"Forbidden jutsu: Izanagi."
"Danzo! Your worthless life really is like a dung beetle—stinky and tough as hell!"
Natsume glared at Danzo, his eyes burning with fury as he cursed through gritted teeth.
"Cough, cough..."
"Dung beetle? What is that?"
Danzo coughed up blood, then asked with a scowl, confusion written across his face.
He simply couldn't understand.
Natsume had already been completely spent.
How had he recovered so quickly and unleashed such strength?
If he'd known Natsume could still activate Susanoo, he never would have shown himself so recklessly!
Unfortunately, it was too late for regrets.
That crafty brat had indeed gotten the better of him, making him pay the heavy price of both his legs!
Fortunately!
He still had a trump card hidden away.
He'd stolen one of Shisui's Sharingan!
And secretly obtained the forbidden jutsu Izanagi from the Uchiha Clan!
That was how he'd managed to save his own life.
Otherwise, he would have ended up just like the deep ravine beside him.
He would have been chopped into a pile of meat!
How terrifying!
Danzo, lucky to have survived, didn't dare hesitate.
Struggling, he tore open the bandages around his right arm with his teeth.
Beneath them lay an entire right arm transplanted with Wood Release Cells, created by Orochimaru, along with two fresh Sharingan!
Just one look at the living eyeballs embedded in his arm was enough to make them seem horribly twisted and send a shiver down anyone's spine!
How on earth did Danzo manage to sleep at night?
"Sharingan! Wood Release Cells!"
"You monster!"
Natsume deliberately cursed, pretending he knew nothing about it.
Danzo didn't care about Natsume's insults.
Disgusting or evil, what did it matter?
As long as it gave him power.
As long as it made him stronger and helped him claim the Hokage Position with greater distinction, leading Konoha to glory.
What did any of it matter?
Besides, if he hadn't transplanted the Sharingan and learned Izanagi, he might already be dead.
"Kid! You didn't see this coming..."
"Cough, cough—"
"You've lost!"
Danzo let out a strained, mocking laugh and raised his "Sharingan right arm."
He was ready to use Izanagi again at any moment, in case his opponent attacked during the forbidden jutsu's downtime.
Clearly.
As the leader of Root, and with the brutal Third Shinobi World War and its high casualty rate on dangerous missions behind him,
It wouldn't have been difficult for him to secretly obtain a few Uchiha corpses and take their Sharingan.
Most likely, it was because he'd gotten a taste of the power and wonder of this Kekkei Genkai after his initial transplants
That he'd eventually attacked Shisui without hesitation!
And that he'd secretly pushed the Uchiha Clan's destruction plan forward with such determination!
Including Shisui's right eye, Danzo now had three Sharingan.
That meant he could use Izanagi at least three times, staying "invincible" for three minutes!
Could Natsume last three minutes?
Of course he could!
Without Izanagi,
It wouldn't even take three seconds for him to kill Danzo again!
But those three minutes of "invincibility" with Izanagi active would be a problem.
After all, forget three minutes.
If he delayed even one more minute, countless Konoha Ninja would arrive.
Then he'd be trapped like a turtle in a jar.
Of course, the ambush hadn't been pointless.
At the very least, he'd gravely wounded Danzo, crippled his legs, and forced him to activate Izanagi, wasting Shisui's precious Mangekyō Sharingan.
That was still one major threat eliminated!
After all, Shisui's Mangekyō Sharingan ability, Kotoamatsukami, was terrifying!
If Natsume wasn't careful, he could be controlled by it too!
Then it would all be over.
All things considered, it wasn't a loss.
What's more, a living Danzo could do more to harm Konoha and weaken it than a dead one...
"Lost? You're a failure yourself, and you think you can judge anyone else?"
"You just want to become Hokage, don't you?"
"You were already crippled, and now your legs are useless too. What are you going to use to become Hokage?"
"If you're so afraid of dying, why even compete for the Hokage Position?"
Natsume's taunts instantly sent Danzo into a fit of rage.
More than twenty years ago, one moment of hesitation had cost him the Hokage Position. That regret was already the most painful knot in his heart!
And now a little Uchiha brat barely ten years old was mocking his lifelong ambition and pursuit!
It enraged and humiliated him, and he couldn't accept it.
"You!"
"Go ahead and keep acting tough, brat."
"Soon, I'll rip you limb from limb and make you wish you were dead!"
Danzo cursed him with a sullen expression, his resentment palpable.
After spending so many years in a position of power, hidden behind the scenes, he had developed considerable self-control.
Even though rage was surging through him,
He still kept his wits and maintained the forbidden jutsu Izanagi, ensuring that he couldn't die!
Anyway, he only had to wait a little longer.
Plenty of Konoha Ninja would soon gather and surround the brat.
In the end, he would still be the one who won!
Swish, swish—
Before long, Anbu Ninja began arriving one after another.
