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Chapter Text

Chapter Text

There’s a happy patch of mold growing from the corner, spreading across the ceiling. Kakashi’s eyes fall to the outlier again and again, as prominent as it is in comparison to the bland effects of his room. The cold seeps through the floor and into his skin, the chill would bother him, but his heart has been ice for far too long for him to care now. A memory comes unbidden to his mind of Minato pointing out the exact growth, telling Kakashi...

"Kakashi! This place is in terrible condition... you could get sick by staying in here, just look at that!" The man gestured at the ceiling wildly, looking more stressed that Kakashi thought appropriate for the problem.
"Sensei, you worry too much. I'm quite capable of taking care of myself. Besides, it doesn't matter. I'm barely here anyway."
"Kakashi-that...that's not the point! and it certainly doesn't make me feel any better about you living here!"
"Sensei!"

That had been only a few years before he'd made jonin, it felt like a lifetime ago but was in reality two years. His eyes dart to the window, hearing the soft pitter-patter of rain against glass as he stares at the only way he can see Minato's face now.
It isn't the same. The sculpture was wrong. Namikaze Minato, the Yondaime, was-had been a powerful man, and the monument showed that, and yet the face on the rock... didn't show everything else the man had been. It didn't display his kindness or selflessness, nor how he was easily embarrassed, his love for seals and ramen nor his fear of his wife's wrath. It made him less human... less real. Like Kakashi really had dreamt up the entire thing.

"-Because of the Third...
-lord Fourth lost his life..."

A sharp inhale. A flutter of pale eyelashes.
Kakashi pulled himself off the ground, ignoring the red flaking off his skin and the mild itch left behind in its wake. He was a shinobi, he had a duty to do and to question it... was worthy of death.

一“I believe the White Fang was a true hero!”一

“Obito…”
Kakashi shook off the memories, shoving the gloves over his shaking hands and picking up his mask. His eyes dart over his shoulder to the downturned frame of everyone he had held dear; of everything he had lost and every failure he had made.
In a way, he was almost pathetically weak. He would never have the impossible optimism and kindness of his mentor, nor Obito’s unshakeable ability to believe and perceiver, and never Rin’s boundless capacity for love. Kakashi would never be strong the way his team mates had been. He was different. Wired differently. He’d known nothing but the life of a shinobi. When his teammates had been playing in the park with each other, Kakashi had been bandaging little cuts on his fingers from throwing weapons. Kakashi had always lived a life of blood and sweat and pain, and would never know differently because this was what he was good at, what he was bred for, and no matter how much he wished it was all different, nothing would change.
Kakashi turned his eyes away from the frame and did what he did best, stepping back into the welcoming shadows and slipping the mask of a killer onto his face.

He killed his emotions.

They don’t test him. The little fact strikes him immediately. There is no probationary period, nor a preliminary test. There isn’t even an induction test. Kakashi is left wondering whether this is normal or if he is, yet again, a special case.

He’s still in the same doorway, minus his escort, looking into a sparsely furnished room, the differences being that the lights are dim and the tatami floor old.
“Others do you no justice, Hatake-kun,” Came the raspy voice of the man, floating disarmingly over the room even as Kakashi followed his nose to the origin, almost a shadow against a nearby wall. “With the sharingan covered as well. I am very... pleased that you’ve decided to join us.”

Chapter Text

3. A Casual Walk

Shimura Danzou.
It isn't altogether an unfamiliar name to him. Kakashi had been involved in enough politics to have heard it, but had only one prior interaction with the elder; right after his father had died-killed himself, he killed himself-and Kakashi had reported the death. The man had been silent for the most part but had supported Kakashi's request to live alone.

The days that followed his induction were quiet. Kakashi felt like he was floating, detached from the rest of the world.

The ROOT foundation is similar to ANBU… and yet infinitely different. Whereas ANBU agents spoke freely with each other off of missions, and rumours and gossip spread like leaves in a storm, ROOT was… disciplined. ROOT is what outsiders thought ANBU would be like.
And yet in ROOT, there is no thinly disguised contempt nor pointed whispers of "friend-killer" as he passes. As long as he does his job, the others mind their own business, and some even go so far as to respect him.

Kakashi is three days into the foundation and has never fit into a place as quickly as he has here.

