. Our teacher's Flying Raijin…"
He kept going, voice calm.
"The Second Tsuchikage, Mu, and the Second Mizukage. You remember them. Both had techniques for stealth and ambush. One could split himself. The other could create extremely dangerous clones."
"It's the same with the jinchuriki. Those 'tailed beast weapons' are basically built-in room for error. They get a ridiculous buffer from tailed beast chakra, and normal shinobi can't play that game."
"The Uchiha Clan too. The 'Susanoo' recorded in the clan's texts is the same kind of thing."
He tapped ash off his cigarette.
"If you don't have that buffer, you don't have the capital to gamble in a fight. And you know better than anyone how much intel matters."
Danzo nodded slowly.
He'd felt it himself, but it was different hearing it said out loud. When you were stuck inside your own head, it was easy to miss the shape of your weakness until someone forced you to look at it from the outside.
That was why he'd asked for the spar in the first place.
He knew he was unlikely to beat Hiruzen.
But this wasn't Kirigakure, where beating the Hokage meant you had a legal path to take the seat.
This was Konoha. The point was the clash itself. Real pressure. Real exchange. Finding the cracks you couldn't see anywhere else.
And in the entire village, there weren't many people who could hit him hard without hesitation and still keep control.
In that sense, Hiruzen beating Danzo really was one willing to fight, one willing to take it.
"Let's use the Uchiha as an example," Hiruzen said. "The opponent you're most wary of."
"If one day you're facing a Mangekyo, what do you do about Susanoo?"
Hiruzen shook his head. "At long range, Wind Style doesn't have enough stopping power. At mid-range, they've got more room for error than you do. Up close… that's even worse."
"You've got some skill in taijutsu, sure, but are you really going to wrap a kunai in Wind Style chakra and try to gamble your life against that?"
Danzo's face went dark. "Monkey. Fine, you won. But don't treat me like an idiot. You really think I'd try to stab Susanoo with a kunai?"
"I'm giving an example," Hiruzen said, amused. "Why are you getting heated?"
Then his tone turned serious again.
"So if your target isn't just Jonin, but the truly nasty opponents, you need to raise your room for error."
"That buffer is the line between strong and weak."
Hiruzen exhaled slowly, thinking. "If you could create a Wind Style version of a chakra mode…"
"Wind Style is airflow manipulation. If you push the shape transformation far enough, in theory you could get flight or gliding, or at least a big boost to movement speed."
He shrugged. "But it won't be easy. You'd be creating something new."
Ninjutsu didn't just appear because someone wanted it.
You needed a foundation. You needed brutal repetition.
And you needed that one flash, that one piece of inspiration. Without it, you could grind for years and never break through.
That was why Tobirama Senju had been feared.
He'd had too many of those flashes.
"It won't be easy," Danzo said, letting out a rough breath. "If our teacher were still here, it'd be different. If I could talk to Tobirama-sama, he'd give me a lot of valuable advice."
"I'll try on my own. At least I have the direction. I should be able to get something out of it."
Hiruzen kept his expression straight, forcing his mind onto serious village matters so he wouldn't smile.
It really was a dark joke.
If Tobirama actually came back, Danzo would be lucky if he didn't start targeting him like his life depended on it.
A super-genius Uchiha walking around? That would hit every one of Danzo's nerves.
Hiruzen had no intention of telling anyone about reviving Tobirama. One extra person knowing meant one extra chance of a leak.
No exceptions.
And from another angle, Danzo's future "genuine reactions" toward "Uchiha Tobirama" would be perfect. Honest emotion made the best performance. It would help Tobirama gather the Uchiha's trust, too.
Only downside was Danzo would suffer a little.
"Hiruzen," Danzo said, frowning at him. "Are you feeling unwell? Did that impact earlier rattle your organs?"
"No," Hiruzen said, clearing his throat. "Just thinking about village business."
Then he flicked ash and said casually, "What if we used Edo Tensei and asked him?"
Danzo glared at him like he'd just spit on a memorial stone.
"What are you even saying?"
"The dead have returned to the Pure Land. They've earned their peace. If Konoha was about to be wiped off the map, fine, maybe you'd have a reason. But for something this small, dragging Tobirama-sama back?"
He looked offended on a personal level.
"I don't want him thinking I haven't grown at all. I'm not going to rely on our predecessors for every little thing."
Hiruzen nodded, quietly filing it away.
Danzo's obsession looked like it was the Hokage seat.
But deep down, it was closer to one thing: approval.
Becoming Hokage meant Tobirama would "approve" of him. It meant even Hiruzen, as Third Hokage, would be acknowledging him completely.
"You're right," Hiruzen said. "It was a joke."
In his head, he added without changing expression:
Edo Tensei is off the table. Revival is different.
And a Wind Style chakra mode is a small issue compared to the real problem.
Turning the Uchiha into people who can carry the Will of Fire, even with Sharingan in their eyes, that's the hard part.
Right now, the Uchiha Clan wasn't even close to the combat potential they should have.
They were tied to Konoha, rarely forced into true blood-soaked fights.
But once they started seeing real blood, the Sharingan's instability became a nightmare. Keeping things stable wouldn't be as simple as it was now.
When Uchiha snapped, they didn't just cut down enemies.
They cut down their own.
That had always been Tobirama's line of thinking.
So you needed someone who could change them from the root. Turn their default into Konoha. Hammer the Will of Fire into them so deep that even the storm in their eyes couldn't shake it.
"Other than combat…" Hiruzen patted Danzo's shoulder again. "With you, I don't want to talk about the Will of Fire like it's a slogan."
"Danzo, we're here because Tobirama-sama paid for it with his life."
"He was Hokage. We were the guards."
Danzo didn't speak. He just listened.
"Now you're the Hokage aide," Hiruzen went on.
"And most of the shinobi in this village are like we were back then."
Hiruzen's voice lowered. "If you want to become the kind of shinobi Tobirama-sama was, then you have to understand how he did things. You have to learn it."
"To enemies, be winter. Cold. Unforgiving."
"But to your own people, keep a little heat."
"A village with no human warmth doesn't last."
He flicked his cigarette away and stretched his shoulders. "Go rest. I'm officially giving you the day off."
Danzo watched Hiruzen's back as he walked away.
Human warmth…
Was that weakness? Or a different kind of hardness?
The kind that came from believing you could take shinobi, who were treated like tools and expendable material in this brutal world, and still let them live like people?
"Tch. Arrogant, Hiruzen…" Danzo shook his head.
He still couldn't fully accept it.
His mind drifted to a woman.
Nono Yakushi, once Root's top field operative, the one people called the wandering shrine maiden.
Danzo had planned to erase her after the operation involving Iwagakure's secret techniques.
She was too capable, and in Danzo's eyes, not loyal enough to Konoha.
Always talking about leaving Root, running some orphanage in the Land of Fire like that was a real ambition. Ridiculous.
If the intel she held ever leaked, it could hurt the village.
"…Fine," Danzo muttered. "I'll try it once."
"I won't kill her yet. I'll report it to Hiruzen and see what he does."
He let out a long breath and headed toward the Hokage building.
As for the "day off" Hiruzen mentioned?
He was the Hokage aide. What use did he have for a holiday?
The moment he imagined Hiruzen working while he rested, Danzo felt like something was clawing at his chest.
He couldn't sit still.