{300!}
Hiruzen slowly withdrew his staff, the tip scraping lightly against the ruined ground. He did not attempt to strike again. There was no urgency in his movements, no anger boiling over, only a deep, bone-weary acceptance.
He looked at Ren for a long moment.
Then he nodded.
"Alright," Hiruzen said quietly. "Do as you please."
Those simple words hit Danzo harder than any blade ever could.
His body trembled where he lay, pinned and broken, his breath coming out in shallow, ragged gasps. The despair that flooded him was absolute, far deeper than fear. Fear still carried hope, the hope of survival, of escape, of another trick hidden up one's sleeve.
This despair had none of that.
At first, Danzo had believed himself untouchable.
Izanagi had been his trump card, the ultimate insurance. Death itself could be rewritten. As long as he still had eyes left, as long as fate itself could be twisted, he could always crawl back from the brink. He had planned it all so carefully, fake his death, vanish into the shadows, rebuild elsewhere, and return when the village needed him again.
Or when it was weak enough.
But tonight had shattered every single assumption he had built his life upon.
First, Yoru.
No, that alone had already been too much.
The man he believed to be a loyal, controlled weapon of the village was not only Kagami Uchiha, the very ghost he had buried with his own hands, but also something far worse, a fusion of secrets, sacrifices, and sins that Danzo himself had helped create.
Kagami knew.
He had always known.
That realization alone had cracked Danzo's composure. Kagami hadn't charged at him in blind rage. He hadn't screamed or cursed or demanded justice. He had waited and observed, he had endured.
That patience was infinitely more terrifying.
Then came Ren.
Danzo's gaze drifted unwillingly toward the boy standing holding his ankle, casual and relaxed, as if this were nothing more than a mildly interesting evening diversion.
That was the part Danzo could not understand.
Ren had killed him. He didn't hesitate, or threaten, he just killed him.
And then watched him revive, not with shock or fear, but with curiosity.
That meant Ren knew, not guessed or suspected, but really knew.
He knew about Izanagi. He knew about the arm. He knew about the contingency plans Danzo had layered for decades. And worse still, he wasn't impressed by any of it.
Every backup Danzo had relied upon had been stripped away one by one.
His secrets were no longer secrets.
His power was no longer hidden.
His allies were gone, dead, or turned against him.
Root was annihilated.
Orochimaru would never come.
The Uchiha were fractured but Ren's presence here meant that Madara was also no longer a problem.
Even Hiruzen, foolish, sentimental Hiruzen had finally stopped hesitating.
Danzo let out a shaky breath.
He didn't even try to struggle anymore.
What was the point?
Against Kagami, Ren, and Hiruzen together, escape wasn't just unlikely, it was impossible. Kagami alone would have been enough now that the truth was laid bare. Add Ren, whose presence felt like a tightening vice around reality itself, and Hiruzen, who had finally chosen resolve over regret…
There was no opening. Not even a sliver.
For the first time in his life, Danzo Shimura truly understood what it meant to be cornered.
His remaining eye flicked toward Kagami, then to Sayaka's half-soft, half-merciless gaze, then finally to Ren.
Ren looked down at Danzo's limp, trembling form and felt a small, unrepentant spark of satisfaction settle in his chest.
It wasn't a noble feeling. It wasn't heroic. It wasn't even particularly deep.
It was simple satisfaction.
Anyone who had watched the anime, anyone who had seen even a fraction of the damage Danzo Shimura had caused, would feel the same. You didn't need to be righteous to hate him. You didn't need to be moral. You just needed eyes.
Danzo was one of those people who transcended ordinary villainy. He wasn't hated because he was strong, or because he was an enemy of the protagonist, or because he stood on the opposite side of a war.
He was hated because he chose to be like this, every single day, for decades.
Ren briefly wondered, purely out of idle curiosity, whether he'd feel the same kind of satisfaction if he ever ended up in the One Piece world and personally killed someone like Blackbeard Teach. The thought lingered for half a second.
Then he dismissed it.
One world's trash was enough for now.
Danzo deserved this and Ren wasn't about to deny him the full experience.
