Reborn in the Mist

Danzo felt ill—a gnawing nausea twisted in his gut, dizziness clouding every corner of his mind. He sat at a desk surrounded by the last remnants of his ROOT operatives—fools who had chosen to aid him rather than follow his orders to the letter. It worked out in his favour—the fools left behind in the Hidden Rain had served well as fodder, buying him and Jiraiya the time they needed to escape. 

He could have continued, we could still be on the run even now so why? Danzo wanted to know and Jiraiya did as well. There were many questions on the minds of everyone but after his last hideout was blown to smithereens, Danzo was forced to rely on the resources and connections of the perverted Toad Sage who was fortunately stoic as he'd ever been.

Jiraiya had found them shelter on the border of the Land of Fire—a small, rundown noodle and udon shop. The basement was a cold, shadowy space, four times larger than the shop above and filled with the pungent smell of onions and preserved food.

The basement had a freezer, a massive one capable of hosting five shelves of meat and other protein across its width, but it was currently the one and only interrogation and jail room for their prisoner. My prisoner. Danzo did not find the Winged Woman's jutsu so impressive but her skill and its unique application was worth placing a curse seal on her, not to mention her connection to the Rinnegan Wielders.

Danzo's shoulders grew heavy at the thought of them. They'd forced this premature Chakra-exhaustion onto him as he and Jiraiya fled. Keeping his Sharingan active, while battling Orochimaru's unstable modifications from consuming his living cells, drained him mentally and physically.

A single, flickering bulb illuminated the entire basement and Jiraiya's dissatisfied face once he stepped out. Danzo sneered, "Let Tatsuma try."

"No," Jiraiya replied sharply. "She's still my student."

"She hasn't been your student since-"

"I don't want to hear it, Danzo." Jiraiya didn't shout over Danzo, a focused glare from the Sannin was clearer than any other object had been in the past hour. Danzo pursed his lips shut, too sick to bother with a retort.

"What have you learned? Has she answered the riddle of what became of your other…students?"

The Sannin pulled a stool from under a ROOT-nin and sat, "They're dead. Yahiko is or should be. I don't know how it came to be that there are multiple Rinnegan, only Nagato wielded the Dojutsu when I trained them. Those eyes ate every technique, mastered every lesson, replicated…reinforced everything I taught. He was…would be a very powerful shinobi, I don't believe he could be so easily killed."

Danzo squinted through the vertigo, it wouldn't dull his mind or loosen his lips. These names…He glanced over his shoulder at Tatsuma who stood in a dark lit corner, straightening his gloves by the finger. Tatsuma caught his look but didn't give anything away, not that there was anything to even as he faced a dilemma.

The Winged Angel was surely the girl Hanzo held hostage that day, that night the Rinnegan's power was unleashed. Nagato, Yahiko, Konan. Leaders of the Akatsuki and students of Jiraiya the Sannin. Danzo shook his head of the vertigo and his indecision, he couldn't know for certain if Konan had remembered him from his time in Amegakure but he doubted she did. She did not fight him like she knew what he'd done and as far as Tatsuma could communicate to him, she hadn't confessed anything of that day to Jiraiya either.

"I don't believe so either, in fact, I think your student, Nagato must be the one behind the curtain of these Rinnegan Wielders. How else could it come to pass? The secrets of the Dojutsu are buried in the ages long before even the Warring Clans, this replication we've fallen victim to could simply be an ability of those eyes." 

Danzo decided as he counted his leftover ROOT. There were five patrolling above ground and another twelve injured or exhausted here with him. There would have been more but he'd ordered them into the hideout within the Rain Village to hold Konan hostage and the Rinnegan Wielders caught up fast enough to decimate those fodder forces.

Jiraiya gave his words some thought, though Danzo was certain such a conclusion had already come across his mind. The Toad Sannin let out a deep, tired sigh. He was in best shape out of them all with minor injuries and nothing so destabilising as Chakra exhaustion.

"Nagato…he said he would usher a world of peace through equal suffering, that the Mizukage would pay and that Konoha would be next. I can't…"

Danzo snorted, a scowl ingrained on his lips as he retrieved a shot bottle of alcohol and gulped, "Of course you can't, it is the same as your teacher, Sarutobi. How do you think he felt hearing all of what Orochimaru had…accomplished. How he felt, catching him in the act?" Danzo shook his head, "If you think for a second you can rehabilitate a madness you haven't even been around to witness, then you'd better leave now, Sannin. The Hokage assigned this mission to my ROOT and we will complete it."

Jiraiya stood, replacing the melancholy in his eyes with the will of a shinobi and said, "I won't see you hurt her, she's fallen…they've fallen but there's always a reason and I will find out before I let you touch her."

