An alliance was absolutely necessary.
But Hiruzen Sarutobi did not want to see the Third Raikage gain complete control over Kumogakure either.
The best kind of ally was one that always needed you, leaned on you, and kept asking for your help. That was the balance he wanted. To strike it, he needed a clearer picture of the current situation in the Land of Lightning and the Hidden Cloud Village.
So he looked at Chiba Shun and asked, "What does the Raikage want?"
Chiba Shun immediately brightened, as if the question itself had given him hope.
"Lord Hokage, the Land of Lightning is poor, and Kumogakure receives far too little funding," he said. "Even now, postwar reconstruction is not complete. We hope Konoha can provide some military aid. In return, when the two villages come into conflict over certain missions, Kumogakure is willing to make concessions."
As he spoke, he carefully studied Hiruzen Sarutobi's expression. Seeing that the old man did not reject the idea outright, he continued.
"The Raikage also wants Konoha's experience with the Ninja Academy. Real experience. Practical experience. Whoever controls the path by which ninjas are trained can seize power."
Hiruzen gave a faint nod.
That point, at least, he understood very well. In many ways, that was exactly how he had taken power away from the ninja clans.
Outwardly, however, he only smiled and said, "I have no objection to either request. But the specific details should be discussed directly with the Raikage himself."
"Or," he added mildly, "the two sides could each send senior representatives to negotiate."
The meaning was obvious.
A mere chunin like Chiba Shun was not qualified to discuss terms. He was nothing more than a messenger. The message had now been delivered, and that part of his task was over. The next stage would be handled by the Raikage or by those above Chiba's station.
Chiba Shun showed no dissatisfaction. He simply said that he would relay the Hokage's words back to the village, then prepared to withdraw.
Unexpectedly, Hiruzen Sarutobi spoke again in a casual tone, as though the subject had only just occurred to him.
"I heard," he said, "that you were asking to see Danzo, one of Konoha's advisors?"
Chiba Shun's body stiffened.
He swallowed before replying, "Hokage-sama, we've been in Konoha for a long time and still hadn't been granted an audience with you. I only thought that perhaps I could request one through Konoha's advisors."
Of course, Hiruzen did not believe that.
Still, he had no intention of damaging the budding alliance with Kumogakure over a single chunin. He let the excuse pass, though not without giving Chiba a subtle warning before dismissing him.
Chiba Shun bowed, then withdrew from the office and returned to his temporary quarters.
The moment he stepped inside, his heart twitched.
Someone had been here.
He did not show it on his face.
As if following his usual routine, he went through his evening training first. Only after that did he enter the room and lift his eyes toward the wall opposite his bed.
There, written in oil paint, was a single line.
You can speak freely.
Chiba Shun almost laughed.
Danzo. You finally came.
Even so, he did not answer immediately. Before saying anything important, he needed to confirm who he was dealing with.
So he slowly asked, "Who are you?"
A moment later, words appeared across the wall.
I am Danzo.
Chiba Shun narrowed his eyes. "Since Advisor Danzo has come in person, why not meet with me openly during the day? If you had something to say, why hide like this?"
Fresh writing crawled across the wall almost at once.
Don't play games with me. You've been wandering around Konoha for days, hinting left and right that you wanted to see this old man. Speak plainly. What do you want?
Chiba Shun ignored the hostile tone.
He continued to feign confusion. "What does Advisor Danzo mean by that? I've never had any dealings with you. Why would I seek you out?"
"I only asked around because I admired your reputation. There was no deeper meaning."
The wall went still for a while.
Then two words appeared.
Matsuda San.
At the sight of that name, Chiba Shun finally relaxed inside.
That was enough.
Matsuda San had clearly been one of Root's people. Hiruzen Sarutobi should not know the full details of how that operative had been exposed in Kumogakure. If the person contacting him knew that name and used it so directly, then it could only be Danzo.
At the same time, Chiba Shun could not help feeling envious of Konoha's depth.
The person relaying messages to Danzo was most likely a ninja from the Kurama clan.
They could manipulate the five senses and even blur the line between illusion and reality. Whoever was assisting Danzo had written the message somewhere else entirely, yet it appeared here on the wall before Chiba Shun's eyes. The reason the ANBU outside heard nothing was probably because the same bloodline technique had disrupted their senses as well.
So the Kurama clan was already producing people like this in this era?
That surprised him.
In the future he knew, the clan had already declined badly, and only one outstanding bloodline user remained. He had never expected that, in this period, Root would already have such a person under its command.
How many others were there? How many had never been recorded in history at all?
After thinking for a moment, Chiba Shun finally said, very seriously, "Advisor Danzo, the Raikage asked me to pass along a message."
"He is willing to support you in becoming the Fourth Hokage."
***
Dozens of meters away, in a hidden underground chamber, Danzo narrowed his eyes.
Hokage.
What a beautiful word.
What a seductive word.
But when had it become the Third Raikage's place to meddle in his path to the Hokage's seat?
For an instant, Danzo almost cut off the conversation right there and ordered Chiba Shun killed.
The command rose to his lips, then stopped.
In the end, he could not say it.
After a long silence, fresh words finally appeared on the wall in Chiba Shun's room.
Report the Raikage's plan.
Chiba Shun smiled without a sound.
Danzo was as arrogant as ever, but he did not mind. As long as the old man kept listening, that was enough.
"Advisor Danzo," he said, "the current Hokage is Hiruzen Sarutobi. If you want the position of Fourth Hokage to become vacant for you, then Hiruzen Sarutobi must first make a mistake."
