"You're slandering me, Hiruzen!"
On the top floor of a building serving as the temporary Hokage office, Shimura Danzo was wearing the rare expression of outright anger. Facing Hiruzen Sarutobi, Homura Mitokado, and Koharu Utatane—whose eyes were all full of suspicion—he shouted, "I never conducted any Wood Release experiments. If you don't believe me, you can use genjutsu lie detection on me, or even use a mind-reading technique."
"Danzo, we're not slandering you," Hiruzen said heavily. "It's just that in Konoha, you're the most suspicious person by far. I already investigated. The Hashirama cells that were sealed away have been stolen. Only the four of us knew about that location and the compound seal protecting it. And in all these years since the Wood Release experiments were shut down, you're the only one who ever went there."
Koharu Utatane showed no mercy whatsoever to the comrade she had grown up with. "Danzo, we all know what kind of person you are. In all of Konoha, besides you, there's no one who would dare go behind Hiruzen's back and touch Hashirama's cells."
Homura Mitokado also voiced his suspicion. "You and I both know that genjutsu lie detection and the Yamanaka clan's mind-reading techniques can both be evaded with seals designed to resist interrogation. If you did it, then admit it."
Danzo's expression kept shifting.
For the first time, he truly understood how all the people he had framed in the past must have felt.
The worst part was—
he really had no answer.
Knowing full well that if the investigation continued, many of his other secrets would also come to light, Danzo finally gritted his teeth and said, "I admit that I stole the Hashirama cells, and I was secretly conducting Wood Release experiments. But that technique was not caused by my experiments. I'm not capable of something like that yet."
Gojo Yoru, who had been sitting by the window the whole time with his legs swinging, blatantly ignoring Homura and Koharu's repeated orders to leave and staying purely to watch the show, felt the sympathy in his heart instantly replaced by speechlessness.
Good grief. So you really did do it.
No wonder Hiruzen suspected you the moment something happened in the village. Turns out he really wasn't wrongly accusing the right person.
Lord Danzo was still exactly the Lord Danzo he remembered.
"You stole Hashirama's cells and carried out Wood Release experiments without my approval. Danzo, do you even still regard me as Hokage?" Hiruzen rebuked him.
Danzo said nothing.
Homura and Koharu exchanged a glance, and Koharu once again turned to Gojo Yoru.
"Gojo Yoru, what comes next is a discussion among Konoha's top leadership. Leave."
"Go ahead and talk all you want," Yoru said, still looking like he was enjoying a stage play. "I'll stay right here and keep acting as your bodyguard. What if Lord Danzo suddenly snaps and kills all of you?"
He showed absolutely no respect whatsoever for Homura and Koharu.
If it had been anyone else—even Kushina Uzumaki, the Nine-Tails jinchuriki—Homura and Koharu would have puffed themselves up, berated them on the spot, maybe even slapped on some accusation of instability or loss of control.
But faced with Gojo Yoru's open contempt, they could only fume in silence.
Ever since beings like White Zetsu had appeared, Gojo Yoru's strategic importance had already risen above everyone else's.
He was Konoha's strongest shinobi, Hiruzen Sarutobi's most trusted trump card, and the village's future Hokage.
And on top of that, the brat's personality was absolutely vicious. Aside from Hiruzen and Orochimaru, no one really got his respect. If anyone offended him, then even if he didn't retaliate in secret, there was a very real chance he'd settle the score once he came into power.
Seeing that Hiruzen had no intention of making Gojo Yoru leave, Homura and Koharu—ignored once again—could only give up.
"Don't slander me, brat."
Danzo had clearly been triggered by Yoru's remark. In a low voice, he said, "Yes, I stole Hashirama's cells and carried out Wood Release experiments, but I never laid a hand on the village's people. And if the experiment had succeeded, it would only have benefited Konoha, not harmed it. Everything I did was for Konoha."
Clap, clap, clap—
Gojo Yoru immediately applauded, his face full of exaggerated admiration.
"As expected of Lord Danzo. Being the public assistant to the Hokage wasn't enough for you—you also had to secretly break the law in the shadows, nourishing every inch of Konoha's soil. Truly noble."
"Hmph."
Danzo let out a cold snort at Yoru's obvious sarcasm.
Knowing perfectly well that Hiruzen wouldn't truly go too far against him, Danzo simply said, "Hiruzen, everything I just said is the truth. However you choose to deal with me, I accept it."
The moment Hiruzen saw Danzo's reaction, he knew this incident really had nothing to do with him.
That said, stealing Hashirama's cells and secretly conducting Wood Release experiments was indeed a serious crime.
If Gojo Yoru weren't standing there watching, Hiruzen could have handled it lightly. After all, the three of them all knew exactly what kind of man Danzo was.
And Hiruzen believed he could keep Danzo under control.
But with Gojo Yoru present, Hiruzen could no longer just turn a blind eye.
