For several long heartbeats, no one moved.
The clearing felt unreal, as if reality itself had stuttered and failed to catch up with what had just occurred. Leaves that had been blown loose by Danzo's desperate escape attempt drifted slowly back down, brushing against scorched earth and cracked stone. Somewhere in the distance, a night insect chirped, oblivious and uncaring.
Danzo trying to run wasn't shocking. Everyone here had expected that. He had always been a man who clung to life with dirty fingernails.
What came after was the problem.
Ren had killed him cleanly and effortlessly.
There had been no flourish, no drawn-out exchange, no dramatic clash of jutsu. Just a blade, a flash, and death, his life had ended, that much was confirmed but then, he was alive again.
That was what broke people.
This wasn't a substitution, not a teleport. It was not a clone or some clever sleight of hand. For a fraction of a second, Danzo had crossed the boundary everyone crossed only once and returned.
Hiruzen was the first to find his voice.
"Wh–What was that?" he asked, disbelief raw in his tone.
For perhaps the first time in years, Sarutobi Hiruzen sounded confused.
Kagami didn't answer immediately. His gaze was locked on Danzo, sharp and cold, as if he were dissecting him piece by piece. His fingers tightened imperceptibly around the hilt of his blade.
'As I thought,' Kagami mused grimly. 'Izanagi.'
The forbidden technique whispered about only in fragments. A jutsu that rewrote reality itself at the cost of one's own eye.
'But how…' His thoughts darkened. 'How could an imbecile like him master it? A technique even Madara-sama couldn't fully wield.'
A second later, another thought came to him, this one with the answer he was looking for.
'It's because he's afraid of death.'
Kagami exhaled slowly through his nose.
'Izanagi was born from fear,' he reflected. 'A technique created by those who could not accept mortality. Madara never mastered it because he never feared dying.'
Danzo, on the other hand…
Fear had shaped every choice he had ever made.
Ren, meanwhile, looked almost… interested.
He had already crouched down beside Danzo, whose attempt to crawl away ended instantly when Ren's grip clamped down around his wrist like a steel vice. Danzo hissed in pain, panic flashing across his face as he struggled uselessly.
"Relax," Ren said mildly. "I'm not killing you again, yet."
That word, again, made Danzo shudder.
Ren's attention shifted to the three golden arm braces locked around Danzo's right arm. He studied them for a second, then reached out and flicked the first lock open.
Click.
The sound echoed far louder than it should have.
The second followed.
Click.
Danzo's breathing turned ragged. He thrashed harder now, but Ren didn't even look strained as he held him in place.
The third lock came undone with a dull metallic snap.
Click.
The arm was revealed.
The clearing collectively seemed to inhale.
Danzo's right arm was completely white, the skin smooth and unnatural, like polished bone or marble. Embedded along its length were Sharingan, many of them. Three tomoe spinning slowly, embedded into flesh that should never have accepted them. Each eye pulsed faintly with chakra, their presence oppressive and wrong.
The arm radiated vitality.
Not just chakra, but life.
It was dense, overwhelming, so potent that even seasoned shinobi felt an instinctive unease just standing near it.
Ren's eyebrows rose slightly.
"Hm," he muttered. "That's… more than I expected."
He leaned in closer, studying the arm with open curiosity, as if it were a rare specimen rather than a grotesque crime. His perception traced the chakra pathways, the unnatural fusion holding everything together.
'This vitality…' Ren thought. 'Just one arm and it's higher than even mine.'
That realization genuinely surprised him.
For a brief moment, his mind flicked back to Obito's severed arm, still tucked safely away for later study. That arm had been powerful too, brimming with Hashirama's cells.
But this…
Ren compared the two mentally, layering sensation over sensation.
The vitality of Danzo's arm was stronger.
The answer came quickly.
"…I see," Ren murmured. "Quantity."
Obito only had one or two Sharingan embedded in him, though he had many in spares, but embedded in him were few, so he didn't need much Hashirama cells to support him, Danzo on the other hand had more than ten so the need for extra vitality.
