Hmph!
This time, Danzo did not say anything about regretting it, because this was undeniably his victory!
He stepped past Hiruzen Sarutobi and came before Li Yue, who was pinned to the ground.
"Confess honestly. Who exactly are you, to dare cause trouble in Konoha?"
"Is that how you speak to me? You inherently evil little Shimura brat!"
Though pinned down, Li Yue's expression remained cold.
"Hmph, still putting on airs even now."
A finger extended from the left hand gripping Danzo's cane, pointing at Li Yue's right hand.
"Cut off his right hand and see whether he talks. If he refuses, have the Interrogation Department extract his memories directly!"
The Root ninja pinning Li Yue down immediately drew his ninja blade and swung it at Li Yue's right hand.
Yet just as the Root ninja's blade was about to fall, countless cracks suddenly appeared in the air.
Crack—
As if glass had shattered, everyone's vision fragmented. When their sight returned to normal, Hiruzen Sarutobi and the Anbu behind him all widened their eyes.
The Root ninja who had surrounded Li Yue so aggressively were each split in two, lying across the ground. Blood dyed the entire classroom red, and not a single one survived. Let alone anyone pinning Li Yue down—the Li Yue who should have been held to the floor stood upon the sole patch of ground untouched by blood. His right hand held a Tachi with a white hilt, while his other hand carried a strip of bandages with an arm dangling beneath them.
"This... this is..."
Hiruzen Sarutobi stared wide-eyed. Even as Hokage, the corpses of Root scattered across the floor shocked him. The Anbu behind him had all gone rigid, some even forgetting to breathe.
"Ah!!!"
Danzo's scream suddenly rang out. Hiruzen Sarutobi looked over and found that the old acquaintance who had just been arrogantly berating him was now kneeling on the floor, clutching his right shoulder with a twisted expression. His bandaged right eye had been fully exposed, revealing a massive empty socket.
Wait, could it be?!
Hiruzen Sarutobi looked back at Li Yue and finally realized that the bandage-wrapped arm in his hand was Danzo's right arm!
"Bastard, what did you do?!"
Danzo shouted in agony, but Li Yue's face remained utterly indifferent.
"You're asking what I did? I merely drew my sword and swung it."
"Am I right, Clan Head Sasuke?"
Beside Li Yue, Second Pillar stiffly nodded at Li Yue's words. He had suffered slightly less shock than Hiruzen Sarutobi and the others, because he had witnessed the entire process of Li Yue slaughtering those Root ninja. Just as Li Yue had said, he had pulled a Tachi out of thin air, drawn it, and cut down the Root surrounding him one by one. Those Root ninja had been like pigs lining up to be slaughtered, offering neither defense nor resistance. Each had been cleaved in half with a single slash, their blood splattering across the ground.
Until the end, Li Yue had walked up to that overbearing old man, severed his arm with one strike, then used the sword tip to gouge out his right eye.
What shocked Second Pillar even more was that the gouged-out eye had been a blood-red Sharingan!
"I'm asking when you used Genjutsu! To accomplish this, you must have used Genjutsu, right?! When exactly did you use it?!"
Though Danzo was sinister, his battle instincts were not weak. He understood that everything he had just seen was Genjutsu. Yet Li Yue clearly had done nothing, and his eyes were ordinary eyes, not Sharingan. Still, he and his subordinates had fallen for it. Why?!
Yet faced with Danzo's question, Li Yue merely gave a disdainful smile.
"When did you begin—"
"—to have the illusion that I had not used Genjutsu?"
Splat—
Danzo, stunned by Li Yue's answer, was directly split into two down the middle.
"Danzo!"
Too late to stop him, Hiruzen Sarutobi could only watch as Danzo became two halves and let out a grief-stricken roar.
Just Some Wood Style—One Stomp Is Enough!
"Danzo!"
Looking at Shimura Danzō, split in two before him, Hiruzen Sarutobi felt as though he were still dreaming.
It was Genjutsu. It had to be Genjutsu, right?!
Yet the normal flow of Chakra within his body told him that it was all real. The thick, dizzying stench of blood in the air was real. The sticky blood beneath his feet was real. The corpse of his old friend of many years was real. All of it was real.
Konoha's Root leader, Danzo, along with the elite Root ninja under him, had been utterly wiped out right before his eyes. Not a single survivor remained!
As a Hokage who had fought his way out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, Hiruzen Sarutobi did not feel sick. He was merely overwhelmed by the shock. Sasuke, however, truly began to feel nauseated. Especially after Danzo had been cut in half down the middle, his insides spilling all over the ground. Even when Uchiha Itachi slaughtered the Uchiha clan, it had not been this exaggerated. At most, he had killed people; he had not sliced them apart.