And actually, under the circumstances, this seemed to be a good opportunity.
So Hiruzen quickly made his decision.
"Stealing Hashirama's cells and secretly conducting Wood Release experiments—those are grave crimes. Even as the Hokage's assistant, Danzo, you cannot escape punishment."
"From this moment on, in the name of the Third Hokage, I formally remove you from the positions of Hokage Advisor and Root Commander. However, your privileges as a Konoha elder will be retained."
"And your explanation—no one can verify whether it's true or false."
"Until this matter is fully investigated, you will be temporarily imprisoned. If necessary, the restrictions inside your brain will even be removed so that you can undergo questioning through Yin Release."
"Do you have any objections to this punishment?"
On that last sentence, Hiruzen looked at Danzo with a deep, unreadable gaze.
Danzo's face turned hideously ugly.
He knew Hiruzen was using this opportunity to strip him of his privileges as Hokage Advisor and master of Root.
Once he lost those two powers, he would not only lose the platform he used to cultivate private forces, but his position would also drop from being above Homura and Koharu to below them.
In the future, perhaps he would end up like them—managing some civilian department somewhere, retaining the privilege of recommending a Hokage candidate to the daimyo, yet never again having any hope of becoming Hokage himself.
Hiruzen was clearing the road for Orochimaru and Gojo Yoru.
At the same time, he was consolidating power for himself.
Damn it. I walked straight into this.
Was this why Hiruzen had allowed Gojo Yoru to remain in the room?
With Yoru here, even if Homura and Koharu wanted to speak up for Danzo, there was nothing they could do.
The moment Danzo admitted to stealing the Hashirama cells and conducting Wood Release experiments, he had already lost completely.
And all he could do now was accept his fate.
If news of the Wood Release experiments leaked out, then after that Wood Release incident that had nearly destroyed Konoha's central district, it wouldn't matter whether he was the one behind it or not—everyone would assume it was him.
The shinobi clans he had once targeted would launch a full-scale attack against him.
At that point, forget retaining his privileges as a Konoha elder. He might spend the rest of his life under house arrest in prison.
It was a dead-end situation.
All Danzo could do was grit his teeth and say, "I have no objections."
Lord Danzo—game over.
Before the emergence of the space-time bloodline, Wood Release had been the single most famous kekkei genkai in the entire shinobi world.
The world knew of the legend of the Three Great Dojutsu, but the Rinnegan had always been treated like something out of myth—a power that didn't really exist.
Wood Release, however, was the kekkei genkai that had pacified a war-torn age.
Since Senju Hashirama's death, the Senju clan had never produced a second Wood Release user, and so this bloodline limit had become something out of legend.
But because the story of the God of Shinobi remained, and because the history books of every nation recorded it, the world knew that Wood Release had once truly existed.
And now, a raging sea of trees had erupted in Konoha's central district, crushing some civilians and ninja who had failed to escape in time. If Kushina Uzumaki hadn't intervened in time, the entire central district might have been destroyed.
The impact of this incident was no less serious than the Nine-Tails disaster in the original story.
Even though White Zetsu no longer dared infiltrate Konoha casually, and even though the spies of other nations had mostly been rooted out, making it difficult to plant new agents inside the village—
the news still spread to the top leadership of every nation with startling speed.
And very quickly, that intelligence was confirmed.
For a time, the nations that already feared Konoha felt an indescribable terror.
They all came to the same conclusion: Konoha was carrying out Wood Release experiments, trying to artificially create a second Wood Release user—and it had already achieved major results.
This incident, in their minds, was simply a case of those Wood Release experiments going out of control.
A few days later, even when Hiruzen Sarutobi tried to explain publicly that Konoha had not been conducting Wood Release experiments at all, and that instead a new Wood Release user had appeared in the shinobi world, infiltrated Konoha to steal forbidden jutsu, and then used Wood Release inside the village—not a single country believed such an absurd explanation.
Now every nation feared that Konoha really might succeed in recreating another Wood Release user.
They couldn't even imagine how terrifying Konoha's lineup would become if that happened: an untouchable space-time shinobi, a wide-area monster with Wood Release, and the Nine-Tails jinchiki working together.
Even Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara joining forces at the end of the Warring States period might not compare.
Every major hidden village wanted to stop Konoha's mad experiment.
Unfortunately, none of them had the ability to do so, and no one dared trigger a Third Shinobi World War.
Because the current Konoha was strong in a way that inspired despair.
Not even counting the heads and elders of the great clans—or the elite shinobi within those clans—
Konoha still had a double-digit number of top-tier assets qualified to serve as battlefield commanders and capable of immediately entering the race for Hokage if the current Hokage died.
There was the late-blooming but now widely renowned Hamaki Mimura of Konoha, the already famous White Fang of Konoha and the Sarutobi team, Kato Dan with his near-unsolvable Yin Release assassination techniques, the rising star Minato Namikaze, Shimura Danzo known as Konoha's darkness, and of course Gojo Yoru and Kushina Uzumaki, the strongest duo in Konoha.