With a casual grip, Ren caught Danzo by the ankle and began dragging him across the ruined compound. Danzo didn't even resist. His body bumped uselessly against cracked stone and scorched earth, leaving faint trails in the dust, but his mind was far worse off than his body. Whatever defiance he once had was gone. Whatever schemes remained were ashes.
The others watched in silence as Ren hauled him to the center of the clearing.
Juichi stood there, expression tight, fist clenched but controlled. Kagami and Sayaka stood together, an unsettling duality of calm and restrained fury. Utakata had arrived at some point without fanfare, eyes half-lidded but sharp. Even Hiruzen who was now seated on the ground, looked up.
Ren let Danzo drop with a dull thud.
Then he straightened, clapped his hands together once, and spoke in a tone far too cheerful for the situation.
"Alright," Ren said brightly, as if organizing a friendly spar or a dinner rotation. "Let's be fair about this."
He crouched next to Danzo's right arm and began counting the Sharingan embedded there, tapping them lightly with a finger.
"One… two… three…"
Danzo's breathing hitched with every number.
"…eight," Ren finished, satisfied. "Eight chances to kill him."
He stood up and looked around, thoughtful, like a host assigning seats.
"Okay, so," Ren continued, ticking points off on his fingers, "two are already reserved. One for Itachi and one for Fugaku. No objections there, they've earned it."
No one argued.
Ren went on, unbothered. "One for Kakashi. That one's non-negotiable." His lips twitched. "And one for Tsunade. Big sis deserves at least one good swing after everything."
That made four.
"Oh, right," Ren added after a beat, snapping his fingers. "Naruto."
Several expressions shifted.
Ren's voice didn't soften. "This bastard made that kid's life hell from the moment he was born. So yeah. Naruto gets one too. Doesn't have to kill him, honestly, a good punch might hurt more."
Five.
He glanced around again. "That leaves three."
Utakata was the first to respond. He exhaled slowly, and shook his head. "I don't need to do it myself," he said calmly. "Watching is enough."
Juichi nodded in agreement, his jaw tight. "Same," he said. "But if there's one left at the end… I won't refuse."
Ren gave him a brief look, then nodded. "Fair."
Kagami and Sayaka, however, hadn't spoken yet.
They didn't need to.
Ren's grin widened. "Yeah," he said easily. "Figured."
He stepped aside without hesitation, handing over the first turn.
Kagami moved first.
He didn't rush.
He didn't posture.
He didn't say a word.
He let his sword fall to the ground with a soft metallic clink and instead reached into his pouch. When he pulled his hand back out, he was holding a kunai and in his other hand, a small glass bottle filled with a viscous purple liquid.
The color alone was wrong.
Danzo's eyes widened in pure, naked terror.
He knew that poison.
His body reacted before his mind could, muscles spasming as he tried to scramble backward, but Ren's foot came down lightly on his shoulder, pinning him in place without effort.
Kagami didn't look at Ren, he didn't look at Hiruzen.
His entire focus was on Danzo.
Slowly, deliberately, Kagami dipped the kunai into the purple liquid. The metal came out coated, glistening faintly in the moonlight.
For the first time, Danzo tried to speak but nothing coherent came out.
Kagami stepped forward.
The kunai plunged into Danzo's chest.
There was no hesitation, no mercy.
He pulled it out.
Then stabbed again.
And again.
And again.
Each strike was precise and controlled. It was not wild rage, but something far colder, something that had been waiting for years, patient and restrained, finally given permission to exist.
Danzo's body jerked violently at first.
Then less.
Then barely at all.
Kagami didn't stop when Danzo's breathing failed.
He didn't stop when the body went limp.
He stopped only when he was certain, absolutely certain, that Danzo Shimura was dead.
Truly dead.
He straightened slowly, blood dripping from the kunai, and stepped back.
The clearing was silent.
Kagami turned slightly, eyes lifting toward the night sky for just a moment, then lowered the kunai and said nothing.
One death down.
Seven to go.
Ren didn't give Danzo even a second to process what had just happened.
One moment Danzo was gasping on the ground near the edge of the compound, lungs burning, eyes unfocused, mind shattered from dying and returning yet again.
The next moment, space folded.