The moment Danzo's arm was fully revealed, the air itself seemed to thicken.
Kagami's chakra surged violently, rolling outward in waves that rattled the trees and sent loose pebbles skittering across the ground. The killing intent embedded within it was sharp enough to cut skin. It wasn't just pressure, it was suffocating, crushing, as if something ancient and furious had been awakened.
But that wasn't what truly unsettled those who could sense deeply.
There were two chakra signatures.
Ren caught it instantly. His perception brushed across the surge, noted the overlap, the strange resonance, and then calmly filed it away. He already had a rough idea of the truth, or at least the direction it pointed toward, and tonight had already confirmed enough that one more revelation didn't shake him much. He could wait, this wasn't his moment.
Hiruzen, however, was not so fortunate.
The Third Hokage stiffened, then froze entirely.
At first, he thought it was just shock, his mind struggling to keep pace with the avalanche of truths being dumped on him in a single night. Kagami was alive, Danzo reviving after death, a grotesque arm grown from Hashirama's cells and studded with Sharingan like trophies.
That alone should have broken him.
But then he felt it.
"No… that's not…" Hiruzen whispered, his breath catching.
His senses reached out again, trembling now, desperate to deny what they were telling him. The chakra pouring from Kagami wasn't singular. Beneath Kagami's own powerful presence, there was another layer, younger, heavier, achingly familiar.
A chakra he knew very well, a chakra that should not exist anymore.
Hiruzen's knees buckled.
He brought a hand up to his face, fingers digging into his brow as if trying to physically hold his thoughts together. His head throbbed, a deep, pulsing pain spreading behind his eyes.
"Oh kami…" he murmured hoarsely. "Give me strength."
His breathing grew uneven. The world tilted.
"I… I need to sit."
And then he simply did.
There was no dignity left in the motion, no effort to maintain the image of the Hokage. Hiruzen Sarutobi dropped down where he stood, legs folding awkwardly beneath him as he landed heavily on the ground. Dust puffed up around him, but he didn't notice.
He exhaled once, just one breath, and it felt like decades drained out of him.
The lines on his face deepened. His shoulders slumped further. A few stubborn strands of black hair near his temples faded to white almost visibly, as though the weight of realization itself was bleaching them. If anyone noticed, he didn't. Rank, reputation, pride, none of it mattered anymore.
He planted his hands beside him for support and tilted his head back, staring up at the night sky.
The stars were bright tonight.
Too bright.
They reminded him of countless nights long past, of standing guard over the village walls, of whispered strategies and shared drinks, of believing, truly believing, that he and his comrades were building something better. He remembered the pride of being chosen, the fear of failing, the countless small compromises he had justified along the way.
The sacrifices he had witnessed.
The sacrifices he had allowed.
The sacrifices he had caused.
A bitter laugh almost escaped him, but it died in his throat.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Hiruzen spoke again. His voice was quiet, stripped of authority, stripped of pretense.
"It's all my fault."
The words hung in the air, heavier than any jutsu cast that night.
No one interrupted him.
Not Ren, who watched silently, popcorn forgotten for once. Not Kagami, whose chakra still simmered with barely restrained fury. Not Danzo, pinned and trembling, suddenly very aware that the shield of shared guilt he'd relied on for years was cracking.
Hiruzen closed his eyes.
For the first time in a long, long while, the Third Hokage stopped running from the truth.
All eyes remained fixed on Hiruzen as he spoke, none daring to interrupt him now. The old man's shoulders were hunched, his posture no longer that of a Hokage addressing subordinates, but of a tired shinobi confessing to crimes he had buried for decades.
"The first decade after I became Hokage," Hiruzen continued slowly, his voice rough but steady, "I truly worked for the betterment of the village. I won't lie about that. I was sincere. I listened, I debated, I tried to be fair." A faint, almost bitter smile tugged at his lips. "Mito-sama held a higher status than me then, and I found no issue with it. Without her backing, without the Senju clan standing beside me, I would never have taken that seat so smoothly. I understood that, I accepted it."