He's sweaty and his muscles ache in an all too familiar way, and his side is stiff under blood and bandage when he walks back to his room. The soft clack of wood on stone forewarns Kakashi of Danzou's presence. The man turns the corner, pauses, and takes him in. Kakashi knows the man had sensed him long before he saw him.

"Hatake-kun."

He bows because he was raised to respect his superiors, "Danzou-sama."

Danzou nods towards the hallway between them, “Walk with me, boy.”

A small part of him wants to growl at the man; the part that is wounded and mistrustful, the part that has lost so much already and can’t bear to again. The larger, more logical part of him; the part of him that kept him alive when he graduated at five, answers even though there was no question,

“Sir.” He follows a half step behind the elder, lips pressed. Somehow the path off of the Y-junction feels a lot more significant than it should.

They walk in silence, broken only by the click-click of the geta against the stone floor, Kakashi’s sandals soundless in contrast, and the low hum of electricity in the overhead lights. They walk far further than Kakashi had expected them to.
They turn another right and Kakashi wonders why the man had asked him along if not to speak.

“How are you settling in?”

Kakashi glances sideways but the man is staring straight ahead, arms still folded into his sleeves, content and relaxed.

“I am well Sir. Thank you for your inquiry but I have no complaints for you.”

“As I would expect.” Kakashi exhaled quietly, he’d said the right thing then. “You’ve been sent on many missions as a tracker but I hear tales of your skills in infiltration and assassination… hmm, would you be opposed to a wider variety of assignments?”

Kakashi’s foot froze mid-step, recognising what the likeliest tale about his assassination skills would be before he schooled his features and continued. “No sir, I will carry out the task if you believe I am ready for it.”

Danzou smiled, only a slight upward curl of the lips, and they came to a stop. “Good evening, Hatake-kun.”

“Good evening, lord Danzou.”

Kakashi watches the man leave as he rises from his bow, sagging against the wall when the man finally disappears from both sense and sight.

“Sage, have mercy…”

He pulls away from the wall, turning back to trudge through the hall on aching feet. Once inside his room he falls back on the bed, stretching out his strained muscles and wincing. His eye, already drooping, casts about the ceiling searching for something they wouldn’t find.

Chapter Text

4. Places of belonging

The shinobi in ROOT do not have names. If they do, it is assured that they are important people.

Kakashi finds he is almost unbearably popular amongst the trainees for this reason. When one enters ROOT, they give up their names and pasts and put their everything towards making Konoha better. He comes to realise that the agents he has met who do use names, do not go by their birth names.

The fact that Kakashi goes by his, that every agent he comes into contact with knows him not just as Kakashi but as Hatake—and it's said with respect and awe for once, not contempt and anger—that Danzou calls him by name, has marked him as important. Here, the name his father had left him with is revered.
He's not sure how to feel about it.

His father… Sakumo Hatake is a topic Kakashi isn't yet sure how to face. He'd spent so long being angry and hurt and then had it all thrown back into his face. He'd spent so long trying to regain the honour his name had once carried and now. Now that he has it, in this quiet, hidden little slice of the world, he's not sure what to do anymore. He's floating, adrift.

ROOT has been a blessing. The missions are as straightforward and professional as the agents who join him on occasion. There is no Rin here to frown at him over his injuries, no sensei to coddle him, no Obito to mess with his head.

Kakashi is two months into the program when he is hit by a startling realisation: He hasn't visited his team in days. He hasn't seen his sensei's son in longer. The realisation hits hard and Kakashi curls up on the stone floor of the bathroom and tries in vain to keep his breathing under control. Eventually, Kakashi resorts to holding his breath to stop the ache in his head from breathing too fast. His vision swims and he's terribly ungrateful for the knock on his room door that reminds him to stop holding his breath.

Tarou looks him over blankly, and Kakashi knows that the man had probably sensed his little freak-out, but he says nothing. "Hatake. I will escort you to the training grounds. Danzou-sama has placed us in a team and expects us to be knowledgeable on our teammates' abilities before the mission in three days." Kakashi nods and turns to grab his tanto and blank mask before following the other man out onto one of the large training fields.