Among those people, the vast majority could go toe to toe with one of the Five Kage.
A few of them, thanks to elemental matchups, could even suppress a particular Kage—or outright defeat and kill one.
Faced with that kind of Konoha lineup, even Kumogakure, whose overall military strength was not actually inferior to Konoha's, would still lose in a one-on-one confrontation.
When the number of high-end fighters reaches that level, sheer numbers don't matter quite as much anymore.
Without outside interference, unless something went wrong inside Konoha itself—unless those trump-card fighters either died off or left the village—then there would be no so-called Third Shinobi World War for decades to come.
And if war did break out, it would be Konoha expanding its territory and proactively declaring war on the other great nations.
The state of the shinobi world was now simple:
one superpower, and four strong nations beneath it.
The Land of Fire and Konoha had become the absolute hegemon.
Time moved on to August 1, Konoha Year 42.
There were only seventeen days left until Gojo Yoru's birthday.
During this period, Konoha managed to trace the Wood Release user back to a team of Grass ninja who had come to participate in the Chunin Exams.
But when Konoha moved to hold the Land of Grass accountable, they discovered that every single Grass genin team had already been wiped out before ever reaching Konoha.
No one knew who the killer was.
But Konoha was now certain of one thing:
a second Wood Release user had truly been born into the shinobi world, and it was not the reanimated First Hokage.
And this Wood Release user was openly hostile—perhaps even malicious—toward Konoha.
On top of that, there was still a mastermind hiding in the shadows who had mastered the Impure World Reincarnation Technique and was likewise full of malice toward Konoha.
Those two unknown enemies were very likely working together.
Hiruzen Sarutobi's mood instantly grew far heavier.
But thankfully, no matter how strong the enemy was or how mysterious their identity might be, they could not hide from Gojo Yoru's spatial perception or Kushina Uzumaki's good-and-evil sensing version Mind's Eye of the Kagura.
The reason they had managed to infiltrate Konoha and carry out their scheme successfully this time was only because of the Chunin Exams.
And they hadn't even had time to steal every forbidden scroll. Wood Release hadn't destroyed the forbidden scrolls either—it had merely buried a large number of them underground.
Konoha had not suffered catastrophic losses.
The Chunin Exams had also now concluded.
Among this new generation, only three people were promoted to chunin: Kakashi Hatake, Shizune, and Asuma Sarutobi.
All three were the leaders of their respective teams, and all three had the best overall performance in the Chunin Exams.
Although Might Guy was very strong, his personality—and the fact that Kakashi essentially stole a chunk of his evaluation points—meant he failed to make chunin.
Obito Uchiha, Kurenai Yuhi, Rin Nohara, and the others also failed to achieve the feat of becoming genin in the first half of the year and chunin in the second half, mainly because their teammates had eaten into their scores.
That said, with their talent and strength, becoming chunin next year was already a foregone conclusion.
And with people in these teams starting to advance to chunin, the talented young generation would soon be able to stand on their own.
"Ninja Art—Paper Shuriken: Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!"
In the rocky mountain region of the Land of Rain, rain poured from the sky.
Konan floated high above the ground like an angel. Raising one hand, she formed a giant paper Fuma shuriken and hurled it at the mountain below.
As it flew, a large number of afterimages appeared around it.
Then those afterimages solidified into real objects, turning into dozens of paper shuriken of the same size, all of them falling into the mountain range below.
Even with shuriken that massive, their descent into the mountain made almost no visible commotion.
Then Konan formed a seal and called out sharply:
"Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tags Technique!"
In that instant, the world itself seemed to change color.
One enormous burst of blinding flame after another bloomed across the rocky mountains below.
And the explosions were still growing.
In only a split second, the entire mountainside targeted by those paper shuriken was swallowed by fire and blasted into dust.
The expanding explosions merged together, engulfed several more mountains, and only then gradually faded, rising into the sky as a mushroom cloud vast enough to cover the heavens.
Once the violent winds scattered the mushroom cloud, the original mountains were gone.
What remained was flat ground and a landscape of craters.
"What an absurdly powerful combo technique..."
Nagato, floating in the air as well while using attractive force to support both himself and Yahiko, stared at the devastation below with open amazement.
Yahiko, meanwhile, felt his whole body ache faintly in sympathy.
Compared to the barrier + Edo Tensei + Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tags combo, he actually thought Konan's Paper Release + Shuriken Multiple Shadow Clone Technique + Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tags combo was even stronger.
And Yahiko knew this still wasn't Konan going all out.
She could also use the Explosive Flame Formation to manipulate those blasts into an even more terrifying Fire Release attack. It just consumed an absurd amount of chakra, making it less practical than simple bombardment.
Even so, Konan now possessed the power to threaten him.