Had his luck run out here?
With the choices that would determine his future laid out plainly before him, and with no chance to regret them or leave himself any room to maneuver, Danzo's expression grew darker and darker as the thought involuntarily crossed his mind.
He knew very well that his luck had probably run out by now.
Which only made the choice before him all the more crucial.
If he chose wrong, then either he would alert the enemy and give Taki Chiba an opportunity to deal with him, or his life would end in an assassination.
Of those two possibilities, the first was not as obvious as the second, nor did it sound particularly urgent. It seemed as though there was still room to maneuver. Looking at it alone, he should have abandoned the possibility that "Nobuhiko's death was Taki Chiba's second warning" and chosen the second option—that assassins had infiltrated. At that moment, he should have dispatched every elite and spared no cost in finding the assassins.
But the truth was precisely the opposite.
If assassins had infiltrated, there was instead room to maneuver. He possessed considerable strength himself. By arranging several guards, using himself as bait, and setting a trap, he could take a gamble. There was still a sliver of hope for survival.
But if he gave Taki Chiba an opportunity to deal with him, then there would likely be no room whatsoever to turn things around.
First of all, he and Taki Chiba had been enemies for a long time. Although they had never openly clashed, and every confrontation between them had stopped at verbal sparring without any physical conflict, that did not mean there had been no conflict or no enmity.
For Danzo himself, Taki Chiba was undoubtedly the greatest obstacle standing