Chapter 88: Uchiha Ikeizumi is Already a Threat to the Village
"What?!!!"
Koharu Utatane couldn't help but exclaim in surprise. The news she received from Hiruzen Sarutobi left her utterly shocked.
She stood frozen in place, her mind in a whirlwind, taking a full five seconds to finally process the amount of information in his words.
Koharu Utatane suddenly stood up, questioning in an incredulous tone: "Hiruzen! You just stood by and watched Lord Daimyō's second son die at the hands of someone like Uchiha Ikeizumi?"
"Do you know what the death of Lord Daimyō's second son means for our Konoha? Do you know what a huge uproar this will cause?"
Before Hiruzen Sarutobi could speak, Koharu Utatane couldn't help but pace back and forth.
Her face, wrinkled and trembling slightly, murmured in shock: "I knew it... letting that envoy encounter Uchiha Ikeizumi would never lead to anything good. I never expected—they actually met."
Koharu Utatane had already arranged for her subordinates to inform the Daimyō's envoy team to stay away from certain areas of Konoha Village as much as possible.
Because those areas were where Uchiha Ikeizumi frequently appeared.
She never expected Uchiha Ikeizumi to act so out of character.
That extreme Uchiha was unusually not loitering in those areas today!
Koharu Utatane even suspected if he deliberately wanted to encounter the Daimyō's envoy team?
Had he already received news that the envoy team would be coming to Konoha?
"By the time this old man arrived, that young man was already dead."
Hiruzen Sarutobi took a deep breath. He glanced at the pacing, agitated Koharu Utatane.
He walked behind the Hokage's desk.
With a rather complex expression, he sat down.
Koharu Utatane also stopped, her old face grim: "What about Uchiha Ikeizumi? Was he apprehended?"
Hiruzen Sarutobi looked at her.
She looked back.
In their silence, an answer had already been conveyed.
"Hiruzen, what exactly are you thinking?!" Koharu Utatane felt at that moment she suddenly understood Danzō. Her blood pressure immediately rose, and her face flushed with an unusual anger.
She said urgently: "You've indulged Uchiha Ikeizumi countless times! What exactly are you enduring? Have you forgotten that Sarutobi Shinnosuke, your eldest son, also died at Uchiha Ikeizumi's hands? Have you forgotten whose poisonous hand Danzō fell into? Have you forgotten how many times Uchiha Ikeizumi defied your orders in public?"
"Now that he's caused such a huge mess, are you still going to condone him? Just because his existence can deter some ill-intentioned lawbreakers within the village? Is that all it takes for him to kill Lord Daimyō's second son and for you to turn a blind eye?"
"Hiruzen, I don't understand!"
Hiruzen Sarutobi fell silent, a silence that only made Koharu Utatane more dissatisfied.
It made her so angry that her breathing became rapid.
Homura Mitokado, who had been silent, interjected: "Hiruzen, he's concerned about the consequences of a military conflict with Uchiha Ikeizumi."
Koharu Utatane's brows furrowed.
Hiruzen Sarutobi gripped the armrest of his chair, his gaze lowered. The armrest was already cracked by his fingers, and his face was covered with a sinister and uncontrollable anger.
He took several deep breaths before finally calming down.
Hiruzen Sarutobi finally spoke: "For the stability of Konoha, this old man must endure. If Ikeizumi goes berserk, his threat to Konoha would be no less than the Nine-Tails incident of that year."
He looked at Koharu Utatane and asked: "Do you want the tragedy of several years ago to repeat itself in Konoha?"
"Furthermore—"
The helplessness on Hiruzen Sarutobi's face was visible: "After what happened last night, Ikeizumi has probably become a new object of adoration for many young, radical members of the Uchiha clan. Moving against Ikeizumi would be equivalent to moving against the entire Uchiha clan."
"Although Fugaku and Itachi are on our side, relying solely on this father and son pair is not enough to suppress the Uchiha."
Koharu Utatane hesitated to speak.
In the end, she also fell silent.
Homura Mitokado sighed and said: "Instead of arguing here, let's think about how Konoha should face the enraged Lord Daimyō next—"
"Uchiha Ikeizumi has caused a colossal mess, and even if we don't want to fix it for him, we have no choice but to quickly find a way to patch it up. 'I'm exhausted, you know—'"
Naruto, who was short and quite thin, was panting heavily as he plopped down on the steps in front of a house.
He cautiously glanced left and right, finding that apart from some Konoha villagers staring at him with strange looks,
There were no suspicious figures in sight.
"Phew!"