What people often forget about genius shinobi is that more often than not, they're self-thought. After all, no one will ever understand you the way you understand yourself. Everyone forgets that most "geniuses" were born from desperation; from hurt. Too-smart children with insights above their ranks, desperate, trying not to drown or disappear or die. Kakashi had been like that. Smart and starved for something he didn't understand. So desperate for his father's attention that he didn't realise that he had always had it, or that he'd attracted more attention than he would ever want. And then he lost his father.
Not to death, no that came later. Kakashi had lost his father the minute Sakumo made his decision.

Hatake Sakumo was a bright person. The type of person who shone, who lit up rooms with his presence, who made people smile with a contagious laugh; a person who people wanted to befriend. Hatake Sakumo was a terrifying shinobi. A perfect shinobi by all accounts, a terror to his enemies, an easy teammate to comrades and unerringly loyal. Everything Konoha wanted in a shinobi.

They forgot loyalty could be a flaw too.

Sakumo watched as backs turned to him one by one, people who had praised him in the streets now spitting insults, and lost sight of what had mattered. Kakashi was there though. Hurt and confused and angry, but he was there. He was there to get spat at on the roads, to get sneered at near the mission desk, to get shoved down and not be helped up. He was there to cook in the mornings and nights, to push aside his exhaustion and hurt and pull his father to the table, to care because family was family, and you cared for Pack.
He was there and he was ignored and then all he could be was angry.
He watched his father disappear, replaced by a shell of the man he had been and said something he would always regret. Something he wouldn’t have the chance to take back.

He'd been seeing ghosts long before he started hallucinating them.

So sure that the world was out to get him, Kakashi had built walls and castles around his heart, burying the beat under rules and obligations and honour he didn’t feel. He couldn't get attached in case his mission demanded he leaves them behind too.
Only it didn’t help at all because: then came Minato and then came Kushina and then Rin and Obito, and he hadn't noticed it mattered until it was too late to matter.
He lost them one after the other, woke up every morning gagging on the taste of blood and scent of herbs and wished Death would take him instead.

Minato had been his anchor. Steadfast, the eye of Kakashi's storm. He'd resented the blond man and then resented himself for it, but never dared to speak his thoughts aloud. Still, there were times where it felt like Minato would have understood if he had. A fellow genius, for all their outward differences, who would be able to keep up.
He kept his silence though and it cost him.

Obito broke something inside him long before his death did. Obito’s death had been his fault, his responsibility, his mistake and that knowledge felt like a crushing weight.
He had to stay alive. He had to show Obito the future. He owed that to him.

Rin had been something else, something kind and warm and good. Kakashi knew to keep his distance, heard the whispers on the street; "Oh that poor darling girl, she's so sweet, what horrible luck to be on a team with that boy-" They hadn't known her- fierce, kind, brilliant Rin- at all. That hadn't meant they were wrong though. ‘Luck. It all came down to luck, didn't it?’ Kakashi had thought, numb, in a clearing years after their first meeting with his hand slicked to the elbow in her blood.

And he has no luck at all.

Chapter Text

5. Clearing Cobwebs.

Kakashi had been more than content to avoid everyone that wanted to speak to him, outside of anything related to a mission, and for two and a quarter months he had mostly managed it. 

Now back in the village after a solo, Kakashi has no escape from the thoughts left behind from his last meeting with Danzou. 

"I recall that your areas of speciality fall under tracking and espionage. Young Namikaze was rather assured of your talent and I see no reason to doubt him. I'm sure my faith in him is not misplaced."

Kakashi's heartbeat drums in his ears. A crescendo of all the not-so-quiet snarls and quips he'd heard insulting the brilliant, unbearably kind man. Always too quiet for Sensei to hear but always loud enough for Kakashi. 

For taking on the traitor's son, for teaching the weakest Uchiha and the puny civilian girl. Mutters of how he could be using his time better, for more important things, like stopping the war Sakumo had started.

(He does help stop the war; he takes out over a thousand men in a flash that earns him a title and the visceral terror of his enemies. He returns home, one child missing from his team; one part missing from his heart, and the village greets him with cheers and jubilance.

Minato smiles, fake and too wide and hides his face in Kushina's hair when she hugs him at the gate, but none of the villagers notice because all they see is someone they can use. Kakashi looks away, Obito's eye damp beneath his headband, and his eyes land on the Uchiha standing at the gate in a little group.

Minato loses another student only a few months later and the village —this damned insidious village—and its poisonous whispers return. 

"If the student turned out like that what does it say about the teacher?"

"...Killed his own teammates!"

