"...and so, the next Hokage should be me!" Danzou finished.

There was a brief silence.

Shikaku coughed pointedly. "Excuse me, Danzou-sama, but I'm afraid you simply aren't qualified."

Every head turned toward him. The Daimyo raised an eyebrow, but his ceremonial fan hid most of his facial expression.

"What?" Danzou said. "In what way?"

Shikaku shrugged. "Well, Danzou-sama…you obviously have the intelligence, wisdom, and experience that a Hokage needs, there is no disputing that. And while your ideology may differ from Tsunade-sama's, that does not disqualify you, of course. But…"

"Make your point, Shikaku," Danzou said, his visible eye narrowing in apparent anger.

Shikaku sighed. "Danzou-sama, respectfully, keeping in mind that you sustained your injuries in the line of duty, the fact is that you're a cripple. You walk around with a crutch, you only have one working arm, you only have one working eye, and frankly you seem to squint a lot even with that one. The Hokage is a political leader, but also a military one, and is meant to be the strongest shinobi in the village, or at least a contender for that title. As Jounin Commander I have top level clearance, so I know you haven't been on a combat mission in years, or conducted any advanced training. You haven't even been teaching."

That was obviously false, of course, but since ROOT didn't officially exist, Danzou could hardly use his work there as justification.

"To my knowledge, you didn't even participate in the fight against Pain," Shikaku continued. "Given the strength of your loyalty to the village, I'm sure you would have done so if you were able, so I can only conclude that you, yourself, know you lack the fitness to fight. I'm sorry, Danzou-sama, but you simply aren't strong enough to be Hokage. I know it's rude to say it, but you're past your prime, and this is a job for a younger man."

Danzou stood impotently silent for a few moments. Apparently, while he was busy scheming, he'd forgotten to take into account the fact that his penchant for secrecy had disadvantages.

He spent the rest of the meeting glaring at Shikaku so hard that he began to worry Danzou was trying to use some sort of secret technique to kill him.

In the end, Danzou agreed to take a medical exam to prove his fitness, saying that he was just completing his recovery from an old injury. Shikaku was impressed with the man's skill at lying outright – he really had no tells – but not with the lie itself. It made him wonder just what Danzou was hiding under those bandages…

After careful consideration, Shikaku decided to call in some help for this one.

[][][][]

"So, an arm full of Sharingan? Really?" Naruto asked. "How did he think he could hide it? And what were they even for? I mean, could he see out of them? I'm not a medic, but even I know that there's like, special nerves and stuff that connect to the eyes, and arms don't have them."

"Oh he couldn't see out of them, but it was still really freaky," Sakura said. "Plus, he tried to use a genjutsu on Shizune when she examined him. Apparently the plan was to make her say that he was just about finished recovering from some sort of long-term poisoning. That way it would be an excuse for him avoiding combat for so many years. They caught him, though – someone made sure there was a Hyuuga watching the whole time, among other precautions, so it just tipped his hand. He almost got away, even then, but I guess Shikaku had set a trap around the whole building. Apparently he had some kind of crazy technique that sacrificed an eye to re-write reality or something? It was weird. It worked out fine, though, because Shizune poisoned him before she even started the examination."

Naruto chuckled. "You know, everyone always underestimates Shizune."

"I know!" Sakura agreed. "It's crazy. She's just so quiet and normal, though." Sakura shook her head. "Anyway, the Sharingan arm isn't even the only weird part. You know what else he did?"

"What?" Naruto asked curiously. "It can't be weirder."

Sakura shrugged, as if to say 'who knows,' then explained. "Apparently, he grafted some of the First Hokage's cells into his body to try to use his Wood Release." She gave Naruto a meaningful look.

"Like Yamato!" he exclaimed. "But wait, didn't he say that was an experiment by-"

"Yup!" Sakura said with false cheer. "Fucking Orochimaru." She shook her head, tone turning sour. "Turns out Danzou was in league with Orochimaru after he left the village. Kakashi-sensei said they were probably just using each other, of course, which makes sense. But that also explains why, when Danzou ordered Sai to infiltrate, Orochimaru was even willing to listen to him. So, yeah, apparently he was a real asshole. Anyway, he was summarily executed for treason, and Sai is helping them round up the rest of ROOT for interrogation and stuff. And apparently the Daimyo was pretty pissed, but he ended up deciding to make Kakashi the Sixth Hokage, so it's not all bad. I watched Kakashi personally burn all of Danzou's Sharingan, too. I just wish the old creep could have seen it. You know how he probably got them, right?"

It took Naruto a moment, but then he looked sick. "Oh, wow. Grave-robbing, I guess. Or...pre-burial robbing. What a bastard. Man. So I guess you got to look him over, too, if you know all this?"

"Yeah," Sakura said. "Once he got caught and knocked out, Shizune called me in to help with the medical examination before he was sentenced and executed. Once we were done with that, Kakashi had a talk with Sai and then decided there was no point trying to interrogate Danzou; he had all kinds of traps and seals and stuff to prevent it. Anyway, come on – there's a lot of stuff to do. We've still got to rebuild the village and deal with Akatsuki."

"Right," Naruto grinned. "Let's go." As they walked outside, he shook his head. "Man, I should have figured Sai's boss was a total nutjob. Hey Sakura? When I make it to Hokage one day, remind me to not let weird, creepy guys into positions of influence, okay? I mean, between this Danzou and Orochimaru, I'm starting to think that maybe we need to be more careful – like, do we have some kind of vetting process for craziness? Because if not, we should."

"Sure, Naruto," Sakura said. "But weren't you the one who trained under a self-proclaimed 'Legendary Pervert'?"

Naruto scratched the back of his head and chuckled. "Yeah, but he was just…eccentric. You know? Okay, I know the ladies he peeped on might disagree, but at least he wasn't kidnapping people and experimenting on them, or putting weird seals on them and stuff. Right? And it seems like ninjas always get a little...weird when they get old."

"Fair enough," Sakura said with a shrug. "And he was a pretty good guy, the rest of the time."

"Yeah, he was," Naruto said quietly.

Sakura looked at him and patted his shoulder. "Come on, Hero of the Village. No time to be sad - we've got more work to do. Look at the bright side – we'll be taking orders from Kakashi-sensei, not Danzou."

Naruto smiled. "Yeah, that is good. Sakura-chan, I don't even want to imagine what kind of orders a creep like that would have given us!"