"Time for a little break—"
Clearly, the "suspicious figure" in Naruto's mind was Uchiha Ikeizumi!
But the next second.
The corner of his eye suddenly caught sight of a familiar figure appearing. When his gaze hurriedly shifted, he was instantly so scared that his breathing almost stopped, and his heart skipped a beat.
"Hiss!"
Sensing the other's gaze, and as if sensing it, when it turned towards him, Naruto was so frightened that he immediately sprang to his feet.
He grabbed the broom beside him.
And hastily swept left and right.
"Ten more days." When a faint voice sounded from the side, Naruto was instantly startled, his hair standing on end, and he turned his head in a panic. He saw Uchiha Ikeizumi, who had been a hundred meters ahead just a second ago, now standing beside him!
Naruto almost burst into tears.
Could he even live like this?
What Naruto didn't know was that the ANBU ninja hiding in the shadows, responsible for monitoring him, wanted to cry even more than he did.
Why is Uchiha Ikeizumi here again!!!
The ANBU ninja really wanted to step forward and cut off contact between Uchiha Ikeizumi and Naruto Uzumaki. After all, Lord Hokage had said to keep Naruto Uzumaki away from Uchiha clan ninjas as much as possible.
However...
The ANBU ninja always felt that if he showed himself, Uchiha Ikeizumi probably wouldn't give him any face. But if he forced the issue, it seemed he was no match at all.
He fell silent.
Occasionally mixing in some of his own judgment with Lord Hokage's orders shouldn't be a problem, right?
The ANBU ninja chose to temporarily hold his ground.
After all, Uchiha Ikeizumi didn't seem to want to manipulate the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki. Didn't this person pride himself on believing in [Absolute Justice]?
Since he was a devotee of absolute justice, he surely wouldn't do something that would recreate the Nine-Tails incident, would he?
On the other side.
Naruto's attention was drawn to a few drops of blood on the corner of Uchiha Ikeizumi's clothes, and a hint of unconcealed doubt appeared on his small face.
"Senior, wait for me—"
Until he heard a pleasant voice approaching from afar.
Naruto looked curiously and saw a beautiful woman with long black hair who had always followed this terrifying man. He also noticed a very fat orange cat perched on the girl's shoulder.
"Meow~ Lord Ikeizumi killed more than a dozen evildoers today. I suppose this should deter many ill-intentioned individuals for a while." The orange cat spoke!!!
Naruto roared frantically in his mind.
A cat?
Wait, Naruto's pupils contracted, the bitter expression on his small face froze, and his stiff gaze moved back to Uchiha Ikeizumi's blood-stained clothes.
Kijirō's words, "killed more than a dozen evildoers," echoed constantly in Naruto's small head.
His small face instantly turned pale.
"Please don't kill me!!!"
"I know I was wrong!!!"
Watching a blond kid prostrate himself in a standard dogeza posture, humbly begging Lord Ikeizumi for mercy and wailing loudly, Kijirō mumbled in confusion: "—What's wrong with this kid?"
Izumi stroked her smooth chin and muttered: "He seems to have misunderstood something. But—"
Looking at Naruto's thin and weak appearance.
Izumi hesitated: "Senior, this child doesn't look very healthy. Is it okay for him to do such high-intensity labor reform?"
Izumi always felt that with Naruto's thin arms and legs, he might suddenly collapse while sweeping the streets.
Uchiha Ikeizumi said expressionlessly: "He is the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki. This intensity is child's play for him."
Izumi suddenly understood: "So that's it—?? Nine-Tails Jinchuriki?"
She paused.
Kijirō explained from her shoulder: "Lord Ikeizumi once said that this kid has the tailed beast that caused the Nine-Tails incident sealed inside him. That tailed beast is called 'Nine-Tails.' Naruto Uzumaki, as the Nine-Tails' vessel, is called—the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki."
Izumi: "!!!"
The girl stared at Naruto with an incredulous gaze.
Nine-Tails! The Nine-Tailed Demon Fox!
Her Sharingan awakened on the night of the Nine-Tails attack, and her father also died at the hands of the demon fox that night.
"Ike... Senior Ikeizumi—. Then does he count as—"
The girl's voice trembled with suppressed emotion.
Uchiha Ikeizumi said calmly: "He is just a vessel, and he was forced to become one. Having become a Jinchuriki right after birth, he had no choice at the time."
Kijirō also said: "Meow, Lord Ikeizumi said that the instigator of the Nine-Tails incident was named Obito Uchiha. He controlled the Nine-Tails with his Mangekyo Sharingan and single-handedly orchestrated the Nine-Tails incident."