"Namikaze should put him on a leash. What good is he if he can't even control his dog?"

When did they start caring about teammates? Kakashi wants to know.

They doubt and doubt as if they know anything at all,

And Kakashi hates.)

It wasn't misplaced. 

His eyes dart up but the elder only looks down at him with a calm expression. 

The man had sighed then, catching Kakashi off guard. Danzou straightened, leaning on his cane as he came to stand before him.

"Rise, child."

Kakashi nearly stumbled to his feet but kept himself carefully under control.

He keeps his eyes respectfully downcast, even though his growth spurt had pushed him to eye level with the man.

"You're growing like a weed, Kakashi! Soon you'll be taller than me too!"

Danzou hums, "Why is it that you have such little confidence in your own abilities, boy? Do you think me a fool?"

Kakashi jolts slightly, "No, Danzou-sama!"
He can't afford another enemy. 
He can't afford this enemy.
Did he already mess this up?

Danzou tilts his head, completely at ease. "You have great potential, boy. Without that- without Hiruzen obstructing your growth you could be very powerful."

Power? When had Kakashi ever cared for power, beyond what he needed to survive?

Danzou’s single eye meets his own and Obito's burns behind his headband.

"With that power you'll never have to fear again." He says as if he's read Kakashi's thoughts. 

Danzou holds out his free hand, scarred palm up, waiting patiently.

And Kakashi knows fear. Lived and breathed it; it came rolling off people in waves and he kept walking, kept killing, because somewhere along the line— between toy kunai untouched in the attic, losing everything he'd ever dared to care about and joining Danzou— he'd built a tolerance for it.

There's a reason tiny little six year old Kakashi had been handed a kunai amidst a sea of blood and came out with a promotion.

Even Minato had thought of Kakashi as a child more often than not. Something to coddle and care for and protect, but Kakashi, small but already too old, had sharp teeth he'd bared to the world, daring anyone to take a step closer and see if he was really all bark.

Kakashi had thrived in his own fear, built himself on it because no one else would.

But...

He wants to know what it would be like to live outside of it.

A shinobi who does not know fear is a dead shinobi. However powerful shinobi were those who could afford that risk.

And Kakashi had never had trouble risking his life.

He swallows the lump in his throat and puts his hand in Danzou’s. "Please teach me, Lord Danzou."

Chapter Text

Kakashi pants, heaving for breath.

Danzou stands across the clearing, watching him quietly, his hands folded atop his cane.

The lightning screams in his hand, bright and blinding and fast.

Kakashi breathes.

The sharingan stays hidden as Danzou had instructed and Kakashi pushes at the impulsive urge to reach up.

He has to learn how to do this without relying on Obito.

Kakashi's always been quick on his feet, too fast for his own good probably, now he needs to be faster.

You were always too slow when it mattered anyway.

The boulder shatters, dust rains down on him, pondering his sweat slick skin.

His calves burn in protest, feet seemingly sinking deeper into the ground under the weights.

His head feels a little light after two chidori and his chakra's running low.

Pathetic. 

Danzou moves in the corner of his eye and Kakashi turns to him.

The man looks assessing.

It's been two days since Kakashi asked him to teach him and the difference between Danzou and Minato is stark.

Where Minato had been happy to let them take initiative of their own training and was more often stopping him from training than actually training him, had worried and coddled him as much as he had acknowledged Kakashi's intrinsic talent for killing, Danzou was different.

Danzou pushed him to the edge of exhaustion, to the limits of his tolerance and mind, and then he pulled Kakashi back. Praised him without condescension and then pointed out every mistake he'd made. He pushed Kakashi to have to adapt, to learn and grow at speeds he hadn't dreamed of.

Kakashi grows the way he had on battlefields and war-fronts, quickly and precisely leaving no room for errors.

And Kakashi had never felt so free.

Adrenalin pumps through his veins, his heart thumps like a war drum in his ears and Kakashi feels alive.

His fingers tingle, small sparks trailing across his skin once his chakra disperses and he feels warm.

Danzou nods, "Very well. It seems as if that is your limit at the moment. No matter. Keep those weights on at all times and we will return in a weeks time to measure your progress."

He says it as though progress is expected. Not because Kakashi is a "genius" but like it is a simple fact. 

