Chapter 93: Ribbit… Ribbit…
Snow thinned as they left the deepest drifts of the Land of Iron.
By the time Renji's group reached a stone bridge, the ground was bare and a slow river murmured below. The air was milder here; no flakes fell.
Ding—
A kunai bit into the stones at Danzo's feet and stopped him cold.
Renji turned, gaze lifting.
A familiar figure stood on a thick bridge pillar ten meters away.
Uchiha Obito.
"Long time no see, Danzo," Obito said, easy as an old acquaintance.
Danzo's face, unlike Obito's, was grave.
"Renji. Sai. Cover me."
"I'm unsealing my right arm."
He bared the arm he never showed. Three heavy golden locks clasped it.
One by one, Danzo slipped them free.
"Getting serious, are we?" Obito's smile cooled. "Shame you won't be fighting me."
He stepped back.
A new silhouette dropped from above and landed opposite Danzo.
Danzo's lone eye hardened. "Uchiha Sasuke."
He then cut a sharp glare toward Renji.
[Ding!]
[Human Malice Value detected: +10,000]
[Cursed Energy converted to Chakra: +10,000]
[Chakra (277,120,002 / 400,000,000)]
'What's he glaring at me for? If he's got a problem, he can fight Sasuke himself.'
Danzo was about to die anyway. Renji stopped pretending and glared right back.
Danzo's pupils flared—disbelief, then anger.
'Still glaring.'
Renji, fed up, drove a finger into his eye socket.
"Ah!"
Danzo screamed as Renji ripped the eyeball free. Blood streamed down his cheek.
[Ding!]
[Human Malice Value detected: +500,000]
[Cursed Energy converted to Chakra: +500,000]
[Chakra (277,620,002 / 400,000,000)]
"Renji Mahito! What do you think you're doing?!" Danzo roared, stumbling back to a safer distance, his remaining eye venomous.
He had both of Shisui's eyes. Renji was satisfied.
Renji tapped his temple. "Are you all right up here? I just gouged your eye out."
Did that really need explaining?
"You dare betray me?" Danzo's voice dropped into a growl, rage barely leashed.
[Ding!]
[Human Malice Value detected: +5,000,000]
[Cursed Energy converted to Chakra: +5,000,000]
[Chakra (282,620,002 / 400,000,000)]
Renji almost laughed, but didn't. "Why wouldn't I?"
"From the moment I could betray Naruto and the others, you should've known—I'm very good at betrayal."
It was one of his talents. He was proud of it.
'I have too many talents. Hard to be this perfect.'
He'd acted beside Naruto and Danzo for years to reach his ends.
"I should've strangled you at the start," Danzo muttered.
Renji: "…How charmingly malicious."
Sai glanced over. In his mind, the most malicious person here was clearly Renji.
"Enough." Sasuke had heard enough.
He drew the Kusanagi and leveled it at Danzo. "You're mine."
Tch—
Renji sucked in a breath. 'It's just a fight. Does it have to sound that suggestive?'
No one else seemed to notice. Renji knew Sasuke's fixation. He and Sai vaulted to a distant cliff to watch.
Even minus one eye, Danzo still wore ten Sharingan on his arm. Losing one hardly dented his power.
Boom!
Danzo lunged. For an old man, he was fast.
Purple chakra surged into a towering upper body—Susanoo—rearing behind Sasuke with a guttural roar.
Its fist slammed down. The bridge crazed with fractures; everything nearby broke apart.
Danzo's body flew and burst into red mist.
"Futile."
His voice came from behind. Sasuke whirled—Danzo stood whole and unhurt.
Sasuke's expression tightened. 'Genjutsu? No. Then how did he come back?'
Rip—
A Wind Release blade sheared from Danzo's mouth toward Sasuke's neck.
Sasuke slipped aside; the bridge took a deep gouge.
Whoosh.
"If once won't do, I'll kill you twice."
Danzo spat wind in relentless waves. Sasuke evaded, but steel sang and blood finally traced his skin.
Susanoo rose again; blue-violet arrows pinned on Danzo and loosed. They bored through him.
Sasuke exhaled, low, controlled.
"Wind Release: Vacuum Great Sphere!"
Sasuke tumbled back. Danzo stood there again—unmarked.
Karin stared, stunned. How?
"Hey, you're with Sasuke, right?" she snapped at the blue-haired shinobi beside her.
Renji turned. "You could say that."
She frowned. "You were with Danzo. How's he coming back?"
