Shadows Cast by Fire's Light

by EmotionalInvestmentBanker

As the last embers begin to die down, and a sole tongue of flame flickers lowly in the wind, it's light fading, it's ironic, and yet perhaps fitting, that in such dying light, only now do the shadows begin to dance in earnest. Rated M for violence. Slow Burn, infrequent updates due to author's health.

1. Preface

Shadows Cast by Fire's Light

Preface – 16/10/21

Hi all, and welcome to my second published piece of fiction (not that I'm anywhere near done with the first as of yet). I'll start with an apology regarding the lack of updates to The Silent Fox over the past half a year or so. As I alluded to in the authors notes, I've been having many health issues that aren't entirely non-serious, which has put paid to much of my ambition where writing is concerned. That combined with trying to hold down a full time job has dealt a serious blow to my enthusiasm, and I'm hoping to buck the current trend in that regard by starting on another idea that I've had on the back-burner since before I even started on TSF. I will hopefully also be working on TSF alongside this, however I won't be sticking to a schedule for either because rules are for chumps. Below I'll give a short explanation of what I plan for this story to be, and why, and also some of what to expect, although feel free to skip this as its not absolutely necessary for the plot.

So a major issue I'm sure many of us have with Naruto is how much of a dumbass Danzo is. He claims to be all about the good of Konoha and doing whatever it takes to preserve the village, but he could have dealt with the whole Kyuubi Jinchuriki situation in a much less power-hungry and megalomaniacal fashion. In fact, its generally accepted all across most of fanon from what I've read that Kumo is nice to its Jinchuriki and it really reaps the benefits from being as such. So my little tweak on canon for this story will be changing Danzo from a psychopathic straw-man to a real live human being with a functioning brain and emotions to boot.

As with TSF, I'm not going to be doing the whole romance at 12 shebang because 1- ewww, and 2- I try to really get into character when writing and I think I've said enough in the past how I feel about the emotional and romantic capacity of children (or even young adults tbh). Anyway, I'm really just looking forward to writing more dialogue between Danzo and Hiruzen, which I find to be quite enjoyable.