67Danzo in despairAI Model: kimi-k2-instruct-0905Chapter 67 – A Desperate Danzo
Danzo now had only six Sharingan eyes left on his arm.
Just as he was aiming for an opening in Naruto's guard to finish him off—
—he realized Naruto had vanished from the spot without a sound.
A terrifying thought flashed through Danzo's mind:
This brat… actually knows my abilities and my trump card?!
And the theft of Shisui's Sharingan had been part of a calculated plan.
Where could he have obtained such intelligence?
Danzo knew: the day he'd seized Shisui's eye, every witness had been silenced.
Even more so for Izanagi, a forbidden art barely known inside the Uchiha clan.
"No… no, no, no!"
His breathing turned ragged.
Though he'd just eliminated two Akatsuki members, he felt no elation.
Frontline.
As Deidara dropped the C3 Number Eighteen, nearly every Root operative was annihilated.
Even Kakuzu had taken some damage, but he was finally free to confront Danzo.
"Tch… ten billion for this job? What a rip-off."
The good news: with Sasori down, one less mouth to share the payout.
Better still, he was beginning to grasp how Danzokept returning from death.
Each time the old man should have died, one Sharingan on his arm slowly closed.
Had to be some unique ocular jutsu of the Sharingan.
As long as it wasn't Hidan's endless resurrection trick, it could be handled.
Confirming only six lives remained, Kakuzu didn't strike at Danzo first.
He locked onto the easier target—Sai.
"Old man!!!"
Seeing his partner fall, Deidara plunged into frenzy.
No longer caring about Chakra loss, he devoured clay from his pouch with both hands.
If Sai's ink birds were a nuisance, he'd erase everything with a field-wide blast.
"C2 Dragon!"
A colossal clay dragon formed; Deidara stood on its head, abandoning defense for an all-out assault.
Countless clay birds spewed from the dragon's maw, sealing the airspace around Sai.
Simultaneously, Kakuzu's long-range ninjutsu erupted from the ground.
Danzo's heart sank at the sight.
Sai was the last elite in his hand; he could not die here.
Suppressing his fear of Naruto, Danzo started to move—only to glimpse a strange crimson silhouette.
Hidan, who should have been impaled by Wood Release and hurled into the rubble, stood crookedly.
The gaping wounds in his abdomen and chest still bled.
Yet a twisted grin split his face.
"Thanks, gramps."
"If you hadn't gone all-out with Wood Release to finish Sasori, I'd never have gotten a taste of your blood."
Danzo's pupils shrank to pinpricks.
"How are you still alive?"
"Heh-heh-heh… a gift from Lord Jashin!"
Cackling, Hidan smeared the blood beneath him, sketching a dark crimson array.
His skin paled, black bone-patterns surfacing; he looked a walking skeleton.
"Death Controlling Blood!"
Danzo shuddered as never before.
He felt his life-frequency sync with the madman in that instant.
Disaster.
The moment he tried to Body-Flicker away, Hidandrove his scythe into his own chest without hesitation.
"Gahhh!!!"
Far away, Danzo coughed a mouthful of blood; a hole burst open in his chest.
One Sharingan on his arm snapped shut.
Five left.
Izanagi activated, turning his body ethereal and severing the blood link.
Hidan froze.
He glanced at the scythe in his chest, then at Danzo standing anew; his grin stiffened.
"Ha…?"
"Hey, hey, why're you still on your feet, geezer?"
His head tilted, eyes widening.
"Don't tell me… you've earned Lord Jashin's favor too?!"
Danzo gave no reply.
The instant Izanagi triggered, he'd seen through Hidan's ability.
"Troublesome power…"
Can't kill.
Can't wound.
Until he had a free hand, any damage exchange with this lunatic was forbidden.
In a flash, Danzo decided.
Next moment, his hands formed seals.
"Wood Release—Wood Locking Wall!"
Boom—!
Thick wooden pillars erupted, writhing like living things.
In seconds they caged Hidan and the fading blood array.
Branches sprouted inside, pinning his limbs and neck fast.
"Hey, hey?!"
Hidan blinked, then laughed.
"Ha-ha-ha! Useless! Pointless, old man!"
"You can't kill me! So what if you trap me? Sooner or later I'll—"
Crack.
The wood tightened.
Twigs jammed his jaw, cutting his voice to ragged breaths.
Danzo turned away.
He could waste no more time on Hidan.
Sai's battlefield was the pivot.
Yet the instant he stepped forward—
a chillingly familiar spatial ripple washed overhead.
Danzo jerked his gaze up, pupils needle-thin.
High above.
Sai's ink birds were shredded.
Ink droplets drifted like feathers in a storm.
At the center of that chaos, Naruto's Rasengan had ended Sai's life.
[Ping!]
[Host detected kill on Sai: evil points +600!]
A sudden desolation flooded Danzo's heart.
In that instant he knew he was prey.
No escape, no reinforcements.
Far away, Sunagakure pressed the invasion; every Anbu and clan elite bled on the front.
No one would notice that here, on a barren plot, Konoha's "Root" was being uprooted.
Watching Sai's corpse fall, Danzo's long-frozen heart spasmed.
The boy had been his most loyal tool, forged by his own hand.
Now Sai was dead, Root nearly annihilated.
And he—the old man meant to be the next Hokage—squandered lives like cornered vermin, burning through Sharingan.
"Is this… to be my end?"
Danzo whispered, decades-old memories flickering.
The border of the Land of Lightning, Cloud nins in pursuit; his teacher Senju Tobirama asking who would stay behind.
Fear had paralyzed him; no voice came.
Beside him, Hiruzen Sarutobi volunteered without a second's pause.
That instant of hesitation became a lifelong shadow.
From that day, Sarutobi became the Hokage, guarding Konoha in the light.
He sank underground, doing the filthiest work in the dark.
"Hiruzen… you must still be on the front, protecting the Village."
Danzo gave a bitter laugh, his hunched spine straightening inch by inch.
"I fought you all my life, yet in the end I still lost."
He glanced at the five remaining Sharingan, resolve replacing the gloom in his eyes.
For Konoha.
For the last will hidden in this darkness.
Danzo channeled every shred of Chakra into his right arm; Hashirama cells within ran wild.
"Akatsuki dogs, and the Uzumaki monster…"
"Come with me into eternal night!"