"You... you can't kill me... I..."
Danzo's voice trembled in the night.
The bleeding from his severed arm had already stopped.
But the color would never return to that face.
His left eye stared fixedly at Teizawa.
In that single remaining eye, there was fear, anger, and a trace of almost pleading humility.
Teizawa shook his head. His tone was as calm as if he were discussing the weather.
"I thought about it carefully, and I really can't find a reason not to kill you. So..."
He paused. "You'll just have to die."
The moment he finished speaking, his figure vanished from where he stood.
Danzo's heart tightened, and his pupil contracted sharply.
He had no time to think.
His only remaining hand was already reaching toward his eye socket.
There was still one Mangekyo Sharingan there.
Shisui's eye. Danzo had always used it with great caution.
He decided to activate Izanagi.
Although the price after using it once was permanent blindness, he could no longer care about that now.
Compared to death, blindness was a price he could still bear.
Ocular power gathered in his eye socket.
That scarlet eye began to rotate slowly.
"Ah...!"
A scream tore through the night sky.
A sharp pain suddenly exploded in Danzo's eye socket.
The ocular power that had just gathered was cut off and torn apart as if something had brutally severed it.
Before it could bloom, it vanished into nothing.
A line of bloody tears poured from the dark, hollow eye socket.
It slid down his cheek.
It dripped onto his lapel, leaving dark stains.
Teizawa stood in front of him.
He lowered his head and toyed with the scarlet eyeball in his hand.
Under the moonlight, the pattern on that eye was clearly visible.
Strange and magnificent.
Like some ancient ritual artifact.
He clicked his tongue in appreciation, a playful smile hanging at the corner of his mouth.
"So this is the legendary Mangekyo of the shinobi world? Looks... pretty ordinary to me."
He had targeted this eye long ago.
From the night he robbed Root, this eye had been one of the things he was determined to obtain.
So he would never give Danzo the chance to destroy it.
He had calculated every step from the beginning.
Body Flicker, eye extraction, all in one seamless motion.
After suffering blow after blow, Danzo's current condition was terrible.
He had no time to react at all.
"Give it back..."
Danzo's voice was hoarse and shrill, like an old cat whose tail had been stepped on.
"Give me back my eye..."
Teizawa gave a cold laugh and stored the eyeball inside a sealing scroll.
"What do you mean, your eye? This is clearly Shisui's eye."
He raised his head and looked at Danzo's twisted face.
"You old bastard. You've used someone else's eye for this many years. You should be satisfied."
Danzo's chest heaved violently, and blood began to seep from the severed arm again.
His lips trembled, and his voice was rough as though filled with sand.
"You... who exactly are you...? How do you know so much...?"
"Guess."
The corner of Teizawa's mouth lifted slightly.
His smile was full of mockery.
He had no interest in playing any longer.
He raised his hand, ready to end everything.
"Damn you..."
Danzo suddenly roared.
His remaining hand formed seals at high speed.
"Reverse Four Symbols..."
His voice stopped abruptly.
The hand forming seals froze in midair.
The fingers twisted at a bizarre angle.
As if something had forcibly snapped them.
The sound of bones breaking was especially clear in the quiet forest.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
All ten fingers, not a single one spared, were broken.
Blood gushed from the snapped fingers and splattered across the ground.
It splattered across Danzo's own face.
His scream rang out again.
Even more miserable than before. Even more desperate.
"Ah...!"
"Puppet... Puppet Technique?"
Danzo's voice came in broken fragments, as if something were gripping his throat.
"When... when did you control my body...?"
Teizawa's fingers moved lightly.
Like he was plucking invisible strings.
Danzo's body suddenly stiffened.
His limbs began to twist beyond his control, and his joints made cracking sounds.
This was Puppet Technique enhanced by Magnet Style.
It replaced chakra threads with an electromagnetic field, acting directly on the iron inside the human body.
Silent. Invisible. Impossible to guard against.
He understood Danzo's methods too well.
In the original timeline, this guy had fought Sasuke and exposed every last one of his trump cards.
So from the very beginning, Teizawa had never intended to give this old fox any chance to turn the tables.
"No comment."
Teizawa sneered and lifted his foot.
Then he stepped directly onto Danzo's head.
The sole of his shoe ground against Danzo's scalp, crushing a small, unremarkable stone beneath it.
"Oh, right..."
His voice was very soft, as if he were chatting with an old friend.
"There's something I should tell you. I already slept with Tsunade, your Hokage. She's my woman now."
He paused, and the smile at the corner of his mouth deepened.
"And you know how women are. They like listening to their men. So... Konoha will be mine too."
"What...?"
Danzo's pupil contracted violently.
His body trembled. His lips trembled. Even his voice trembled.
Not from fear, but from rage.
A rage that sank into the marrow, as if his faith itself had been trampled underfoot.
He had spent his entire life plotting for Konoha.
To make Konoha powerful. To protect Konoha's peace.
He could do anything.
He could kill anyone. He could turn himself into a monster.
But now...
This young man was telling him that Konoha would become someone else's.
Kill the body, crush the heart.
Teizawa knew exactly where Danzo's weak point was.
The more Danzo claimed everything he did was for Konoha, the more Teizawa had to strike him there.
Sure enough.
Danzo's whole body began to tremble.
Like a withered leaf struggling in the autumn wind.
His mouth opened and closed, closed and opened again.
A hoarse, broken sound came from his throat.
But he could not say a single word.
Teizawa said nothing more.
He pressed down with his foot.
Splatter.
The sound of a watermelon bursting rang out in the night, dull and brutal.
Blood splashed across the ground, across Teizawa's shoe, across the scattered bandages and broken fingers.
Danzo's head was crushed.
His body twitched a few times, then went completely still.
A veteran figure of Konoha, the founder of Root, a man whose shadow had loomed beneath the Hokage Monument, died instantly.
Shimura Danzo had fallen.
The forest fell silent.
Moonlight emerged from behind the clouds.
It shone over the ruined ground.
It shone over the headless corpse.
It shone over Teizawa's young and calm face.
He withdrew his foot and rubbed the sole of his shoe against the nearby grass.
Then he turned and walked toward the carriage.
"Move out."
His voice was light, but it reached every Anbu member clearly.
The Anbu silently cleaned up the battlefield.
They packed Danzo's corpse into a sack, picked up the scattered fingers and bone fragments, and loaded the captured Root shinobi onto the carriage.
No one spoke. No one made any unnecessary sound.
Only the night wind passed through the treetops.
It sounded like a low whimper.
Teizawa jumped onto the carriage and sat on the driver's bench.
He took a raisin from his pocket and tossed it into his mouth.
The sweetness melted on his tongue.
He narrowed his eyes and looked at the moonlit path ahead.
Time to go back.
There was still someone waiting for him in Konoha.
Right. She had said she would spend the night with him...
Then did that mean he could do whatever he wanted?
Even make a few small requests?
For example...
Trying something a little different?
(End of Chapter)
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