Danzo's Defection

Everything happened too fast. Hiruzen Sarutobi had not even had time to cry out when another purple figure flashed in like lightning!

It was Sasuke Uchiha. There was no warmth in his Rinnegan, only icy killing intent. He had no words for this darkness of Konoha—the man who had indirectly caused the Uchiha clan's massacre in the past and still lingered like a ghost in the future.

"You deserve to die."

Wrapped in blinding lightning, the Kusanagi Sword stabbed through Danzo, who was pinned down by the black rods, piercing his heart as cleanly as if slicing through tofu!

"Danzo! What are you doing?!" Hiruzen Sarutobi finally cried out in horror. He clutched his chest, his shock overwhelming the pain of his injury. He had always wondered why, when the village faced such a powerful enemy, Danzo—the head of Root—had remained nowhere to be seen. So... he had been hiding in the shadows all along, waiting for his chance?!

Though his heart had been pierced, Danzo seemed unable to feel any pain. Coughing up blood, he kept his single eye fixed on the pill in young Qianyu's hand. The greed and madness in that gaze sent chills down one's spine.

Young Qianyu was also stunned for a moment by the sudden assassination and counterattack. But as he looked at Danzo, nailed to the ground with his heart pierced, then at the pill in his own hand, which seemed to radiate an enticing glow—

He hesitated no longer. Tilting his head back, he tossed the red pill straight into his mouth and swallowed it with a gulp.

The decisiveness of that action even made the future Qianyu raise an eyebrow.

At first, he felt nothing after the pill entered his stomach. But the next second, a gentle yet unimaginably vast heat erupted in his abdomen like a rising sun, swiftly spreading through every limb and bone!

It was not violent power, but something like nourishment and replenishment at the very source of life. Every cell in his body seemed to cheer, and even his Sharingan and the dormant Senju bloodline within him began to stir faintly.

It was... way too nourishing!

Qianyu only felt warm all over, light and floaty, as if he were soaking in a hot spring—or drunk. His head grew dizzy, and the world before his eyes began to spin and blur.

"Uh..." He swayed, his eyelids heavy as mountains. The last things he saw were Tsunade rushing toward him in panic and the amused smile on his future self's face before everything went dark and he collapsed backward limply.

"Qianyu!" Tsunade caught him at once, immediately sending chakra into his body to examine him. When she found that his vital signs were merely abnormally vigorous and that he had fallen into a self-regulating state akin to deep sleep, with no real danger, she finally let out a small sigh of relief.

Adult Qianyu dug at his ear and explained carelessly, "Relax, he's fine. He overdid it on the supplements and slipped into a food coma. He'll be good after a nap—might even grow another two centimeters." His relaxed tone made it sound as though young Qianyu had merely eaten too much and dozed off.

Meanwhile, as Danzo watched the pill get swallowed, the last light in his eyes went out, replaced by utter desolation and resolve.

"Hiruzen... you'll regret this in the end." Leaving those hoarse, unfinished words behind, he grabbed a kunai from the ground with the only other hand he could still move and viciously slashed it across his own throat!

"Danzo! No—!" Hiruzen Sarutobi's eyes nearly split open as he tried to stop him, but it was already too late.

Blood sprayed, and Danzo's presence rapidly faded.

Yet Sasuke merely watched coldly, without the slightest ripple in his Rinnegan. "Don't be naive. That old bastard has plenty of lives."

The moment his words fell, Danzo's "corpse," along with the bloodstains, abruptly turned into a puff of white smoke and vanished.

"Izanagi!" Hiruzen Sarutobi sucked in a sharp breath, his face turning deathly pale. Of course he knew of that forbidden Uchiha ocular technique, but he had never imagined that Danzo had transplanted Sharingan into himself and used them for this!

Sure enough, Danzo's figure staggered into view within another patch of shadow some distance away. His face was even paler, and his lone eye brimmed with venom and unwillingness. But he did not pause for even a moment. He immediately used the Body Flicker Technique and fled toward the deeper shadows of Konoha!

