Chapter 119: Itachi, Did You Really Understand?
Night, Konoha Hospital.
Hiruzen Sarutobi, still in the hospital and resting his eyes on his sickbed, slowly and calmly opened them. As if sensing something, his gaze shifted to the window on his right.
An ANBU ninja was perched on the half-open window. The figure hopped down and walked to the side of the bed.
"Hokage-sama." Itachi Uchiha removed his mask, his expression complex as he looked at the Third Hokage. "No matter what orders you give, Hokage-sama, I will obey. Even if you command me to kill Ikeizumi Uchiha, I will leave the village without hesitation and hunt him down."
He paused, then continued, "I overheard what Inoichi Yamanaka and the others were saying earlier. My apologies, Hokage-sama, perhaps I shouldn't have listened. But I want to say one thing—I do not believe they are right."
Itachi Uchiha said, "I believe a Konoha shinobi commits a grave mistake the moment they become disloyal to the village. Ikeizumi Uchiha is a shinobi who is disloyal to Konoha."
"Conversely, a shinobi who is deeply loyal to Konoha should be forgiven, even if they make mistakes. Asuma Sarutobi is a shinobi who is very loyal to Konoha."
"Hokage-sama... this is my personal opinion on the matter. If you are unable to act, I can become a second Danzo Shimura, a hidden blade of the village."
"Whatever I must bear in the future, I will have no regrets!"
Having said his piece, Itachi stood silently to the side.
Hiruzen's gaze returned to the ceiling. "Itachi," he said with a sigh. "You truly are a unique Uchiha. Not every member of your clan has a resolve like yours."
"I can also tell that your loyalty to Konoha is pure. It isn't tainted by any greed or calculation. To be honest... that truly brings me comfort."
Itachi remained silent, but his posture straightened ever so slightly. Clearly, Hiruzen's words resonated with him.
"Thank you for the offer, Itachi." Hiruzen shook his head. "In my eyes, you are one of the genius shinobi who will carry Konoha's future. If I were to make you a Shadow of the Leaf like Danzo, to make a child bear a burden he should not have to, then I, the Third Hokage, would have truly failed."
Itachi froze, finally breaking his silence. "But... Hokage-sama, Ikeizumi Uchiha's Absolute Justice is already subtly influencing the Uchiha clan."
"They are already an extreme clan, and 'Absolute Justice' will only make them more so. Konoha..." He took a deep breath. "...will be destroyed by the radical Uchiha."
"...Itachi." Hiruzen sighed. " Ikeizumi Uchiha... he's just an excuse for you to act against the Uchiha clan, isn't he? Your real target is the Uchiha clan itself, isn't it?"
"By killing Ikeizumi Uchiha, you would also cut out 'Absolute Justice' from Konoha. That would be the perfect excuse to act against the Uchiha clan, wouldn't it?"
"That way, no one in the entire Uchiha clan would be able to threaten Konoha, would they?"
"It's all too easy to see, Itachi... especially after Ikeizumi Uchiha's prophecy about you."
Itachi, his true intentions exposed by Hiruzen, offered silent assent.
Hiruzen propped himself up on one arm, trying to sit up. Itachi immediately stepped forward and helped him.
Leaning his back against the cold hospital wall, Hiruzen's clouded, yet sharp, old eyes fixed on Itachi's.
Hiruzen spoke slowly and deliberately. "Itachi, I hope you will rein in these dangerous thoughts. There's no need to believe that you have to kill every single Uchiha to solve this problem. When you think your clansmen are extreme, do you ever realize that your own thinking is also quite extreme?"
"It's not that I don't know the Uchiha clan's little schemes, but I have my own reasons, as Konoha's Hokage, for not acting against them. This isn't indecisiveness on my part. This is... politics. A matter of balance."
Itachi interjected, "After the Ino-Shika-Cho clans stepped forward, you suppressed your hatred. Was that also a matter of balance?"
"...Yes." Hiruzen sighed. "The Ino-Shika-Cho trio is involved in so many aspects of Konoha. When they decided to stand with Ikeizumi Uchiha..."
"...that game between my Will of Fire and Ikeizumi's Absolute Justice was one I had already lost. The Hokage does not have absolute authority in Konoha. I could only concede."
Hiruzen looked at the corner of the hospital bed quilt, which he had torn. "It's not that I'm not angry, or that I don't care about losing my son. But to keep Konoha from falling into chaos, I had to compromise."
"Itachi, I hope you can understand this difficult position."
"Sometimes, you also need to compromise. A temporary compromise isn't a failure; it simply gives you more room to think."
Itachi fell silent for a long time. He suddenly realized that the Third Hokage, hailed as the 'God of Shinobi,' was often just swept along by the 'tide' of events.
The Hokage's power was not as absolute as he had imagined. At least when facing the united clans of Konoha, even if the Third Hokage desperately wanted revenge for his son's death, he ultimately had to swallow his pride and silently concede.
Itachi couldn't help but wonder why this was the case. He seemed to have reached a conclusion.
—The Hokage lacked the power to intimidate all of Konoha.
When Danzo Shimura was still alive, even though the Foundation was a bit out of control, that dark blade was a Damocles' sword hanging over many of Konoha's shinobi.
This was the power the Hokage used to intimidate Konoha. But the Foundation, now under Koharu Utatane's control, had become more like a second ANBU, losing its former deterrent power. All of this was because of Ikeizumi Uchiha! The power to intimidate Konoha had been removed by Ikeizumi Uchiha!
