A Battle Without Suspense

More than just you?

Hearing Fugaku's baffling words, Ning Qi seemed to realize something. His brows furrowed, and Shisui's eye clenched in his hand had already turned utterly blank.

He suddenly turned around.

On the grass not far away, Danzo, who had originally been split into three pieces, had somehow reassembled himself. He seemed to be struggling to pull the short blade piercing his chest free, glaring furiously at Fugaku.

"You... deserve to die!"

Seeing Ning Qi's cold gaze turn toward him, Danzo pursed his lips and made a highly pragmatic choice—he ignored the short blade sealing all the chakra in his body and turned to run!

With his chakra sealed, he was no match for Ning Qi at all!

The Self-Binding Curse Seal had activated but failed to take effect, which meant Ning Qi had completely escaped his control.

This battle was meaningless.

This was a battle he was destined to lose.

Even with Izanagi, it could not change the fact that he had been struck by the Sealing Sword Technique.

Once he understood his situation, Danzo remained decisively resolute despite the overwhelming hatred he felt toward Ning Qi, who had nearly killed him.

Ning Qi had disguised himself as Yamanaka Fū, intending to profit while they fought Fugaku—to hunt an Uchiha Clan head and a Root leader.

—How could such a good thing exist?!

Fugaku refused to be killed by a junior and fought back desperately. That was good.

In Danzo's eyes, that was an act of great integrity.

As long as he pulled out this short blade with sealing properties and restored the flow of his chakra, the current crisis could be resolved, and all the face he had lost could be regained.

Just a dog of the Hyuga Main Family...

Just a traitor to Root...

Trying to be the fisherman?

Be a mantis and stay one!

The true oriole would teach him what experience and maturity meant.

Yet just as Danzo struggled to pull out the core short blade of the Sealing Sword Technique embedded in his body, Fugaku, who had noticed this, suddenly exposed him.

Thus, every plan he had to kill Ning Qi in return came to nothing.

The short blade possessed a powerful suction force and was difficult to pull out alone, so Danzo could only flee while enduring the sword wound in his chest.

Run...

Run now!

He could pull out this sealing sword and return for revenge later!!!

Those thoughts ran through his mind, but after only a few steps, he felt a chill at the back of his head.

Danzo turned around.

Splat!

A longsword crackling with lightning pierced through his head at incredible speed as though punching through a watermelon, then drove straight into the trunk of a nearby tree.

"Hah..."

Danzo made a sound in his throat and fell unwillingly to the ground.

The next instant, his body turned into a phantom and reappeared nearby.

Izanagi.

Another Sharingan on his arm closed.

The newly revived Danzo immediately saw another lightning-wreathed kunai shooting toward him. He barely managed to turn aside and dodge it. Glancing at Ning Qi, who had abandoned Fugaku and was charging over to kill him, he did not hesitate in the slightest. His body flickered rapidly before vanishing into the depths of the forest.

"You're not chasing him?" Fugaku, who had just been preparing to flee, watched Ning Qi slow down.

With his Byakugan activated, Ning Qi said nothing. He merely held the kunai in his hand as lightning clung to it, staring intently for a moment.

Weakness Insight!

He hurled the Lightning Release kunai in his hand forcefully into the darkness!

A miserable scream rang out.

With a rustling clatter, countless birds took flight.

"If you had willingly stretched out your neck for me to cut just now, then no matter how many lives he had, he still wouldn't have escaped." Ning Qi, who had consumed another of Danzo's Sharingan, turned to glance at Fugaku.

That was naturally just an angry remark.

Recalling every step of his ambush on Danzo, he roughly understood why the man had clearly died so completely yet could still revive.

There was nothing wrong with the person.

There was nothing wrong with the process.

The problem was that arm loaded with several Sharingan.

Setting aside when the first hand seal had been formed, even after being severed from its body, that arm could still automatically finish the subsequent hand seals within a minute. Orochimaru, who had created that arm, had truly been thorough... Ning Qi narrowed his eyes.

Izanagi had rewritten reality from before Danzo was dismembered, but it had not rewritten the reality of Ning Qi ambushing him with the Sealing Sword Technique, because that ambush had happened before Danzo formed the first hand seal for Izanagi.

Fugaku also found it quite regrettable that Danzo was still alive. Izanagi had likewise rewritten the reality he had foreseen.

According to the future he had witnessed, Danzo should have truly died by now.

What he regretted even more was that Ning Qi had not pursued him to gamble on that slim chance of completely erasing Danzo.

Which meant he still had to die.

"How many Sharingan has he stolen from my Uchiha Clan?" Fugaku asked, his voice far from calm.

"Enough to last until Konoha's reinforcements arrive." Ning Qi retrieved his longsword.

His Byakugan saw Danzo still fleeing in disarray, as well as the Inuzuka Clan ninjas of Konoha's advance force, who were following the scent and closing in not far ahead of him.

"If you get another chance like this, you should cut all ten of his fingers apart separately," Fugaku offered a fair suggestion.

This failure had stemmed from that severed arm being able to form hand seals one-handed.

"Next time, I should cut off his head directly," Ning Qi replied flatly.

Ning Qi had learned from this lesson, but he was still in a poor mood. Thus, the moment he retrieved his longsword, he charged at Fugaku.

"Must you fight to the very end?" Ning Qi asked as his blade came down.

"I'm sorry. If you were that son of mine, I might not fight back..." Fugaku held on with his sole remaining arm.

This was a battle without any suspense.

Sword light flashed.

The first wound appeared at his side.

"But my Uchiha Clan... cannot lose to the Hyuga."

The blade pierced through his shoulder blade, tearing off a chunk of flesh.

"Ha... Among Konoha's Twin Prodigies, I always believed Itachi was stronger than you..."

Seizing an opening, the blade sliced open his belly, and his intestines spilled across the ground.

"Cough, cough... Even now, after everything you've done, I still believe that..."

His other arm was severed.

"I am the head of the Uchiha Clan—"

His body was cut in half at the waist.

"I am Itachi's father..."

The longsword pierced his chest and pinned him to the ground.

Even so.

"Anyone can... hah... surrender... but not me..."

"Very good." That was the only thing Ning Qi said in response.

"You will never... surpass..."

Itachi suddenly opened his eyes.

"You're awake?" A bonfire burned within the dark cave.

The masked man sat quietly on a stone, watching him.

The firelight swirled, casting a huge, swaying shadow across the stone wall behind him.

"The Uchiha rebellion has already ended," he reminded Itachi blandly as he rose.

Itachi paused, clenching his fists tightly, but he continued toward the cave entrance.

"But it seems Konoha's destruction has only just begun."

Itachi stopped and looked over.

A black-and-white symmetrical figure wrapped in leaves like those of a man-eating plant emerged from the ground.

He held an Explosive Tag that already had some age to it.

"I found some very interesting things beneath Konoha~" White Zetsu drawled, waving the Explosive Tag in his hand.

"This thing was made before that boy was even born," Black Zetsu said in a low voice. "Yet it is the very foundation of his confidence when facing so many Konoha ninja."

Just as Itachi was wondering who exactly "he" was.

The blood-red eye beneath the mask reflected Itachi's face.

"That fellow knows many things he should never have known..."

"So let me ask you."

"How much do you know about Ning Qi?"