Harboring Hidden Schemes

Yuuhi Kurenai tried to reach out and tear away the seal imprisoning the Nine-Tails, but she could not budge it at all. The Nine-Tails scratched at its head and shouted, "Your Sharingan! Use your Sharingan!"

To free itself from being bound inside this child, it reminded Yuuhi Kurenai that it had been properly sealed, not simply locked inside a cage.

Yuuhi Kurenai nodded, gathered the evil power within her Sharingan, and tore open the Nine-Tails' seal, causing all of Konoha to fall beneath an evil shroud.

"Hiruzen!" Danzo reacted quickly. He immediately sensed that something bad had happened in the village, rushed to Sasuke's balcony, and gazed toward the village center.

In his field of vision, red, evil chakra began to spread in all directions. The sensation was quite familiar to him; several years ago, the village had suffered through something like this.

It was chakra from the Nine-Tails. Though it had not been fully released, it still carried tremendous pressure.

Thinking of the destruction the Nine-Tails had once wrought in the village, and of the power it possessed, Shimura Danzō could no longer resist the urge to leap from the balcony.

Yet in the next moment, he recalled what had happened the last time the Nine-Tails appeared in the village. Back then, the young Fourth Hokage had paid with his life to seal the Nine-Tails away once more.

Danzo questioned himself. He was confident enough to beat his chest and claim that he was formidable, but compared to the Nine-Tails, he had never truly tested their relative strength. He could not know the answer.

Although I now possess a Mangekyō Sharingan, many tomoe Sharingan, and even cells from the First Hokage, still...

The Third Hokage took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. He clenched his hands and