On his arm, the only two remaining crimson Sharingan rotated weakly, like the last breaths of a dying beast.
The extreme fear that swept through his body, instead, forced Danzo's boiling brain to cool down.
Screaming and fleeing were meaningless.
Resisting with force would only bring humiliation.
His cloudy single eye slowly, inch by inch, moved past Uzumaki Naruto, who was giving orders with an expressionless face.
His gaze, like a poisoned arrow, was fixed firmly on Kakashi.
That was the only variable.
That was the only crack he might be able to tear open.
"Kakashi!"
A hoarse roar squeezed out from deep within Danzo's throat, carrying the taste of blood and rust, echoing in the confined space.
"Do you really think that I alone could force the renowned Konoha White Fang to his death?"
These words, like a wedge, precisely pierced into a gap in time.
Danzo's body no longer trembled; his hunched back, at this moment, tried to straighten.
He was like a desperate tragic character, deciding to reveal all his secrets before dying, his face a mix of unwillingness, pain, and a kind of long-misunderstood pathos.
"Konoha White Fang, Sakumo Hatake, what kind of person was he?"
"He struck fear into the Ninja World; even the Sannin paled in comparison to him."
"Would such a hero commit suicide because of a few rumors? Don't you find that ridiculous, Kakashi!"
He no longer looked at anyone else; in his world, there was only Kakashi, the masked man whose full face couldn't be seen.
"I admit, those rumors were spread by me."
"I admit, I exploited the villagers' ignorance and my comrades' jealousy, pushing him onto the judgment stand."
"But I, too, was merely a vicious dog pushed to the forefront by its master!"
Danzo's voice grew increasingly high-pitched, carrying a kind of self-sacrificing madness.
"Who is the real master? It's your beloved Third Hokage, my comrade, Hiruzen Sarutobi!"
"His accomplishments overshadowed his lord, Kakashi! Your father's prestige was so high that it threatened the Hokage position! The legacy of the Konoha Hokage could not fall to a side branch; the old monkey was afraid, he needed a knife, the sharpest and dirtiest knife, to cut down that thickest branch!"
"And I, Danzo Shimura, was that knife!"
"For the stability of Konoha, for the consolidation of the Hokage's power, I am willing to bear all sins! I am willing to become the villain despised by everyone!"
"All the old monkey did afterward was use his hypocritical benevolence to comfort you, the poor wretch who lost his father!"
Buzz.
The lightning wrapped around Kakashi's right hand paused for a moment.
The intense flickering of electricity weakened at that instant.
Some deliberately sealed memories surged uncontrollably.
His father's cold corpse.
The disdainful, avoiding gazes of the surrounding villagers and comrades.
And the wrinkled face of the Third Hokage.
Hiruzen Sarutobi looked at him, his eyes filled with concern, with pity, but more so with a kind of distance.
It was a professional kind of care, a duty-bound comfort.
Behind that silence, there always seemed to be an invisible veil.
The deepest doubt in his heart, that trace of suspicion towards authority and the entire Konoha high-level system, was precisely stirred by Danzo's words, instantly magnified.
Bang!
A muffled gunshot brutally interrupted Danzo's monologue.
The bullet accurately entered the center of his forehead, bursting into a spray of blood.
Danzo's inflammatory performance ceased abruptly, and his body fell backward.
A phantom flickered.
The next second, he reappeared in his original spot, perfectly intact, the second-to-last Sharingan on his right arm slowly closing, silent once more.
Now, only one remained.
Naruto lowered the Bolter in his hand, a wisp of smoke still rising from its muzzle.
He let out a contemptuous sneer, the sound particularly jarring in the cold "Iron Coffin."
"A very impressive performance."
Naruto's voice was flat and unadorned, yet extremely penetrating.
"But your logic has a fundamental flaw."
He calmly gazed at Danzo's face, twisted with shock.
"If Hiruzen Sarutobi has problems, it doesn't mean you don't have problems."
"If a big tree is sick, then both the rotten Roots and the hollowed-out trunk are guilty."
"What I am doing is pulling out all of you poisonous thorns that have grown within Konoha, one by one."
Naruto's gaze swept over Kakashi, then returned to Danzo.
"As for your so-called 'for Konoha'..."
He chuckled again, this time with undisguised mockery.
"Save it, Danzo Shimura, your so-called sacrifice is nothing more than the impotent rage and self-beautification of a failed bid for power."
"You yearned for the Hokage position, yearned to transform Konoha into what you wanted it to be, but you failed. From beginning to end, you were merely a loser living in Hiruzen Sarutobi's shadow."
"However, you don't need to feel sorry for your 'Root,' which you cultivated for many years."
Naruto took a step forward, declaring the final judgment.
