(Thank you to ScarredPunLover, MetalDragon, Sunny, and KoreanWriter for their help brainstorming and editing.)
Alone in his office above the Academy, long after the last of the staff had followed their students away from the classrooms and training grounds and into the night, the Yondaime Hokage sat at his desk and contemplated his predecessor's predecessor, Senju Tobirama, the Nidaime Hokage.
The man had died in battle, but not a battle fought in the defense of Konoha. Instead, he had been brought down by treachery and ambush, a great white bear already wounded brought to bay.
It had been a mission of peace that had brought Tobirama out from Konoha's sheltering arms with only a small bodyguard escort for protection. In the fading days of the First Great War, Tobirama had left Konoha to treat with the Nidaime Raikage, to negotiate for a cessation of hostilities between their two villages.
He had, in fact, traveled across the very same stretch of land on the border of Hot Springs that Orochimaru had visited a week prior. The west bank of the Mutosi River had been where the Nidaime Hokage took his last step on the Land of Fire's soil.
How much stays the same across the years, thought Orochimaru, and smiled bitterly about it. How cyclical these things always seem to be.
Peace had evaded Tobirama, despite the last Lord of the Senju's best attempts. The negotiations had been interrupted by an attempted coup against the Raikage. The first act of the coupists had been the attempted destruction of the neutral town in which the two kage were meeting to discuss an end to the war. Both men had been badly injured in the attack, and both had retreated from the smoking ruins towards the safety of home at the prompting of their respective bodyguards.
The coupists had followed Tobirama home, moved by an opportunistic spirit to strike the Hokage down while he was still weakened. In the forests of the Land of Frost, Kumo jonin turned missing nin under the leadership of Golden Kinkaku had hunted down the injured kage, refusing to allow Hashirama's little brother the time to escape to Konoha to heal.
When Tobirama had fallen, he had dragged Kinkaku himself down with him into death. He had saved the shinobi of his bodyguard, who arguably should have died to save their leader instead. He had also, perhaps inadvertently, saved Kumogakure from a prolonged civil war; with Golden Kinkaku gone, the Kumo-nin still loyal to the dying Nidaime Raikage hunted down and killed Silver Ginkaku along with his remaining rebels.
And even after his death, his last actions cast a long shadow. Teacher turned around and built upon his own teacher's attempts to negotiate peace with Kumogakure to secure not just peace with the Cloud but a general armistice with all of the other villages, bringing the First Great War to an end. Teacher became the Sandaime Hokage and continued to rule the village for the next three decades.
And of course, the one who founded the Konoha Academy was not Hashirama, but a different Senju. Tobirama. I wonder how many of the students remember that from their history classes?
All of which was of only academic interest to the man currently saddled with the hat the two Senju brothers had worn. It was all important, of course – Orochimaru wouldn't have spent so long in the archives of the Konoha Library and the private stacks of the Hokage's Office satisfying his curiosity about the "whys" behind all of his earliest missions if it wasn't – but as far as new insights went, that vein was pretty thoroughly tapped.
Instead, Orochimaru wondered about the man himself, the person behind the curtly worded reports and harsh, uncompromising orders. Hashirama's little brother. He was something of a mystery, the Nidaime Hokage, an almost shadowy figure slipped between the living legend that was his Teacher and the true legend that was Senju Hashirama. To his muted astonishment, Orochimaru had found in his research that the younger Senju occupied a sort of cavity in Konoha's general memory; they remembered the glorious Founder, of course, and two generations had grown up under the protective hand of Sarutobi Hiruzen, but only the men and women who had served under Tobirama still seemed to remember that he had ever existed.
Overshadowed even in my mind, the Hokage thought, staring out over the lights of Konoha's commercial district. I must have seen him at some point – I was nearly four when he found his destiny on the battlefield – but I can't remember him. Teacher was always the Hokage, the one who defined what Konoha meant to me. The one who tied my firsthitai-atearound my head on my sixth birthday. The one who gave me my first mission, along with Jiraiya and Tsunade, all of us crouched at his feet, eager to do our part for the Leaf. Him… and his old comrade. Shimura Danzo. The Shadow's Shadow.
Who had also been one of Tobirama's chosen, once upon a time.
In his time, Orochimaru had wondered about that, had wondered what special quality of Danzo's had brought the man to the Nidaime's attention, what it had said about the Nidaime himself that Tobirama had picked Danzo to watch his back in the heat of battle.
