The silence after war isn't peace. It's anticipation.
That's what Arashi had learned. After the failed Root trap, after the warnings and scrolls and whispers—nothing had happened.
For three days, the village was still.
Too still.
Danzo didn't retaliate publicly. Sarutobi didn't interfere. The Elders pretended nothing had been said. Even Sakumo remained quiet, drinking tea alone by the koi pond as if his name hadn't been dragged through the mud by the very village he helped build.
Arashi knew what that meant.
They were watching.
Waiting to see what he would do.
So he gave them something to see.
—
He left the house that night just after midnight. No shunshin, no flashy speed. Just careful, measured movement through the shadows. Even the breeze seemed to muffle itself when he passed.
He wasn't going to burn Root's house to the ground—yet.
First, he needed proof.
Not suspicion.
Not scrolls.
Evidence.
Root was meticulous. Hidden facilities, rotated guards, chakra seals that shifted with the phase of the moon. But Arashi had something they didn't expect:
Memory.
Not perfect. Not even fully intact. But enough of the old canon timeline lingered in his brain to triangulate the location of one early Root training outpost that would be operational around this time—abandoned later after a failed Uchiha surveillance program.
He moved east of the civilian sector, near the sewage treatment canals.
No patrols.
No villagers.
Just the scent of damp earth and the faint tingle of chakra suppression seals humming under the soil.
He stopped at a cracked concrete slab with a rusted drain cover.
Exactly where it should be.
He reached into his sleeve and pulled out a thin metal rod—coated in chakra-null ink. He tapped the stone three times in a slow, irregular rhythm.
The seal shimmered and dropped for half a second.
Enough.
He slipped inside.
—
The facility wasn't large. Twenty meters underground. Single floor. Two corridors. No windows.
But it reeked of Root.
Steel walls. Gray lighting. Empty rooms with buckled floor mats and old blood stains that had never been properly cleaned.
He found the evidence in the third chamber.
A crate. Sealed with a layered fuinjutsu barrier designed to activate if moved.
He didn't move it.
Instead, he carefully extended a thread of chakra through a scroll unsealing technique—not to disarm the trap, but to map its logic structure.
The trap wasn't designed to kill.
It was designed to alert.
Which meant someone still used this place.
Inside the crate: names.
Not just operatives.
Civilians. Children.
Each scroll was marked with location coordinates. Birth records. Temperament reports.
He saw Kakashi's name.
Next to it: "Observed from distance. Too early to initiate."
Arashi's fingers trembled—but only for a moment.
He burned the scrolls. Not all. Just the ones with family names he recognized. The rest, he copied onto blank sealing parchment and packed into a scroll of his own.
He had what he needed.
He turned to leave.
That's when the first kunai flew.
—
He ducked under the blade and rolled left, his foot catching the edge of a steel bench. The clang echoed down the hallway—and then the shadows moved.
Three Root operatives.
All masked. Standard uniforms. No clan marks.
Arashi didn't hesitate.
He closed the gap before the second kunai left the thrower's hand.
Elbow to the throat—disarm—knife to the thigh—kick to the ribs. One down.
The second came in low, swinging a short tanto. Arashi ducked, grabbed his wrist, twisted, then spun with a knee to the back. The mask cracked on impact. Arashi caught a glimpse of dark eyes before the man went limp.
The third was smarter.
Distance fighter.
He dropped a smoke pellet and vanished.
Arashi cursed and activated his chakra sense.
He felt it—movement, twenty meters to his left, near the surface exit.
He gave chase.
They surfaced into the canal district, moonlight bouncing off the water. The operative tried to shunshin.
Arashi cut him off mid-jump with a kunai thrown not to hit, but to redirect.
The man landed awkwardly, twisted his ankle.
Arashi was on him in a blink.
They grappled. The man slashed blindly with a poisoned needle blade—Arashi caught his arm and dislocated it with a crack, then used the same arm to choke him unconscious.
No kill.
Deliberate.
Root would recover the bodies.
They'd know who did it.
And that was the point.
—
An hour later, Arashi stood in front of the Hokage Monument again, watching the clouds roll over the stone faces.
He didn't speak.
Didn't move.
Until the presence behind him shifted the air.
Danzo.
No ANBU.
No mask.
Just the old man, cane in one hand, bandaged eye hidden under the standard Konoha robe.
"You broke into one of my storage points," Danzo said. No anger. Just matter-of-fact.
"I retrieved stolen information about my family."
"You attacked three of my agents."
"They drew first blood."
Danzo stepped beside him, not too close.
"This will not earn you safety."
"I'm not looking for safety."
Danzo was quiet for a moment.
Then he said, "You've made yourself visible, Arashi. That makes you vulnerable."
"No," Arashi replied. "It makes me untouchable. Because now, if anything happens to me, or my family, I've ensured half of those scrolls get leaked. You'll lose control of your network in a week."
Danzo looked at him fully then, and for the first time, something in his face shifted.
Not fear.
Not respect.
Recognition.
"You're dangerous," Danzo said. "Just like your father."
"I'm worse."
Danzo turned and walked away.
And Arashi knew.
He had crossed a line.
There would be no more offers. No more tests.
From now on, every move would be war in slow motion.
—
Later that morning, Arashi returned home to find Sakumo waiting in the garden. Tea already poured.
"I heard you were busy," his father said.
Arashi sat down, bruised and silent.
Sakumo handed him a cup.
"You can't fight shadows forever."
"I'm not trying to."
"Then what?"
"I'm trying to make sure that when they come… we're not the ones in the dark."
Sakumo smiled, just faintly.
"You're your mother's son."
Arashi's eyes widened slightly.
"You never talk about her."
"I'm starting to think… I should've."
They sipped tea in silence.
And across the village, the first cracks in Root's mirror-perfect mask began to spread.
Because the Silent Fang had drawn blood.
And now Root had to bleed in return.
To be continued.