Minato wouldn't have expected anything. Kakashi would show an improvement and Minato would laugh joyfully, like a child, and praise him with surprise and wonder in his tone. As though every step Kakashi took was a miracle to behold.

Obito would just get mad.

"Come boy, let's see what other talents you possess." Danzou huffs, turning and walking back towards the Hokage mountains, back towards the base.

He fights the other recruits, a test of how well he can do without his chakra or weapons. Pure taijutsu; Gai would be ecstatic.

They knock each other around and while his body aches in sympathy and he's pretty much one big bruise, he doesn't feel the pain.

With his knee around the shinobi's neck he swings his body back, unbalancing his opponent, and slams him into the ground.

The match is called in his favour, again.

Kakashi had always had average chakra pools. To compensate he learnt how to work around them; without them. People tend to forget, but Kakashi had been winning fights long before he was able to use proper jutsu; was a jounin before he ever got a dojutsu.

The Hatake had padded besides wolves. With claws and teeth sharp enough to tear apart a lowly man; they'd been monsters long before they were men.

Kakashi had never felt more like he was part of that clan than he did when he fought like this.

Desperate. Primal. Free. Alive.

Sometimes he wished he'd had more time to hear stories of his clan, to learn more about them, about what they were before they were shinobi, what they were even before they were farmers.

---

Kakashi's fist teeters centimetres from the other's nose, his other hand braced against the man's collar. Limbs pinned under Kakashi's own he's forced to concede victory.

Danzou claps slowly, signalling the end of the spars.

Kakashi rises off his opponent shaking his head slightly to rid it of the ringing from that last blow.

"Very good." The elder hums, leaning heavily on his cane as he totters forward.

Kakashi falls back into the matrix of shinobi and straightens his back. Old pride shivers under his skin, long neglected and pushed down. Pride was not practical, pride got people killed.

Danzou looks at them all for a moment in silence and everyone keeps their posture straight. Kakashi has never seen such unity, such cohesion.

Tarou is standing behind Kakashi, a brown haired boy on his right. Kakashi knows the girl beside him is an Inuzuka and that the black haired figure on his other side is an Aburame. These are the only people he can identify even after seeing them so often.

"Hinoe, report with team three to my office. Hyō, supply run. The rest of you, disperse. Kakashi-kun, follow me."

Kakashi bowed alongside the other agents before following the man as the others around him flickered away.

Danzou looks down at him, cold eyes burning with a fire someone else might have thought odd in such a weary old cripple.

"Kakashi-kun. " 

He'd like if the man would stop calling him that as though Kakashi was ever really a child. 

Then again, he supposes, if anyone has a right to think him a child it should be someone as old as Danzou. Hiruzen's kind grandfatherly act wore off the minute he let Minato die and doomed his son to a village that would hate him.

… or maybe it wore off long before that, when he handed a mission doomed to fail to Sakumo, or when he handed another to Kakashi along with a Jounin vest.

"You've done well, my boy. You're improving beyond even my expectations." The man praises quietly, a rare softening to his hoarse voice. 

"Thank you for your kind words, Danzou-sama." He whispers, echoing in the silent hallway.

"If only we could find a way around your chakra exhaustion…" Danzou shakes his head tiredly then pauses, tilting his head contemplatively as his gaze turns distant. "Perhaps- but no. No, that couldn't possibly work…"

Kakashi looks towards the man, at his uncharacteristically uncertain expression. "Lord Danzou?"

The elder huffs, shaking his head. "No matter child. Let it be no concern of yours. As of this moment I need you to become something for me."

Kakashi bows his head, there's that uncertain blip in his heartbeat again. "Of course, Danzou-sama. I am anything you require."

I need you to be a monster.

 "I need you to be a leader, Kakashi-kun. You will lead a mission again, in two weeks."

Kakashi stiffens unconsciously. 

Lead. Again? After the obvious failure of his first attempt?

Obito is dead.

"Danzou-sama…?" He can't bring himself to ask a question, his tongue like a lead weight in his mouth.

The man's flint eye pins him down with its gaze, "You will not squander your potential with me. You will become powerful one day, boy, and you will thank me."

Kakashi swallows and nods.

Lead. 

Leading meant responsibility and that, when it came to Kakashi, meant failure.

|  "Just like his father."

Leading meant teammates; burdens, deadweights, deaths. He can't do this.

He feels lightheaded.

"Hai."

He doesn't dare let it show.

