"I have a high opinion of you!"
"Haha… I said, I don't need you to praise me!"
Danzo coughed out a wet, guttural mouthful of blood, and Kaito's sword glinted in the haze before it slashed cleanly through his heart.
But in the blink of an eye, Danzo was whole again.
He raised his right arm and stared intently. One of the Sharingan embedded in his flesh slowly shuddered shut, as if closing its eye in resignation. Only a single crimson orb remained, glowing faintly beneath the blood-smeared skin.
"Is there a minute left?"
Danzo's breath hitched, his voice sharpening as he assessed Kait, who now stood, still as death, blade dripping, eyes burning.
Then came the flicker—Kaito advanced, sword cutting through the tension like lightning through storm clouds.
Danzo's eyes flared.
"Space-time ability… not in use?"
A twisted grin crept onto his bloodied face.
"Yes… yes! He's burned too much chakra… that technique, all that teleportation—he's nearly out!"
His greed unfurled like a vulture's wings. The glimmer of the Sharingan in Kaito's eyes was irresistible. The power, the legacy—he could claim it.
"Your eyes are mine!"
Danzo hissed as he lunged forward, kunai extended. Wind chakra crackled violently along the blade, stretching it with sharp, whiplike energy.
But—
"Elder Danzo, be careful—there are tricks!"
Fugaku's voice sliced through the air like a warning bell. Blood streaked his mouth, his body limp, but his eyes—blind or not—saw the trap.
Danzo dismissed it with a scoff.
"He's bluffing. I'm invincible for another minute!"
But then, like Spectre, Kaito vanished from view.
"Swishhhhhh!"
He reappeared—closer. Too close.
Kaito's blade sank into Danzo's left chest, piercing through flesh and bone like paper.
"I was careless…"
The pain should have faded.
But it didn't.
Danzo blinked. His heartbeat slowed. The agony spread.
He raised his arm, expecting the Sharingan to rewind time, expecting flesh to knit, breath to return.
Instead, the final eye had closed.
"No... no no no... How…?!"
His legs buckled. He stumbled, a grotesque smile cracking across his bloodless lips.
"Damn it… from the beginning… an illusion…"
As his knees hit the ground, his mind rewound to the moment Kaito's eyes locked with his during Fugaku's rescue. That glance…
It hadn't been a moment.
It had been a trap.
A snare woven from genjutsu and deception.
"He… he set this up the moment we met eyes…"
His consciousness faded.
Danzo collapsed.
A relic, undone by pride.
Kaito exhaled, the glow of his Mangekyō fading slightly as he turned to Sarutobi Hiruzen.
"Your old friend is gone. Now… It's your turn."
Hiruzen's mind reeled, his throat tightening with the fury of loss and humiliation.
"Uchiha Kaito… I will never let you go!"
"Is this your final defiance? A mere flicker before death consumes you?"
Kaito sneered.
"You've lost your arm. You're drenched in blood. You can't form seals. What do you have left but empty threats?"
In the shinobi world, power dictated worth—and with no arms, Hiruzen was barely a shadow of his former self.
Kaito advanced.
"But just in case…"
He vanished—then reappeared behind Hiruzen in a breath.
"Swish!"
A blade shimmered in the rain-soaked air before severing Hiruzen's remaining arm.
"AHHHHH!! AHHHH!! AHHHH!!!"
The Third Hokage collapsed to his knees, a fallen god stripped of divinity.
Blood erupted from both stumps, soaking into the dirt, dyeing it deeper than red, almost black.
Kaito grinned with savage satisfaction.
"How does it feel, old man? To finally face the consequences? To feel what your victims felt—abandoned, mutilated, powerless?"
He would have continued—drunk on vengeance—but then:
"THIRD HOKAGE!!!"
Itachi's scream tore across the battlefield.
Kaito's eyes shot wide.
His instincts flared.
Without hesitation, he triggered "God's Presence"—vanishing instantly.
And then—
A roar of distortion.
A black flame erupted exactly where he'd stood.
Amaterasu.
The fire licked the air itself, bending space, crackling with heat so intense it silenced the wind.
In the distance, Itachi stood panting, blood streaming from his right eye.
"Amaterasu…"
Kaito narrowed his gaze.He could feel the heat even from afar. He could feel the resolve behind that jutsu.
"So… even now, you rise."
The battlefield stood still for a moment.
Sarutobi was slumped in agony.Danzo was dead.Fugaku, defeated.Itachi, awakened.And Kaito—Kaito stood untouched by the carnage, but burning with hunger still.
This wasn't the end.
This was the prelude.