Danzo's Turn

### A breeze swept through, dreamlike and almost unreal.

Danzo lowered his voice until the words seemed liable to be carried away by the wind and vanish without a trace.

The smug look on Kei's face vanished in an instant. He stared at Danzo, dumbfounded.

"The Hokage's guards abandoned him, causing the Second Hokage's death!"

What the hell?

Those words almost drove Kei mad.

No, it wasn't Uchiha Kei who'd gone crazy. It was Danzo.

So much for picking on an honest man. He shouldn't have gone after Danzo so relentlessly just because he'd seemed easy to bully.

Now it had come back to bite him.

Damn it, was this really something you said in front of everyone?

Kei almost gave the order to kill Danzo and silence him, but managed to hold back.

He'd underestimated Danzo.

People didn't rise to the top without having something up their sleeves. Danzo had thoroughly outplayed him.

This was obviously Danzo's trap!

First, he'd used a meek tone to make Kei underestimate him. Then he'd dangled everything he had to make Kei greedy. Finally, he'd revealed a world-shaking secret and dragged Kei into it for good.

And in the space of those three sentences, he'd slaughtered Kei's subordinates to warn him that in the Shinobi World, the dead couldn't keep secrets either. Kei shouldn't think he could cover everything up by killing Danzo.

Because even if Kei killed Danzo now, unless he disposed of the body, the Hokage would examine it. Then he'd learn from Danzo's corpse exactly what secret Uchiha Kei had heard. The Yamanaka Clan's secret techniques were made for just that, and they were Sarutobi's loyalists.

But what good would disposing of the body do? Danzo had died carrying such a secret, and then someone had gone to the trouble of making his corpse disappear. It would look far too deliberate. Anyone would grow suspicious.

The Third wouldn't let anything happen that might expose the truth.

Even the slightest chance that the Uchiha had learned this secret would force even the seemingly gentle Sarutobi into a fight to the death with Kei.

When something threatened the legitimacy of his rule over Konoha, there could be no compromise. It could only end with one side branded as heretics and destroyed.

And a mad Hokage—one who'd ruled Konoha for so many years—could bring forces to bear that Kei couldn't possibly stand against.

Kei could act so high and mighty now, not because he could beat Sarutobi, but because Sarutobi thought the cost of eliminating him was too high compared with the trouble he caused.

That was why Kei could get away with acting so arrogantly.

But now that Kei knew this secret, he figured Sarutobi would pay any price to eliminate him.

Danzo had really done a number on him this time!

With this secret in hand, Danzo wouldn't just stay alive. Kei wouldn't even dare push him too hard.

Danzo had made Kei understand what it meant to back a dog into a corner.

Once you realized that the other person was just like you—someone willing to do anything to stay alive—you knew better than to mess with a shameless bastard like that. Just like a toad, he was best avoided from a distance.

And it wasn't as if Kei was thrilled to have uncovered this secret and gained a powerful weapon against the Hokage.

Even before Danzo said anything, Kei had suspected something was wrong.

The whole affair was strange from every angle.

As the leader of a village's shinobi, the Second Hokage's visit to another hidden village had been a matter of diplomacy. It made sense for Sarutobi and the others to accompany him as his guards.

But a friendly diplomatic visit had suddenly turned into a coup. The Hokage had died, while his guards had come away without a scratch—and returned to the village to make one of their own the next Hokage.

No matter where you told that story, there were too many oddities in how everyone had reacted and handled things.

Kei just didn't have solid information about what lay at the heart of it, or why it had happened.

So the secret Danzo had revealed wasn't important to Kei.

What mattered was that Kei knew he couldn't be the only clever person in the world. He refused to believe nobody else had noticed anything amiss.

After all, a guard's duty was to protect the person under his charge. Failing to do so meant dereliction of duty. Yet a group of guards who'd failed in their duty had returned without punishment—and been promoted.

It was absurd.

And yet it had happened. The key was figuring out what had convinced everyone to accept it.

Until he knew that, Kei had no intention of using the matter against anyone.

But he hadn't expected one of the people involved to bring it up in public today. To stay alive and keep himself from being controlled in the future, Danzo had decided to use the secret against others.

Kei couldn't pretend he didn't know anymore.

No, he couldn't pretend he did know.

Even if he had serious doubts about what happened, Uchiha Kei had to act shocked.

I don't know anything. That bombshell is terrifying. I need a moment to process it.

"Lord Danzo, do you even know what you're saying?"

Seeing Kei finally lose his composure after being in control all this time, Danzo was satisfied.

"I think I've said enough."

The composure that had left Kei now settled over the battered Danzo.

Perhaps he was venting all the pain Kei had inflicted on him. Danzo's voice turned almost hysterical.

"Kei, now that you know this secret, you can't stand aside anymore. You don't have time to arrange my death now. Go prepare! Go struggle! Decide whether to kill everyone and join us in our crimes, or choose all-out war!"

Danzo was so distraught that he seemed to lash out wildly.

"Kei, understand this: you have no choice but to work with me. I'm the only one who can buy you time, and right now, time is what you need most. You'll even need my Sealing Jutsu to make sure your subordinates can't let this secret slip for the time being. You need to understand what you'll face if it gets out."

Looking at Danzo acting so wildly, Kei thought, This guy's had a rough time. That secret must have driven him half-mad all these years.

No wonder the Third was so determined to become the strongest Hokage, and no wonder Danzo was so determined to become the Darkness of Konoha. Maybe they needed to push Konoha's glory to its peak to soothe the twisted belief that they'd taken power illegitimately.

No wonder the Third was always preaching the Will of Fire, saying that wherever the leaves danced, the fire would never die. The firelight would keep shining on the village and help new leaves sprout. It looked like he was lecturing everyone else, but really, he was reassuring himself.

Only if everyone accepted that the Second Hokage had died so the Third could flourish could Sarutobi's misconduct be erased. I wonder if the Third has repeated it so often that he's even fooled himself. Does he believe it?

And the future Konoha Crush Plan orchestrated by Orochimaru—it all looks like a performance. Before the fighting even started, he killed an ally, and the Land of Wind ended up taking all the damage. Sarutobi sacrificed himself to unite Konoha. Orochimaru even grew into someone who resembled the future Darkness of Konoha. It was all just too fake.

Looks like killing one's master is tradition in the Hokage line. The Third caused the Second's death, Orochimaru killed the Third, Sasuke took down Orochimaru, and Pain killed Jiraiya. That's the way it's always been in the Hokage line.

But what could he do? Even though he'd seen through everything, Kei could only play along with this repressed lunatic.

He watched Danzo gloat to his heart's content right in front of him.

"Uchiha Kei, feel my pain!"

Inside the woods, Danzo's reckless behavior had sent the atmosphere soaring to a fever pitch.

Outside, the endless dodging and reviving continued, and everyone was having a grand time.