Chapter 102: The Future's Strongest Duo, Danzo Shimura's Helplessness
Just as Orochimaru had predicted.
Yoru had barely been back in Konoha for a few days before a summons from Hiruzen Sarutobi cut his rest period short.
"Yoru, I'm afraid I have to ask you to make another trip."
Unlike the relaxed tone of their previous meetings, Hiruzen's expression was grave. "I had believed this war would wind down on its own after Amegakure's withdrawal. A quiet, mutual agreement to step back. I didn't expect us to reach the stage of strategic weapons being deployed."
Yoru raised an eyebrow. "Sand Village deployed the One-Tail jinchuriki?"
Hiruzen's answer was not what he expected.
"No. It's Stone Village. They've deployed the Five-Tails jinchuriki."
Yoru stared at him for a moment, then asked flatly, "Hokage-sama, is your relationship with Iwagakure's Third Tsuchikage something like Chiyo's rivalry with Hanzo, or Hanzo's rivalry with the White Fang?"
"There are only a few years between me and Onoki, but when his name was already known across the shinobi world, I hadn't even made genin yet." Hiruzen gave Yoru a brief account of the history. "Onoki is the grandson of the First Tsuchikage, Ishikawa. He showed exceptional ability from childhood. His teacher was the Second Tsuchikage, Mu, and he learned the Kekkei Tota of Dust Release from him at a very young age while going through battle after battle."
"When the Second Mizukage and Second Tsuchikage took each other out, Onoki inherited the title."
"By the time I became Hokage, the First Shinobi World War had already ended. Every nation was carrying deep grudges, and there hadn't been a Five Kage Summit in all the years since. I have never actually met the Third Tsuchikage in person. How could we possibly be rivals?"
Hiruzen shook his head with a look of genuine bafflement. "What I still can't work out is why he refuses to let go of the Land of Fire. Before the situation changed, it made sense. I would have taken that opportunity myself. But now, Amegakure has already withdrawn. Sand Village has lost two more of its major combatants and hasn't even decided whether to deploy a jinchuriki yet. And Stone Village has moved first. I honestly don't know what Onoki is thinking."
Yoru had a fairly clear idea.
That old man had a long memory and a short tolerance for humiliation.
He thought back to the image of Onoki being publicly insulted by Madara Uchiha. You could arrive with every intention of forming an alliance and still be degraded in front of everyone by the man hosting you. Outside of a saint like Hashirama Senju, anyone would carry that resentment for the rest of their life.
The reason Onoki had swallowed it at the time was simple. Madara Uchiha's strength, like Hashirama's, had been enough to sweep the entire shinobi world by himself. There had been no choice but to endure.
But now both of those monsters were gone, and the other figures who had stood at the absolute peak of Five Kage-level power were dead as well. Onoki had a Kekkei Tota that surpassed ordinary Kekkei Genkai, giving him both the strongest single-target and area-of-effect destructive capabilities in the current era. He commanded over ten thousand active Stone ninja. He had an ally willing to initiate conflict from another front, one whose own economy had been thrown out of balance by the war. With all of that behind him, why would someone like Onoki pass up a chance to repay old debts and carve off a piece of the Land of Fire at the same time?
Yoru also suspected that Stone Village had moved to deploy a jinchuriki specifically because they were afraid the Third Kazekage might stop seeing any path to victory. If Sand Village lost the will to continue and pulled out the way Amegakure had, Stone would be left fighting alone. Deploying the Five-Tails was a signal. It meant Stone Village was committed to standing alongside Sand Village and was willing to share the pressure of Konoha's full attention.
And if the fighting continued, Stone might activate a second jinchuriki. Onoki himself might even enter the field personally.
If that happened, it could give the Third Kazekage the illusion that the tide had turned, convincing him to deploy a jinchuriki of his own and potentially take the field himself.
With him, Chiyo, and Bunpuku fighting together, Sand Village would have a real chance of breaking through the line held by the White Fang.
That was probably exactly what Hiruzen was worried about, which was why he had called Yoru back early.
Yoru asked directly. "Hokage-sama, what do you need from me? Are you sending me to support Danzo-dono's line against Iwagakure?"
"No. Danzo's side doesn't need your help." Hiruzen's tone was firm and measured. "Each command team has spent more than a year on their respective frontline. By now they know the enemy's information as thoroughly as they know their own. The worst thing you can do at this stage is drop someone new into the command structure."
"Even Orochimaru and Jiraiya, over at Sakumo and Tsunade's frontline, are there strictly in an advisory capacity. They do not interfere with the command decisions."