Renji pointed at Danzo's right arm.
Karin forced herself to study it. Three of those arm-embedded Sharingan had already shut.
She shot Renji a look. He smiled.
The answer hit her like a jolt.
"Sasuke!" she shouted. "It's the Sharingan—his arm! Those eyes are tied to his 'revivals'! Close them all, and he's done!"
Roar—
A giant beast burst from Danzo's plume of smoke, wind blades screaming from its maw. The air rippled in concentric waves.
Sasuke bit his thumb. "Summoning Jutsu!"
He landed on a hawk as the suction dragged at them.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball!"
Wind fed fire—the beast gulped the flames and shrieked as it unraveled into smoke.
Rumble—
The sky boiled. Black clouds churned; lightning fell in sheets. Energy shattered rock in jagged fans.
A bolt hammered Danzo. He hit the stones charred and smoking.
Another arm-eye shut.
…
[Ding!]
[Human Malice Value detected: +10,000]
[Cursed Energy converted to Chakra: +10,000]
[Chakra (282,630,002 / 400,000,000)]
The storm favored Sasuke's lightning; the air was wet and charged, and his earlier fire had primed the heat.
More importantly, it saved chakra against an old monster with ten lives.
[Ding!]
[Human Malice Value detected: +1,000,000]
[Cursed Energy converted to Chakra: +1,000,000]
[Chakra (283,630,002 / 400,000,000)]
Danzo was finished.
Sasuke cut a look toward Renji.
[Ding!]
[Human Malice Value detected: +3,000,000]
[Cursed Energy converted to Chakra: +3,000,000]
[Chakra (286,630,002 / 400,000,000)]
For some reason, as Danzo's end neared, Sasuke's malice spiked toward Renji. Renji didn't get it.
…
Danzo's corpse hit the bridge.
"Farewell, Sasuke," Obito flicked a glance at Renji and he vanished.
A new presence reached the bridge. Sakura stepped in, eyes moving from Sasuke to Renji on the cliff.
"Sakura?" Sasuke's stare was ice. "What do you want?"
"Sasuke," she said steadily. "I'm leaving Konoha. I'm going with you."
"What good does that do you? Or rather—what are your intentions?"
"I don't have any hidden intentions." Sakura's voice shook, then held. "After you left, I regretted not going too. I'll follow your will. I don't want to regret it again."
It was the exact look he hated most—she knew nothing.
"Do you know my will?"
"To destroy Konoha."
Sasuke spoke each word. "If that's my will, will you follow it?"
Sakura trembled. 'Destroy Konoha… So it was true.'
His heart was swallowed by hate.
"If you need me to, I will…" She lowered her eyes.
"Then prove it." He pointed to Karin. "Kill her. Do that, and I'll believe you."
Danzo had taken Karin hostage; Sasuke's Chidori had already pierced her chest. Thanks to her Uzumaki body, she was alive—barely.
Sakura's fingers tightened around a kunai as she walked forward.
"What is it? Can't do it?" Sasuke moved behind her, step by step.
'If I strike Sasuke now… it ends…' Sakura's grip trembled.
"Sasuke, stop," Karin rasped from her blood.
Sakura's pupils blew wide. Lightning hissed behind her.
She couldn't move. Grief surged like a black tide.
A familiar figure flashed in front of her.
Renji caught Sasuke's wrist mid-thrust and drew Sakura behind him, shielding her.
He frowned at Sasuke. "You don't need to put hands on Sakura."
[Ding!]
[Human Malice Value detected: +1,000]
[Cursed Energy converted to Chakra: +1,000]
[Chakra (286,631,002 / 400,000,000)]
Out of the corner of his eye, Renji saw Sai approaching—cold glitter in his gaze.
Renji didn't bother with it.
[Ding!]
[Human Malice Value detected: +10,000]
[Cursed Energy converted to Chakra: +10,000]
[Chakra (286,641,002 / 400,000,000)]
"You think I don't know?" Sasuke's eyes shifted from Renji to Sakura. "She's thinking about killing me too, isn't she?"
Renji blinked. 'Sakura? Kill Sasuke? No way.'
He glanced back. She bit her lip and wouldn't meet his eyes.
Renji: '…So she would.'
Regardless, he wouldn't let Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura destroy each other. The best harvest was still ahead—he needed the three pillars alive.
Sakura looked at Renji's back—at that familiar sense of safety.
'But in the village he was so cold. What is happening?'