On the face of it, knowing Shimura Danzo as I do, that decision seems incredibly foolish. Yet Tobirama was no fool. He might only have worn the Hokage's hat for thirteen months, but he served as his brother's right hand for twenty five years, since the day Hashirama became the Lord of the Senju following their father's death. He was a man who had a long view, and who had seen all there was to see and survived it all.
And he had seen something in the heir to the Shimura Clan that he could use.
Behind him, the door to the hallway eased open.
The click of the walking stick on the floorboards announced the identity of this late-night visitor, the one Orochimaru had quietly summoned shortly after returning to Konoha.
"Good evening, Lord Danzo," greeted Orochimaru, not turning from the window. Using the honorific for the man, in recognition of his status as the head of the Shimura Clan, even though officially the clan itself was extinct, was enough of a concession already. Much more and the old bastard might start wondering just how firm Orochimaru's grip on the hat really was.
"Lord Hokage," Danzo grunted, shuffling up beside him at the window with all the pained care of an old man feeling every one of his long years piled high upon his shoulders. As if they both didn't know just how spry the master of Root could be when he so chose. "You summoned me."
The implicit chiding was there, just as Orochimaru had expected it.
After all, how dare a man who had once borne the seal of "the Foundation" upon his tongue dare call the Shadow's Shadow into his presence, like some fresh chuunin?
He was never short of arrogance, Orochimaru thought, almost chuckling to himself. Not that I'd know a thing or three about that… But can either of us be truly called arrogant, when we both enjoy the full capacity to back our words with venom-dripping fangs?
"I did," the Hokage lightly acknowledged, then, "shouldn't you be kneeling, Shimura Danzo? Or do you bow to the Leaf no longer?"
In the window's reflection, what little of Danzo's face remained free of bandages tightened. It was a visible reaction, full of frustrated longing and anger. It was an open expression.
He has spent far too long surrounded by those incapable of gainsaying him or pointing out his shortcomings. The Old Man has lost his edge, just like the other old man. Only this one could never imitate Teacher's wisdom in stepping down while he still had that luxury.
Slowly, Danzo stooped down to his haunches, making his descent an entire production worthy of the stage. Clearly giving Orochimaru every chance to second-guess himself, to give him a chance to raise Danzo up to his feet next to him, just as Hiruzen always had done.
It was only when Orochimaru heard the sound of knuckles brushing the floor that he deigned to turn and look down upon the Root's master. From his three-point kneel, the stance of a subordinate awaiting orders, Shimura Danzo glared up to meet his gaze, his sole visible eye burning with poorly concealed hate.
"Well done," congratulated the Hokage, his voice just slightly sing-song with his smile. "I'm happy to see that your knees aren't too stiff to bend, Lord Danzo."
"What did you summon me here for?" graveled Danzo, humiliation burning on his face. "Just to waste my time with this pettiness?"
"I will decide what constitutes waste from here on out," replied the Hokage, voice acerbic. "But no, that 'pettiness' was all of your own making, Lord Danzo. You above all others should understand that the Leaf requires nothing short of complete obedience and utter dedication.
"But," the Hokage went on, turning back to gaze out the window over sleeping Konohagakure, "I did not call you here tonight just to stand on ceremony. Rise, Lord Danzo… Rise, and let us talk about the past."
"The past?" grunted the scarred man, rising, Orochimaru noted, without the help of his stick. "What about it? Your past? All of the projects we've collaborated on?"
"Collaborated on," he says! This time, Orochimaru didn't bother to conceal his contemptuous snort. Ordered me to handle, more like, and complicated with his burdensome demands and ridiculous deadlines. What a waste of my time so many of those "projects" were. Dead end after dead end!
But not all were a complete waste…
"Not quite," the Hokage smiled, speaking with a light, airy humor he knew would grind on Danzo's exposed nerves like windblown grit. "I was just contemplating the life and accomplishments of the Nidaime Hokage, Senju Tobirama. I wanted the insight of someone who had personally known the man.
"Naturally, in light of our long experience, I thought of you."
The long experience that led me to challenge Manda for possession of his tongue, so I could rip my own out by the roots along with the seal you placed upon me. I have no interest in discussing our mutual past, Danzo, at least not with words.
"Lord Tobirama?" Danzo asked, incredulous. "Why were you thinking about him? Lord," he added, after Orochimaru shot a meaningful look at him over his shoulder.