"The Raikage cannot directly help you with that. But he can help you remove your greatest rival."
In the basement, Danzo's killing intent surged sharply.
A single character appeared on the wall.
Who?
Chiba Shun answered at once. "White Fang."
Danzo gave a cold snort.
"Is the Raikage planning to take action personally?"
"You misunderstand," Chiba Shun replied. "We don't want White Fang dead. We only want his reputation destroyed. Once his name collapses, he'll naturally lose any chance to compete for the Fourth Hokage's position."
The murderous aura in the underground chamber finally weakened.
If the Third Raikage had intended to use Danzo as a knife to kill Sakumo Hatake outright, Danzo would never have agreed. It wasn't because he valued White Fang's life. It was because Danzo could not tolerate outsiders deciding the fate of Konoha's heroes for him.
Even enduring Hiruzen Sarutobi above him was already pushing his patience to its limit. How could he allow the Raikage to cross that line too?
Fortunately, the Raikage did not want White Fang dead.
Danzo's next question came immediately.
Explain the plan.
Chiba Shun let out a soft laugh.
"It's simple," he said. "Arrange for White Fang to leave the village on a mission. Then let him face a choice. He can continue the mission, or he can rescue his comrades."
He stopped there deliberately.
He did not need to explain more. Danzo was too smart not to understand the rest.
If White Fang completed the mission and abandoned his comrades, Konoha would condemn him as cold and inhuman.
If White Fang chose to save them and let the mission fail, Konoha would condemn him as someone who put private emotion above the village.
Either way, the hero would fall.
Danzo asked no follow-up questions.
There was a long silence.
Then, at last, new words appeared.
Where are the others?
Chiba Shun's smile turned mocking.
"So in Konoha, Advisor Danzo isn't even the second most likely candidate to become the Fourth Hokage? In that case, perhaps the Raikage chose the wrong person after all."
He did not wait for the invisible old man to respond before continuing.
"Advisor Danzo, you've already seen my strength. How does a newly promoted chunin like me survive an attack by a three-man Root squad led by a tokubetsu jonin and even kill one of them?"
"The answer is obvious. Root is nothing special. I reckon White Fang, with a few loyal subordinates of his own, could suppress Root without much difficulty at all."
In the underground chamber, Danzo slammed a hand into the table hard enough to crack it.
His killing intent erupted so violently that the Kurama clan operative beside him nearly trembled out of his skin.
Yet what truly unsettled that Root member was not Danzo's anger.
It was the fact that Danzo still did not order Chiba Shun's death.
Instead, the old man forced his fury down and seemed to sink into thought.
Chiba Shun had judged him correctly.
Danzo could kill him at any time if he wished. But compared to the life of one foreign chunin, the Hokage's seat mattered infinitely more.
And Chiba Shun's words, though openly provocative, were doing exactly what he intended.
They were feeding Danzo's obsession.
Since when had Danzo stopped being one of the first in line for the Hokage position?
Once, he had only lost to Hiruzen Sarutobi by a single step.
But now there was White Fang. There was Orochimaru. There was Tsunade. Even Jiraiya, that irresponsible commoner-born fool, enjoyed more support than he did.
And if time kept passing, a younger generation would rise behind them all. In the eyes of those ignorant villagers, Danzo's place in the line of succession might be pushed farther and farther back.
At length, Chiba Shun heard the equivalent of a mutter come through the wall.
A subordinate of White Fang...
Then Danzo's next question came.
When do we act?
Chiba Shun laughed soundlessly again.
Hooked.
"Not yet," he said. "We're short on money."
Danzo's tone turned cold.
What does the Raikage want?
Short on money? Of course the Third Raikage was not truly lacking to that extent.
What Chiba Shun wanted was for Danzo to bleed.
He said smoothly, "We'll arrange for one of our intelligence ninjas to infiltrate Konoha and steal fifty jutsu scrolls. Thirty B-rank techniques. Fifteen A-rank techniques. Five S-rank techniques."
"Then Advisor Danzo can arrange for White Fang to recover those stolen jutsu."
Danzo's eyes narrowed again, and for a moment it seemed his anger might flare back up.
The Raikage's appetite is too large.
Naturally, he understood exactly what Chiba Shun meant.
The Cloud Village wanted him to provide fifty jutsu as the price of their cooperation.
Danzo could have engineered such a scheme entirely on his own, but if he did, the motive would be too obvious afterward. Others would eventually trace the stink back to him.
If the Cloud ninja took the blame instead, the situation changed.
Danzo had always been willing to act as Konoha's darkness when necessary. But he still dreamed of stepping into the light someday. He still believed he was destined to become the Fourth Hokage.
So if Kumogakure was willing to bear the suspicion, he did not mind making use of them.
Chiba Shun pressed the advantage.
"Advisor Danzo, you don't need to decide everything tonight," he said. "But the opportunity won't stay forever. White Fang is too dazzling. The longer you wait, the more impossible it will be to shake him."
"If you want the Fourth Hokage's seat, then you need to move before someone else sits down in it first."
The wall went silent.
Then, slowly, the writing on it faded.
The conversation was over.
Chiba Shun stood there for a long moment, staring at the now-blank wall.
Then he finally let out the breath he had been holding.
He had done it.
He had just sat in Konoha, in a room provided by the village, and used nothing but words to push one of the most dangerous men in the shinobi world toward the trap he wanted.
Whether the plan would succeed later was another matter.
But tonight, at least, Danzo had listened.
And that alone was enough to make the darkness outside his room feel far colder than before.