Danzo's Restless End

But there was no need to kill Danzo personally.

Several Bizarre Creatures were sealed within this base. She could make good use of them.

Hinata easily found a Jinchuriki with a Bizarre Creature sealed inside his body.

"Sorry, but it's time for you to go to the underworld."

"Heh... heh..."

The Root member, dressed in black and wearing a mask that concealed his face, stared at the hand protruding through his abdomen. Blood gushed from the wound in an astonishing amount.

But that was not what terrified him most. What made fear rise uncontrollably within him was what that hand, which had burst through his abdomen, was holding.

It was a Bizarre Creature tightly bound by Sealing Jutsu. He could even see the twisted, horrifying shape of the creature within the seals!

He had not heard what the person behind him said clearly. There was only one thought in his mind now.

"It's over."

Darkness gradually swallowed his vision, and his body collapsed powerlessly to the ground.

Looking at the Bizarre Creature in her hand, Hinata said, "Orochimaru will definitely like this one."

Its appearance was that of a snake—a brightly colored venomous snake.

Over the years, the village had gradually figured out some of the characteristics of these Bizarre Creatures.

For example, their methods of killing were somewhat related to their appearances.

Ropes strangled people to death, shadows devoured the living through their shadows, and so on...

As for this snake, it killed every living creature it sensed.

Though it was obediently trapped in Hinata's palm by Sealing Jutsu now, its true body was a three-meter-long serpent.

Wrapped around someone's neck, it was enough to strangle a person to death.

It also had the ability to control Puppet Corpses.

An explosion rang out. This was not the first Bizarre Creature Hinata had obtained from the Root base.

Including this one, she had acquired three in total.

Two strands of hair were wrapped around Hinata's wrist, each sealing a Bizarre Creature. Now, another strand of hair had been added to her wrist.

That explosion seemed to be a signal. Explosions began erupting throughout the base one after another.

The first explosion had come from the laboratory.

As for why the laboratory had exploded, it had little to do with Hinata.

It was the result of Root's own people courting death.

Through the Tenseigan, Hinata saw that they had actually attempted to fuse different Bizarre Creatures together, hoping to create an even stronger one!

In theory, Bizarre Creatures were all born from the same kind of energy and could indeed be fused together.

But the strength of the resulting individual would be far greater than one plus one equals two.

And Root's personnel had recklessly put three Bizarre Creatures together.

Hinata would never believe Danzo had not authorized this.

The good news was that they seemed to have conducted this sort of experiment more than once, yet none of them appeared to have succeeded.

They might still have been wondering why the experiment had not worked, but Hinata saw the reason through the Tenseigan.

Simply put, they lacked self-awareness. Even their so-called instincts were merely mechanisms that dictated how they killed; they could hardly even be called instincts.

Let alone making them devour and fuse with one another on their own.

Hinata was extremely interested in what changes would occur if different Bizarre Creatures fused together, but this was neither the time nor the place.

So, she made a few small adjustments to the walls covered in Sealing Jutsu outside the laboratory containing those three Bizarre Creatures.

Judging by the results, it had worked well. Those three Bizarre Creatures should have escaped by now.

However, the Root base was filled with the Hidden Leaf Village's most elite shinobi. Those three Bizarre Creatures would probably be sealed again before long.

But Hinata's goal was to alarm Danzo. A major incident like Bizarre Creatures escaping in his own base meant Danzo could not possibly... he would very likely hide far away and wait until those Bizarre Creatures had been resealed before coming out.

"That won't do..."

Obtaining three Bizarre Creatures was already the limit, because those three had been captured by Root in secret and had not been registered with the village.

Even if they discovered them missing, they would not be able to explain it.

"Upon discovering that Bizarre Creatures had escaped, he rushed to seal them in order to minimize losses, but was killed by the Bizarre Creatures and tragically died in the line of duty."

Danzo would surely be satisfied with that manner of death.

As for how to make Danzo appear before the Bizarre Creatures... it was merely a matter of spatial transfer, something exceedingly simple for Hinata.

Though Danzo knew his own Bizarre Creatures very well, timing in battle was always changing. For example, in a critical moment, what if he tripped over rubble shattered by an explosion?

Not long after Danzo's death, his soul floated out of his body.

But in its soul state, it was muddled and dazed, as though it had lost its mind.

"Sorry, but just in case, I can't let you go to the underworld."

She condensed a Truth-Seeking Orb. It gradually stretched into a black spear that instantly pierced Danzo's soul, then shredded it apart. Only then did Hinata feel at ease. (Truth-Seeking Orbs were the ultimate manifestation of physical energy and spiritual power, which was why they could harm souls.)

Afterward, Hinata used spatial transfer and returned home.

After Hinata vanished and the Anbu resealed the Bizarre Creatures, they discovered that Danzo was already dead.

When they learned the news, some shinobi seemed to have lost their souls. They stood there blankly, not knowing what they should do.

Even more alarming, some shinobi actually chose to commit suicide!

Hinata, who was no longer watching the Root base, did not see this scene.

But more of those shinobi returned to their posts and did what they were supposed to do.

These people no longer had "souls." Danzo had trained them into "tools"!

Only after the Bizarre Creatures had been sealed and settled did the Third Hokage finally arrive with the Anbu.

They had already moved quickly enough. Root's base was simply too remote.

"What? Danzo is dead!?"

His friend of decades, the very Darkness of the Shinobi World, had actually died just like that!

Only after personally examining Danzo's corpse did the Third Hokage have no choice but to confirm that Danzo was truly dead.

The Third Hokage sighed. His friend of decades had died; how could he not feel sorrow?

However, Danzo's death was far too strange. How could an old fox like him have been killed so easily by Bizarre Creatures?

Therefore, Danzo's corpse still had to be handed over to medical shinobi for an autopsy to determine his true cause of death.

Who knew whether the Third Hokage's sorrow would turn into fury once he learned about the First Hokage's Cells implanted in Danzo's arm, along with the Sharingan covering it?

But one thing was certain: Danzo's corpse would never know peace.