The next second.
Hyuga Sho did not even glance at the corpse riddled with holes. Instead, he turned his gaze directly toward the "Kano" beside it.
"Will you surrender on your own, or die?"
"..."
Kano said nothing.
"Hm?"
A moment later, Hyuga Sho spoke in confusion.
It was not because Shimura Danzō's corpse, having activated Izanagi, had turned transparent, along with the blood that had splattered out disappearing with it.
Rather...
"This kid...!"
The corner of Hyuga Sho's mouth lifted.
"He has another trick like this."
As he spoke, Hyuga Sho lightly slapped the air toward Kano, and Kano immediately fell to the ground.
And the instant he fell,
the Root shinobi distributed throughout the underground passageways and even around the room
all suddenly lunged forward and collapsed.
The fallen figures rapidly transformed, but did not disappear.
Instead, they became wooden figures resembling Kano in build.
"Wood Release... Wood Clones..."
Hyuga Sho murmured.
Shimura Danzō's original body had escaped long ago, taking his large group of subordinates and withdrawing from beneath Konoha.
Previously, whether it was Hyuga Oto or those Hyuga Sho had observed, they had all been disguises created by Kano's "Wood Release."
And the strength of Wood Release lay in the fact that... even the Byakugan could be deceived.
In other words,
Shimura Danzō had expended one Sharingan to activate Izanagi.
In the end, it had only been to spout a bunch of nonsense.
Moreover...
To deceive him,
he had treated Kano as a discarded pawn.
He had made Kano create a huge number of Wood Clones to replace the others.
And to maintain this enormous number of Wood Clones, Kano had already exhausted all his strength. Forget moving—even speaking was beyond him.
"It's actually Wood Release!"
Yakushi Kabuto's eyes lit up.
Though he was only eight