Danzo felt as if his heart had seized. Thoroughly insulted, he could only glare at Shinichi, a dark anger clouding his thoughts.
The scene playing out before him was far too familiar. Ever since he had first provoked this boy, Danzo had found himself consistently humiliated and outmaneuvered at every turn. It was as if he had met his fated nemesis.
Danzo slowly exhaled. "It seems... there's nothing left to talk about."
Before the words even faded, his chakra surged, flooding toward his right eye. Beneath the heavy bandages, the Mangekyo Sharingan he had stolen from Uchiha Shisui snapped open.
Kotoamatsukami!
He fixed his unblinking gaze on Shinichi, sustaining the steady flow of chakra into the dojutsu while his fingers wove a subtle hand seal at his side.
Yamanaka Fu and Aburame Torune tensed in unison. After years of service in Root, the two operatives instantly understood the silent signal... Lord Danzo had activated that technique.
Without a second's hesitation, the two shinobi blurred into motion.
A dark mist billowed from Torune's sleeves. His venomous, nano-sized rinkaichu poured into the air, coalescing into a pitch-black torrent that lunged straight for Shinichi.
The distance was too short, the ambush too fast. Seemingly paralyzed by the Kotoamatsukami, Shinichi stood perfectly still as death converged upon him.
Fu arrived at his left flank in a blur, a kunai thrumming with Wind Release chakra thrusting mercilessly toward his neck.
A split second later, Torune's black torrent of venomous insects crashed over the right half of Shinichi's body, completely engulfing him.
'Got him!' A fierce glint flashed in Fu's eyes as his blade bit deep into flesh.
With a sickening tear, a severed head flew into the air, trailing a crimson fountain. Shinichi's headless body swayed before collapsing heavily to the floor.
Fu landed softly in a crouch, his chest heaving as he watched the head roll to a stop. Beside him, Torune raised an arm, drawing the deadly swarm of nano-insects back into his sleeves.
"A success. Almost too easy," Fu muttered.
"The technique in Lord Danzo's right eye," Torune murmured, "is truly invincible."
The suffocating tension in the room instantly evaporated. Beneath his heavy bandages, the rigid lines of Danzo's face finally relaxed.
The assassination had gone smoothly—unexpectedly so, but it made sense. In battles between shinobi, a gap in intelligence was fatal. Was this not the exact same scenario as his ambush on Uchiha Shisui all those years ago?
Even if he couldn't permanently overwrite the boy's will, the sheer power of the Kotoamatsukami was more than enough to force a momentary, lethal opening. Danzo allowed himself a slow, measured sigh of relief.
But before the breath could fully leave his lungs, the sharp whistle of displaced air shattered the silence.
A warning screamed through Danzo's nerves just as his guard dropped. He snapped his head around, his visible eye widening in sheer horror. Shinichi stood right beside him, his face lined with the dark, unmistakable pigmentation of Sage Mode.
"Finally..." Shinichi's expression was a mask of cold fury. "You fell for it."
His right fist, loaded with a terrifying concentration of senjutsu chakra, smashed directly toward the elder's skull.
Panic seized the old shinobi. It was too late to weave signs, too late to dodge. Driven purely by the instinct to survive, Danzo thrust up his right arm—the pale, grotesque limb augmented with Hashirama cells—to block the killing blow.
The impact was deafening.
Danzo's desperate defense was utterly futile. The raw, overwhelming physical force erupting from Shinichi's Sage Mode was far beyond anything he could withstand.
A sickening crunch echoed through the chamber. Danzo's right arm buckled, folding entirely backward. Jagged, pale bone violently ruptured through flesh and bandages, protruding gruesomely from his elbow.
"Argh—!"
The delayed agony finally hit. Danzo's face contorted, and the stoic leader of Root let out a visceral, agonizing howl.
Unfazed that his opening strike hadn't been lethal, Shinichi didn't let up. The momentum of his crushing punch flowed seamlessly into a new motion. He shifted his fist into a rigid claw, his fingers digging viciously deep into Danzo's shoulder.
With a brutal, downward yank, flesh and bone gave way.
Riiip!
Danzo's entire right arm—along with its restrictive bandages and the hidden secrets of the Hashirama cells and ten embedded Sharingan—was violently torn from its socket. A waterfall of blood sprayed into the air.
"Aaaaaah!" Unable to suppress the torment, Danzo unleashed a piercing shriek, stumbling blindly backward.
The sudden, bloody reversal left the room reeling.
"Lord Danzo!" Shaking off their shock, Fu and Torune roared, blurring forward to intercept.
"Rinkaichu!"
"Wind Release: Wind Cutter Technique!"
The surrounding Root operatives finally snapped out of their daze, launching a desperate counter-offensive.
A lethal volley of kunai and shuriken sailed toward Shinichi to cut off his retreat. Around the chamber, gloved hands blurred through rapid seals.
The underground lab flared with the scorching heat of Fire Release and the sharp, crackling chirp of Lightning Release, all aimed to drive the attacker back and rescue their master.
Facing an onslaught from all directions, Shinichi's Sage Mode-enhanced senses seemed to anticipate every trajectory. Still gripping his grotesque prize, he leapt backward, vanishing in a high-speed blur.
The barrage of deadly jutsu crashed into empty air, tearing up the stone floor where he had stood just a fraction of a second before.
His face pale and contorted in agony, Danzo snapped his gaze to the fallen 'corpse' of his target. The bleeding body was already warping, its flesh melting away to reveal a heavy wooden construct.
Its surface was visibly gnawed and corroded by Torune's venomous swarm.
A Wood Clone.
"Damn brat!" Danzo hissed. His visible eye was bloodshot as he glared at Shinichi, his chest heaving violently from a volatile mix of sheer agony and shock.
Never had he expected a young, famously hot-headed shinobi like Shinichi to act with such devastating, calculated caution.
Danzo couldn't have known that this calculated restraint was a lesson Shinichi had learned directly from observing Root elites like Yamanaka Fu. The absolute necessity of avoiding arrogance and impatience was a creed Shinichi had carved permanently into his heart.
He held up the severed arm. Ten crimson Sharingan stared blindly from the pale, grotesque flesh forged of Hashirama cells, a ragged scrap of shoulder still dangling from the joint. He looked up, his amber eyes like cold glass beneath the dark pigmentation of Sage Mode.
"Your trump cards," Shinichi murmured, "are nothing more than transplanted eyes and stolen cells."
He lifted the bloody limb higher, his gaze sweeping over the embedded dojutsu with blatant disdain.
"Shisui's Kotoamatsukami? Powerful, certainly..."
"A pity you only managed to steal the right eye. It requires a continuous supply of chakra for an effect that's painfully brief—capable only of momentarily warping a target's judgment. With just a little preparation, it's really nothing special."
Danzo stiffened, a cold dread pooling in his gut. How had Shinichi obtained such highly classified intelligence? This was a secret not even Sarutobi Hiruzen knew!
Shinichi casually tossed the severed arm aside. It hit the stone with a wet, heavy thud. He took a single, deliberate step forward, the floor spiderwebbing and cracking beneath his foot.
"Now... your arm of Hashirama cells is torn off. The ten Sharingan are gone. And the Kotoamatsukami in your right eye is completely drained."
A cold smirk ghosted across Shinichi's face.
"So, Danzo. You piece of trash. What else do you have left to show me?"
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