Hiruzen Sarutobi's Shock

Hiruzen Sarutobi left, but before departing, he did not tell the two advisors that he had transferred his consciousness into Danzo.

It was not that he distrusted them, but he knew that under the current circumstances, speaking out while wearing Danzo's identity would result in no one believing him.

Hiruzen Sarutobi walked out of the hospital, stopped on the open ground at the entrance, looked up at the blinding sunlight in the sky, and after a long silence, finally spoke.

"What is your name?"

Shiraishi, who had been following behind Hiruzen Sarutobi, stepped forward to his side. "This subordinate is named Shiraishi."

"Good. From today on, you are to arrange for Root ninjas to keep watch over the hospital. If there are any developments regarding the Third Hokage, notify me immediately," Hiruzen Sarutobi commanded.

"Yes!" Shiraishi replied with his head bowed.

"Let's go, head back," Hiruzen Sarutobi said finally, and began to walk forward.

Shiraishi remained silent and followed him.

The two returned to the Root base. Hiruzen Sarutobi lacked Danzo's memories and had insufficient knowledge of the base's layout. He had originally intended to find some excuses to wander around the interior to gradually figure out the floor plan.

However, Shiraishi, who was following behind him, took the initiative to lead the way, guiding him to the room where Danzo usually handled affairs.

As one of the most confidential rooms in the Root base, this room was small and sparsely furnished, containing only a wooden desk, a chair, a bookshelf, and nothing else.

On the dark brown wooden desk lay quite a few scrolls, all of which were various intelligence reports submitted by Root. Most of the scrolls were still sealed, with only a few opened and scattered across the tabletop.

Seeing this, Hiruzen Sarutobi's eyes lit up. He was filled with confusion regarding his current predicament, thinking that if this matter truly had anything to do with Danzo, he might find some clues within these scrolls.

Thinking of this, Hiruzen Sarutobi walked behind the desk unhurriedly and sat down slowly. Instead of eagerly checking the scrolls, he looked at Shiraishi, who was standing in front of the desk.

"Shiraishi, my spirit has been somewhat lethargic since my injury, and I cannot recall some things clearly. I am asking you now, and you must answer truthfully." Hiruzen Sarutobi recalled how Danzo usually appeared when meeting with him, narrowed his eyes slightly, and looked at Shiraishi with a calm expression.

"This subordinate will tell you everything he knows," Shiraishi replied.

"What position do you hold in Root?" Hiruzen Sarutobi asked.

"I have gained your trust, and you promoted me to be your personal guard," Shiraishi answered.

Hearing this, Hiruzen Sarutobi nodded slightly, thinking to himself: A personal guard, how excellent! This means this person must be Danzo's confidant; perhaps I can extract many secrets from him.

"How old are you this year?" Hiruzen Sarutobi continued to ask.

"Sixteen." After Shiraishi had taken over the body, he had reviewed the identity documents Danzo had left behind.

Hiruzen Sarutobi felt a slight sense of surprise. To become Danzo's guard at sixteen meant he must be a person of outstanding talent.

"Take off your mask," Hiruzen Sarutobi continued.

Shiraishi cooperated by removing his mask, revealing a somewhat youthful and callow face.

Hiruzen Sarutobi scrutinized Shiraishi carefully, and after a few seconds, spoke again: "What ninjutsu have you mastered?"

"This subordinate is proficient in the Spirit Transformation Technique," Shiraishi said, having prepared for this.

The Spirit Transformation Technique!

Hiruzen Sarutobi's eyes widened sharply, but he quickly realized he had lost his composure and hurriedly reined it in, returning to a state of calm.

The Spirit Transformation Technique was an S-rank ninjutsu with extremely bizarre and comprehensive capabilities; it was no exaggeration to say it could kill without a trace. Since the sacrifice of Dan Kato, no one in the village had mastered it.

Even Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Professor of Ninjutsu, knew very little about this technique.

He truly had not expected that a guy like Danzo would have hidden such a trump card within Root. What a cunning scheme!

Thinking of this, Hiruzen Sarutobi looked at Shiraishi with even more regard, and his attitude became much more cautious.

"After you entered the secret passage last night, did you discover any problems?" Hiruzen Sarutobi watched Shiraishi intently, not letting any subtle changes escape him.

