Your comments, reviews, and votes really help me out so much and they make me super motivated to keep working on this story! Thank you! Pat**on : Belamy20
Konoha, midnight. The Hatake estate was silent except for the soft scrape of a whetstone on steel.
Sakumo sat alone in the courtyard, moonlight glinting off the White Light Chakra Sabre across his knees. The rumors had finally stopped spreading days ago, crushed under Danzo's iron boot. The village had moved on. But Sakumo hadn't.
He stared at the blade that had earned him the name "White Fang."
They called me a hero once.
Now they call me a failure for saving a comrade.
His grip tightened until the knuckles turned white.
Kakashi was asleep inside. The boy had chosen to believe in him. That single truth was the only light left in Sakumo's world.
But light wasn't enough anymore.
He stood slowly, sliding the sabre into its sheath with a whisper of steel.
"No more."
The words came out flat, cold, final.
He would not die like a dog apologizing for doing what was right.
If the village wanted a villain, he would give them one.
Target one: Danzo Shimura.
---
Root headquarters lay deep beneath the village, a labyrinth of black stone and sealed corridors. Sakumo moved like smoke.
He had spent the last three days mapping every hidden entrance he could remember from old joint operations. Tonight he used one no one outside ANBU and Root should have known existed—an abandoned drainage tunnel that still smelled of rust and old blood.
No alarms. No sensors. The White Fang had always been better at infiltration than anyone gave him credit for.
He emerged inside the outer perimeter, white mask already covering his face, cloak blending with the shadows. Two Root agents patrolling the corridor never saw him coming. One died with a kunai through the throat before he could scream. The second had time to widen his eyes before Sakumo's sabre took his head clean off.
Blood painted the wall in a silent arc.
Sakumo stepped over the bodies without a glance.
Danzo… you started this war. I'm ending it.
He moved deeper, killing with ruthless efficiency. Every guard, every checkpoint—silent, surgical, merciless. By the time he reached the central command chamber, twelve Root operatives were already cooling on the stone floors behind him.
The heavy iron doors to Danzo's private office were sealed with fuinjutsu. Sakumo didn't bother picking the lock.
He drew the White Light Chakra Sabre. Golden-white chakra flared along the edge like liquid starlight.
One swing.
The reinforced doors exploded inward in a shower of twisted metal.
Danzo stood behind his desk, cane in hand, single visible eye widening in genuine shock. Four elite Root guards materialized around him instantly.
"Hatake Sakumo," Danzo hissed, voice dripping venom. "You've finally lost your mind."
Sakumo's masked face showed nothing.
"You took everything from me. My honor. My future. My son's future. Tonight I take yours."
He attacked.
The chamber became a storm of white light and black shadows.
Danzo's guards were good—Jonin-level, fanatically loyal—but they had never fought the White Fang at full killing intent. Sakumo flowed between them like wind through grass. His sabre left afterimages of blazing white. One guard lost an arm. Another took a slash across the chest that opened him from collarbone to hip. The third managed to block once before Sakumo's reverse cut took his head.
Danzo moved faster than a man his age had any right to. Wood Style tendrils erupted from the floor, trying to snare Sakumo's legs. Sakumo severed them mid-growth, chakra edge slicing living wood like paper.
"You dare attack the village leadership?!" Danzo roared, slamming his cane down. A dozen hidden Root agents poured in from side passages.
Sakumo laughed once—short, bitter, broken.
"Leadership? You're a cancer wearing a village's skin."
He went all out.
White chakra exploded around him in a blinding aura. The sabre became a whirlwind of death. Agents died in pairs, in threes. Blood sprayed across ancient tapestries. Danzo himself took a shallow cut across his shoulder before he managed to trigger a substitution with one of his own men.
The room was a slaughterhouse.
But numbers mattered.
A poisoned senbon grazed Sakumo's neck. Another pierced his thigh. A desperate Earth Style wall slammed him into the ceiling hard enough to crack stone. He dropped, rolling, sabre still moving, but slower now.
Danzo's voice echoed with cold triumph.
"You're finished, Sakumo. Root will paint you as a traitor who tried to assassinate the Hokage's advisor. Kakashi will grow up knowing his father was a mad dog."
Sakumo's mask had cracked. Blood ran from a cut above his eye, but his gaze never wavered.
He looked at Danzo across the corpses and spoke one last time, voice hoarse but steady.
"Tell Hiruzen… the next blade is for him."
Then he detonated every explosive tag he carried in a single, calculated blast.
The chamber roof collapsed in a roar of stone and dust.
Sakumo burst out of the smoke like a white comet, cloak shredded, blood pouring from a dozen wounds. Alarms finally screamed through the underground complex. Root reinforcements flooded every corridor.
He fought his way upward, sabre flashing, leaving a trail of bodies and crimson footprints. By the time he exploded out of a side entrance into the moonlit forest outside the village, he was limping badly, left arm hanging useless, vision blurring from blood loss and poison.
