Fugaku stood before the clan heads, their silence echoing louder than any protest. No one raised a word against his judgment. Not a whisper of dissent.
So this was it—the Uchiha clan was untouchable now.
Still, Fugaku turned to Ryosuke one last time. He wasn't about to execute Danzo without Ryosuke's blessing.
"Ryosuke… now?" Fugaku asked, his voice steady.
"Yes. You do it," Ryosuke replied without hesitation.
To him, Danzo represented the very embodiment of the threat their clan had always feared—corruption, manipulation, genocide waiting to be signed into law. The sooner Danzo died, the sooner the Uchiha could finally breathe.
And besides—only the dead keep secrets.
Fugaku nodded grimly. Without a word, he raised a kunai and plunged it into Danzo's chest. The tip slid cleanly through flesh and bone, piercing Danzo's heart in one merciful strike.
No jutsu. No resistance.
Just silence.
The once-feared shadow of Konoha's foundation, the man behind Root and countless covert atrocities—was dead.
Fugaku let out a long breath. That was one enemy less in a village that had always danced on a wire of suspicion and paranoia.
With Danzo gone and the Third Hokage unconscious, Konoha's balance of power had shifted irreversibly.
The clan heads present watched with mixed emotions. Most agreed Danzo had overstepped beyond redemption. But now… the Uchiha weren't just powerful—they were dominant.
Even so, a thread of uneasy relief spread among them. After the execution, the Uchiha returned to their compound peacefully. They hadn't harmed the Third, nor taken advantage of the other clans' silence. Not yet, at least.
Still, the fear lingered. What if they turned next?
Back at the Uchiha compound, Fugaku wasted no time.
"Double the patrols. Post sharpshooters at every entry point. If any clan decides to retaliate later, we won't be caught unprepared."
They had just executed a top-level elder—an action bordering on insurrection. It was likely some clans hadn't processed it yet. But once the shock wore off?
War was always an option.
Meanwhile, the unconscious Third Hokage had been taken to the village hospital under tight ANBU protection. News of what had happened spread fast—too fast for the village to contain.
By morning, the entire Hidden Leaf knew:
Danzo Shimura was dead.
The Uchiha clan had done it.
And they had evidence—his stolen Sharingan-covered arm—to justify it.
For civilians, it was a lot to process.
The same Danzo they had once viewed as a stoic village protector had been hiding dozens of Uchiha eyes in his arm. That alone was horrifying—something straight out of Orochimaru's lab, not the Hokage Council.
His public execution sent a clear message:
"Don't mess with the Uchiha. Ever."
Fear crept in.
People who had once casually insulted the Uchiha—or filed petty complaints about the Police Force—suddenly shut their mouths. Even the regular shinobi walked a little more carefully when passing by an Uchiha patrol.
Some of the villagers who had submitted complaints under Danzo's pressure even came to the Uchiha Police Headquarters… to beg for forgiveness. They were terrified.
If even Danzo—an elder—could be killed like that, what hope did they have?
At the hospital, the Third Hokage finally regained consciousness. Bandaged from head to toe, his body throbbed with pain. He groaned, eyes fluttering open.
Ryosuke's kick… it was like getting hit by a falling boulder…
He remembered now.
That one strike had nearly caved in his ribs. If not for the years of "conditioning" from his sparring with Might Guy and other heavy hitters, it might've killed him outright.
"Guards," he rasped.
An ANBU stepped in instantly.
"Lord Third. I'm here."
Sarutobi looked at him with bleary eyes.
"What happened to Danzo?"
The ANBU hesitated for only a moment.
"He was executed. By Uchiha Fugaku. On Ryosuke's orders."
Sarutobi's face tightened.
Danzo was dead.
So it happened. The Uchiha really had done it. Bold. Brutal. Unapologetic.
Danzo's power, twisted as it was, had been a counterbalance to the Uchiha's growing strength. Without him, there was no more leash.
"Did he say anything before he died?" Sarutobi asked, more concerned with damage control than mourning.
"No, sir. He died silently."
Sarutobi exhaled in relief.
Good. No secrets spilled. I live another day.
But as he lay in bed, the pit in his stomach only grew.
"And… none of the clan heads tried to stop it?"
"No, Lord Third."
Sarutobi's expression darkened. Cowards, he thought. They were either too afraid or too opportunistic to step in.
When he finally learned the full extent of Danzo's crimes—the Sharingan theft, the experiments—it was all too clear:
Danzo really had turned into another Orochimaru…
The irony burned. He had once condemned Orochimaru for his experiments, only to allow Danzo to commit equally vile acts in the shadows.
He sighed.
The world had shifted. The Uchiha now stood at the top of the food chain. And without Danzo, Sarutobi had no military support strong enough to oppose them.
He thought bitterly:
Even if I called back my "three sons"… Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Orochimaru—it wouldn't be enough. Not against Ryosuke.
In fact, Ryosuke's strength was unnatural—violating the natural order.
Was he even human? Was it truly Ryosuke in that body? Sarutobi found himself wondering if some ancient monster had possessed the Uchiha boy and cloaked itself in Sharingan.
One thing was certain:
If Ryosuke wanted to take the Hokage seat, no one could stop him.
But he hadn't.
Not yet.
Why didn't he kill me? Sarutobi mused.
Was it mercy? Or was he simply waiting?
He knew his days were numbered. When Ryosuke struck again, it would be final. So if he wanted to survive… he needed answers.
Why was Ryosuke so strong?
Sarutobi had trained his body for decades. He'd even undergone endurance-based sparring with the likes of Guy and Kakashi. He'd tanked blows from the likes of Hanzo and lived to tell the tale.
And yet Ryosuke folded him in a single kick.
There was only one explanation: Ryosuke was hiding something.
No ordinary Uchiha awakened power like this. Not even Madara in his youth was this terrifying.
He needed intel. Something Danzo would've handled. But with Danzo gone… it was up to him.
"Send for… Yugao Uzuki," he ordered coldly.
The ANBU blinked.
"Yugao, sir?"
"Yes," Sarutobi said. "I need a spy. A female one."
He grimaced at the thought. He wasn't Danzo—he didn't specialize in dirty work. But at this point, he had no choice.
"If I want to know how Ryosuke became this strong… I'll have to steal his secrets."
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