"I was considering just how he accomplished much from the shadows," replied the Hokage, "and how he contributed greatly to Konoha's welfare and prosperity before the hat ever touched his head. The Ninja Training Institute, the antecedent to Konoha's own Academy, the first walls to surround the village, setting the course of the first road connecting the site of the new village to the Land of Fire's old road network… All of it accomplished while he was just his brother's adjunct… The shadow of the Fire Shadow, you might say…
"That's a title you hold now, isn't it, Lord Danzo?"
And what contributions have you made to the Leaf while you waited for your turn to wear the hat, hm?
"He was a great man," Danzo acknowledged, and Orochimaru could hardly hear the anger in the man's voice, renewed though it was by the unsubtle dig. "He understood that, above all else, Konoha required strong leadership. Something your predecessor never understood."
"Perhapsss…" the Hokage vaguely replied, hardly willing to find it in himself to defend his Teacher's policies yet unwilling to even contemplate siding with Shimura Danzo on anything. "Yet clearly Lord Tobirama understood otherwises, considering his choice of successor."
"He was… not in a fit state of mind," the old man said coldly, each syllable bitten off. "He was injured, preparing to meet his death. Such troubles can cloud even a great man's judgment."
"And he was a great man. A great man to the last," said the Hokage, and smiled when Danzo flinched slightly, just enough to betray how deeply that barb had sunk through his withered and bandaged flesh. Even at the end, on a peace mission turned into a death trap, Tobirama had still made his preference for Hiruzen over Danzo known, and nothing could heal that old wound.
Danzo's wince was just enough satisfaction to finally pull his hissing tongue back under his full control.
"Indeed," the Hokage drawled, almost contemplatively, "there are many lessons still to draw from the Nidaime Hokage, his life and his choicesss. He, just as much as his brother, continues to protect Konohagakure, even in death.
"Although," he lightly added, "unlike Lord Hashirama, Lord Tobirama offered up no kekkai genkai to cultivate to further Konoha's goals. How unfortunate."
"...So that is why you called me here tonight," growled Danzo, hand tightening on the grip of his walking stick. "I should have expected as much, considering your appetites."
"Lord Hashirama belongs to the Leaf and to no other," the Hokage coldly replied, the pretense of friendly familiarity gone as ice the match of Danzo's carved into his voice, as implacable as glaciers. "All of him belongs to this village, just as how all shinobi and kunoichi of Konohagakure answer to the Hokage."
"This will not stand." It was almost conversational, that promise, and having it out at last seemed to almost relax Danzo. His hand certainly loosened on the walking stick, though Orochimaru knew that had nothing to do with nerves and everything to do with freeing his hands to make signs in an instant. "The Hokage is a leader, but not one beyond all limits. Clans enjoy discretion over their secret techniques."
"Oh? I was not aware that Root was a clan," At last, Orochimaru rounded on the old man, the one whose orders he had been forced to dutifully obey for years, "nor that you are a Senju, old man. Unless you are trying to claim that your 'rediscovery' of the Mokuton has made the technique a Shimura clan secret? In which case, does that make me a Shimura for having instigated those first few cells to bud and multiply? Or does that mean that the Mokuton is indeed mine by right of office and rediscovery, hm?"
"It is necessary that the Mokuton remain in the hands of Root," ground Danzo, and Orochimaru tensed as the old man flexed his hands. "What if the jinchuriki should lose control? What if some other demon attacks the Village?"
"Hmm… an interesssting hypothetical…" Orochimaru drawled, indulging himself a moment to play with his food. "Why… I suppose I would be forced to call on our ranks of highly skilled Jonin to suppress the rampaging demon. Or perhaps I would send my Anbu instead, all of whom have sworn to place the fulfillment of my commands over any other concern. Oh, and of course, I couldn't forget to call upon my good friend Jiraiya, a world renowned expert on such things as the seals that bind the mighty Bijuu to frail human flesh."
He tapped his lip thoughtfully, drinking in Danzo's bubbling frustration as he dragged the moment out. "Actually… come to think of it, why do I need Root? What is it, exactly, that you do to help Konoha, Lord Danzo, that cannot be replicated by another office with less of a history for… questionable activities? We hardly lack for covert offices and departments, after all. Why," Orochimaru chuckled, "I'm almost spoiled for choice! Between the Anbu, the Hunter-nin of the Analysis Unit, and, not least, the Uchiha Clan and their Military Police… What makes your Foundation so special?"
