Chapter Text
"You wanna be Hokage?" Sensei asked him one sunny day. "That's quite the dream." It was sunnier in his memories.
They were watching Kagami and Hiruzen sparring. He glanced up at his sensei, who had her hand on her hip.
"You don't think I could?"
"I mean," she said with a shrug. "If Madara's Hokage, anyone can be."
She said strange things like that sometimes. Like, sometimes she didn't approve of the current Konoha administration. Sometimes, she'd get a far-away look in her eye when she watched the village growing and developing. Sometimes, she'd just disappear for days. Sensei said strange things, and she walked and talked as if she belonged to another world.
"What I mean is," she backtracked. "I think you would make a great Hokage, but you've got years ahead of you. I think your friends could help you along that journey!"
"Hiruzen is my rival," he said.
"Right," she said with a laugh. "But he's still your closest friend." She ruffled his hair.
Danzo pushed off her arm in annoyance, and he glared at Hiruzen who was grinning brightly at Kagami after their spar.
.
His late father told him that emotions didn’t belong on a shinobi’s face or body. Don't laugh. Don't express joy. Don't express anger. Don't fear. Be controlled on the battlefield.
But then Sakura-sensei showed up, and she changed everything for him, because she was the brightest shinobi he’d ever seen. She smiled, laughed a lot and joked. On the battlefield, she had a feral look on her face as she slammed her foot down and shattered the world apart.
“Why does everyone wanna be Hokage?” she asked him. They were sitting in front of a bonfire in a cave, and the sun had long set, and their fish was roasting. It was a mission located in the Land of Fire, but there were whispers of war over the horizon. She leaned back, looking up at the stars, and she grinned. “Couldn’t you guys get a another aspiration?”
“Who doesn’t wanna be the strongest shinobi in the village?” Danzo scoffed at her. “It is a worthy goal.”
“You could be an academy teacher!”
“No way! I'm going to be Hokage!"
“I’m going to beat you to being Hokage, Danzo!” Hiruzen yelled at him over the fire.
“Like you can!”
“I just want our team to stay together forever and ever as a team!” Kagami said.
Danzo scoffed. Hiruzen grinned at him. “Yeah!”
Sakura-sensei barked with laughter.
“I want us to stay together and forever and ever too!”
She had a smile on her face that was so bright and big, that it was like it was forced together. They were attacked and separated shortly after.
But when Kagami stepped in front of him for a blow, he understood intently what she meant. He carried an injured Kagami on his back to their beacon of light in that storm brewing over the battleground—Sakura-sensei.
Because Sakura-sensei could heal anything. She was waiting there with Hiruzen.
"Thank you for bringing him, Danzo," she said. Her hand glowed green, and her eyes looked as if they were on fire as she healed him.
.
For one brief moment, while Kagami was holding him back from attacking their Shodaime Hokage—Uchiha Madara, he thought about the fact that Sakura-sensei never really seemed to like him.
Sakura-sensei was now dead, and the man could send anyone out to get her, or her body, or find out what had happened to her. He could send a whole platoon. He could send an accomplished jounin. He could send the three of them! But when they got back from that mission, she left for another one shortly after, and she never returned. She was declared dead. He didn't even declare her missing. He declared her dead.
Madara could send out shinobi to find her. But he didn't.
“Is there a problem?” Madara asked him.
Kagami was holding him back, and fingers digging into his arm, as he was wrenching him back.
"Danzo. No," he whispered.
Madara turned to face him. "Speak up."
But Sakura-sensei told him that everyone and anyone could be Hokage.
"She wouldn't want you to do this," Kagami continued whispering.
Danzo just felt the sinking hopeless feeling all over again.
“No,” he grit out. He swallowed thickly.
A crowd had gathered around them, and people were watching him worriedly. Madara just gave him one long look, and he left. Somewhere off in the distance, he felt like Senju Tobirama was just watching him through folded arms. They all lied and told half truths, and they treated him like he was another shinobi. Obedient shinobi never questioned anything.
He collapsed to his knees.
He heard Hiruzen running up to them. The crowds started to move around them, and he just looked at the ground listlessly.
.
“Danzo?” Hiruzen asked him. “Danzo, seriously. Attacking the Shodaime? You should be glad he didn’t order your execution.”
He was lying on the training ground staring up at the blue skies. He watched as a hawk streamed through the sky.
“What was your plan exactly?” Hiruzen ranted. Kagami was following him. “You wanted to be Hokage, didn’t you? You want to be a missing-nin now? You’ll just get shinobi sent after you! Seriously, Danzo.”
Sakura-sensei had always told him that he had a journey ahead of him. Two years after she told him that, he now understood what that meant. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to be the strongest man in the village.
“They won’t do anything,” he said through a choked voice. “Sakura-sensei could still be out there somewhere.”
Hiruzen and Kagami exchanged glances.
Because of the three of them, Danzo had gotten attached to her. He just couldn't let go.
“It’s been two months, Danzo,” Hiruzen said. “We have to… accept the fact. She’s gone.”
He clenched his hands. “Shut up.”
“She’s not coming back!” Hiruzen yelled louder. Kagami looked torn between them.
"Shut up!"
.
“Danzo,” she would say. She held out her hand to his, and he looked at her oddly. “Hold your hand to mine.”
He looked at her for a long moment, before he held up his hand to hers, and she aligned her fingertips to his. He looked at her in confusion before she smiled at him.
“Do you know what it means to be a team? A family?” she asked him.
He shook his head.
“We understand each other,” she said. “Without words.”
He could feel her heartbeat, and Danzo didn’t understand at the time. He scoffed. She gave him a light smile.
.
He wasn’t twelve anymore, and he was older now, and he remembered Sakura-sensei’s words as he took a fatal blow for Kagami’s grandson—who was unfortunately too young for the horrors of war.
He didn’t become Hokage. He didn’t live the life pursuing his ambitions. He didn’t live a life his clan would have been proud of—with all their ambition. But as he lay keeled over, his sword impaling his assailant, Danzo thought it was a dignified way to die. But, it wasn't a bad life.
He slumped back down against the ground, and he looked up at the blue skies over these war-torn lands.
“Boy…” he croaked.
He held his hand out towards Shisui.
“Hold your hand out, boy,” he said. Confused and frantic, Shisui held out a hand out to him, while a medic fussed over his wounds.
Danzo held his hand out, and their fingertips matched up.
“Danzo-sama?”
And then his hand slipped away, falling to the ground.
.
Of what little Shisui knew of Danzo-sama, the ANBU commander, he often came by to have tea with his grandfather. He was often quiet and withdrawn. They would talk of the old days, and Shisui—raised to be respectful—felt like he didn’t want to intrude in their space. He’d go play with Itachi.
Shisui stared at his outstretched palm, and then he glanced at his Grandfather’s back, who was silent. He then looked back at the grave. The man took a fatal blow for him. His last words were to ask him to hold out a palm towards him.
“It means the will of fire,” Kagami said slowly, after he heard Shisui’s account. “Our sensei taught us what it means.”
And Shisui glanced some distance away where an empty grave of Grandfather’s sensei lay, and it was littered with cherry blossoms. Grandfather liked to visit her grave now and then, and Shisui used to toddle after him. Everytime he did, there were fresh flowers.
“Like… your teammates are your family?” Shisui asked slowly.
Grandfather smiled at him. He put a hand on his head, and he ruffled his hair.
“Yes, Shisui.”
Seven year old Shisui felt like they passed on something very important, and he should always remember it.