The Dagger Is Revealed: Danzo's Vicious Chain of Schemes

Inside the Hokage's office, the halo of the fluorescent lights was a harsh, deathly white.

The top-secret scroll wrapped in black sealing formulas slammed heavily onto the mahogany desk like a massive tombstone. A dark glow flickered across its surface, carrying the chill and stench of death of something buried underground for years.

Fugaku froze for a moment, then uncontrollable ecstasy erupted in his eyes. He abruptly turned and stared fixedly at Sosuke, his mouth twisting into an exceedingly cruel grin.

"So that's it! I was wondering how a cripple who can't even refine chakra managed to escape alive from a meat grinder like the Land of Rain!" Like a mad dog that had finally found its chance to bite, Fugaku pointed at Sosuke and shouted, "Lord Hokage! Lord Danzo! This brat not only hid armed loyalists, he also sold out village secrets! This is the capital crime of betraying the village! Order his execution on the spot at once!"

Sosuke braced one hand against the edge of the desk, his fingernails gouging several pale scratches into the hard mahogany. He panted violently, eyes wide as he stared at the scroll. His bloodless face was filled with disbelief and utter terror.

"Lord Danzo... what are you talking about?" Sosuke's voice trembled violently, like fallen leaves shivering in a cold wind. "The Senju Clan has shed blood for Hidden Leaf generation after generation. My uncles and brothers all died on the front lines! How can you slander me out of thin air?"

"Out of thin air?" Danzo snorted coldly, venom flashing through his one eye like a serpent's gaze.

His shriveled fingers rapidly formed hand seals, and he pressed one palm against the scroll.

Bang! A cloud of white smoke burst open.

The scroll slowly unfurled, revealing several intelligence letters stained with dark brown blood beneath the glaring lights. Their edges were clearly scorched, evidently seized only after an extremely brutal battle.

Danzo's bony finger tapped one of the letters, his fingertip pressing so hard that his knuckles turned white. His voice carried an unquestionable chill and authority. "This is top-secret intelligence that a Root agent embedded in Hidden Rain Village sent back at the cost of his life. It clearly contains a detailed deployment map of our forces along the Land of Rain border. It even marks the Senju vanguard squad's patrol routes and shift-change times!"

Danzo abruptly raised his head, his single eye pinning Sosuke's face as every word pierced his heart. "More importantly, at the end of this secret letter to Hanzo, leader of the Rain ninja, is a chakra mark that only you, Senju Sosuke, could leave—the mark unique to the bloodline of the Senju main family!"

The moment those words fell, the already oppressive air in the office instantly froze.

This was a flawlessly planned killing move.

Danzo did not care whether Sosuke had truly betrayed the village. He only needed a legitimate excuse—an excuse to trample the last remnants of the Senju Clan's reputation into the mud and legally send Sosuke onto an operating table. There were no witnesses left alive on the Land of Rain front. As long as this letter bore Sosuke's chakra signature, it was irrefutable proof!

"You sold out your comrades to the enemy just to stay alive!" Danzo pressed forward step by step, his cane striking the floor heavily. "Your clansmen were wiped out because of your betrayal, yet you stepped over their corpses, pretended to be gravely wounded and near death, and fled back to Hidden Leaf, hoping to continue enjoying the privileges of the Senju Clan's young master! Senju Sosuke, you are Hidden Leaf's shame!"

Those words were poisonous to the extreme. They not only stripped Sosuke of his identity as a war survivor, but nailed him to the pillar of shame in the Senju Clan's history.

Sosuke's body swayed sharply, as though his spine had been drained from him. He staggered backward, then turned toward Hiruzen Sarutobi behind the desk with a gaze that was nearly pleading and utterly despairing.

"Lord Hokage! This is a frame-up! A complete and utter frame-up!" Sosuke howled miserably, his eyes bloodshot. "That chakra mark must have been forged! I never betrayed my comrades! Please, Lord Hokage, investigate this thoroughly!"

Hiruzen Sarutobi sat in his broad leather chair without speaking.

The hand holding his pipe paused slightly before he took a deep draw. Thick smoke poured from his nose and mouth, completely shrouding his wrinkled old face in shadow.

Investigate thoroughly?

Hiruzen Sarutobi knew perfectly well that the damned secret letter had definitely been fabricated by Danzo's Root operatives, those dead men skilled in forgery. Senju Sosuke had struggled even to protect himself on the battlefield. Where would he have found the means to contact Hidden Rain Village's upper ranks?