I might as well have slapped him across the face, Orochimaru thought, watching with delight as Danzo blanched underneath his scars and bandages. I wonder, did he truly come to this meeting assuming that I would be prepared to submit myself to his control again? What was he expecting?
"You should know above everybody else just what the Root provides the rest of the Leaf, Lord Hokage," and now it was Danzo's turn to hiss his words. "Clean hands. That's our greatest service to Konoha. The village prospers under the light of the sun, while all of the hardest choices are made for it under the darkness of the earth.
"Not," the old man smiled nastily, "that I suppose you have much need to keep your own hands clean, Lord Hokage; that bird flew away long ago. Tell me, how do you think the clanheads would react to the knowledge of all that you have done? Lord Fugaku might be interested to learn of just how far your research into the Sharingan has progressed."
"Only a fool strikesss with a weapon so easily turned back upon him," retorted the Hokage, "and only an absolute fool would dare to meet the gaze of Lord Fugaku or Lord Hiassshi, or indeed, any Uchiha or Hyuuga, with a Sharingan all their own concealed by mere bandagesss.
"I will concede, Danzo, that you and your Roots once served a purpose. Perhaps my Teacher required clean hands to properly lead Konoha according to his purposesss.
"But I am not my Teacher, nor am I so squeamish. I ask again: what makes Root necessary to me? I require more hands, not clean onesss. I require full and complete knowledge of all that happens in my name more than I require a clean conscience. So, I shall offer you a new bargain: Here the Root lies, but it shall go no further. No more seducing away disgruntled clan children, no more abductions of unaffiliated students from the Academy. Regular and complete reports of all Root activitiesss.
"And in exchange, all that you currently hold will remain your own. Including all of the ninja whose potential you have usurped.
"You may serve, or you may vanish forever into the shadowsss. I care not either way."
"Oh, has the White Serpent suddenly gained a bleeding heart?" mocked Danzo, sneering with open disdain. "When did you start caring for the welfare of children, eh? It never seemed to bother you when I sent you to trawl the orphanages and refugee camps for recruits, nor when you went on raids into Iwa or Kumo under the orders of your beloved Teacher."
"The welfare of children in other countries does not bother me," the Hokage acknowledged. "They are not my responsibility. As for those who I shoved into Root for you, well," he shrugged, "you had the approval of the Sandaime Hokage to act as you saw fit. Who was I to gainsay either your orders or those of my Teacher?
"But now, I need not tolerate your foolishness any further, Danzo. I speak not out of anything so misplaced as an abhorrence of your means or some desire to preserve life, as to the simple fact that you are surplus to requirementsss. You offer me nothing but the demands of a parasite. If I wish to kill, I will wield the knife myself; I have no need for a band of self-appointed executioners to interpret my will and sabotage my goals."
"You think this is just about your will?" Danzo demanded, incensed. "This is about what is necessary! When the raids across our borders intensified year after year, your Teacher was so determined to preserve the useless peace leftover from the Second War that he offered concessions! He gave orders only to attack enemies found within the borders of Fire! He exposed our throat to our enemies with his weakness!"
"Ssso you have said," agreed the Hokage, "repeatedly and at length. What of it? What did you do that so changed matters to benefit Konoha?"
"I forced Hiruzen to finally get up off his ass and fight," came the smug reply, and suddenly Danzo was calm again, on firmer footing. "Iwa was already gearing up for a major assault on Fire. I told your predecessor as much, and he simply redoubled his advice to the Daimyo to pursue a diplomatic resolution.
"Before he could further weaken us in the face of an invasion from the Stone, I decided to steal a march on them. A raid in force by ninja with Iwa hitai-ate across both Rain and the northern marches of Fire were more than enough. The northern prefects made enough noise to stir up the court, who turned against your predecessor's appeasement. When the actual invasion arrived only a week later, mobilization was already well underway, with only a few hundred civilians who would have died when Iwa invaded anyway as the price tag."
Irritatingly enough, I can see the logic, Orochimaru thought, grumbling to himself. Wasteful, sloppy, and self-assured logic; I would have said we would be better served to attack firstinto Iwa and maybe take control over some of the passes they'd need to march their armies down out of the highlands.
Either way, it wasn't his call to make. It was the Hokage's.
"You have exceeded your remit, Shimura Danzo," pronounced the Hokage, and allowed his killing intent to unfurl in the suddenly tight confines of the office. "You have usurped powersss belonging only to the leader of all Konohagakure. If you attempt to do the same to me, I shall saw the head from your body myself and find something amusing to do with it.
