It's Danzo's turn

A breeze blew past, dreamlike and ethereal.

Danzo lowered his voice, so low that his words seemed to be snatched away by the wind, vanishing without a trace.

Uchiha Kei, who had been smug just a second ago, was stunned into speechlessness by Danzo the next.

"The Hokage's guards abandoned the Hokage, leading to the death of the Second Hokage!"

What the hell was this?

This single sentence nearly drove Kei insane.

No, it wasn't Uchiha Kei who had gone mad; it was Danzo.

Sure enough, there is no good end to bullying an honest man. He shouldn't have pushed Danzo to the brink just because he looked like an easy target.

Now, retribution had arrived.

Damn it, was this the kind of thing one should say in public?

Kei almost issued an order to silence him, but he ultimately held back.

Sigh, I underestimated Danzo.

Indeed, anyone who manages to climb to the top must have something up their sleeve. He had fallen right into Danzo's trap.

This was clearly a setup orchestrated by Danzo.

This Danzo had first used a weak tone to make Kei underestimate him, then dangled his entire net worth to incite greed, and finally unveiled a world-shattering secret to drag Kei down with him.

At the same time, through the slaughter of his own subordinates, he had warned Kei that in the ninja world, dead men are not the only way to keep secrets. Kei should not harbor any delusions of using murder to cover everything up.

Because even if Kei killed Danzo right now, if he didn't dispose of the body, the Hokage would certainly handle the remains. At that point, the Hokage would immediately learn from Danzo's corpse exactly what secret Uchiha Kei had heard from him.

The Yamanaka Clan's secret techniques were designed for exactly this; they were loyalists to Sarutobi.

But even if he did dispose of the body, what then? For Danzo, who held such a secret, to have his body destroyed after death would look far too deliberate. No matter who it was, they would be suspicious.

The Third Hokage would never allow any situation that could expose this matter to occur.

Even if there were only a one-in-ten-thousand chance that the Uchiha knew this secret, then even the seemingly gentle Sarutobi would have to fight Kei to the death.

Faced with something that could challenge the legitimacy of his rule over Konoha, the matter had to end with one side being branded a heretic and falling.

There was no room for compromise here.

And a crazed Hokage—a Hokage who had ruled Konoha for so many years—possessed power that Kei could not currently contend with.

The only reason Kei could act so arrogantly now was not because he could defeat Sarutobi, but because Sarutobi felt that the impact of Kei's actions was not yet worth the cost of eliminating him.

That was why Kei could be so brazen.

But once this secret was known to Kei, he believed Sarutobi would be willing to pay any price to have him humanely destroyed.

He had truly been played by Danzo this time!

With this secret in hand, not only would Danzo not die, but Kei wouldn't even dare to coerce him too much.

Danzo had made Kei understand what it meant for a cornered dog to jump over a wall.

Once you discover that the other party is just like you—someone willing to pay any price for their own survival—then, based on his own self-awareness, this kind of scoundrel is like a toad; staying as far away from him as possible is the only right path.

In fact, Kei didn't feel happy about obtaining this secret, nor did he feel he had gained a powerful weapon to use against the Hokage.

Because, truth be told, Kei had harbored suspicions even before Danzo spoke.

The whole affair was riddled with oddities from start to finish.

As the leader of a village of ninjas, the Second Hokage's visit to other villages was a matter of diplomacy; it was normal for Sarutobi and the others to accompany him as guards.

But a friendly diplomatic visit suddenly turned into a coup, the Hokage died, the guards were completely unscathed, and one of them even became the next Hokage upon returning to the village.

No matter where you looked at it, the reactions and handling of the situation by all parties were suspicious.

It was just that Kei lacked concrete intelligence on the key details and didn't understand the underlying reasons.

Therefore, the secret Danzo revealed wasn't important to Kei.

What was important was that Kei understood there couldn't possibly be only one smart person in the world; he didn't believe no one else had noticed the impropriety.

After all, no matter how you put it, the guards' duty was to protect their charge. Failing to do so was dereliction of duty. A group of people who failed their duty not only returned without punishment but were promoted and advanced.

It was simply too absurd.

Yet, even so, such a thing had happened. The key lay in what they had all agreed upon to make it so.

So, without knowing the crux of the matter, Kei wasn't prepared to make an issue of it.

But he hadn't expected that one of the original participants would actually bring it up in public today. To survive and avoid being controlled in the future, Danzo had taken the initiative to make an issue of it.

That meant Kei could no longer pretend he didn't know.

No, that meant Kei could no longer pretend he did know.

Even if he was deeply suspicious of the matter, Uchiha Kei had to feign shock right now.

I know nothing. This piece of gossip is too terrifying; I need a moment to process it.

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

Seeing Kei, who had always been in control, finally lose his composure, Danzo felt satisfied.

"I believe I have said quite enough."

That composure had shifted from Kei to the scarred and battered Danzo.

Perhaps to vent the pain Kei had inflicted upon him, Danzo's tone became somewhat hysterical.

"Kei-kun, now that you know this secret, you can no longer stay out of it. Right now, you don't have the time to arrange my death. Go and prepare! Go and struggle! Go and choose between killing everyone to join us or opting for total war!"

The distraught Danzo gestured wildly.

"Kei, you must understand, right now you can only cooperate with me. Only I can help you buy time, and what you need most right now is time. You even need my sealing jutsu to ensure your subordinates cannot leak this secret for the time being. You must understand what you will face if it gets out."

Watching the erratic Danzo, Kei thought to himself, This guy hasn't had it easy; he's probably been driven half-mad by this secret for all these years.

No wonder the Third Hokage was so obsessed with being the strongest Hokage, and no wonder Danzo was so obsessed with being the Darkness of Konoha. Perhaps only by pushing Konoha's glory to its peak could they use such achievements to soothe their own twisted psyches regarding their illegitimate rise to power.

No wonder the Third Hokage was always preaching the Will of Fire, saying things like 'where the leaves dance, fire shall burn.' The firelight will continue to illuminate the village and allow new leaves to sprout. It looks like he's preaching to others, but in reality, he's just reassuring himself.

Only when the Second Hokage's death being the catalyst for the Third's rise is accepted by everyone can the Third's impropriety be erased. I just wonder, as the Third Hokage keeps saying it over and over, has he even fooled himself? Does he even believe it?

Thinking of Orochimaru's future Konoha Crush Plan, it looks like a play no matter how you slice it. Killing allies before the fight even starts—the Land of Wind takes all the losses. Sarutobi used his own sacrifice to rally Konoha's unity. Orochimaru's future growth into the Darkness of Konoha seems almost too fake.

It seems that for the Hokage lineage, killing one's master is a tradition. The Third killed the Second, Orochimaru killed the Third, Sasuke finished off Orochimaru, and Pain killed Jiraiya. This has been the way of the Hokage lineage since time immemorial.

But what could he do? Even if he saw through everything, Kei could only play along with this repressed madman.

He watched as Danzo flaunted himself to his heart's content before him.

"Uchiha Kei, feel my pain at this very moment."

Inside the forest, because of Danzo's recklessness, the atmosphere reached a peak of madness.

And outside the forest, the infinite dodging and infinite resurrection continued to play on, having the time of their lives.