"When I entered the secret passage last night, you, the Third Hokage, and Minato Namikaze were all in a coma. I did not discover anything unusual," Shiraishi replied with a calm demeanor, showing no signs of exposure.

"You didn't see that black mist?" Hiruzen Sarutobi emphasized his tone.

"No!" Shiraishi replied firmly.

Hearing the answer, Hiruzen Sarutobi fell into silence. After staring straight at Shiraishi for several seconds, he sighed softly and continued: "I understand. You may go! Send people to keep a close watch on the Third Hokage."

"Yes!" Shiraishi replied with a bow and turned to leave. When he reached the closed door, he suddenly stopped.

"What? Is there something else?" Seeing Shiraishi stop, Hiruzen Sarutobi asked proactively.

Shiraishi turned back and looked at Hiruzen Sarutobi. "My lord, I wonder if you remember? Before you went to the appointment last night, you went to the forbidden chamber. When you came out, you were holding that banner."

A thunderbolt struck Hiruzen Sarutobi's mind. He stood up abruptly and asked urgently, "Where is that thing?"

Shiraishi deliberately looked at Hiruzen Sarutobi with suspicious eyes. "My lord, have you really forgotten everything? After I entered the secret passage last night, I only found you all in a coma; I did not find that banner."

Hiruzen Sarutobi knew he had lost his composure. He hurriedly suppressed his expression and the excitement in his heart, then asked again, "You really didn't find it?"

"No," Shiraishi replied.

Hiruzen Sarutobi took a deep breath. He had a strong premonition that his current situation was very likely caused by the mysterious banner Shiraishi mentioned.

"Do you know what that banner is?" Hiruzen Sarutobi could not care about anything else at this moment and asked with concern.

"My lord, that item was found by Root a year ago, and you have kept it in your personal custody, storing it in the forbidden chamber. No one else is allowed to enter without your orders. Every ninja who has entered that forbidden chamber, besides you, has never come out alive," Shiraishi replied truthfully.

After speaking, Shiraishi looked at Hiruzen Sarutobi with an increasingly suspicious expression. "Lord Danzo, have you forgotten all of this?"

"After last night, something went wrong with my body, and I cannot recall many things clearly. You go first; I need to think this over carefully." Hiruzen Sarutobi once again pushed all the issues onto the coma from last night.

"Yes," Shiraishi replied, then turned and left the room.

After Shiraishi departed, Hiruzen Sarutobi sat back in his chair, his gaze fixed on the scrolls upon the desk as he reached out to pick up an unsealed one and began to review it.

Time slipped away quickly as Hiruzen Sarutobi pored over the intelligence; before he knew it, several hours had passed, and he had not only finished every scroll on the desk but had even gone through a large number of scrolls from the bookshelf behind him.

Setting down the final scroll in his hand, Hiruzen Sarutobi's expression had shifted from initial shock to a grim look, and finally, to a state of numbness.

The intelligence recorded in these scrolls consisted largely of Danzo's clandestine schemes, most of which Hiruzen Sarutobi, as Hokage, had been completely unaware of.

"Danzo! What exactly are you trying to do?" Hiruzen Sarutobi said, his voice filled with a mix of anger and lamentation.

According to the intelligence in the scrolls, Danzo had not only kept him in the dark but had also secretly trained a large number of off-the-books Root trainees under the guise of training Anbu ninjas.

In the reports Danzo had submitted to Hiruzen Sarutobi, these individuals were all listed as either currently undergoing training or having died accidentally during their training.

In reality, however, these people had not died at all; instead, they had become Danzo's personal death squads.

Based on the records in the scrolls, Hiruzen Sarutobi made a rough estimate in his mind: Danzo had secretly expanded his forces by at least fifty ninjas.

One had to realize that the Anbu under the command of Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Hokage, only had an establishment of seventy members.

Furthermore, the Root that he had authorized Danzo to lead was only meant to have the establishment of a single Anbu squad, which meant that including Danzo himself, there should only have been seventeen people.

Hiruzen Sarutobi knew that Danzo would certainly not be honest enough to recruit and train only sixteen ninjas, but he never imagined that Danzo would be so bold as to have secretly exceeded his quota by a number nearly equal to the entire official Anbu force.

What a Danzo, what a Hokage's assistant indeed!

What is he trying to do?

Rebel?