The dark Root facility was now awash with blood, and decapitated heads lay scattered across the floor.
"Smack!"
Footsteps splashed through the blood. The squad assigned to guard the area had already been slaughtered.
Uzumaki Sora sheathed his sword and continued farther inside.
"Boom..."
At the sudden sound, Sora looked over. A door had appeared in the stone wall, and three people in white medical uniforms stepped out.
The one in front looked at Sora and asked, "How did someone dare to break in here? Has the intruder been dealt with?"
Sora slightly raised his face beneath his cloak. "The intruder you're talking about... is that me?"
"Swish!"
As soon as the words left his mouth, the three men's throats were cut, and blood sprayed into the air.
Ignoring the three fallen men, Sora entered the laboratory hidden inside the stone wall.
But the sight that met his eyes made him furrow his brow. The hand gripping his long sword tightened, the veins standing out.
"Uchiha... Kohaku..."
When he was young, he had just moved with his mother to the Uchiha Compound. For certain reasons, the Uchiha hadn't rejected his family, but they hadn't welcomed them, either.
But that feeling of being dependent on others didn't last long. The owners of the Pancake Shop, both husband and wife, had treated Izumi and him very well.
And the reason for that was Uchiha Kohaku.
The shopkeeper and his wife had no talent for being ninja, but they had named their son after an ancestor, hoping he would grow up to become a powerful ninja.
Uchiha Kohaku hadn't disappointed them. He graduated early during the war, and had awakened the Two-Tomoe Sharingan by the age of eleven.
But...
Uncle Teshio had once told him that his son had died on the battlefield, and that they hadn't even brought his body back.
The boy in the photograph looked somewhat like the grown-up Yun, the main body standing here now.
Was it for the Sharingan?
Sora looked at the monster in the container before him. Huge tumors covered its body, and only its face remained recognizable... It was the same boy who had smiled brightly in the photograph with his parents.
"Tap, tap..."
The sound of a cane striking the floor rang out, but Sora didn't turn around.
"Swish, swish, swish!"
Shadows shifted around them, and Root ninja once again surrounded Sora.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
Without waiting for Sora to answer, Danzo continued, "The Three Tomoe aren't the Sharingan's limit. Madara Uchiha's eyes were different from an ordinary Sharingan."
"The power of the Mangekyō—the giant formed when chakra takes shape. Susanoo. Konoha needs the power of the Senju's Wood Release, and it needs the power of the Uchiha's Sharingan just as much."
Danzo slightly raised his head and glanced at the monster in the container. He sighed in disappointment. "At first, under my arrangements, this Uchiha genius's Sharingan really did evolve. But it stopped at the Three Tomoe."
"The bonds he'd cultivated for over a year died, and this Uchiha Kohaku had been a genius among the Uchiha. Yet it seemed that the Three Tomoe were already his limit."
Danzo glanced at his bandage-wrapped right arm. "For certain reasons, I later thought Hashirama Cells might bring about this power. But..."
His words trailed off, and silence lingered.
Uzumaki Sora knew what Danzo had left unsaid. Hashirama Cells and the Uchiha's Sharingan really did complement each other. But Kohaku couldn't withstand the cells, and his Sharingan had only reached the Three Tomoe—not the Mangekyō, let alone the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan with Indra Chakra.
"Danzo... You should know why I'm here, right?"
Danzo narrowed his eyes slightly. "For the Uzumaki Clan, killing me won't change anything."
"The Uzumaki Clan has always intermarried with the Senju. Uzumaki Sora... You already possess the power of Wood Release. If you can also obtain the power of the Mangekyō Sharingan, then, with my help, restoring the Uzumaki Clan isn't impossible."
"Once I become Hokage, the Uzumaki Clan will once again become a great clan in the Shinobi World. You can even become the new Daimyo of the Land of Whirlpools."
The new Daimyo?
Looking at Kohaku, so horribly disfigured, tumors covering his body as he lay on the verge of death, Sora slowly closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, the Mangekyō spun rapidly in his eye sockets.
"You mean... this power?!"
As the words left his mouth, Uzumaki Sora vanished with the Body Flicker Technique.
Danzo retreated at full speed, but it was as if he'd thrown himself onto the blade. The sword behind him pierced through his chest.
Danzo struggled to turn his head and look at Sora's eyes beneath the cloak. "Man...ge...kyō?!"
Uzumaki Sora didn't respond. His long sword swept sideways, cutting Danzo in half through the heart.
But in the next instant, Danzo's corpse disappeared.
Danzo reappeared some distance away and looked at Sora. "So my guess was right. Your body can accommodate the power of both the Senju and the Uchiha. I'll be taking that perfect body."
"Bang!"
As Danzo's cane struck the ground with a heavy thud, the Root ninja, who had been completely silent, sprang into action.
"Four Violet Flames Formation!"
In an instant, purple flames surged up around them, forming a square and enclosing everyone inside.
"Bang!"
Sora casually parried a Root ninja charging in for close combat. With a Body Flicker, he drove his sword through the man's chest.
Uzumaki Sora glanced around. The Four Violet Flames Formation? What use was it if it couldn't block the Flying Thunder God?
He threw out six Flying Thunder God Kunai twice, but before they could change course, Root ninja who'd been waiting for them knocked them away.
The kunai fell precisely inside the flames of the Four Violet Flames Formation.
So they'd planned for this...
In the distance, Danzo slowly unwound the bandages around his arm. His long-hidden right eye was already open.
He'd used Izanagi once. Were there three uses left? Compared to what he remembered, without the Night of the Uchiha Massacre, had Danzo obtained these during the war?
Kohaku's eyes, plus other Uchiha?
"Uzumaki Sora..."
Danzo's voice rang out. "With the Flying Thunder God countered and your Wood Release still unrefined, you can't kill me. And I'm the only one who can help the Uzumaki Clan!"
Sora used the Body Flicker Technique to dodge a Wind Blade. The Mangekyō in his eyes turned slightly.
Unrefined?
More than a year had passed. Did Danzo still think his Wood Release could only kill a few little bugs?
"Smack!"
Sora clapped his hands together, forming the Snake Seal.
Wood Release: Deep Forest Emergence!
In an instant, trees surged forth like countless giant serpents, spreading across the entire space.
"Pfft, pfft, pfft..."
The massive branches worked in tandem with Word God's prophecy. In the blink of an eye, corpses hung from the countless trees that had shot up!
"Argh..."
Screams rang out without pause. With that single strike, nine out of ten fodder ninja had been eliminated.
But even so, Danzo in the distance wasn't afraid of this power. His eyes were filled with longing instead.
"So this is the power of Wood Release! Combined with the Mangekyō Sharingan, this power is enough to unify the entire Shinobi World!"
Uchiha Kohaku, an Uchiha from the Warring States period in the original story, and an ancestor of the Hawk Faction.
I changed the end of Chapter 47. Yun's reaction didn't make sense, so I revised it.
Before you continue