"The same applies to you. You are not to interfere with Danzo's command. If something goes wrong because of it, that consequence falls on you, and even I won't be able to help."
He reached into a desk drawer and produced a scroll, holding it out. "When you arrive at Danzo's position, give him this."
Hiruzen's gaze was steady as he gave Yoru his actual assignment. "Your mission is straightforward. Assassinate the Five-Tails jinchuriki, or contain him. As long as he cannot use a Tailed Beast Ball, the mission is complete. Everything else on that frontline is outside your concern. That includes Danzo's orders. You may disregard them entirely. I am granting you that authority."
After that last sentence, Yoru understood something with certainty.
Hiruzen Sarutobi knew exactly what kind of person Danzo Shimura was, down to his character and his methods. He had simply allowed it all these years because they had grown up together since childhood, and because he needed Danzo and the village elders to help him keep the Uchiha clan in check. He had tolerated his old companion's maneuvering as a result.
But when something truly important was at stake, Hiruzen didn't hesitate for a moment.
Yoru was the sharpest blade in Hiruzen's hand right now. To make sure Danzo couldn't find a way to turn that blade toward his own purposes, Hiruzen hadn't even given him access to it.
That suited Yoru perfectly. The last thing he wanted was to spend his energy playing mind games with Danzo.
If Danzo didn't yet have the reach to cause Yoru problems, that could change. And if the day ever came when Danzo started making moves against him, Yoru would simply kill him first.
"Understood, Hokage-sama."
Yoru took the scroll from Hiruzen and vanished.
The three Sanin, and the White Fang all carried Flying Thunder God kunai. So did Danzo Shimura.
A series of consecutive teleports brought Yoru to his destination almost instantly. He materialized inside a tent.
Danzo appeared to have already received word of his coming. He showed no surprise at Yoru's sudden appearance from nowhere.
He studied the young man in front of him, who had grown considerably taller in the nearly two years since they had last met, and his expression was layered with things he kept carefully contained.
He had always known, from the moment Yoru first demonstrated Flying Thunder God, that it was only a matter of time before Yoru became an ace combatant. What Danzo had not anticipated was how little time it would actually take. In under two years Yoru had gone from a genin to a position that outshone Danzo's own record as the Hokage's aide, achievement by achievement, without a single gap.
If not for the simple fact that age and service history meant Yoru could not realistically compete for the Hokage title before reaching adulthood, Danzo would have considered him a more significant threat than even Orochimaru, or Sakumo Hatake who had just cut down Chiyo's son and daughter-in-law.
Even as things stood, Yoru's presence was an irritation Danzo found difficult to ignore.
The more exceptional Yoru became, the more unassailable Hiruzen's position grew, and the more distant Danzo's own ambitions. Even if Hiruzen made a mistake severe enough to force him from the seat, Orochimaru's odds of becoming Fourth Hokage were better than Danzo's. Because both Orochimaru and Hiruzen had Tsunade and Yoru behind them. Tsunade represented the Senju clan's recognition, which carried weight over the daimyo's attitude. Yoru provided the threat of overwhelming military force.
And Yoru was not only a Flying Thunder God user. He was bound to the Nine-Tails jinchuriki.
When that combination surfaced in Danzo's mind, he felt a hollow sense of helplessness settling in.
The Nine-Tails jinchuriki hadn't even grown into her strength yet, and the Flying Thunder God user had already built an impossible record of achievements. By the time the Nine-Tails jinchuriki matured, Danzo didn't want to imagine what the two of them together would represent.
What he could say with certainty was that outside of the First Hokage and Madara Uchiha, no pairing in the shinobi world's history had come close. Not in terms of raw power. Not in terms of strategic reach.
Above him was Hiruzen in the present. Competing against him in the next generation was Orochimaru. Waiting in the generation after that was the combination of Yoru and the Nine-Tails jinchuriki, the shinobi world's future strongest duo.
Danzo felt the Hokage seat growing more distant with every passing year.
Yoru, of course, had no idea what was running through Danzo's mind.
He stepped out of intangibility quietly once he arrived at Danzo's side, then pulled out the scroll Hiruzen had given him and held it out. "Danzo-dono. Hokage-sama asked me to deliver this."
"You've worked hard getting here."
Danzo's voice was slightly flat as he accepted the scroll and unsealed it.
When he finished reading, his brow tightened almost imperceptibly. A brief flash of displeasure crossed his eyes.
He composed himself quickly. Setting the scroll to one side, he drew another from his sleeve and handed it to Yoru. "This contains everything we've exposed so far about the Five-Tails jinchuriki's capabilities. I'll have the reconnaissance squads and ANBU support you in locating him."