Behind him, the entire Root division was mobilizing. ANBU hawks were already in the sky.
Sakumo didn't stop.
He ran north, deeper into the forest, every step leaving a red print on the leaves.
Not yet, he thought, teeth gritted against the fire in his veins.
I still have one more name on the list.
A weak smile tugged at his bloodied lips as he vanished into the trees.
The White Fang was not dead.
Not tonight.
Dawn had barely broken when Konoha exploded into chaos.
Alarms screamed across the village — the rare, gut-twisting kind reserved for direct attacks on the heart of the Leaf. Black smoke rose from hidden vents near the Hokage Tower. ANBU squads blurred across rooftops like shadows on fire. Root agents, masks off for once, moved openly with murder in their eyes.
Word spread faster than any jutsu:
"Root headquarters was hit!"
"Dozens dead — elite guards torn apart!"
"Danzo-sama barely survived — white chakra blade, surgical cuts, no mercy!"
---
Taiichi stood frozen in his courtyard, short sword still half-drawn from his morning forms. His sensory field had lit up like a wildfire the second the first explosion rolled through the underground.
One signature stood out — pure white, blazing hot, cutting a bloody path through Root's defenses before vanishing north into the forest.
He knew that chakra anywhere.
"Sakumo-san…" Taiichi whispered. A strange mix of respect, sorrow, and cold understanding settled in his chest. "You didn't break. You just stopped asking permission."
He sheathed the blade, already calculating routes, safe houses, and how many soldier pills he'd need to keep a wounded legend alive long enough to disappear.
---
Kakashi hit the rooftop three blocks away at full sprint, Sharingan spinning wildly in his left eye. Blood already trickled from the corner — overexertion from the panic alone.
The house had been empty when he woke. Father's bed untouched. The White Light Chakra Sabre missing from its stand.
He'd felt the explosion in his bones.
Now the rumors were screaming the truth.
Kakashi's mask hung loose around his neck. His hands shook as he stared north.
"He chose the blade," he breathed. "Instead of… instead of what they wanted. Instead of leaving me to watch him die in shame."
Pride and terror warred on his face. Pride won.
---
They met on a rooftop halfway between their homes, nearly colliding mid-leap.
"Taiichi!"
"Kakashi!"
One look was enough. No lies. No time.
"Your father," Taiichi said quietly.
Kakashi's voice cracked. "He went after Danzo. Tried to kill him. Root's in full panic — they're saying he slaughtered half their inner guard before blowing his way out."
Taiichi nodded once. "He finally snapped the right way. They took his honor, his name, everything he believed in. So he stopped playing their game."
Kakashi wiped blood from his eye. "They'll hunt him like a traitor. The whole village. ANBU, Root, even Jonin squads. He's wounded — I can feel it from here. Poisoned, too."
Taiichi's eyes hardened. "Then we don't let him die alone. Or better — we make sure he finishes it."
Kakashi stared at him, shocked for half a second. Then something fierce and bright ignited behind the tears.
"You'd help him kill the people who did this?"
"I tried the nice way," Taiichi said flatly. "I spread rumors. I saved his teammate. I talked him down. They didn't listen. Now the White Fang wants blood. I say we give the man what he earned."
He turned north.
"But first we find him before Root does. He's buying us time with every step he takes. Let's not waste it."
Kakashi pulled his mask up, Sharingan still spinning.
"Let's go."
The two boys vanished into the morning light, racing after the last honest blade Konoha still had.
---
Deep in the northern forests, miles outside the village walls…
Sakumo Hatake leaned against an ancient oak, coughing wetly into his sleeve. Blood soaked the cloth. Three different Root poisons burned through his veins. His left arm hung useless, bone shattered. A deep gash across his ribs kept splitting open with every breath.
But his right hand still held the White Light Chakra Sabre like it had been born there.
The pursuit was closing — ANBU hawks in the sky, Root hunter teams sweeping the woods in coordinated nets. They were fast.
They weren't fast enough.
Sakumo looked south, toward the distant silhouette of the Hokage Tower glowing in the sunrise.
Danzo had lived. Barely. The old bastard had thrown bodies in front of him like shields and used every filthy trick in his book. But Sakumo had made him bleed. That was enough for the first act.
Now came the finale.
"Hiruzen…" he whispered, voice hoarse but steady. "You taught me the Will of Fire when we were young. You called me brother. Then you let them spit on everything we stood for."
He pushed off the tree, leaving a fresh red handprint on the bark.
"You wanted a villain? Fine. I'll give you one worth remembering."
The White Fang straightened, sabre flaring with pure white chakra that cut through the morning mist like a blade of starlight.
He started walking again — slower now, but unstoppable.
Toward the village.
Toward the Third Hokage.
The reckoning wasn't over.
It had only just begun.
---
--------------------------------
The northern forest burned.