Naruto and Kakashi arrived. Team Kakashi, reunited.
"Does someone have to die?" Renji muttered. He tugged Naruto closer. Naruto looked from Renji to Sasuke and gave the smallest curl of a smile.
[Ding!]
[Human Malice Value detected: +1,000]
[Cursed Energy converted to Chakra: +1,000]
[Chakra (286,642,002 / 400,000,000)]
Sai leaned on the bridge rail and watched them with a thin, ironic smile.
[Ding!]
[Human Malice Value detected: +10,000]
[Cursed Energy converted to Chakra: +10,000]
[Chakra (286,652,002 / 400,000,000)]
Sasuke looked at all four with open disgust.
"But he's a rogue ninja now…" Sakura's voice dropped.
He'd captured the Eight-Tails and joined the Akatsuki. A rogue ninja had one end: execution. Worse, he could now strike his own teammates. This Sasuke—drowned in hate—was not the one she wanted to see.
'If it's like this… better to end it.'
Sasuke's gaze slid over them. Part of him wanted to test Renji—had he caught up?
'No. I've surpassed him.'
Not now, though. He was drained. If he lost here, he'd be chained and dragged back to Konoha.
Sasuke stepped back and dropped off the bridge.
"Sasuke!"
An eagle swept under him and bore him into the sky. In heartbeats, he was gone.
Karin was left behind.
"Damn it," Naruto muttered, watching Sasuke vanish—hurt and, strangely, relieved. Konoha wasn't ready for his return.
"What now, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura avoided Renji's eyes. "Will they hunt Sasuke forever?"
"No," Renji answered first.
"Because Danzo is dead."
Naruto and Sakura stared at him, shock tightening their pupils.
Kakashi ruffled both their heads and smiled. "Okay. Time to explain a few things."
"Explain what, Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto's heart thudded.
"Danzo's right eye was Uchiha Shisui's Sharingan. His ocular jutsu invades the mind and manipulates it—the target believes the thought is their own. They don't even notice it."
Naruto's eyes shifted to Renji, then to Kakashi. "So… Renji… Renji was… controlled by Danzo?"
Kakashi nodded.
"Whoa!"
Naruto launched at Renji and clung to him, tears soaking his neck.
[Ding!]
[Human Malice Value detected: +10,000]
[Cursed Energy converted to Chakra: +10,000]
[Chakra (286,662,002 / 400,000,000)]
"I knew it! Renji would never betray us! I'm sorry—I didn't know you were controlled…"
He held tighter.
Sakura's eyes grew wet. "How did you figure it out, Kakashi-sensei?"
Kakashi tapped his covered left eye. "I have a Sharingan too."
"No wonder you weren't upset!" Sakura bristled. "Why didn't you tell us earlier?"
"If I had, how would we have removed Danzo so cleanly?"
It was a bloody truth. But removing Danzo had been best.
"Renji!" Sakura pulled Naruto off and hugged Renji herself. "This is… really great."
[Ding!]
[Human Malice Value detected: +10,000]
[Cursed Energy converted to Chakra: +10,000]
[Chakra (286,672,002 / 400,000,000)]
Sai watched, expressionless.
"Let's get back to Konoha," Renji said. "I'll treat Lady Hokage, and we need to report what happened at the summit."
Naruto sniffed. "Okay."
'Good. Everything's finally getting back on track. Good.'
He hooked an arm through Renji's.
Sakura: "…Naruto, you two are acting weird."
'We are,' Renji thought.
[Ding!]
[Human Malice Value detected: +1,000]
[Cursed Energy converted to Chakra: +1,000]
[Chakra (286,673,002 / 400,000,000)]
Sai shot Naruto a look full of hatred as they walked.
Sakura lifted Karin, planning to bring her in as a living trove of intel.
At that moment, something came to Renji's mind, and he stopped. "I need to take care of something."
Before they could answer, he flickered away. In the next heartbeat he stood over Danzo's dying body on the bridge.
He crouched and pressed a hand to the fading chest. The soul still clung there—barely.
"Ren… j-i—" Danzo coughed blood.
Renji smiled faintly and raised his palm over the failing body.
"Idle Transfiguration: Remodeling."
Danzo's frame writhed, compressed, and warped—shrinking into a squat, warty frog that croaked and dragged itself toward Renji.
"Ribbit… Ribbit…"
Renji stood, turned, and walked back to his teammates.
'Enjoy your new life, Danzo.' He smirked.
-----
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