Clang!
The cane hit the floor.
The massive Insect Sphere, formed from countless kikaichū, buzzed and shrieked like a swarm of hornets bursting from a nest.
The operating room had been unnaturally quiet to begin with. Now, even the slowest person alive could sense something was wrong.
Chihaya Tōru, who had been completely absorbed in watching Konome Taketori's surgical progress, heard the noise and immediately felt irritation rise.
Nerve-connection surgery demanded extreme caution. The operating environment had to be near-perfect. A moment of distraction could ruin everything.
And the most troublesome part was that nerves were different from everything else.
Until the patient woke up, even the most skilled medical ninja could not guarantee one hundred percent that the operation had succeeded. It was the kind of procedure that required both luck and precision, and the margin for error was razor thin.
Ryōma was usually reliable. Why did he have to drop the ball now?
Chihaya Tōru was about to turn and scold Aburame Ryōma for making noise, when he realized in horror that his neck would not move at all.
Not just his neck.
His limbs.
His torso.
Even his lips felt frozen in place. His tongue trembled like it had been stuffed into shoesoles for ten years, stiff and dry, refusing to obey.
What was happening?
The whites of his eyes filled with bloodshot veins. His whole body shook violently. At some point, strange black square-shaped curse markings had crawled all over his face and body.
Click!
The metal forceps snapped shut.
Chihaya Tōru's pupils quivered as he looked sideways.
Konome Taketori's profile was covered in the same black markings. Their edges glowed with a flame-like orange-red rim. In the span of a breath, even her pale wrist vanished beneath the spreading pattern.
At their feet, two cables made from kikaichū linked head to tail connected Aburame Ryōma to them. Blue chakra surged through the living wires, flooding into their bodies and blooming into countless sealing marks that pinned them in place.
Ryōma pressed his palms together. His chakra carried overwhelming curse-force.
Self-Curse Binding Technique!
He injected chakra saturated with curse power into the target, forming binding seal patterns that locked down the body. It was Root's standard restraint curse used when capturing ninja.
Normally, this technique required physical contact.
But Ryōma exploited the kikaichū's ability to absorb and release chakra, turning his own insects into chakra cables. From a distance, he bound both Konome Taketori and Chihaya Tōru in place.
Seeing that they could no longer move, Aburame Ryōma finally let out a quiet breath.
Chihaya Tōru did not matter. A medical ninja caught in a curse seal could not stir up much trouble.
The urgent priority was immobilizing the terrifying Konome Taketori.
The Self-Curse Binding Technique had strict activation conditions and was notoriously difficult to learn. In exchange, its restraint strength was brutal.
In decades of Root operations, anyone struck by it, no matter how strong, could only stand there blankly, waiting to be devoured alive by kikaichū.
Of course, Ryōma had no intention of killing them.
His target was only Danzō.
His eyes turned cold as he directed the hovering Insect Sphere toward the unconscious old man on the table.
Die.
Before the swarm even arrived, it felt like the room was already filled with the crisp crack of breaking bone.
Crunch.
Konome Taketori's lips tugged slightly upward.
The black curse markings on her face split open at the edge.
Ryōma's eyelid twitched. He poured even more chakra down the insect cables, forcing it violently into her body.
Useless.
Creak!
Her five fingers curled slowly.
That arm, which looked soft and delicate at a glance, swelled instantly. Muscles hidden beneath the bone membrane snapped into definition, thick cords like a war-bow drawn to its limit. A casual pull would unleash monstrous strength.
Her fist tightened.
An invisible ripple burst from her body.
The chain-like curse inscriptions shattered in front of Ryōma's widening eyes, cracking apart piece by piece.
Bzz!
The Insect Sphere was still flying toward Danzō.
The battlefield had shifted too fast.
From the curse entering her body to Konome Taketori tearing it apart with raw taijutsu, it did not even take a second.
Chihaya Tōru, completely unable to keep up, still had not processed what had happened. His eyes were filled with panic, trapped in the shock of being cursed and of Ryōma betraying Danzō.
The honeycomb-like swarm rushed straight at Danzō.
Konome Taketori ignored the assistant standing beside her like a malfunctioning puppet.
Her soft, red lips parted.
Inside, orange-red flames churned like an eruption.
Boom!
A compressed, blazing fireball shot out and intercepted the swarm perfectly, the firelight illuminating Danzō's wrinkled, aged face.