Five years later, seeing such a concentrated, bloody, almost horrifying scene once more, Sasuke felt sour fluid surge up his throat.
"Bleurgh—"
In the end, he could not hold it in and vomited.
"Do you know who you killed?!"
Hiruzen Sarutobi finally came back to his senses. He rose to his feet and glared furiously at Li Yue.
"Nothing but inherently evil trash."
Li Yue casually shook his hand.
"He was an elder of Konoha! By doing this, you are making an enemy of all Konoha!"
The Third Hokage, who excelled at compromise, finally unleashed his rage. He removed his Hokage robes, revealing a suit of black armor beneath.
"What, are you planning to attack me for his sake?"
Li Yue stood there with complete nonchalance.
"Sure. If you think you can do it, then give it a try. But if you fail, the consequences will fall upon your Sarutobi clan."
"What?!"
Hiruzen Sarutobi, who had already clasped his hands together to prepare an attack, froze on the spot.
"Guess how long it would take me to wipe out the Sarutobi clan."
As Li Yue spoke, he stomped his foot. The once-flat floor suddenly cracked open, and countless trees burst from beneath it, instantly filling the entire classroom.
"That's Wood Style!"
Hiruzen Sarutobi's expression changed drastically. For those in the ninja world, Wood Style was overwhelmingly intimidating—especially for the people of Konoha, who had grown up beneath Wood Style's protection!
"Quick! Everyone, retreat!"
Under Hiruzen Sarutobi's command, the Anbu ninja hurriedly withdrew from the classroom. After Hiruzen Sarutobi led them out, the enormous trees directly burst through the whole classroom, even smashing through the other classrooms of the school. Thick trees replaced the classrooms and occupied the entire school building. The Anbu, having retreated to the playground, stared in disbelief at the dense forest that had replaced the building.
Hiruzen Sarutobi's reaction was even more direct.
"Impossible! Wood Style of this level... impossible!"
"What do you think Wood Style is?"
Li Yue emerged from the forest with the stunned Sasuke.
"It is merely a fusion of water and earth attributes. It is not even a Kekkei Genkai."
With every step Li Yue took, a great tree grew at his side. He looked so utterly effortless that Hiruzen Sarutobi's heart suffered a tremendous blow.
"Impossible, absolutely impossible! This is Genjutsu! The First Hokage's Wood Style cannot possibly be used so easily by someone else!"
"Hmph. You think Senju Hashirama was strong only because you are too weak and too worthless!"
Li Yue lifted his chin and looked down his nose at Hiruzen Sarutobi.
"Not just you. Uchiha Madara back then was equally weak and worthless. He barely grasped a tiny fraction of the Sharingan's power and thought himself invincible, only to lose to Senju Hashirama. What trash!"
Far away in the Pure Land, Malada suddenly felt rather irritated. He had no idea what his beloved Hashirama was doing; no matter how he called out in the Chat Group, Hashirama would not reply.
"The Kekkei Genkai you pieces of trash take such pride in are nothing more than things I can produce at will!"
Li Yue stomped again. This time, no trees grew from the ground. Instead, a field of ice spikes suddenly erupted. Like a thick fence, the gigantic ice spikes spread outward from Li Yue and encircled the entire school, trapping the Third Hokage and all the Anbu behind him.
"This time, it's the Yuki Clan's Ice Style?!"
Hiruzen Sarutobi stared at the massive ice spikes surrounding him, feeling the cold in the air as a bead of sweat slid down his forehead.
That was not all. The trees behind Li Yue rapidly gathered together and continued rising. Within the small school playground, a gigantic fifty-meter-tall Wood Person appeared. Its enormous body could be seen by people throughout Konoha!
This time, Hiruzen Sarutobi completely stopped moving. The Wood Person Technique—the signature Ninjutsu with which the First Hokage had supposedly pacified the ninja world! Wood Style and Ice Style, casually unleashed on such a vast scale, along with terrifying Genjutsu that could not be detected at all... could he truly defeat an enemy like this?
If he failed, as the other party had said, Li Yue would directly act against the Sarutobi clan. What if his momentary impulsiveness led to the Sarutobi clan's destruction? He could not bear that responsibility!
But the other party had killed Danzo. He was an elder of Konoha. If they did nothing even after this...
"Think carefully. Will you choose Shimura Danzo, or your Sarutobi clan?"
As Li Yue spoke, he waved the arm he had cut off Danzo at Hiruzen Sarutobi. Then he flicked his wrist, and all the bandages wrapped around the arm unraveled, exposing what lay beneath.
