"What did you do?" Hiruzen asked, puffing on his pipe while half-glaring at Danzo who stoically stood in front of his desk.
"I have no idea what you are talking about, Hiruzen." Danzo answered, his eyes showing confusion while his expression was as if set in stone.
Partially, he was telling the truth. Danzo simply did so many things that he really had no idea what exactly Hiruzen meant. 'How the heck did he even discover anything suspicious?' Danzo thought while internally frowning. He spent the majority of his time covering the tracks so this entire meeting was highly unusual and a very surprising thing to happen.
"What am I talking about?" Hiruzen almost quietly asked, his rage flashing through his eyes. This was something Danzo got to see only very rarely. The expression full of anger filled with the promise of pain...
'Uh, oh...' He thought warily but he really had no idea what Hiruzen meant. "Yes. Tell me... please." He added to show some measure of respect. An enraged monkey was very hard to deal with, after all.
Hiruzen's expression twisted but he barely kept calm, just throwing a letter at Danzo who caught it with almost practiced ease.
"Read!"
Danzo furrowed his brows at the pissed tone of his long-time 'friend' and started reading the letter. The more he read, the more his always-expressionless poker face came closer to breaking from the sheer shock he was feeling.
But before Danzo could voice out any of his doubts, Hiruzen started speaking, "How about explaining why ROOT is still in function? I remember very well that years ago I gave the order to disband it, Danzo!"
Silence descended on the office as the air between Danzo and Hiruzen turned chilly, both staring at the other with unflinching determination in a powerful show of wills. What was really surprising though... was the result.
Hiruzen slightly lowered his head, not enough for it to be taken as defeat or, Sage forbids, submission... only enough to show how tired he was at having to wipe Danzo's ass.
"I am not angry because ROOT is still operating." Hiruzen wearily sighed as he started talking in an old and tired tone, "That was given the second you tried to assassinate me after the death of Fourth Hokage on my way to the Fire Daimyo to reintroduce myself as the new temporary Hokage."
"I never did that. You must be mista-" Danzo started but Hiruzen just dismissively waved him off with his free hand, not even bothering to acknowledge the excuse.
"No, Danzo. What I am really angry at you for is the blatant stupidity showcased here." Hiruzen's voice started to slowly but surely get stronger, "If you want to lead a freaking SECRET organization with no ties to Konoha, DO NOT teach your emotionless drones to introduce themselves as 'Roots of Konoha' during their supposedly secret missions, for fucks sake!" By the end, Hiruzen was standing on his feet, clasping on his chest while breathing hard from yelling at Danzo.
Danzo however just simply grimaced knowing the cat was out of the bag. Not because of the letter. Not because the Hokage knew. But because this situation did not give any sense whatsoever for Danzo and the old monkey was his best bet to make at least some sense out of it. Oh, he didn't want to... how he didn't want to speak with Hiruzen openly about ROOT. Danzo was not an idiot and knew this probably would be used by Hiruzen later down the line to majestically screw him over but Konoha now faced a serious threat so the cards had to be put on the table.
"ROOT didn't do it." Danzo said impassively, letting his face relax into a wide scowl.
It was an open secret among the members of Hiruzen's genin team that while Danzo had an impressive poker face that simply could not be seen through, the second the man relaxed his facial muscles, his act was utterly incapable of masking what he really thought. This was a big part of the reason why Danzo always wore his grim look. Which was why Hiruzen believed every word coming out of Danzo's mouth the second he saw his confused and enraged scowl.
"I have no memory of allowing such a mission."
Danzo was the head of ROOT. That simply meant he was the one who handed out missions to his ninjas and he knew one thing for sure. He did not send even one of his ninjas to the Land of Snow in decades. Hence...
"The report is bullshit, you want to say?" Hiruzen flopped back down into his chair, not knowing what to think anymore.
First, a few days ago he received a report that there was an attempt at revolt in the Land of Snow. This didn't mean much at the first glance but since then, he always had some pretentious noble from the capitol 'visiting' Konoha in the guise of the treaties between the village and the Daimyo slightly changing in the favor of the Daimyo. Honestly, Hiruzen was too old and tired to care about these small things.
Who cared if ninjas were not allowed to step into the Daimyo palace without an escort from the Daimyo's ninja guards? Who cared if they had to report their presence in the capital to a special secret Samurai guardsmen? Konoha was not revolting anytime soon, plus missions in the capital were almost as rare as SS-rank ninjas so these 'restrictions' had basically no effect on the village at all. Still... it was very time-consuming and tiring to have talks with nobles, even if they were about unimportant things that would simply reassure Daimyo about their loyalty.
