Shattering Foolish Loyalty, Shadows Return to Their Hearts

The Four Red Yang Formation was gone.

There was no panic on Nawaki's face. But his fingers were trembling.

Not from fear. He was calculating the time.

From here to the Senju Clan Compound, it would take three minutes at full speed. Tsunade was Kage-level; even if the barrier broke, holding out for ten minutes would not be a problem. But with seventeen Root operatives and Danzō personally joining the fight, there were too many variables.

He had to move fast.

Nawaki turned back to look at Sakumo.

Sakumo was still kneeling on the floor. The confidential letter was pinned beneath his knees, his hands braced against his thighs, his fingernails dug into the cracks in the wooden floorboards.

He was staring at the name on the letter.

The twelfth one. Sakumo Hatake. "Expendable asset."

Beside it was a line of small annotation in messy yet clear handwriting—"Public opinion guidance plan deployed. Expected to take his own life within three months. At that time, retrieve the White Fang short blade and chakra sample."

Three months.

Sakumo remembered. The first people to throw stones at his doorstep had appeared exactly three months ago.

"Expected," he repeated, his voice as dry as sandpaper.

"That was pretty accurate," Nawaki said, crouching in front of him. "You really almost did it within the time he predicted. Danzō may understand you better than you understand yourself."

Sakumo did not respond.

He turned to the second page of the confidential letter.

A procurement list. The source of the First Hokage's cells was marked as "secret retrieval from the Senju Clan Compound." The test subjects were numbered from 001 to 037. The disposal method for failures was written in four words: discard or silence.

The third page.

More names. Not just Sakumo Hatake. There were several people he knew—former comrades, shinobi he had once shared drinks with after missions. Some names had been crossed out and marked, "Completed."

Sakumo's hand stopped.

He needed no one to explain what "Completed" meant.

"Did Hiruzen Sarutobi know about this?" he asked.

"What do you think?"

Sakumo fell silent for three seconds.

Of course he knew the answer. The Third Hokage was not a fool. Root had been doing Konoha's dirty work for twenty years; without the Hokage's tacit approval, it would not have survived a single day.

Claiming not to know simply meant he did not want to know.

Claiming not to participate simply meant letting others participate in his place.

Nawaki stood and walked to the wall, pulling the White Fang short blade from the paneling.

"Mr. Sakumo, there's no time for you to slowly process this." He turned the blade around, offering the hilt to Sakumo. "Something happened on my sister's side."

Sakumo looked up.

"The barrier around the Senju Clan Compound just went down. Danzō's people are attacking, and Tsunade is holding them off alone." Nawaki spoke twice as fast as usual. "I have to leave now. You have two choices—"

"You already said them. The first is to keep cutting."

"Right. The second." Nawaki extended the blade another inch. "Use this blade on the people it should be used on."

Sakumo stared at the weapon.

The white-bladed short sword. Konoha's White Fang. He had used it for twenty years. He had killed three hundred and seventeen people with it.

They had all been enemies.

He had never pointed it at Konoha.

"I'll protect Kakashi for you." Nawaki lowered his voice. "No matter what happens tonight, your son will grow up in the Senju Clan Compound. No one will dare touch a hair on his head. But there is one condition—Sakumo Hatake must die tonight."

Sakumo's pupils contracted.

"The dead are not hunted. Nor are a dead man's sons implicated." Nawaki said, "After you 'die,' take another identity and work for the Senju Clan. You don't need to be loyal to Konoha. You don't need to follow those rotten rules. You only need to do one thing—"

He patted Sakumo on the shoulder.

"Stay alive. Then send off every person named in that confidential letter in your hands tonight, one by one."

Another dull boom sounded in the distance. Flames shot into the sky in the direction of the Senju Clan Compound.

Nawaki withdrew his hand and turned to leave.

"Wait."

Sakumo rose to his feet.

His knees had been pressed to the floor for too long, and his legs were slightly numb as he stood. But he did not sway. Twenty years of battlefield experience had made his body steady itself before his mind could react.

He accepted the White Fang short blade.

Then he looked down at his clothing. A dark-blue shinobi uniform, with Konoha's emblem embroidered over the chest. He had worn it for half his life.

Holding the blade, Sakumo slashed horizontally across the chest of his robe.

The cloth split apart. Konoha's emblem was severed down the middle, two scraps of fabric hanging loose.

He threw the cut-off cloth onto the floor.

"Sakumo Hatake is dead."

His voice was dry. There was no tragedy in it, no lofty resolve. It sounded like he was stating a fact.

Nawaki turned back and looked at him.

"From now on, I have no name." Sakumo sheathed the short blade and fastened it behind his waist. "Call me whatever you want."

The corner of Nawaki's mouth twitched.

He pressed his palms together and placed them against the floor. Wood Release chakra seeped beneath the floorboards. Three seconds later, the floor beside Sakumo cracked open, and a human-shaped figure grew from the gap.

A wooden doll. Its features, build, even the texture of its hair were identical to Sakumo's. Nawaki took out a tube of stored chakra from his pocket and smeared it over the doll's chest and abdomen.

"Your residual chakra. When I wrapped your wrist earlier, I took a trace while I was at it." Nawaki arranged the doll in a kneeling position, its knees pressing against the same spot where Sakumo had knelt. Then he picked up the blood from the floor—the blood that had flowed from the one-centimeter wound Sakumo had stabbed into himself—and smeared it over the doll's abdomen.

Finally, he took a spare short blade from the corner and stabbed it into the doll's stomach.

The posture of seppuku. Bloodstains. Residual chakra. Everything matched.

It had taken less than twenty seconds.

Sakumo looked at the "corpse" on the floor that was identical to himself, his Adam's apple bobbing.

"Let's go." Nawaki pulled out an old wooden box from the corner and retrieved a Senju Clan Anbu mask from within—one he had hidden in advance with Wood Release before coming here.

A white mask. No patterns. Spotlessly clean.

He tossed the mask to Sakumo.

"Codename: White. Starting today, you are the shadow of the Senju Clan."

Sakumo caught the mask and turned it over for a look. A small character was carved into the inside—"Senju."

He put the mask over his face.

Behind it, no one could see his expression. But his breathing changed. It grew heavier. Deeper.

Like a machine that had been shut down for a long time, starting again.

"Lead the way." The voice behind the mask was hoarse and low, completely unlike the man who had been kneeling on the floor moments ago, prepared to die. "The direction of the Senju Clan Compound."

Nawaki said nothing more. He turned his head to glance out the window.

The flames were brighter now.

There were explosions too.

He could faintly hear Tsunade's furious roar—even across half of Konoha Village, it was still audible. That meant she was already fighting desperately.

Nawaki drew a deep breath and clenched his teeth.

There was another Kage-level fighter behind him. Good. That was enough.

He stepped onto the windowsill. A wooden slide formed beneath his feet, extending toward the Senju Clan Compound.

Sakumo followed. His movements were soundless, the hilt of the White Fang short blade visible behind his waist, glinting coldly beneath the moonlight.

The shadows of the two men swept over the rooftops beneath the moon, one in front of the other, like two gusts of wind skimming the ground.