"I have made my offer to you. I advise you to consider it closely.
"Now get out of my sssight."
After Danzo left, not even bothering with the pretense of needing his stick to walk, Orochimaru returned to staring out over Konoha, waiting.
A few moments later, Jiraiya of the Toads stepped out from the shadows behind a heap of cartons bulging with paperwork, an absurd, flimsy blind for such a massive and powerfully built man to hide behind.
His clone outside must have dissipated itself to report that Danzo had exited the building, thought Orochimaru, turning to meet his old friend. Ah, that's…
His thoughts skidded to a stop. Jiraiya looked… incredibly angry.
Danzo does tend to have that effect upon people.
"So," Orochimaru began, "your thoughts?"
Jiraiya came to a halt in front of him, working his jaw for a moment in silence. Then, he asked, "Orochimaru… what exactly was it that you did at Root?"
Oh.
Abruptly realizing that he might have made a mistake, that perhaps his old teammate and spymaster might not be quite as understanding as he had assumed, Orochimaru immediately defaulted to trying to slither out of the situation.
"A great deal," he loftily replied. "It was a long six years, you know. Plus the periodic engagements every now and again since. Say what you will about Danzo and Root, but his research facilities are second to no–"
The fist, big and meaty, slammed into Orochimaru's jaw and nearly ripped him off his feet. As it was, he had to take several steps back to catch himself, and then had to jump another step back to dodge the second haymaker.
"Juh–" Orochimaru began, but his jaw wasn't working. It was, he realized, both broken and dislocated, hanging agape and bloody.
Dammit.
Ignoring the pain, Orochimaru held his hand up in the universal sign for "time out" and wrenched his hanging jaw back up until the joint popped back into place. Incredibly, Jiraiya paused and waited, prompting a sigh of relief from the snake Sannin as he opened and closed his mouth experimentally, probing the loose teeth with his tongue. The bone, he knew, would mend itself back together by the time he woke up tomorrow morning, so long as he meditated on all things serpentine for at least a half hour before he dropped off for the night, but if he'd left the jaw deformed and dislocated, it would have healed incorrectly.
And I do so hate having to break my own bones to give the regeneration a second try.
"Aww, aww… Alright," Orochimaru said as, at last, the joint began to bend again. It was always strange, trying to talk through a broken jaw, but he'd manage. "Now… what was that all about, Jiraiya? You asked a question, I gave you an answer."
"Wrong. Answer." Jiraiya said, and turned his head to spit on the office floor. "Try again, Orochimaru. What the fuck was that about the Sharingan and the Mokuton? And about the non-clan kids."
"...You didn't know?" Orochimaru cocked his head to the side, peering with genuine surprise at his teammate. "Truly? What kind of a spymaster are you, Jiraiya?"
Something dark flickered behind Jiraiya's eyes, followed by a fire Orochimaru knew well.
"No," the White Serpent raised up a staying hand, recognizing the signs of incipient violence in his old friend, "no need for more punches at the moment. That wasn't an evasion, that was genuine shock; I thought Danzo's recruitment tactics were more or less common knowledge, or at least, commonly known by those involved in the village's unpublicized missions."
"I know that he talks a good line about 'extraordinary service to the village' to the disgruntled clan kids, and about how 'only youth can truly understand how best to help Konoha,'" said Jiraiya, every word laden with disgust. "Everything a kid eager to make a change wants to hear. I always figured the clans allowed it because it sucked away anybody inclined to go against the established order. I figured he'd built his stupid Foundation up through that sweet-talking and luring in orphans from the Konoha Home.
"Not…" Jiraiya's teeth ground together, "not just by kidnapping whatever poor street rat he found with a modicum of potential!"
"Oh." Orochimaru considered that for a moment, then almost shrugged, deciding against it only when he realized that it would absolutely net another punch to his poor jaw. "Well, yes, Danzo uses a softer touch when he recruits clan scions, and I'm sure he probably does take in quite a few orphans. Give children without families a place to call home, food, and a purpose… Well, that's all well and good, but sometimes more active recruiting measures are necessary. As you might have noticed, Danzo is not inclined to take 'no' as an answer."
"Certainly not from you," smirked Jiraiya. "Did you really think you could just browbeat him into giving you… what, Hashirama's cells? Because apparently you desecrated the Shodai's corpse?"