Ren flickered.
Danzo's world lurched violently as a hand closed around his ankle and he was dragged like dead weight across the broken stone once more. His nails scraped uselessly against the ground, leaving shallow grooves that meant nothing. He didn't scream. He didn't beg.
At some point, all of that had been burned out of him.
Ren stopped in front of Sayaka and released him without ceremony, letting Danzo collapse at her feet.
This time, Sayaka stepped forward.
Ren watched her carefully. This was different from Kagami. Kagami's kill had been vengeance sharpened by years of restraint. Sayaka's would be something else entirely.
She reached into her pouch and pulled something out.
It wasn't a blade.
It wasn't a kunai.
It was a bone.
Yellowed with age. Polished smooth by time and handling. Small enough to fit in her palm.
Ren blinked once, genuinely confused, and asked softly, "Whose bone is this, mother?"
The word slipped out naturally.
Mother.
Sayaka paused.
For a fraction of a second, the iron control she had maintained all night cracked. Her expression softened, not into a smile, not fully, but into something warmer than anything she had shown since waking.
She looked at Ren, really looked at him, as if trying to memorize his face.
Then she answered.
"It belonged to Bob Senju," she said quietly.
Ren's brows furrowed slightly, but he didn't interrupt.
Sayaka continued, her voice steady, almost distant.
"He was a genin. Barely trained. Barely old enough to understand what war meant." Her grip tightened around the bone. "The Senju numbers were already thinning by then. Too many dead. Too many sent forward. So when another war came, children were sent to fill the gaps."
Her eyes lowered to the bone in her hand.
"Bob was one of them."
No one spoke.
"He didn't die gloriously," Sayaka went on. "He didn't fall holding the line. His body came back in pieces." She lifted the bone slightly. "This was one of them."
Ren listened.
He didn't flinch, he didn't rage, he simply nodded once.
He didn't truly understand what it meant to watch a clan rot away piece by piece, to watch children turned into numbers, names into bones. The Senju name had been dropped on him one day like a coat he was expected to wear, heavy with history he hadn't lived.
He didn't try to pretend otherwise.
This wasn't his pain, it was Tsunade's and Sayaka's, so, he did the only thing he could.
He gave them space to vent.
Sayaka stepped closer to Danzo.
Danzo looked up at her, eyes hollow, lips trembling faintly. If there was anything left inside him, fear, regret, hatred, it didn't matter anymore.
Sayaka raised the bone.
And drove it straight into his heart.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
She didn't stop to check if he was dead.
She didn't slow down.
She stabbed until Danzo's body went slack, until the fate of inevitability settled in again, until death claimed him for the second time that night under her hand.
Only then did she stop.
She pulled the bone free, blood dripping from it, and let her arm fall to her side.
Her shoulders trembled once.
Then steadied.
Ren was already moving.
He grabbed Danzo's ankle again, fingers locking in place like iron, and hauled him up as if the body weighed nothing at all.
Danzo didn't resist.
Didn't twitch.
Didn't even gasp when life returned to him yet again.
Whatever was left of Shimura Danzo was nothing more than a shell being dragged forward by someone else's will.
Ren turned toward the exit of the compound. The path ahead was dark, quiet, and open. No one stopped him.
They all understood.
This night wasn't over yet.
Ren dragged Danzo forward, step by step, the man's body bouncing limply against the ground. As he walked, Ren's grip tightened almost imperceptibly.
This wasn't just about vengeance.
It was about change.
As the first hints of dawn began to creep toward the horizon, Ren lifted his gaze toward the sky, eyes sharp, burning with resolve.
'This is only the first,' he thought.
The first fracture.
The first correction.
The first deviation from a future that should never have existed.
His lips curled into a thin, satisfied grin.
'This time,' he thought, 'I'm not letting canon decide how things end.'
The night swallowed his final thought as he dragged Danzo onward.
Fuck Danzo!
Fuck canon!
~~~~~
{I don't think any of you should have any problems with what happened and will happen to Danzo, if you do let me know, I'll ignore it with all my might.}
{Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed it, was it worth the 300th chapter? Let me know.}
{Danzo died in the latest chapter, and I mean really died.}