"Lord Danzo, someone is following us."
Yamanaka Fu stepped forward and reported in a low voice.
Shimura Danzo slowly came to a halt. The Root ninja following him instantly vanished, concealing themselves in the shadows lining the road. Only Yamanaka Fu and Aburame Torune remained standing behind him.
"Is Lady Tsunade truly this impatient? The border of the Land of Fire is just ahead." Shimura Danzo shook his head slightly, evidently dissatisfied with his Hokage's lack of composure.
He felt no particular resentment about being backstabbed by his own Hokage. A village only had so much cake to divide, but there was no shortage of people wanting a slice. It was undeniable that Root's existence did indeed undermine the Hokage's authority.
But to have him willingly surrender the power he held?
What a joke!
Let their actions speak for themselves!
Swish! Swish!
As two figures entered his line of sight, Shimura Danzo's expression flickered with surprise. "I didn't expect Lady Tsunade to have reached an understanding with you two."
"You seem to have anticipated this," Young Sasuke observed, surprised by Danzo's unfazed demeanor.
"Little one, this is politics." Shimura Danzo unhurriedly removed the restraints on his left arm. "If this assassination attempt fails, do you know what Lady Tsunade will face?"
"What?" Young Sasuke couldn't help but ask.
Future Sasuke watched this scene quietly. He knew Shimura Danzo was stalling for time, but he didn't stop him. The Dojutsu he had recovered over the past few days wasn't much, but dealing with a small fry who hadn't even found his own path wouldn't be a problem.
"Uchiha Itachi will be executed, and Root will be given a fast track for rapid development."
Click~
As the last restraint was undone, the aura around Shimura Danzo abruptly transformed.
Young Sasuke's face darkened. His right hand subtly formed a few seals, summoning several shuriken with steel wires attached to their ends.
"Lord Danzo." Yamanaka Fu, who had kept his eyes closed since the two Sasukes appeared, suddenly snapped them open and spoke in a low tone.
With a quick glance backward, the three of them vanished from their spot.
BOOM!!
A wall of fire, several zhang long, swept roaring from the forest behind them.
Young Sasuke's expression changed. Just as he was about to use Chidori Nagashi to cut through the fire wall, Future Sasuke suddenly reached out and pressed down on his arm.
"Weren't you just doubting whether an individual ninja's power could rival that of an entire hidden village?"
Future Sasuke's aura underwent a dramatic shift, a chakra as vast and boundless as the ocean surging outwards in all directions.
Young Sasuke stared in shock at the slender man before him. In that moment, it was as if he beheld a magnificent mountain peak piercing through heaven and earth.
The bangs over Future Sasuke's eyes lifted without a breath of wind, revealing a Nine-Tomoe Rinnegan.
The sprawling wall of fire, as if drawn by a waterspout, surged madly into the Nine-Tomoe Rinnegan.
"What… what is this power?" Young Sasuke's shock hadn't even subsided when his line of sight was abruptly yanked upwards. Within a few breaths, he felt his altitude match the summit of a distant, towering mountain.
"Perfect Susanoo!" Yamanaka Fu's face contorted in horror.
"Lord Danzo, this is not an enemy we can contend with! We must flee!" Aburame Torune urged.
"There's no escape."
Shimura Danzo shook his head. His opponent had been able to fly directly from Amegakure to Konoha in a matter of hours. Against such terrifying mobility, where could he possibly run?
Puchi!
The Great Tengu Susanoo abruptly drew a massive chakra blade from its waist and swung it. The three Root members felt as if the world itself had dimmed in that instant.
"Is this the strength of a one-man army…?"
With a sickening crack, Young Sasuke felt as if some restraint within his mind had shattered.
"Pff…"
Aburame Torune laboriously dragged his remaining upper body forward, his trembling hand grasping futilely at the air before him as he vomited copious amounts of blood.
"Lord… Danzo… Escape! Quickly, escape!"
An unharmed figure slowly materialized in his blurring vision. Gazing at this figure, his life force, along with the worries he had finally let go of, slowly dissipated.
"How did he survive that?" Young Sasuke blurted out, looking at Shimura Danzo, who was almost completely unscathed.
"Izanagi," Future Sasuke stated. "Pay attention to his right arm."
Hearing this, Young Sasuke activated his Sharingan. When he saw Shimura Danzo's right arm clearly, a wave of nausea hit him, swiftly followed by a surge of fury igniting from within.
On the arm, an unnatural, grotesque white, eleven crimson Sharingan grew, defying all human physiology.
"These Sharingan… were they all obtained… that night?" he roared in a low voice, struggling to suppress his fury, to control his reason, to prevent himself from doing anything reckless that might interfere with his future self's battle.
"That's right."
"What about Itachi? Doesn't he have the Mangekyo? What did he do?"
Future Sasuke froze. He didn't know how to answer. Perhaps his own heart was avoiding that question too…
Gazing at that deformed arm, countless faces, faces that now existed only in his memory, flashed through Young Sasuke's mind.
Three-Tomoe Sharingan!
Even within the Uchiha clan, there were only a few pairs!
He didn't know if any of those eyes belonged to friends or relatives he knew. Worse, he didn't know if among them… were his father's, or his mother's eyes…
He squeezed his eyes shut in agony, turbid tears tracing slow paths down his cheeks.
"Everything he did… it was all for… for you," Future Sasuke said, the words sounding pale and powerless even to himself.
"BASTARD!" Young Sasuke slammed his knees heavily onto the crystalline wall of the Susanoo. He clawed at his own hair, letting out tortured roars.
His heart felt like it was being ripped apart.
He felt as if every drop of blood flowing through his body was tainted with filth and sin.
He suddenly realized that he was no different from the Shimura Danzo below. In fact, he was a thousand, ten thousand times more detestable than Danzo. Because his life… had been cultivated from the corpses and flesh of his own clansmen, his own family and friends.
"What right does he have?! What makes him think I would ever consent to live wretchedly upon the flesh and blood of my clan?!"
"…" Future Sasuke sighed softly.
Itachi's love was, indeed, selfish. But looking at it from another angle, they were also the beneficiaries of that selfishness.
"Wind Release: Vacuum Serial Waves!"
Shimura Danzo tilted his head back, staring up at the mountain-sized behemoth. His hands quickly formed seals, and he spat out several highly concentrated pellets of wind-natured chakra.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Through the Sharingan in his right eye, Shimura Danzo saw clearly that his attack hadn't even scratched the Susanoo's outer layer.
Withdrawing his gaze from Young Sasuke, Future Sasuke made a slight mental adjustment, and the Perfect Susanoo regressed to its third form—the half-body giant.
A sharp chakra arrow shot from the Susanoo's hand, piercing into Shimura Danzo's body.
Against this man, whether he used the Perfect Great Tengu Susanoo or the third stage Susanoo, the outcome of the kill would be the same. Izanagi, one of the Uchiha clan's ultimate Dōjutsu. Upon activation, the user could transform any disadvantageous events occurring to them within a certain period into mere illusions, choosing only events favorable to themselves to manifest as reality.
Eleven Sharingan. That meant this man had eleven minutes of invincibility. Killing him would be a process of attrition. His current Dojutsu reserves didn't support using the Perfect Susanoo to shorten that period of invincibility.
"A deformed existence."
In the distance, atop a towering tree, Naruto's Number Two Shadow Clone frowned upon witnessing Shimura Danzo's method of fighting.