Hurry and Take Me to See Lord Mizukage! (Monthly Vote Request!)

Danzo activated Swift Release and ran across the vast sea atop the waves. He moved at astonishing speed, easily crossing the Land of Whirlpools southeast of the Land of Hot Water in less than half a day and entering the boundless ocean.

By then, he had shaken off all his pursuers. Even the paper butterfly that had been trailing him from afar had been cleverly thrown off within the Land of Hot Water.

Moreover, with his wealth of experience, he created two Shadow Clones. One headed north into the Land of Moon, while the other went south into the Land of Fire. One openly visible and one hidden, they fabricated a mixture of real and false trails to confuse his pursuers.

Yet even with all these measures in place, he did not slow down at all while crossing the sea. He continued maintaining Swift Release at full speed despite the chakra expenditure. From high above, he looked like an invisible longsword slashing across the ocean, parting the surface into a narrow line of water and leaving a thin trail of spray behind him.

He did this because time was the key to everything!

Before news of his bloody rampage reached Kirigakure, Danzo had to make contact with and use the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan to control Kirigakure's Fourth Mizukage, Karatachi Yagura. He needed Kirigakure—the only one of the Five Great Shinobi Villages isolated overseas and relatively closed off—to become his temporary refuge.

After all, although he had swept through battle after battle and successively defeated Akatsuki's Six Paths of Pain, several hundred ninja from Kusagakure, Kumogakure's A-B Combination, and Orochimaru, his own expenditure had been considerable. Especially when facing the Six Paths of Pain, he had exhausted every means at his disposal to cleanly eliminate the other five paths besides the