"Which means—"
Kijirō paused. It knew Izumi's past and continued: "The one who killed your father wasn't this kid. When your father died at the demon fox's hands, he was just an ordinary infant."
Izumi tried hard to calm her thoughts. She firmly remembered this name.
—Obito Uchiha!
The voices of the few were not lowered; they spoke openly in front of Naruto.
Naruto, who was kneeling in a dogeza posture begging Uchiha Ikeizumi to spare him, was now completely stunned.
He was the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki?
He was the demon fox's vessel?
Inside him—
Was there really a demon fox?
This terrifying man shouldn't be speaking nonsense, right? At this moment, he seemed to understand why some people secretly called him the "demon fox brat" and the "incarnation of disaster."
"I'm sorry..."
"I'm sorry..."
Naruto's voice was as faint as a mosquito's, tears dripping down, his thin body trembling, and even his words were choked with a sense of bewildered helplessness.
There are no airtight walls in the world.
The various frantic shouts of Gyōen'in Kyūsuke and others before their deaths allowed many who witnessed it to know their identities.
And the news of "the Daimyō's envoy being killed" swept through Konoha like a hurricane in a very short time.
Many people initially thought that after the events of last night, the somewhat chaotic situation within Konoha would finally settle down. But they never expected that in less than a dozen hours, another major incident would occur!
And...
The instigator was still Uchiha Ikeizumi!
Konoha, ANBU Headquarters.
"Nanmu—"
Asuma Sarutobi, holding a cigarette, quietly gazed at the corpse of Nanmu, who was also one of the "Twelve Guardian Ninja." The headless and blood-stained body appeared particularly chilling.
Asuma took a deep breath, then exhaled a cloud of smoke, his heart filled with only one emotion: "indignation."
The composition of the Twelve Guardian Ninja was quite complex. These twelve elite ninjas were not all loyal to the Daimyō of the Land of Fire.
Instead, it was somewhat similar to the Uchiha clan, divided into a moderate faction led by Asuma and a radical faction led by Kazuma.
The moderate faction advocated maintaining the current balance between the Daimyō of the Land of Fire and the Konoha Hokage, while the radical faction argued that the Konoha Hokage was unnecessary and that ninjas should be under the Daimyō's control.
Nanmu was a member of the moderate faction and a good friend of Asuma.
But now, he had become a corpse.
"Hmph." Asuma reached out to close Nanmu's wide-open eyes, his bearded face covered in gloom.
"Twice now, old man—are you still going to endure? As Konoha's Hokage, when did you become so weak? Is Uchiha Ikeizumi, a ninja of the Uchiha clan, really that important?"
He was talking to himself.
Asuma had never forgotten that his older brother died at Uchiha Ikeizumi's hands.
Every time he saw the sorrowful expression on his brother's widow.
Asuma found it hard to suppress the hatred rising in his heart.
Subsequently, Asuma's gaze lingered around. There were more than a dozen corpses lying here, each headless and dismembered. Among them, the body of the Daimyō's second son, Gyōen'in Kyūsuke, was particularly conspicuous, deepening the gloom on Asuma's face.
The death of the Daimyō's second son would surely enrage the Daimyō of the Land of Fire, as Gyōen'in Kyūsuke was the Daimyō's most beloved child. At that time.
The relationship between the Daimyō and Konoha might become rigid.
And the radical faction among the Twelve Guardian Ninja were probably waiting for this opportunity. Once they learned of this incident, they would surely incite the Daimyō of the Land of Fire to target Konoha.
They might even try to use this opportunity to ensure that Konoha would no longer have the position of Hokage in the future.
"Old man, you're the Hokage, can't you see clearly?"
Asuma had already bitten off the cigarette butt. He muttered to himself: "Uchiha Ikeizumi's existence is more detrimental than beneficial to Konoha. I think you should see that more clearly than I do. But the question is, why have you been indulging him?"
"My brother was killed by him—"
"Nanmu was killed by him—"
"The Daimyō's son—could not escape his poisonous hand either."
Asuma believed that the prosperity of the Land of Fire was entirely due to the delicate balance maintained between the Daimyō and Konoha. But Uchiha Ikeizumi's actions would surely disrupt this balance!
Once the balance was broken.
The Land of Fire...
Konoha...
Would no longer be peaceful!
He lit another cigarette: "Old man, allow me to oppose you one more time, Uchiha Ikeizumi is already a threat to the village. But perhaps you're already used to my rebellion."
...
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