The Land of Fire, Konoha.
The Hokage's office was so thick with smoke, it was like a pot of miso soup that had been simmering for three hours. The heavy smell of tobacco had seeped into every corner of the room.
Sarutobi Hiruzen, still in the prime of his life, sat behind his desk with a pipe between his lips. The ember glowed and dimmed, while seven or eight piles of ash had already accumulated in the ashtray.
Spread out before Hiruzen was a battle report Namikaze Minato had rushed back with Flying Thunder God. It was written in charcoal, the handwriting somewhat rough, clearly scribbled down in a very short time.
But its contents had deepened the wrinkles on the forehead of the Third, a man who had lived through two Shinobi World Wars.
[The Daimyo Palace was attacked. Nine of the Twelve Guardian Ninja were killed on the spot; three survived. The intruder impersonated Shimura Danzō and used Wind Release Ninjutsu alongside a certain resurrection-capable forbidden technique and the Reverse Four Symbols Sealing Technique, causing extensive damage within the Daimyo Palace. The Daimyo himself is unharmed, but the palace treasury was looted. Initial estimates put the losses at over ten billion ryō.]
Hiruzen stared at those few lines in silence for a long time.
Then he picked up his pipe and took another puff.
"Minato."
"Yes?"
Namikaze Minato stood before the desk. His blond hair still shone beneath the light, but his eyes carried a trace of exhaustion.
He had just returned to Konoha from the Daimyo Palace and hadn't even had time to change. The smell of smoke and dust still clung to him.
"Tell me again—how did that 'Danzō' fight?"
Minato was silent for a few seconds, as if organizing his thoughts, then spoke with an unusually bewildered note in his voice. "...He was insane."
"Insane?"
"Yes. Insane."
Minato recalled what he had seen in their battle. "His fighting style had none of the discipline you'd expect from a ninja. No testing the waters, no defense, no evasive maneuvers. From the very first second of the fight, he was in a 'trading his life for yours' state."
"He didn't even make a point of conserving chakra to evade my Flying Thunder God. Every ten-odd seconds, or whenever his injuries became too severe, he'd use a mutual-destruction sealing technique right where he stood—the Reverse Four Symbols Sealing Technique—swallowing everything nearby into darkness."
"The problem was, after blowing himself up, he could revive again very quickly. He was completely unharmed, and his chakra fluctuations were extremely strange. I could sense that using the Reverse Four Symbols Sealing Technique consumed a great deal of chakra, and his fluctuations confirmed it."
"But even when his chakra was nearly depleted, he could recover at least half of it in an instant!"
Minato paused, his brows drawing together slightly as he tried to find the right words for the bizarre feeling.
"All his actions were like—his eyes were directly connected to his body, and his brain wasn't involved at all. As his opponent, I could never guess what he'd do next."
"No pattern?"
Minato shook his head. "It was more like the opposite of a pattern. A normal ninja predicts their opponent's next move, sets up defenses, tests them, and calculates how much chakra they're using. But he didn't. When he fought, it was like—"
"Like a mad dog charging around and crashing into everything?!"
Hiruzen finished for him, then reconsidered his wording. "Like a crazed beast, rampaging everywhere and biting whoever it came across?"
"Yes."
Minato nodded.
He had never been good at criticizing fighting styles, but Hiruzen's description truly summed up that "Danzō's" way of fighting.
Hiruzen took his pipe from his mouth, tapped it against the edge of the ashtray, then put it back between his lips and muttered, "So that wasn't Danzō."
Minato said nothing.
He knew there was no need for him to voice that conclusion—Hiruzen had already reached it himself.
Shimura Danzō was a ninja of the same generation as Hiruzen.
They had studied under the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju, since childhood, gone on missions together, and survived the battlefield side by side.
Hiruzen knew Danzō's fighting style better than anyone: cautious, ruthless, skilled at plotting, and never one to fight a battle he wasn't sure he could win.
How could a ninja who calculated every tactical move with precision blow himself up as soon as a fight began?
And how could that old coward, Danzō, pull out a mutual-destruction trump card in the very first exchange, without even figuring out what his opponent was capable of?
The real Danzō would wear his opponent down without them realizing it, manipulate them, and lure them into a desperate position. Only when they showed an opening would he deliver the fatal blow.
Their fighting styles were worlds apart!
"—Who could that impostor be? Who else in the Shinobi World has Wind Release mastery at Kage Level?"
"And...from Minato's description, the Wind Release Ninjutsu this impostor used were all Danzō's signature techniques!"
Hiruzen set his pipe on the desk, stood, and walked over to the window.
Outside lay Konoha at night, brightly lit. People walked along the streets, Anbu patrolled, and vendors packed up their stalls. Everything was orderly, as if nothing had happened.
But Hiruzen knew better.
A political storm powerful enough to shake Konoha to its foundations was already drawing near.
"Minato, you can go for now."
With his back to Minato, Hiruzen spoke in a calm voice that betrayed not the slightest hint of emotion. "Go to the medical ward and get your wounds treated. You worked hard today."
"Your escort mission is over. You'll still be paid in full."
Minato bowed slightly and turned to leave the office.
The moment the door closed, Hiruzen's grip tightened sharply around his pipe.
"—The impostor is just a smokescreen. The real trouble is still to come!"
The attack on the Daimyo of the Land of Fire, the destruction of the Twelve Guardian Ninja, the looting of the palace treasury—this was no longer an internal matter for the Land of Fire.
The Daimyo belonged to a class of his own.
The Daimyo of the Land of Fire had been humiliated. The Daimyo of the other four nations wouldn't think, "That's an internal matter for the Land of Fire." They would care about one thing: the dignity of the Daimyo had been challenged.
If they didn't respond forcefully enough, someone who dared attack the Land of Fire Daimyo Palace today might attack the Land of Wind Daimyo Palace tomorrow.
That would be a real mess!
So once the other four Daimyo received the news, they would certainly apply joint pressure through their respective ninja villages.
The target of that pressure wouldn't be the "impostor Danzō"—because he couldn't be found. They would direct it all at Konoha!
Either hand over Konoha's Shimura Danzō, or stage a "four great ninja villages besiege Konoha" as a warning to the others.
Who had Danzō managed to offend? How had such a huge pile of shit landed on his head?
Hiruzen took a deep drag of his pipe and exhaled a long stream of smoke. Through it, his gaze settled on the enormous Kage Rock outside the window.
"—What a spectacular mess."
Meanwhile, several hundred meters beneath Konoha, at the Root Base.