But before political interests, the truth was worthless.

Though the Senju Clan had declined, that estate still held immense resources and an uncontrollable armed force. The edge and influence Sosuke had displayed tonight had already made Hiruzen Sarutobi feel a tangible threat. Hidden Leaf could have only one voice—the Hokage's voice. Any variable that sought to escape control had to be erased.

If Danzo was willing to serve as the killing blade, bear the infamy of persecuting a meritorious orphan, and reclaim the Senju inheritance for the village at the same time...

It was far too good a deal.

"Sosuke." Hiruzen Sarutobi finally spoke. His voice was low and hoarse, carrying righteous regret and sorrow. "I do not wish to believe that you would do such a thing. You carry the First Hokage's blood. You are a child of Hidden Leaf."

A glimmer of hope flashed through Sosuke's eyes.

Yet Hiruzen Sarutobi's next words cast him straight into a bottomless abyss.

"But the evidence is conclusive, and this concerns the lives and deaths of countless soldiers on the front line. I cannot show favoritism." Hiruzen Sarutobi set down his pipe, his gaze passing over Sosuke to Danzo at the side. "Danzo, Root will take full responsibility for this matter. Until the truth is uncovered, take Sosuke back to Root for detention. Remember, keep him alive. Make sure he confesses the identities of Hidden Rain Village's other agents in Hidden Leaf."

The verdict was final.

The Third Hokage's tacit approval became the final straw that broke the camel's back. This was not merely stripping Sosuke of his freedom—it was sending him directly into Danzo's underground slaughterhouse, where men were devoured without even their bones left behind.

"Hiruzen, you made the right decision." A savage smile of triumph curled across Danzo's lips.

He turned around, his icy gaze sweeping over Sosuke before issuing an even more vicious series of orders.

"Guards!" Danzo barked.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

From the shadows outside the office, four Root elites wearing ghastly white animal masks and reeking of blood appeared in an instant. Their cold ninja blades slid free in unison, four murderous auras locking tightly onto Sosuke at the center.

"We will not merely take him." Danzo raised his cane and pointed toward the Senju Clan Grounds. "Pass down my order. Immediately deploy Root's Third and Fourth Squads to seal off the Senju estate completely! Since Senju Sosuke dared betray the village, that residence must contain evidence of his collusion with foreign enemies! Anyone who dares resist the search will be treated as an accomplice and executed without mercy!"

The dagger was finally revealed!

Danzo did not merely want Sosuke. Using this pretext, he intended to uproot the entire Senju Clan tonight and swallow every ninjutsu scroll, every bit of wealth, even the remaining clansmen within that estate into Root's belly.

Fugaku's blood surged as he listened from the side. He made no attempt to hide his gloating as he strode up to Sosuke and looked down at the man who was about to become a prisoner.

"Senju Sosuke, weren't you acting arrogant just now? Weren't you going to protect Mikoto right in front of me?" Fugaku lowered his voice, taunting him viciously in tones only the two of them could hear. "Once you enter Root's dungeon, I'll personally go to the Senju Clan Grounds and stomp your crippled elders to death one by one. As for Mikoto... I'll make her watch with her own eyes as you're hung from Hidden Leaf's pillar of shame and left to dry out!"

A desperate dead end.

The net had been cast across heaven and earth; there was nowhere to run. The shamelessness of the higher-ups and the viciousness of his enemies were displayed in full at this moment.

The tips of the Root ninja's blades had already drawn close to Sosuke's back. Danzo's shriveled, eagle-claw-like hand shot out as well, reaching straight for Sosuke's shoulder to forcibly seal the pathways within his body.

Sosuke lowered his head.

The loose black strands hanging over his forehead completely obscured his eyes. His shoulders shook violently, as though he had reached the brink of collapse from overwhelming despair and terror.

"Accept your fate obediently, remnant of the Senju Clan." Danzo's fingers were about to touch the pale moon-white yukata.

At that very instant.

Sosuke's violently trembling body stopped without warning.

Slowly, little by little, he raised his head.

There was no terror, no despair, none of the misery or frailty of a man driven into a corner.

In those deep black eyes, dark as an abyss, danced an absolute indifference—lofty and cold, as if he were looking at corpses. On his pale, gentle face, the corners of his mouth spread apart, forming an incomparably mocking, incomparably mad sneer.