"A bit, yes," Orochimaru admitted, and this time he did shrug, pleased that the conversation was moving into decidedly less troubled waters. "It wasn't much desecration. I just extracted a tissue sample before returning the body to its grave. Surprisingly, it wasn't putrefied in the slightest; so the first sample was more or less viable. The issue was that all of his cells had somehow entered stasis instead of rotting, like some plants in the Land of Frost do during the winter."
"Oh no you don't," Jiraiya interrupted. "No wandering sidetracks right now. We can talk about what you did to Lord Hashirama's corpse later, preferably when Tsunade is around so she can punch you too. We…" the Toad Sage lifted a weary hand to his head, pushing his mane backwards with a sigh. "We can talk about a lot of stuff later, I guess… You're not getting out of this, Orochimaru. But… Damage control first. If Danzo strikes now and goes straight to the clanheads tonight, what can he tell them that would undermine you, and more importantly, Konoha?"
A hundred answers presented themselves immediately.
"A great deal," Orochimaru said instead, marveling at how, even with an unsealed tongue, he still couldn't speak of the many secrets hidden down among the Root. "Suffice it to say, Danzo has been around for as long as the Old Man was, and without any pushback from clanheads or the Daimyo to contend with. He's been handling most of Konoha's dirty work the entire time, often without troubling the Hokage's Office with the knowledge of that dirty work or its particulars. As you just heard, some of his operations transcended the merely tactical and entered the realm of the strategic.
"Even I do not know how much of Konoha's foreign policy over the last three decades has its ultimate origin in Danzo."
"...Shit," Jiraiya replied succinctly, squeezing his eyes closed and seeming to age a decade. "Shit. For thirty years?"
"Probably," said Orochimaru. "Who really knows? Maybe he got started under the Shodai or Nidaime. Maybe it took him a few years to get his organization spun up. It doesn't really matter."
"I suppose not," agreed Jiraiya, prying his eyes back open again. "But… thinking strictly domestically, that must mean that he's got at least something on every clan, if not leverage against every clanhead personally.
"Damn… How could Teacher have allowed this?" Without looking, Jiraiya reached out behind him and seized one of the guest chairs, and dropped down into it heavily enough to make the legs creak with protest. "I knew Root had been around for a while, but… Thirty years?"
"He's always been quite sentimental," noted Orochimaru, circling back around his desk to take a seat. "And I'm sure Danzo was quite the reliable helper, back in the early days. Once formed, habits are ever so hard to break… And with Teacher finding that he could take the high road without having to worry about whether or not his preemptive rejection of unsavory means was endangering Konoha… the temptation to simply allow his old friend his freedom and discretion must have been too great to ignore."
For a few minutes, the two sat in brooding silence.
"Well," the Hokage said, tired of waiting, "all of this aside, I ordered you to come here tonight so you would hear all of that from Danzo. On the basis of what you heard from the man himself, what does your expert opinion say we should do next?"
"...I don't think we can just kill him," Jiraiya reluctantly sighed. "I had hoped there would be a simple solution – turn a few of his key agents, suborn a few of the rank and file with Byakugan eyes or Aburame bugs to back us up before the clans, throw Danzo in jail and reintegrate the Root back into the rest of the Anbu – but now I'm beginning to think it won't be quite so easy."
"Oh, was that your plan?" Orochimaru shook his head, ignoring his fellow Sannin's withering look. "Jiraiya, all Root operatives have a seal branded into their tongue that binds away all word of Root to any outside the organization. Wait…" a thought occurred to the Hokage. "If you didn't know that, why did you think I tore Manda's tongue out to replace my own?"
"Eh?" Jiraiya blinked, his turn to be surprised come round at last. "Honestly? I just figured you had either done it by accident and were trying to pass it off as if it was part of some master plan, or it was actually a step in a master plan to fulfill some lifelong dream to become as snakelike as possible."
Orochimaru did not bother to dignify that with a response beyond a baleful glare.
"...Did Teacher know?" Jiraiya's voice was surprisingly calm. Gentle, even. "When he sent you to Root, I mean."
"I always assumed so," replied Orochimaru, slouching back into his chair and staring down at the hat of office where it sat on his desk. "Teacher is many things, but I never took him to be uninformed."
A bitter chuckle escaped Orochimaru's throat at the thought. Grim memories bubbled up to the surface and drew a thin smile denuded of joy to his lips. "You know," he remarked, "it's almost funny."