Crackle!
Under the scorching flames, the insects popped like fireworks. Biomass had no resistance at all against a thousand-degree inferno.
In an instant, the entire swarm became drifting carbon dust.
A thick stench of burning protein flooded the room, drowning out even the disinfectant smell.
He failed.
Watching his Insect Sphere turn to ash and seeing the terrifying blind girl slowly turn her head, Aburame Ryōma's despair sank so deep that even his dark sunglasses could not hide it.
He knew better than anyone how overwhelming she was.
If she stood on Danzō's side, then forget killing Danzō. Even if he summoned Uchiha Itachi right now, it would still be impossible.
This assassination was over.
It had failed completely.
Sizzle!
Lightning danced at Konome Taketori's feet.
A violent surge of blue current raced down the kikaichū cables and backflowed into Aburame Ryōma's body. In a flash, his entire body was paralyzed, unable to move.
His hands dropped in despair.
Electric arcs wrapped around him. His tongue went stiff, just like Chihaya Tōru's had been.
Failing to assassinate the leader and being captured on the spot, he knew exactly how Root treated traitors.
After the torture came only one road.
Becoming experimental material.
But none of that mattered now.
The mission to stop Danzō had truly failed.
He would never get another chance.
In that brief instant, he already saw his own future.
"Remove the curse seal from him. Clean the scene. Otherwise, once Danzō wakes up, no one will be able to save you."
The icy command echoed through the operating room.
Konome Taketori did not even glance at Ryōma, who had already given up resisting.
She turned back and continued the nerve-repair surgery as if nothing had happened.
Click.
The forceps caught the nerve again. She resumed connecting.
Green medical light lit the room once more.
Gulp.
Sweat soaked Aburame Ryōma's body.
He stared at Konome Taketori, who had just stopped him and now calmly returned to surgery.
His mind was full of doubt, but his body moved on its own, obeying her order.
As the paralysis eased slightly, he removed the curse seal from Chihaya Tōru. Then he controlled his insects to eat every last bit of charred remains on the floor, returning them into his clothing.
"Cough, cough! Ryōma, you…"
The curse seal lifted, and Chihaya Tōru shuddered. He turned to question Ryōma.
No matter what, he could not believe that the man who treated Danzō like faith itself would attempt to assassinate him right here.
But before he could finish, a thick mass of kikaichū swarmed over him, forcing their way into his mouth.
"Ghk!"
The insects slid down his throat with a faint bloody tang, leaving a nauseating sensation. His esophagus spasmed. He gagged violently, but it was useless.
The kikaichū bit through the esophageal wall and crawled straight toward the glowing chakra core at his heart.
They fed on his chakra.
They laid eggs.
In the blink of an eye, a dense black cluster had already parasitized his heart. One command, and they could kill him instantly.
After swallowing the last insect, feeling the stabbing itch and pain in his chest, Chihaya Tōru looked at the companion of decades with pure terror.
Ryōma bent down and picked up the cane.
Under those sunglasses, his eyes held bone-deep cold.
He could die.
A sense of danger he had forgotten for years surged back into Chihaya Tōru's body, like electricity running up his spine into his brain.
Ryōma dared to assassinate even Danzō.
What did that make Chihaya Tōru?
He looked to the side.
Konome Taketori acted as if nothing had happened, still performing surgery normally.
He had heard their exchange clearly.
She had stopped Ryōma from killing Danzō, yet she also acted like she was on Ryōma's side, even as if she held authority over him.
He could not untangle the situation.
But one thing was certain.
His life was in Aburame Ryōma's hands.
Chihaya Tōru had spent half his life studying Hashirama cells for the sake of immortality. No one treasured his own life more than he did.
He shut his mouth obediently.
He raised his gloved hands, held the surgical knife tip down, and slowly turned around, like a scarecrow in a field.
When he looked again at the old Danzō lying on the table, still unaware of everything, Chihaya Tōru could not even guess how many years this leader had left, with both his loyal subordinate and his disciple standing on the edge of betrayal.
On one side was Danzō, aging, weakening by the day.
On the other was Konome Taketori, a monster with an infinite future.
The scale in Chihaya Tōru's heart began to tilt.
If he did not want to end up with a miserable fate, he would need to plan early.
His straight back bent naturally.
Facing Konome Taketori again, he became a true assistant.
Click, click.