"Thank you." Yoru gave a short nod and opened the scroll.
The Five-Tails jinchuriki was someone Yoru recognized immediately. Han, the same man who in the original story had built a legendary record fighting for Stone Village and earned himself the title of the Steam Ninja.
Among the five great villages, Konoha was currently acknowledged as the strongest.
But in terms of active ninja numbers, Konoha didn't top the list.
That much was evident from something as simple as Yoru's own registration number, which was still only four digits. Kushina Uzumaki, who graduated two years after him, had the registration number 007310.
The village with the most active ninja right now was Iwagakure.
In the original story's Third Shinobi World War, Onoki had sent ten thousand Stone ninja to bring down the Third Raikage, and that was while Stone was simultaneously fighting on two fronts, against Cloud Village and Konoha at the same time.
Stone Village's numbers weren't simply the result of the Land of Earth's naturally defensible terrain, or the fact that Earth Release allowed ninja to escape underground and had exceptional survival utility. It was also Onoki's temperament. His caution and his genuine regard for his people's lives.
Just as he had used the Akatsuki in the original story to accomplish goals without direct exposure, Onoki never committed to something he wasn't certain of, and he never sent subordinates to die for nothing.
One of Minato Namikaze's most celebrated early battles involved cutting down several dozen Stone ninja. Onoki's response had been immediate: issue a standing order that any encounter with Konoha's Yellow Flash authorized mission abandonment without penalty.
It was a different philosophy from Konoha's, where the mission always came first and ninja were expected to die for it, where someone rescued in the field might turn around and reprimand their rescuer for prioritizing their survival over the objective.
That different approach to the value of a shinobi's life was why Stone Village's survival rates were the highest among the five great nations. Even after the First Shinobi World War, they still maintained an active force of over ten thousand.
With only a few years between the Second and Third Shinobi World Wars, the Five-Tails jinchuriki Han was now somewhere in his early-to-mid twenties, a fully grown adult and already one of Stone Village's ace combatants.
According to the intelligence the reconnaissance squads and ANBU had gathered, the moment Han arrived on the battlefield he had demonstrated a crushing dominance. His taijutsu was absurdly powerful. He could harness steam to generate explosive bursts of force and speed, and each individual strike carried enough power to shatter the earth on impact. On top of that, every blow was coated in Boil Release nature transformation, carrying extreme heat and corrosive properties. Anyone who took a direct hit, even through heavy combat armor, died instantly. Those who narrowly avoided the strike and were only grazed by the steam came away with severe burns across wide areas of their body.
Han could also draw on the Five-Tails' chakra directly, wrapping himself in a cloak of translucent red chakra that functionally ignored kunai, shuriken, and explosive tag traps. The Konoha ninja on Danzo's line were facing something they had no answer for, and the weight of that was visible in their morale.
Because of the inherent properties of a jinchuriki's body, even Dan Kato, who wielded the super S-rank Spiritization technique, could not safely attempt to possess Han.
By those means alone, the Five-Tails jinchuriki had established a terrifying dominance on the field.
Yoru finished reading quickly, then looked up at Danzo with a question he already knew the answer to. "Has the Five-Tails jinchuriki attempted a full tailed beast transformation yet?"
"Unknown." Danzo shook his head. "Since he arrived, he hasn't even attempted a partial transformation. He's been operating purely on borrowed tailed beast chakra and that alone already places him at ace combatant level. Forcing him to show more of his capabilities would require a large-scale numerical assault, but Iwagakure hasn't given us that opening. That said, given that Cloud Village possesses methods for producing perfect jinchuriki, it can't be ruled out that Stone has something similar. As a precaution, I've already dispersed the combat and logistics units."
This was what made jinchuriki a strategic deterrent that ranked just below Hanzo's salamander and its lethal toxin. After Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha were gone from the world, the Tailed Beast Ball had become the largest-scale, most destructive S-rank technique available. In the original story, the blasts from Tailed Beast Balls during the great jinchuriki battles had leveled entire mountains. A single Tailed Beast Ball could destroy a hidden village. And a perfect jinchuriki could fire them repeatedly.
It was no wonder Hiruzen had treated this with such gravity. If Kushina had already grown into her strength, Konoha would have deployed the Nine-Tails jinchuriki right now.
None of Danzo's answer surprised Yoru.
He let a calm smile settle on his face and replied without making any dramatic declarations. "In that case, leave the intelligence gathering to me. I'll go and introduce myself to this Five-Tails jinchuriki."
"I'll leave it to you then." Danzo's expression remained unreadable.
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