Hiruzen thought that was the end of the Land of Snow fiasco but he was clearly wrong.
After the Daimyo of the Land of Snow won against the rebels, which didn't take even a day, an impressive feat in Hiruzen's opinion... Yukigakure simply gave up two days later. Well, nobody could blame them, really. The really important people of the village were killed in the revolt and what was left was not strong enough to even be called a village. They should be happy the Daimyo didn't outright disband the village for how weak it was.
And therein laid the current problem. The letter, which was still tightly clutched in Danzo's angry grip just as he started speaking.
"Yes! I have never sent my ninjas so far north and nobody trained by me would act like an idiot! Announcing where they come from? That-"
"That. Doesn't. Matter!" Hiruzen gritted out. Danzo was pushed too far too suddenly and Hiruzen couldn't believe this made his friend blind to the real matter at hand! "The most important thing is that ROOTs existence was revealed! This is an official complaint letter from the Daimyo of the Land of Snow on behalf of Yukigakure for the actions of Konoha's 'secret' ROOT division!"
Danzo suddenly grew pale... "Meaning the dignitaries of other countries will have free access to it." He muttered almost wordlessly, causing Hiruzen to stiffly nod.
ROOT was an incredible concept but it only worked if they were totally secret even from the higher-ups of Konoha. Over the years, the organization did various things and caused mayhem in too many places. The only saving grace was nobody knew they belonged to Konoha. Oh, people suspected but that was it. Suspicion was at the end of the day just... suspicion.
The second evidence starts coming about ROOT being Konoha's division though... all the families of the victims of assassinations... Danzo could almost see the map of the Elemental Nations getting painted in the colors of Konoha enemies. After all, every eyewitness that caught even a glance of the blank white mask with the words 'ROOT' on it, now knew to blame Konoha for it.
"Kidnapping a member of the Yukimi clan from the village and having over a hundred eye-witnesses to the said red-haired female agent's introduction as somebody belonging to ROOT..." Hiruzen continued, "It honestly would not matter and we could just dismiss it as lies. The Daimyo of the Land of Snow would have no leverage... if only the Biri-Biri company didn't join the fray and confirm his claims to be truthful. The same Biri-Biri company that holds incredibly high relations with many Daimyo's, important nobles, and wealthy merchants. The same Biri-Biri company that is one of the richest in the world. The same Biri-Biri company... that was totally impartial and has the best reputation there is."
"The same Biri-Biri company we desperately need if we want to recover after the Kyuubi attack in a reasonable time-frame." Danzo finished it for Hiruzen.
This was the main problem. The Daimyo of the Land of Snow somehow managed to convince the Biri-Biri company to support his claims. Frankly, Hiruzen didn't think this was hard. It was a well-known fact that Biri-Biri and Snow Corporation never clashed and their relationship was very cordial.
The men stared at each other silently before Hiruzen decided to act like a Hokage for a moment, "I want you to disband ROOT. This time for real, Danzo." He started in a commanding tone, "I let it go on for far too long. Its presence became detrimental for the village. A week later, an emissary of the Biri-Biri company will arrive in Konoha in order to negotiate the reparations for the acts of ROOT in their lands. We both know it doesn't matter if it was your ninja or not or even if the accusation is actually real. There is simply too much political power being thrown around and too little time to prove ourselves innocent." Hiruzen sadly shook his head, ending his speech. Konoha needed the goods of the Biri-Biri company... and the Fire Daimyo was far too friendly to their representative in the capital of the Land of Fire to ignore the company. The best Hiruzen could do was to go head-first into this already lost negotiation with their emissary and try to reduce any sort of payment they would ask for while keeping their relationship on a good basis.
Hearing Hiruzen's order, Danzo just turned on his heel and silently left the office, silently swearing to find out who played him for a fool. Without the support of so many Daimyo, Konoha could just throw around its weight and past achievement but now... 'Damn it all to hell! So many years of my effort wasted in a blink of an eye!'
The second Danzo closed the door behind himself, a man appeared from the shadow of Hokage's chair, "Will he really do it? Disband the ROOT?"
Hiruzen could only exasperatedly yet tiredly shake his head.
"If only, Raido-kun... if only."