"This is!"
The Anbu behind Hiruzen Sarutobi all froze.
"Why?! Why does this arm have Sharingan?!"
The one who asked was not Hiruzen Sarutobi, but Sasuke beside Li Yue.
"The eye you dug out from that man just now was also a Sharingan, wasn't it?! Why did he have Sharingan?!"
As a member of the Uchiha clan, Sasuke immediately became agitated upon seeing Sharingan on someone else's body.
The smile on Li Yue's face made Hiruzen Sarutobi's expression drastically change.
"The reason is simple. That worthless and incompetent Uchiha clan was exterminated by that trash working together with Uchiha Itachi!"
"What?!"
"What exactly is going on?! Wasn't he an elder of Konoha?!"
Sasuke's blood-red eyes fixed themselves on Hiruzen Sarutobi. If an elder of Konoha had participated in the Uchiha clan's destruction, then what about the Hokage?!
Li Yue ignored Sasuke, who had opened his Sharingan in rage, and simply smiled at Hiruzen Sarutobi.
Hiruzen Sarutobi also understood Li Yue's meaning. Li Yue had even found the crime for him. If he still failed to understand, he would truly be courting death.
"I understand."
The Third Hokage let out a helpless sigh.
"Sasuke..."
"Hm?"
Li Yue interrupted Hiruzen Sarutobi. Hiruzen Sarutobi paused, then spoke again.
"Clan Head Otsutsuki, I will send people to investigate Shimura Danzo's involvement in the Uchiha clan massacre. If the allegations are true..."
Hiruzen Sarutobi took a deep breath.
"I will definitely give you a satisfactory explanation!"
The Butler Li Yue Seeks Marriage Worldwide!
Hiruzen Sarutobi compromised. He had no confidence in defeating Li Yue, especially with Li Yue inside Konoha and able to effortlessly use overwhelmingly powerful large-scale Wood Style and Ice Style, as well as that undetectable, powerful Genjutsu. He did not dare gamble, because if he lost, the Sarutobi clan might truly be buried as a result! He could not become the sinner of the Sarutobi clan!
Moreover, the enormous wall of ice spikes within the school could not be concealed, nor could the gigantic Wood Person standing on the school playground! Along with the students who had been evacuated earlier, there was no way to suppress this matter anymore.
Thus, in the name of the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi announced that the Uchiha clan massacre case would be reopened for investigation, and the results were released the very next day.
"Shimura Danzo, an elder of Konoha, became envious of the Uchiha clan's Sharingan during his tenure. He bent the law for personal gain, abused his authority, and framed the Uchiha clan. He later joined forces with Uchiha Itachi to massacre the Uchiha clan, all for the purpose of seizing the Uchiha clan's Sharingan."
"The Uchiha clan's suffering was a tragedy for the Uchiha, and also a tragedy for Konoha. As the Third Hokage, I bear inescapable responsibility for failing to discover Shimura Danzo's intentions in time."
"In Konoha's name, I will compensate the Uchiha clan, now the Otsutsuki clan. After completing that compensation, I will resign in disgrace and begin the election for a new Fifth Hokage."
In the square before Konoha's Hokage Building, ninja gathered together and looked up at Hiruzen Sarutobi atop the building. After hearing his declaration, they erupted into an uproar.
The Uchiha clan massacre had been a major event five years ago. At the time, they had all believed it was an internal conflict within the Uchiha clan. They had never expected that not only had the Uchiha clan contained a traitor, but Konoha's upper ranks had also been involved.
The Konoha leadership they had trusted had actually chosen to act in secret out of envy for the Uchiha clan's power.
This matter struck Konoha's ninja with tremendous force, because Konoha had many ninja who possessed secret techniques.
If Konoha's leadership could act against the Uchiha, then what about the other clans or holders of secret techniques? Would they also be secretly targeted? Perhaps they had already been targeted!
Hiruzen Sarutobi understood that once Shimura Danzo's matter was announced, it would directly sow distrust in the hearts of Konoha's ninja. They might say nothing on the surface, but they would certainly begin to doubt the upper ranks. Therefore, he chose to resign outright, minimizing the impact of the matter as much as possible.
After announcing the investigation results to the ninja below, Hiruzen Sarutobi looked at Sasuke and Li Yue, who were also standing atop the Hokage Building.
"Clan Head Otsutsuki, I apologize to you for what Shimura Danzo did to the former Uchiha clan. I will compensate the Otsutsuki clan according to Konoha's highest standards."
Before you continue