Not with fire — with white chakra. Sakumo's trail was a scar of shattered trees and Root corpses, each one cut so cleanly the blood still hadn't finished pooling. He no longer hid. He no longer ran in shadows. The White Fang walked straight toward the village like a man who had already died and just hadn't stopped moving yet.
His body was failing. Poison clawed through his veins. One lung was collapsed. The sabre in his right hand felt heavier than the world. But his eyes — those cold, exhausted eyes — never left the Hokage Tower on the horizon.
One more name.
---
Taiichi and Kakashi tore through the canopy like demons.
They had followed the blood trail for hours. Every broken branch, every red handprint on bark told the same story: Sakumo was dying, but he was taking as many as he could with him.
"Three kilometers," Taiichi panted, sensory field pushed to the absolute limit. "He's slowing. Badly. But he's heading straight for the Tower."
Kakashi didn't answer. His Sharingan spun so fast it hurt. Tears mixed with the blood still leaking from his eye. "He's going to kill the Third. Or die trying."
Taiichi gripped his short sword tighter. "We stop the fight, not him. Get him out. Heal him. Let the village burn if it has to — he earned that much."
Kakashi gave a broken laugh. "You still believe we can save him?"
"No," Taiichi admitted, voice raw. "But I'm not letting him die alone in the dirt like they wanted."
They accelerated.
---
The village was in full panic when Sakumo reached the walls.
ANBU ringed the Hokage Tower like a black wall. Root snipers lined every rooftop. Hiruzen Sarutobi stood on the balcony of his office, pipe gone, staff in hand, face carved from stone. Danzo was behind him — bandaged, arm in a sling, single eye burning with hatred.
Sakumo stepped out of the treeline into the open plaza below. No mask. No cloak. Just the White Light Chakra Sabre glowing like a dying star in his bloody fist.
The entire village watched.
"Sarutobi Hiruzen," Sakumo called up, voice carrying clear and cold over the alarms. "You let them break me. You watched them spit on the Will of Fire you taught us. Come down. Finish what you started."
Hiruzen's face twisted with something like regret. "Sakumo… stand down. This doesn't have to—"
Sakumo laughed. It was a wet, horrible sound. "Too late for words, old friend."
He attacked.
The plaza became hell.
White chakra detonated in a storm. Sakumo moved like the legend he once was — every swing carving through ANBU guards, through barriers, through the very air. Bodies fell in halves. Blood painted the stone red. Hiruzen met him head-on, staff blazing with Earth and Fire chakra, but even the Third Hokage was forced back step by bloody step.
Danzo tried to intervene — Wood Style spikes erupting from the ground. Sakumo severed them all and drove his sabre straight through Danzo's remaining good shoulder, pinning him to the wall for three heartbeats before ripping free.
"You first," Sakumo snarled.
Hiruzen roared and slammed his staff down. A massive Earth Style golem rose, smashing into Sakumo and crushing him against the tower wall. Stone cracked. Ribs broke. Sakumo coughed blood but kept fighting, sabre flashing inside the golem's chest until it shattered from within.
He was dying on his feet.
Taiichi and Kakashi arrived at the edge of the plaza just in time to see it.
"Father!" Kakashi screamed, voice cracking like a child's.
Sakumo's head snapped toward them. For one heartbeat his eyes softened — the same gentle father who had once taught Kakashi how to hold a kunai.
Then Hiruzen struck.
The Third Hokage poured everything into one final technique — a point-blank Fire Style: Great Dragon Fire that engulfed Sakumo completely. The white chakra aura flared once, brilliant and defiant, trying to burn through the flames.
It wasn't enough.
Sakumo staggered out of the inferno, body blackened, sabre still raised. His eyes found Kakashi and Taiichi one last time.
"Live… better than this," he rasped.
The White Light Chakra Sabre slipped from his fingers and clattered to the stone.
Sakumo Hatake, the White Fang of the Leaf, fell to his knees in the middle of the plaza.
He looked up at the Hokage Tower — at the man who had once been his friend — and smiled with bloody teeth.
Then he toppled forward.
Dead.
Silence crashed over the village like a physical weight.
Kakashi stood frozen, Sharingan spinning down to nothing. Tears cut clean tracks through the dirt and blood on his face.
Taiichi's hands shook at his sides. He stared at the broken body of the man who had mentored him, who had chosen the blade over suicide, and felt something inside him go cold and hard.
Hiruzen stood on the balcony, breathing heavy, staff trembling. Danzo laughed once — a wet, ugly sound — before collapsing from his wounds.
The village began to scream.
Some cried for the fallen hero. Others cheered that the traitor was dead. Most just stared in numb horror at what their leaders had reduced the White Fang to.
Taiichi turned to Kakashi.
"We're leaving," he said quietly. "Tonight. This village… it doesn't deserve either of us anymore."
Kakashi didn't answer. He just walked forward, knelt beside his father's body, and gently closed the dead man's eyes.
The White Fang's final blade had cut true.
But in the end, it had only ever been able to cut himself.