Danzo vanished from the council chamber faster than anyone had expected.
The instant the smoke bombs exploded, he had already forced open the hidden door to the underground passage. This tunnel was an escape route Root had buried beneath the Hokage Building more than a decade ago; even the Third Hokage did not know its exact location. Danzo clutched his bleeding right eye socket as he raced through the darkness with his left hand braced against the tunnel wall. His right eye was completely ruined—Shisui's Eye had been forcibly interrupted midway through casting Kotoamatsukami, and the Mangekyō's backlash had burned the eyeball into a charred mass of residue. Blood and tissue fluid now seeped from the socket, dripping through his fingers onto the stone floor.
But Danzo did not stop. He did not even slow down. Because he knew the eleven Sharingan in his right arm were still there. Izanagi was still there. As long as one Sharingan had yet to close, he could turn death into a dream. As long as he had one more chance to rewrite reality, he could turn this around.
The tunnel exit lay on the northern side of the village, at the foot of the mountain directly behind Hokage Rock. When Danzo crawled out, dawn had not yet arrived. Moonlight cast a cold sheen over the statues of the four Hokage on Hokage Rock. He leaned against the cliff face and took several breaths. Blood from his right eye had already run down to his chin, dripping onto his collar and drying into dark-red scabs. He tore off part of his sleeve and pressed it over the socket, sweeping the surrounding forest with his remaining left eye before moving along a small path at the edge of the Death Forest toward Root's old compound.