An operating room that had just erupted into a deadly assassination snapped back into silence, as if the tension had never existed.
Aburame Ryōma erased every trace and returned to his position at the door, holding the cane.
Everything returned to how it had been.
Time ticked forward.
The thrilling limb transplant finally approached its end.
Danzō's chest rose and fell rapidly.
His breathing grew urgent and irregular.
The anesthesia weakened.
He was about to wake.
Buzz!
Green light blazed in Konome Taketori's palm like an emerald sea.
Activated Hashirama cells went mad, sprouting flesh buds that spread and fused. White steam rose.
The wound on Danzō's arm vanished.
The Sharingan arm had been perfectly implanted.
Konome Taketori nodded.
Just as she expected, Hashirama cells regenerated with terrifying speed. There was no need for Chihaya Tōru to add stitches and "decorate the snake with feet."
She peeled off the bloodstained gloves and glanced at Chihaya Tōru.
He froze, then bowed slightly and took the gloves with unprecedented respect.
"The surgery was a success. There were no accidents."
When she said the last part, her tone paused deliberately for a beat.
"Yes. No accidents."
Chihaya Tōru lowered his head humbly, rolling the filthy gloves into a ball. Even his obsessive cleanliness was cured by sheer survival instinct.
"Can we wake Danzō-sama now?"
Konome Taketori smiled faintly and patted his arm.
"You decide."
"Yes."
With her approval, Chihaya Tōru wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and finally dared to inject the prepared waking agent into Danzō's body.
While they waited for Danzō to wake, Konome Taketori walked to Aburame Ryōma and lifted Samehada, which had been leaning near the door.
Ryōma lowered his head to look at the girl.
He did not understand why she had stopped him from killing Danzō, yet also spared him and did not expose his betrayal.
It was contradictory.
But Danzō was about to awaken. This was not the time to ask.
So Ryōma could only swallow his questions and stand still.
Because you can't kill Danzō.
Seeing the confusion glowing above his head, Konome Taketori shook her head, exasperated at the idiot who had nearly thrown his life away for nothing.
Before Ryōma ever moved, she had already sensed that something was off.
Danzō would never, ever allow her to operate on him without any defense.
It did not make sense.
It did not fit his personality.
So she used her Byakugan to scan carefully.
And finally, she found the hidden move.
Among the arm's ten Sharingan, one three-tomoe eye held an abnormally vigorous dōjutsu chakra. More importantly, the chakra inside that Sharingan was not uniform.
It was two completely different signatures layered together.
The instant she saw it, she understood.
Transcription Seal.
And Izanagi.
Just like the trick Uchiha Madara used to deceive Senju Hashirama, except Danzō had used his right Mangekyō to seal Izanagi inside that three-tomoe Sharingan.
Izanagi was not simply "revival."
It turned an unwanted outcome into an illusion.
If Aburame Ryōma killed Danzō, the Izanagi sealed inside that Sharingan would trigger automatically, and Danzō would revive without spending his right Mangekyō at all.
And with Konome Taketori's Sharingan evolution technique, three-tomoe eyes were no longer priceless treasures. For Danzō, that cost was completely acceptable.
Once she realized the entire setup, she shattered the Self-Curse Binding Technique on her body and stopped Ryōma's assassination in time.
Ryōma had proven his determination to betray Danzō.
As the highest-ranking ninja in Root besides Danzō, keeping him embedded at Danzō's side was far more valuable than letting him die for a single Sharingan.
Reverse Eight Gates was only a matter of time.
Killing Danzō was not difficult either.
What she truly needed was to swallow Root's resources whole.
Secret technique archives.
Intelligence networks.
Specialist talent.
Training grounds.
Laboratories.
Equipment.
This place had everything.
If she tried to build it herself, she would waste years.
She wanted to inherit all of Danzō's legacy, but she lacked the right hands.
Aburame Ryōma was the pillow delivered the moment she got sleepy.
He solved her biggest problem.
Chihaya Tōru in the medical research division.
Senju Tsubaki in the equipment and finance division.
Aburame Ryōma, captain of Root, controlling dispatch, sensing, and barrier teams.
The chief instructor who trained new recruits.
The heads of Root, one by one, already had ties to her.
In only a few years, she could hollow out Danzō's influence from the inside.
With her terrifying growth rate, and with her body gradually entering its true development phase, her strength would naturally climb into Kage level.
And when that day came…
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