"I will take it over."
"I will dig it out of the dark soil, cleanse all its decay and stench, and let it grow anew in a direction that can truly protect Konoha."
These words struck more fear into Danzo than any previous death.
Time and again, his body was destroyed, but he could erase the physical results.
But to destroy his will, to negate his life's pursuit, and to seize his life's work and completely transform it in a way that devalued him! This was too cruel... "No... you can't..."
Danzo's last psychological defense was completely shattered at this moment.
"Execute."
Naruto coldly uttered the command, without any hesitation.
The metal storm howled once more.
"Uzumaki Naruto! You will destroy Konoha! You will destroy everything!"
He shrieked mournfully.
Responding to him were the Chainswords and a hail of bullets from the Karsten Squad members.
The humming blades, without any flourish, split him in half from top to bottom.
Blood and organs splattered everywhere.
When his body coalesced for the ninth time nearby, the arm embedded with Sharingan had completely lost all its luster.
All nine eyes had permanently closed.
Only the Mangekyo Sharingan belonging to Uchiha Shisui in his own eye socket was still rotating wildly due to extreme rage and fear.
Words had become completely ineffective.
This monster named Uzumaki Naruto was as meticulous as an abyss; no verbal provocation could shake him.
And the people around him were merely extensions of his will, cold killing machines.
Danzo could feel that the opponent still had many trump cards they hadn't used.
This cramped space, this unprecedented firepower suppression, left him with no escape.
At the same time, the vibrations coming from outside the "Iron Coffin" grew stronger and stronger.
Rumble... Rumble... Was that... Konoha's Ninja? Was it the Third Hokage's Anbu, or Ninja from other clans, who had finally discovered the commotion here and surrounded this place?
No!
He couldn't fall into their hands!
He couldn't let Hiruzen Sarutobi see him in such a pathetic state!
The last vestiges of madness seized Danzo's sanity.
He violently tore open his shirt, revealing his lean chest.
There, it was covered with bizarrely twisted black jutsu patterns, slowly writhing like a living thing, emitting an ominous aura.
"Since you all want my things so badly, then let's be buried here together forever!"
Danzo's face was twisted to the extreme, a grimace of someone staking everything.
"Reverse Four Symbols Sealing!"
"Political Commissar!"
Zero's face suddenly changed dramatically; he immediately turned and reported to Naruto.
"This jutsu will instantly detonate the caster's entire Chakra, forcibly sealing all objects within a several-hundred-meter radius into the caster's corpse!"
There was a hint of urgency in his voice.
"The 'Iron Coffin Seal' cannot completely block its ultimate power! Once it fully erupts, the entire Root base, including our stored data, equipment, and even those members who have not yet been transferred, will be swallowed!"
That meant that everything the Political Commissar had meticulously planned would ultimately result in taking over an empty shell with nothing!
Zero's face grew even uglier.
"You've already told me this situation; no need to repeat it."
Naruto nodded, his expression calm without a ripple.
As if this forbidden jutsu, which was about to self-destruct and drag everyone into hell, was merely an insignificant footnote in the plan.
No sooner had he finished speaking.
Hasty footsteps came from outside the room.
The next moment, the Flying Thunder God Genma Squad appeared in the room.
The Ninja team composed of Shiranui Genma, Raido Namiashi, and Iwashi Tatami had served as the Fourth Hokage's bodyguards. This squad mastered the Flying Thunder Formation Jutsu, a three-person collaborative technique taught by the Fourth Hokage, which could achieve spatial transfer of targets.
"Naruto, the Hokage's direct Flying Thunder God Squad, by order of the Third Hokage, awaits your command."
This was the result of Naruto's prior request to the Third Hokage.
Danzo's crazed face froze instantly upon seeing these familiar faces.
He had miscalculated; he had never imagined that the lingering influence of the Fourth Hokage, even after his death, would become the great hand that could choke his fate.
His son... his squad... More importantly, the old monkey had truly allied with this Naruto and abandoned him.
"One wrong step, and every step is wrong!"
Danzo completely broke into hysterical laughter, his eyes filled with gloom and loneliness after the laughter.
"If it weren't for you, Naruto, I would have become Hokage."
He spoke Naruto's name, but in his mind, the conversation where his teacher, Senju Tobirama, chose the old monkey instead of him as the Hokage successor, surfaced.
"One wrong step... every... step... wrong..."
Naruto ignored Danzo's shock; he raised his hand and issued the final command to the about-to-erupt black jutsu.
"Activate 'Iron Coffin Seal' Phase Three, delay the eruption of Reverse Four Symbols Sealing."
"Flying Thunder God Squad, transfer the target to the lake outside Konoha."
"Let him and his so-called 'resolve' feed the fish in the lake."
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