"This way! Satoru!" Jizo said, twisting an unremarkable-looking vial on the shelf, activating a hidden mechanism, and part of the wall silently slid aside, revealing a dark passage.
"Looks like this is Tenzō's secret! Hurry, let's go inside!" his companion exclaimed, and the young ninja, nodding, stepped after him.
However, as soon as he crossed the threshold, the young man felt a sharp, suffocating smell, painfully familiar.
His pupils constricted instantly. "This disinfection smell... Isn't it the same one I sensed in the doctor's office?" flashed through his mind.
"Kha!" Suddenly Satoru collapsed to the floor with a groan, his face contorted in agonizing pain. The acrid smell hit his head, causing nausea and dizziness.
Breathing in this "disinfectant," he felt strange changes happening in his body, as if something inside had awakened, activated by the chemical.
However, glancing at Jizo standing nearby, the young shinobi noted with surprise that he looked completely unharmed.
"Jizo, what... what's happening? Jizo, help me... quick..." Satoru's voice was broken and weak; he had never looked so suffering and helpless before.
At that moment, the man calling himself Jizo burst into loud, malicious laughter.
"I'm very sorry, Konoha's Supernova," he said, and his voice, mannerisms, and very aura changed beyond recognition, exuding cold and menace. "I'm no 'Master Jizo'."
"I'm a high-ranking spy from the Land of Lightning. My code name, ironically, is also 'Jizo'," he smirked crookedly, his eyes gleaming predatorily.
"But... how? What does this mean?!" the young man forced out, staring at his recent ally in horror and confusion.
"It's all very simple," the spy spread his arms smugly. "My original task was to spread the virus and paralyze the political elite of the Land of Fire. But just recently, I received a new, much more interesting order... to eliminate you, Konoha's Supernova, Satoru."
"However," the Land of Lightning agent continued, savoring the sight of the young ninja writhing on the floor, "since you're going to die soon anyway, I'll enlighten you so you can leave this world with full understanding of the situation."
"I am a carrier of a special virus," the traitor began his tale. "This virus has a unique property: it spreads rapidly and activates under certain, specific conditions."
"This smell... the 'disinfectant'?" Satoru croaked, struggling to lift his head.
"Exactly," Jizo nodded. "Though its aroma is very similar to regular disinfectant, it's actually something else. It's a catalyst, an enhancer of the virus's action. From the very beginning, I swapped the vials with disinfectant and pure virus. When you entered that doctor's office, you already inhaled the first dose of the pathogen."
"And here, in Tenzō's secret room, I had preemptively sprayed this very enhancer. As soon as you crossed the threshold, the virus activated in your body immediately," a triumphant smirk spread across the spy's face—the smirk of a man whose cunning plan had worked flawlessly.
"But... you were with me the whole time! When did you manage to spread both the virus and this enhancer?" the young man asked incredulously, trying to catch the fake Jizo in an inconsistency.
"And who said I was acting alone?" the Land of Lightning agent smirked. "I had a helper. Yes, that very doctor—my accomplice. To everyone who came to him with symptoms of this strange 'cold,' he discreetly administered a small dose of the viral catalyst. Too bad it was a miss with Tenzō. That guy apparently just caught the virus, but thanks to his special physiology, he fully recovered in three days. I just didn't have a suitable pretext or opportunity to deal with him."
"You inhaled both substances too. Why didn't anything happen to you?" Satoru pressed on, his voice sounding a bit firmer.
"Because I took the antidote in advance," Jizo favored him with an icy, contemptuous smirk. "So, Konoha's Supernova, now do you understand everything? If you do, you can die peacefully. I'll tell everyone you fell victim to an attack by Tenzō!"
"Ha!" Satoru suddenly laughed quietly, greatly surprising his opponent.
"What's so funny?!" the spy snarled irritably.
"I kept wondering why you recognized the doctor treating Tenzō so easily? Why you insisted so persistently that I dispel the shadow clone before visiting him? How you managed to spot this hidden door first and even immediately find the secret mechanism?" Satoru slowly rose to his feet, and there was no trace of weakness in his voice anymore—only steely confidence. "Now everything falls into place. The criminals are you and that very doctor."