They quickly protected Danzo and surrounded Natsume.
But with the enormous Susanoo Demon God looming over them, not one dared to charge.
Meanwhile,
Not far away, the Third, Sarutobi, hurried over with the leaders of several major clans.
"Danzo!"
"Lord Danzo!"
"How could this happen?!"
The people who arrived were all horrified by the devastation and the critically wounded Danzo.
None of them could believe that Danzo, that old schemer, had lost to a ten-year-old boy who should have been completely spent.
And he'd lost so badly!
At the same time, seeing Konoha's reinforcements arrive,
Natsume knew for certain that he could no longer kill Danzo.
He had no choice but to dismiss Susanoo and prepare to leave.
After all, he was strong.
But for now, he wasn't strong enough to fight all of Konoha.
And then there was that old geezer Sarutobi.
The reason he hadn't chosen to fight Konoha head-on was that Sarutobi was there!
Even though the other man was old and frail, far weaker than he'd been in his prime,
The title "Professor of Ninjutsu" wasn't for nothing. His overall strength was at least in the upper-middle range of Kage Level.
Most importantly, he also knew Dead Demon Consuming Seal, that broken sealing jutsu.
It was practically a "one-for-one" move.
Hadn't even that eerie Snake Auntie fallen to it?
Natsume didn't want to be fighting one moment, then get grabbed by the Grim Reaper summoned by that old geezer Sarutobi, and die without knowing what happened.
That was the fundamental reason Natsume had chosen to lead his clan in defecting from Konoha.
Otherwise, just he and Fugaku,
With two Susanoo Gundams, they could have slaughtered their way through Konoha seven times over.
Sarutobi looked at the miserable state Danzo was in, and a trace of pity and anger rose in his heart.
Danzo had plenty of flaws and was wildly ambitious.
But he was still an old comrade-in-arms, an old friend.
And over the years, he'd made plenty of contributions to Konoha's development and shouldered plenty of its sins.
That was why Sarutobi had indulged him again and again.
And covered for him...
"Get the Medical Corps here! Treat him immediately!"
Danzo quickly gave the order.
Several ninja hurriedly carried him away.
Only then did Sarutobi turn his gaze toward Natsume in the distance, his eyes tinged with anger.
"Uchiha... Natsume... right? What exactly are you trying to do?"
"Leave Konoha! Though I suppose you'd call it defection..." Natsume readily admitted.
"Why?"
"Third, you really have the nerve to ask why? You approved the decision to wipe out the Uchiha Clan too, didn't you? Did you expect me to stay in the village and wait to die?"
Natsume challenged him scornfully, his words sharp.
"You!"
Sarutobi shouted angrily, but had no idea how to argue back.
After all, as Hokage, he'd known at least vaguely about the threat Danzo had made to Itachi over the Uchiha Clan's extermination...
And Itachi and Obito alone would have struggled to slaughter the hundreds of people in the entire Uchiha Clan in such a short time.
The Anbu and Root ninja who had been hiding in wait, ready to strike, were the real force behind it!
Itachi was just a convenient scapegoat.
"Alas... Natsume, surrender."
"If you're willing to give yourself up, the village will consider showing you mercy..."
After a moment's thought, Sarutobi could only try to persuade him to surrender.
Unlike Danzo, he understood very clearly.
If this prodigious Uchiha boy fought to the death, he would inflict enormous casualties on Konoha!
They could even lose dozens more precious Anbu Ninja...
"The village will consider showing me mercy? How laughable!"
"Third, what exactly is the village? Is the village wherever the Hokage is?"
Sarutobi hurriedly denied it. "Of course not! The village is made up of its people. The villagers who carry on the Will of Fire are the true Hidden Leaf Village!"
"Then doesn't the Uchiha Clan count as part of the village?"
"Of course it does, but..."
Sarutobi was at a loss for words again.
The point remained the same: the Konoha High Command's decision to carry out the 'Uchiha Clan Massacre' was undeniably shameful.
"In the name of the greater good, you take other people's lives!"
"Is that the Will of Fire you speak of? Is that the legacy you inherited from the First Hokage and the Second?"
"Today's Konoha is rotten to the core..."
Natsume denounced them furiously.
Only then did he let out a quiet sigh.
"Enough. No more pointless talk."
"Starting today, I, Uchiha Natsume, am leading half the Uchiha Clan in formally defecting from Konoha!"
"If you have what it takes, come kill me!"
"I'll be waiting!"
Natsume let out a long howl, his piercing gaze sweeping over all the Konoha Ninja around him.
The Anbu Ninja were so shaken that their scalps tingled, and they all took half a step back.
Then—
[Reverse Summoning Technique]—Activate!
"Bang—!"
In an instant, a cloud of white smoke burst open.
Natsume vanished from where he stood.
And appeared in an instant at the designated meeting point a hundred li away...
Before you continue