As his heart beats– traitorously– in his chest the next day, Kakashi leaps through the trees, leading a mission once again.

The mask on his face feels cool against his heated skin and his team springs silently off branches ahead of him, seemingly letting him guard their backs.

He does not give them his back in return. There was only ever one team he had trusted for that.

Chapter Text

After the Kyuubi attack, after they initially separated Kakashi from his sensei's son, he was banned from interacting with him. He was not allowed to look after Naruto, or speak to him, or rock him to sleep, or feed him.

Nothing.

That's what Kakashi was allowed to do. Nothing.

He can try all he wants to convince himself that it's a relief to not be held responsible for the life of his sensei's son, but he's only so good at lying to himself.

He wants to hold the baby and feel the warmth of something living in his hands again. He wants to do as Kushina had asked of him. 

He wants to be a big brother.

He wants to be something other than this jagged edge of a blade, only good for causing pain.

But Kakashi's wants have never factored into the universe's plans, so he is doomed to feel nothing but the familiar red dying his hands.

Summoned out of a team training session, Kakashi kneels, bowing his head.

"Hiruzen seems to have finally remembered you."

He freezes. "Danzou-sama?"

The elder continues writing, the glide of the brush over paper filling the silence. The inkwell wobbles and Kakashi finds all his attention focused on the sound the liquid makes inside.

"And your sensei's… son." 

Kakashi's breath hitches, 

"It pains me. As you know, my boy, I can do nothing to help you; the Hokage's word is law. We are good shinobi, are we not? We do what is good for the village." Danzou huffs, "That would not be a problem if our Hokage were competent, hmm? But my old friend has grown complacent. If I had been Hokage… no, I suppose I can't change what has already happened."

He stares at the ground beneath him, running the words through his mind. The idea feels odd. Danzou as Hokage. If he had been named Tobirama's successor… what would have changed? Would the wars still have happened? Would Sakumo have died? Would the Kyuubi attack have happened? 

What if, what if, what if...

…would Danzou have allowed him near Naruto?

The man sets down his brush, and its clink against the wood draws his attention.

"If Hiruzen wants you where he can keep an eye on you, we'll give him what he wants. Isn't that right, Inu?" Danzou lets out a dry chuckle. 

Resentment burns in Kakashi's chest; a weak fire starting to rekindle. Sarutobi wants to keep an eye on him? Does the man really trust him so little after everything he's given? Everything he's done in the name of a village that has scorned and reviled him at every turn?

"Hai."

"You will join the normal Anbu corps in three days. Report to Anbu Commander Tora at ground zero by three hundred hours." Danzou instructs, setting another paper aside with a quick stamp, moving on to the next even as he spares the attention to personally inform him of things that could have more easily been a scrap of paper sent by a hawk. "Prepare adequately. You have gained a more thorough understanding of your abilities, my child, but take care not to reveal their extent to those you cannot truly trust. I fear just what Hiruzen plans to put you through after everything, but I will not let him sweep you away and disregard the pain he has caused. You have my word."

He can read between the lines there clearly. Don't trust the other ANBU. Don't show his full strength. Don't worry too much about mysteriously disappearing on a mission because Danzou will take care of it. That's enough for him. If the elder keeps away outside influences, Kakashi is confident in his ability to handle anything else. "Thank you, Lord Danzou. I will not disappoint you."

"I am aware. Go, and for once, use the door, child. It is not as though anyone is surprised to see you here as I complete mere paperwork. Perhaps next time you will provide me commentary or your own insights; it is awfully dull a task at present."

"Hai." He smiles a little in the privacy of his bowed head, where the senior shinobi cannot see how pleased he is at the fondness creeping into the man's voice. It does not sound as irritating as it would in Hiruzen's.

He stands finally, eyes unconsciously darting across the desk before him and memorising the visible documents. He keeps his expression blank as Danzou lifts his gaze from one of the open folders to meet his own. A corner of the man's lips pull up so Kakashi stands, relaxed and silent, despite the urge to furrow his brow and ask questions.

Orochimaru?

"And remember-" Danzou calls as Kakashi turns to the door, "-although we are a part of ANBU, ANBU is not a part of ROOT. Be vigilant. Treat this as a long-term mission, undercover."

He dips his head respectfully before fully turning away, “Understood, Danzou-sama. I'll take my leave then.”