"So what if you figured it out?! It's too late!" Jizo shouted viciously. "I think you've fully felt the power of this virus by now, haven't you?!"
"Not at all," the young guardian looked calmly straight into his enemy's eyes. "This virus can't harm me at all."
"Impossible! This virus has never failed before!" the Land of Lightning agent refused to believe his ears. But seeing the completely healthy and unharmed Satoru before him, he began losing his composure, his face twisting in rage and bewilderment.
"Allow me to explain," the young shinobi straightened to his full height. A small syringe with clear liquid appeared in his hand. "That day, when we were leaving Tenzō, he gave me a very strange look. I immediately knew something was wrong. When you turned away to leave the room, I managed to create a shadow clone unnoticed. Tenzō warned me not to trust you and gave me this," he nodded at the syringe, "the antidote. I just injected it. So your vaunted virus is already neutralized."
"How is that possible?! It's only been a month! Tenzō couldn't have developed an antidote alone!" Jizo was in complete disarray, his confidence melting away.
Satoru laughed loudly.
"You're right, he didn't do it alone. The whole Konoha helped him!"
"What's Konoha got to do with it?!" the spy couldn't wrap his head around what was happening.
"That Tenzō didn't go to the hospital and recovered so quickly seemed very strange not just to us. The Daimyo, concerned for the Land of Fire's safety, immediately contacted Konoha's medical corps, and they began a secret investigation of this virus. And this secret room where we are now served Tenzō as a place to communicate with ninja from the Leaf," the young ninja explained calmly.
"But Tenzō is just the Minister of Internal Affairs! Why the hell would he contact Konoha shinobi?!" the Land of Lightning agent still couldn't believe it.
"Whether you believe it or not is your business!" Satoru cut him off. "Tenzō only seems like an ordinary official at first glance. In reality, he's a first-class fighter, a true master of his craft. This man... was once an ANBU operative from Konoha!" The young man had suspected from the start that Tenzō was not as simple as he seemed. And as the investigation progressed, he received an encrypted message from Konoha confirming his suspicions.
"The name 'Tenzō' seemed too familiar to me, very similar to ANBU operative code names. After all, in the original story there was Yamato, who was also called Tenzō."
Then Satoru contacted Sarutobi Hiruzen directly, and he confirmed: Tenzō was indeed a secret bodyguard assigned to the Daimyo, whose existence even the ruler himself didn't know about.
"I acted openly, while Tenzō worked in the shadows. We both knew there was a traitor, a 'mole,' among us, but we couldn't say for sure who. So we decided to dig a pit, and to our delight, you jumped right in."
"I know you wanted to use my death to frame Tenzō. But the problem is, you were too hasty, too eager for success, and that very haste gave you away."
"The greatest suffering for a person is unfulfilled desires. Therefore, one must strive for desirelessness, for detachment! Unfortunately, you never understood that. Your appearance, your mannerisms—nothing could hide your greed and thirst for power. That's why you suffered such a crushing defeat!" Finishing his speech, Satoru made a barely noticeable gesture.
At that instant, the secret room's door burst open with a bang, and a beast-like giant, the Daimyo's personal bodyguard nicknamed the Beast, threw in a man bound hand and foot. Looking closer, one could see that the entire room was essentially an ingeniously disguised trap, a cage.
And the thrown prisoner was none other than the Land of Lightning spy's accomplice—that very doctor.
The other nine members of the Twelve Ninja Guards formed a tight ring around the room's entrance. Behind them stood the Daimyo himself and numerous high-ranking officials, tensely watching the drama's resolution.
"I'm sorry, Jizo, but your plan was exposed from the very beginning. You were dealing with me, Satoru!" The young man measured his defeated enemy with a cold gaze. The spy froze in place, stunned. The Land of Fire had played a cruel joke on him. It was quite possible that everyone had long been cured of the virus, and only he remained in the dark, like the last fool.
"Fine! Indeed, impressive!" the prisoner forced out, his face twisting in malice. "But I'm not going down without a fight!" He prepared for a desperate, last battle.
However, at that very moment, another ninja materialized beside him out of thin air. With a lightning-fast motion, he pressed a kunai to Jizo's throat. It was Tenzō.