As Hiruzen Sarutobi watched his old friend escape once more through a forbidden technique, the shock and grief in his eyes gradually turned into icy determination.

He shakily forced himself upright and looked toward the enigmatic adult Qianyu and Sasuke Uchiha, his voice hoarse and heavy.

"You two... sirs." He used an honorific. "This old man has an unreasonable request. Could you... help Konoha once more and completely eliminate the scourge that is Danzo Shimura? All he brings the village now is poison!"

His words carried an unprecedented exhaustion and the pain of a decision finally made.

But adult Qianyu merely yawned lazily. "His karma isn't ours to forcibly cut short. Especially not... by crossing time like this. Old man, some debts are yours to settle yourselves." There was deep meaning in his gaze.

After a moment of silence, Sasuke nodded as well. "If we forcefully pursue him, there are too many variables. It could cause even greater disruption to time. Besides..." He glanced at Boruto. "We don't have much time left."

As if confirming his words, a faint blue glow began to flicker around the edges of Sasuke and Boruto's bodies. Boruto's waist was also beginning to grow warm.

"The treasure tool 'Plow' is signaling... our time here is up." Sasuke's tone was calm. The crisis had been resolved, Urashiki had been slain, and although Danzo had escaped, history's broader course did not seem to have deviated too far.

A flicker of disappointment crossed Hiruzen Sarutobi's eyes.

Just then—

Adult Qianyu, who had been acting carefree all this time, suddenly widened his eyes.

Three-tomoe Sharingan!

Mangekyo Sharingan!

The Mangekyo pattern changed drastically once again. Deep purple radiance spread outward, and rings of ripples unfurled—Rinnegan!

The transformation took only an instant!

"!!" Hiruzen Sarutobi's eyes flew wide open. Every suspicion he had was confirmed in that instant. With a trembling finger, he pointed at the adult. "You... you really are... Uchi..."

Before he could finish, adult Qianyu's purple Rinnegan swept across the entire area—except for Tsunade, who was clutching young Qianyu tightly in her arms, stunned and uncertain.

"Sleep."

An invisible, irresistible spiritual force, immense beyond measure, descended over the entire battlefield like the gentlest night mist.

The shock in Hiruzen Sarutobi's eyes froze. His consciousness sank into darkness, and his body crumpled. The scattered ANBU and medical personnel who had just arrived stared blankly before falling asleep where they stood. Even ordinary villagers in the distance, who had just been given the all-clear and were poking their heads out to look, collapsed one after another as though they had been collectively hypnotized.

In the blink of an eye, with the hot spring crater at its center, no one besides Tsunade and the two Qianyus remained awake.

Holding young Qianyu, Tsunade stared in horror at the silent method that had brought everyone down, then at those heart-palpitating purple Rinnegan. "You... why...?"

"They know too much." Adult Qianyu spoke calmly. The purple in his eyes slowly faded back into black, and the godlike pressure around him vanished with it, returning him to his slightly weary, amusement-seeking self. "Especially about where I came from, and those eyes.

"It does no one any good to leave those memories behind."

"But I won't erase your memories, my teacher. I trust you unconditionally."

With a light wave of his hand, as though brushing away dust, he said, "They'll remember that a powerful, mysterious person who could use Wood Release appeared, defeated the powerful enemy, and saved the village. The details will all become vague. That's for the best."

He walked over to Tsunade, lowered his head to look at the young Qianyu sleeping soundly in her arms—who even smacked his lips once—and an incredibly fleeting, unreadable emotion flashed through his eyes: nostalgia, perhaps, or relief, along with a trace of complicated loneliness.

He reached out as if to stroke young Qianyu's hair, but his fingers stopped just before touching him. Instead, he lightly brushed the magatama on the First Hokage's necklace hanging at his chest.

"Take good care of him," he told Tsunade, his voice soft but carrying the weight of an entrusted request. "And... don't spoil him too much. When he deserves a beating, don't go easy on him."

Tsunade: "..."

With that, the adult Qianyu did not linger. His figure, like smoke and mist, suddenly dispersed into the evening breeze beginning to rise and the steaming haze of the hot spring, as though he had never appeared at all.