"Funny?" Jiraya looked distinctly unamused. "How exactly is anything in this rotting pile of shit funny?"
"Well you see, my old friend, when Teacher first assigned me to work under Danzo, I was actually quite happy. Proud. Overjoyed, even," Orochimaru said, the smile on his face warming slightly as he remembered those distant, foolish, days. "I thought that finally Teacher had recognized my talents beyond the battlefield, that he was giving me a chance to shine in a way that no other, not you nor Namikaze nor even the Slug Princess, could. Because, surely, if he was handing me over to his oldest friend, the supposed Shadow's Shadow guarding the heart of Konoha, it meant that this would be a wonderful opportunity for me, no? Surely I could trust Teacher, no? Surely it meant I could trust Danzotoo, no?"
The smile wavered, the seething memories threatening to overflow the bot. He pushed the lid back down on the whole frothing mess with practiced ease.
"Well…" Orochimaru shook his head, "suffice to say, I was quite the fool in my youth. The 'wonderful opportunity' did not, in fact, last long. I've learned that taking things like 'trust' for granted has… consequences."
Jiraiya's eyes hardened again and he looked about to say something, but then he deflated, the words leaving him empty and hollow.
"Alright," he said a few breaths later. "So, we can't flip any of his people."
"None of his people can reveal the secrets of Root," corrected Orochimaru. "I, however, already know quite a bit about Root, enough to know that the seal only prohibits speaking about the organization without Danzo's permission. The only thing keeping any of Root's agents from acting against Danzo himself in a more direct fashion is the personal loyalty he conditions into them."
"Which is much easier to quietly attack than an unknown but probably complex seal," agreed the greatest living fuinjutsu expert. "So, medium to long-term subversion is still a viable tactic."
"Perhaps," Orochimaru allowed, shrugging. On the one hand, Jiraiya was the spymaster of their pair; his opinion was that of a trusted expert. On the other hand… "As I said, Danzo conditions his agents for personal loyalty. The seal helps, but most of the Root are die hard fanatics, raised in most cases from childhood to sooner kill themselves than turn on the man. The old bastard has spent years learning how to best demolish personalities and rebuild them as unflinching tools. Deprogramming them in a controlled environment would already be quite difficult, but suborning them in a covert manner without alerting the rest of their compatriots?"
The sound that emanated from Jiraiya was like plates of granite sliding across the mantle as he ground his teeth in frustration. "Breaking people down to turn them into unflinching tools, eh?"
"What can I say?" Orochimaru shrugged again. "Over the decades, Danzo has had plenty of time to practice, to train, and to experiment. Now, it is almost an art, how he can strip a psyche down to base loyalty. This has the unfortunate side effect of severely reducing both the mental stability and the general talent of the subject as well as their capability to express emotion, but Danzo is convinced that the trade-off in favor of unquestioned loyalty is worth it.
"Of course," the snake Sannin drawled, "that unquestioning loyalty only lasts so long as the conditioning remains in place and uncompromised. If the conditioning doesn't stick, well…
"It can leave his would-be tools feeling rather… ssspiteful."
How dare he try to make a slave of me? The old anger simmered and stewed, more corrosive than any acid. How dare he try to leash my potential, to hold me back from the heights I will ascend?
Shimura Danzo, Lord Danzo… You are a canker upon the village, but I will not deny that your removal will be immensely pleasing for entirely personal reasons.
The furrows in Jiraiya's brow deepened. "...So, I suppose that doesn't completely invalidate a long term subversion effort. We'd just have to be a lot more careful about it. Like defusing a live seal."
"Perhaps," Orochimaru sighed, conceding the point. This could be a good test of Jiraiya's reliability, he supposed. If the man's optimism produced results, all well and good. If not, this project would yield useful data for when he as the Hokage had to weigh Jiraiya's advice in other matters. "But, that's still a long term prospect at best."
"Right," agreed the Toad Sage, "and as for the short term…" Jiraiya sucked at his teeth. "Short term, I think you need to start taking clan heads aside, have some personal meetings. Tell them anything about your time with Root that relates directly to them or their clan, individually and in private. Let them know before Danzo does. Steal the ground out from under his feet."
"...That's what I was afraid you would say," Orochimaru sighed, already feeling the headaches sure to come. "Do you have any idea how upset Fugaku is going to be when he learns that I implanted a Sharingan in Danzo's head?"
"...You did what?"