He let out a long breath, as if releasing memories he had kept locked away.
"At that time, the balance was clear. Power was shared, responsibility was shared. I was Hokage, yes, but I was not the ruler."
His fingers curled into the dirt beneath him.
"But time passed. Wars came and went. Mito-sama began to withdraw from the day-to-day affairs of the village. Age caught up to her, and she deserved her rest. Gradually, almost without me noticing it, more and more authority flowed into my hands alone." His eyes opened, dull with regret. "And at some point along the way… I stopped seeing myself as a guardian."
He swallowed.
"I began seeing myself as the ruler."
The words carried weight, heavier than any accusation Danzo had ever thrown.
"That," Hiruzen said quietly, "was my first and greatest mistake."
No one spoke.
Even the night seemed to listen.
"In my mind," he went on, "anything that threatened the smooth operation of my rule became a problem. Not an issue to be discussed, not a challenge to be addressed, but a thorn." His gaze drifted briefly, not quite meeting Kagami's eyes, nor Ren's. "The Senju and the Uchiha were not enemies. But they were powerful, influential and independent and in my arrogance… I began to see them as obstacles."
His jaw tightened.
"I did nothing about it, not at first. I told myself that as long as I did not actively harm them, I was still innocent." A hollow chuckle escaped him. "How convenient that lie was."
His eyes shifted then, settling on Danzo.
"Danzo noticed."
Danzo stiffened under Ren's grip, but Hiruzen did not look away.
"He saw my hesitation. He saw my unspoken discomfort and he acted on it." Hiruzen's voice grew heavier with every word. "He began assigning the most dangerous missions to the Senju and the Uchiha. Frontline deployments, suicide assaults, operations where retreat was impossible and survival was unlikely."
Hiruzen's hands trembled faintly.
"I knew what he was doing. I questioned him once. He told me it was for the good of the village. That strong clans should bear the heaviest burdens." His lips pressed into a thin line. "And I… accepted that answer."
The silence grew oppressive.
"At first, I hesitated. I watched reports come in, casualty lists growing longer, familiar names disappearing. I told myself it was war. That sacrifices were inevitable." His voice dropped to a whisper. "But as time passed, I noticed something else."
He looked down at his own hands, as if seeing blood there.
"My rule became smoother. Opposition faded, policies passed without resistance, there were fewer voices challenging my decisions, fewer factions pushing back." He closed his eyes briefly. "And instead of stopping it… I allowed it. Because it was easier."
When he looked up again, his eyes were glassy.
"That is how the Senju clan was extinguished," Hiruzen said softly. "Not by a single massacre, not by a single decree, but by my silence, by my consent."
"And that," Hiruzen continued, "is how the Uchiha were pushed to the margins. They were feared, distrusted and isolated." His voice wavered for the first time. "I let it happen, I watched it happen and I told myself it was necessary."
He exhaled shakily.
"But then…" His head lifted slightly, eyes focusing on something far away. "Then something happened that finally shattered the illusion I was living in."
His voice hardened, tinged with grief that had never truly healed.
"The death of Sakumo Hatake."
The name seemed to echo through the clearing.
"A man whose loyalty was unquestionable. Whose strength was undeniable. A shinobi who chose his comrades over a mission and paid for it with his life." Hiruzen's hands clenched into fists. "I knew then. I knew what Danzo had done. How the rumors were spread, how public opinion was turned, how a hero was broken."
He bowed his head.
"And still… I did nothing."
The confession hung in the air, raw and damning, as Hiruzen finally fell silent, his sins laid bare for all to see.
~~~~~
{Some of you might feel like it's unnecessary, however, I feel that this is important, Hiruzen was one of the major player in the Uchiha Massacre and I feel like it is important to understand how it all reached this point, and it wouldn't be possible without involving Hiruzen.
So just enjoy, don't care about how long it is stretching, just keep reading and have fun, and I promise you'll end up satisfied.}