"Hokage-sama, I understand." Itachi gave a slight nod.
Hiruzen forced a small smile. "Itachi, you truly are the Uchiha I value most, and the most special young man in your clan."
As it was, his mind was already in enough turmoil. If Itachi were to carry out a Clan Massacre Night in Konoha, Hiruzen felt he might pass out again.
But.
Watching Itachi's retreating back, Hiruzen couldn't help but fall into thought.
Itachi... did he really understand?
...
"Lady Tsunade, look over there!" Shizune, holding Tonton in one arm, urgently pointed with the other toward a glowing fire in the distance. " Ikeizumi Uchiha must be over there, right? He's a dual kekkei genkai user with both Lava Release and the Sharingan!"
Just as she was about to run forward, she saw Lady Tsunade gripping a streetlamp pole, frozen in place.
"Lady Tsunade?" Shizune started to ask worriedly, only to be shocked to see that Tsunade's face was deathly pale.
"No... don't look at the fire..." Tsunade's voice trembled. "Look at those bodies on the ground. They show us which way he went."
Shizune was startled. She couldn't help but look back at the distant fire, then her eyes dropped downwards, and her pupils immediately shrank. "This..."
What came into view were body after blood-soaked body! Every corpse had met a gruesome end.
Some were split in two from top to bottom. Others were decapitated, their large heads rolling to the side. The only common factor was the massive amount of blood.
Of course... Lady Tsunade must have seen the blood to react this way!
"Shizune..." Tsunade said through gritted teeth. "Quick! Gather all the money that Uchiha brat didn't want from the bodies! This... this is our gambling money for the next month! We can't let anyone else find out about this secret business opportunity!"
"Hurry up! That Uchiha brat is killing villains so fast, he'll probably be able to wipe out Tanuki Pass in a single night... don't let anyone get ahead of us!"
Shizune: "..."
Maybe Lady Tsunade's gambling addiction was just barely winning out against her hemophobia. A sweatdrop appeared on her forehead as she looked at the gruesome corpses. For some reason, a chill ran down her spine.
"Absolute Justice..." Shizune mumbled. "I wonder what the shinobi in the village think of this Ikeizumi Uchiha."
...
"You... you monster! I've never offended you, have I? I don't even know you! Why are you killing me? Even shinobi have to follow the laws of the Land of Fire!"
"If you... if you kill me, it's a heinous crime! Even if you're a ninja, you can't just kill people without reason!"
Three men were already dead beside him, all of them decapitated and all of them shinobi bodyguards he had hired for a hefty sum! Yet... these three shinobi, who he thought were so powerful, were pathetically weak in the hands of this monster.
"And all three of the people you killed were Konoha shinobi!"
Watching the monster walk toward him, the man cried out in terror and despair. "If you let me live, I won't tell anyone about this! Otherwise... do you want to be hunted down by Konoha's shinobi? I hear there are thousands, even tens of thousands of them in Konoha!"
"Meow, Ikeizumi-sama is a Konoha shinobi," Kyujiro sneered from the side. "Do you want Ikeizumi-sama to hunt himself down?"
"The... the cat talked..." The man stared, dumbfounded.
Schwick—
And the dumbfounded expression on his face froze there. Because the blade of the shinobi sword had already sliced his head clean off.
"The blade is dull." Ikeizumi Uchiha examined the shinobi sword in his hand—just a standard-issue blade from the Police Force. He casually flicked the blood off the blade, sheathed it, and stepped emotionlessly over the bodies at his feet. Behind him lay a sea of corpses!
No one knew how many red-named villains Ikeizumi Uchiha had killed in just half an hour. Kyujiro had started out eagerly counting the bodies. But as he counted... he realized he had lost track—because Ikeizumi-sama was killing villains too fast!
And Ikeizumi-sama didn't listen to any of the villains' explanations.
See... Kill.
That's all he had done for half an hour.
Now, all of Tanuki Pass had been plunged into panic and chaos. Body after blood-soaked body on the ground was constantly challenging everyone's weak constitution. In fact, many buildings were now engulfed in flames, and countless corpses had been burned to cinders.
A wave of terror was spreading fast!
...
"He's killed... too many people!" Shizune was no longer just horrified. An unspeakable fear was taking root in her heart, making her wonder, "Lady Tsunade... are all of the people Ikeizumi Uchiha killed truly villains? Wasn't a single person wronged? How does he even make his judgment?"
Question after question left Shizune completely baffled. Although, at Tsunade's urging, she had picked up stack after stack of bills—likely millions of ryo—the money in her hands couldn't calm her down. Especially the sticky sensation of the blood-stained bills, which sent a bone-deep chill through her.
Tsunade, still clinging to the streetlamp pole, had also lost her initial excitement. Her girlish face was now a mask of paleness and solemnity.
"Why did that Uchiha brat kill so many people?" Tsunade had thought that maybe a few dozen people would die tonight at most. With her knowledge of Tanuki Pass... it was only natural that there would be a few dozen villains deserving of the death penalty. But...
"The number of bodies is already in the hundreds!" A look of horror flashed deep in Tsunade's eyes. "And it looks like that brat has no intention of stopping!" The situation had clearly gone beyond her expectations.
...
...
For advanced chapters:
Get early access to 80 advanced chapters before anyone else!
Join now: Patreon com/Chaos_God