"Pathetic. You will find nothing but a bounty of hatred for Konoha, for the shinobi world. Bringing equality through pain? Those are nothing but the words of a terrorist. You should focus on uncovering the secret of Nagato's Rinnegan abilities, not sentimental distractions. Konoha will need an answer to an unceasing enemy like your student." Danzo stood with him, shaking off the vertigo with the hiss of alcohol sharpening his senses. He followed after Jiraiya as he silently walked back to the walk-in freezer. Danzo caught the door before Jiraiya could shut it, the cold licked his feet and Tatsuma's listening bugs scampered out to safer temperatures.

There, between two shelves of stacked meat and fresh protein was Konan. Her wrists tied, sealed and fused to the metal chair. She was stripped to the simple bandage strappings across her chest and some brown shorts. Not a drop of chakra coursed through her pathways at her will, she was as vulnerable as Danzo would ever get her with Jiraiya present. She whipped her hung head up and levelled a glare at both men, her short blue hair slacked around her face as she did.

"You." she voiced with frost breath, causing Jiraiya to glance at Danzo.

"No, you." Danzo started talking immediately, he doubted she remembered or saw him that day but he could be wrong. "Tell us what the Akatsuki is planning and how. It's a simple demand, a simple question. You can answer it can't you? Your leader was vocal enough so you should too."

Her eyes flickered back to her teacher where they stayed and mocked in silence. Even after over an hour in the frigid freezer, stripped to bandages and thin shorts, Konan's expression remained stone-cold—unyielding, just as when she'd faced him in the rain. Danzo meant to move closer, to reinforce his authority and pull the truth from her but Jiraiya remained an annoyance.

"Konan, it is me." he pleaded but her eyes gave nothing away. He inhaled deeply, "The Hokage is a student of mine, just like you, Nagato and Yahiko. This can be better, Konan, whatever it is Nagato says must happen for peace to reign, it simply isn't true. This world doesn't work like that, it will fight back and hate you, god and Angel for daring to impose a will of suffering and pain on them. But if you are truly certain, ready to make a difference for all the children that have and still are suffering the way you three did then Minato, Konoha…I am here to help."

Konan let out a gust of frosty breath, goosebumps rippled across her skin but she didn't outwardly shiver as she raised her eyes to Danzo's. He cursed inwardly as he concluded; She remembers.

"You say that but Konoha…no, the shinobi nations are all cut from the same disgusting cloth. Danzo here, Hanzo there, even a Kanzo. No matter the name, it's all the same tree and it will burn to the root before we set our flowers to soil, Jiraiya."

Danzo narrowed his eyes at her, catching the subtle challenge in her silence. She wasn't exposing him outright, but her resolve was clear—she wouldn't yield a single word. To her, Jiraiya's presence didn't offer any comfort or understanding; it only reaffirmed her beliefs: the Akatsuki's cause was just, and the Hidden Villages were little more than dens of corruption. Worse still, she knew the alias he'd given Hanzo to undermine their movement.

Kanzo. A mock name, but it served its purpose as effectively as the disguised corpses Hanzo foolishly fell for. Danzo allowed himself a brief, mocking smile, flashing it directly at her—a reminder of the death and betrayal her "righteous" Akatsuki had suffered after Hanzo severed their alliance. He could almost imagine the power Amegakure might have gained if Hanzo and the Akatsuki had managed to stay aligned. Good thing I made sure they didn't. The world doesn't need a sixth Great Village—especially not on Konoha's doorstep.

He laid a hand on Jiraiya's shoulder, feigning a sympathetic tone. "I think it's best we let her stew a little longer, Jiraiya. You should return and report to the Hokage."

Jiraiya shrugged off his hand as though it burned, shooting Danzo a withering glare. "And why should I? You've got a dozen lackeys who can do that."

"None of whom have seen… Pein, was it?" Danzo directed the question at Konan, but her expression remained impassive. "If you're so against my operatives handling this, perhaps a Yamanaka could do it. I'll send a request through the Hokage and the clan, but we'll need their best."

Jiraiya grimaced, realizing he had few options. Ignoring Danzo, he knelt before Konan, his voice quiet. "Tell me. Just me. I won't share a word of it with anyone else. But… please, tell me."

For a fleeting moment, Danzo's heart skipped as she glanced between him and Jiraiya. He'd been certain she'd see no difference between himself and the Konoha shinobi who called him 'Kanzo' but now… Perhaps the Sage can reach his student after all.

Meeting her gaze, he didn't try to intimidate or mock. Instead, he allowed his smile to grow—a sharp, unsettling grin meant for her alone. Her stoic mask finally cracked. With a fierce glare, she recoiled from Jiraiya, her voice breaking into a shout.

"Kill me or get out!"