Asuma: Danzo, stay out of our family's business!

"Danzo, what do you think you are doing?"

At the corner of the street outside the courtyard, Hiruzen Sarutobi lowered his voice, questioning Danzo.

Danzo did not speak; instead, he cautiously scanned the surroundings before slowly saying, "Danzo, have you lost your mind from anger?"

As soon as these words left his lips, the look in Hiruzen Sarutobi's eyes toward Danzo grew even more malicious.

Seeing this, Danzo, not wanting to completely tear off the mask, could only explain, "You know Asuma's personality very well. Even if I didn't approve his application, he would likely leave Konoha for the front lines anyway. By then, his safety would be even less guaranteed."

Hiruzen Sarutobi knew his youngest son's rebellious nature all too well, and he knew there was some truth to Danzo's arrangement.

But now, standing in his own home, seeing Danzo wearing his own face and acting as a family man with his wife and son, the string of reason in Hiruzen Sarutobi's mind was being constantly battered by rage.

"You violated our agreement," Hiruzen Sarutobi said in a low, furious tone.

"Rest assured, I have already arranged for Minato Namikaze to be Asuma's squad leader. You know Minato's strength well; he can guarantee Asuma's safety," Danzo continued to explain, trying to soothe his old friend's anger.

"Rest assured? How can you expect me to rest assured?" Hearing Minato's name, Hiruzen Sarutobi felt inexplicably even more uneasy.

"I said, Asuma is not allowed to go to the front lines!"

The final sentence was almost half-shouted by Hiruzen Sarutobi.

Facing his old friend's loss of composure and dissatisfaction, Danzo did not speak, but instead frowned and looked behind him.

"Asuma, who told you to come out?"

At the front of the street, Asuma had pushed open the courtyard gate and poked half his body out, just in time to hear Hiruzen Sarutobi's final roar.

Asuma, currently in the throes of adolescence, was furious that the opportunity he had finally obtained from his "old man" to go to the front lines was being blocked by that bastard "Danzo."

He was absolutely livid!

Ignoring his "father's" question, Asuma rushed out from the house and charged in front of Danzo and Hiruzen Sarutobi.

"Danzo, what does it have to do with you whether I go to the front lines or not? This is our family's business, a matter between my father and me—it has nothing to do with you!" Asuma roared at Hiruzen Sarutobi with dissatisfaction.

The moment Asuma's words were out, Danzo knew things were going south. He looked at Hiruzen Sarutobi and found that his old friend's face had turned beet red from the rush of blood; he was breathing heavily, and his eyes were bloodshot.

"Asuma, get back home right now." Danzo walked quickly to stand in front of Asuma, his face turning grim. Years of combat and the aura of someone in a high position forced Asuma to take a fearful step back.

"Go back!" Danzo warned him for the last time.

Asuma glared discontentedly at the red-faced Hiruzen Sarutobi standing behind Danzo, but ultimately chose to turn and leave, yielding to the pressure.

Seeing Asuma return to the courtyard, Danzo breathed a sigh of relief in his heart and looked back at Hiruzen Sarutobi.

Danzo stepped forward, standing before Hiruzen Sarutobi, and said to his old friend with a look of sincerity, "Hiruzen, you know that I have no family, no descendants. In my eyes, Asuma is just like my own child."

"I promise you, Asuma will absolutely not suffer any harm on the front lines."

Hiruzen Sarutobi stared straight at Danzo. Having nearly been pushed to his breaking point by Asuma's words, he now managed to recover a shred of his reason.

"Danzo, this is the last time. For the sake of the village, I can choose to step back, but my family is my bottom line," Hiruzen Sarutobi warned, his voice raspy.

"I promise you, Hiruzen. Before I die, your family will never come to harm." Danzo's gaze was sincere, his tone filled with deep confidence.

The source of this confidence was nothing else but Shiraishi's Reincarnation Technique.

As long as Shiraishi was still around, even if Asuma sacrificed himself on the battlefield, Danzo could use their transaction to bring Asuma back to life.

"You had better be able to do it."

Leaving those final words behind, Hiruzen Sarutobi walked past Danzo and headed forward.

Danzo stood in place, watching his old friend's shadow stretch longer under the lamplight, and finally said, "Believe it or not, everything I have done is for Konoha."

Hiruzen Sarutobi's footsteps faltered. He paused for a few seconds, but without looking back or speaking, he continued to walk forward in silence.

In the living room of Shiraishi's home, having finished watching this good show, he withdrew his spiritual sense and focused his attention on the letter paper on the table before him.

Picking up the tea at his side and taking a light sip, Shiraishi conceived his thoughts for a moment before picking up the pen beside the letter.

"Minato, when you see this letter, it will mean that I am already gone..."

That's right, the letter Shiraishi was writing was his own suicide note.

The body Shiraishi currently inhabited would be completely broken within three years under the strain of his constant, overdrawn cultivation.

In other words, no matter what, Shiraishi would have to change bodies within three years, and the identity of this current body would die along with it.

Since he was destined to die, Shiraishi naturally wanted to maximize the utility of his death.

Shiraishi knew very well that to completely change a person, preaching alone was useless; the power of words was sometimes very weak.

Cruel reality, the death of loved ones and close friends—this kind of tangible pain was the easiest way to change someone.

Shiraishi's earlier preaching was all meant to guide Minato's change, serving as the groundwork.

And his death would completely detonate all the preceding groundwork, pushing Minato onto the path Shiraishi wanted to see.

Time passed minute by minute, and soon Shiraishi had filled three sheets of letter paper.

At the end of the letter, Shiraishi left no sentimental words, only a simple, solitary sentence.

"The sin is in the present, but the merit will last for generations."

Finishing his writing, Shiraishi folded the three sheets of letter paper, tucked them into an envelope, and temporarily stored them inside the Ten Thousand Soul Banner.

The morning after next, after handing over the five newly refined Soul Banners to Danzo, Shiraishi walked out of the Hokage Building feeling completely unburdened.

The war between Konoha and Hidden Cloud had already broken out, and everything regarding the cultivation on Orochimaru's side was proceeding normally; in the days to come, Shiraishi would be reaping the fruits of his labor one after another.

Crossing the open space in front of the Hokage Building, just as Shiraishi was preparing to stroll through Konoha's bustling commercial district, his path was blocked by a young man with spiky white hair.

Only fourteen years old this year, Kakashi lacked any of the youthful vigor typical of his age; the successive deaths of his family and close friends had left him looking lifeless, especially the one eye he kept exposed, which resembled a dead fish's eye, devoid of any spirit.

Wearing a black mask, Kakashi looked at Shiraishi before him and raised his right hand, which held a wooden box, extending it forward.

"Minato-sensei told me to give this to you; it's a gift from him," Kakashi said in a listless, indifferent voice.

Unlike Kakashi's despondent air, Shiraishi felt the corners of his mouth curling upward as he looked at the boy, and he reached out to take the wooden box.

"You must be Minato's student, the genius ninja of Konoha, Kakashi Hatake?" Shiraishi asked with a smile.

Kakashi did not speak, merely watching Shiraishi with his single, exposed, dead-fish eye.