Half a child's skull, bleached white from soaking, rolled twice across the gravel before finally stopping at the edge of Hiruzen Sarutobi's straw sandal.
Its empty sockets stared straight at Leaf Village's highest authority. A short section of cervical vertebrae still connected to the back of the skull, with nerve fibers torn off by brute force still clinging to it. The heavy stench of formaldehyde mingled with nauseating blood, rushing into everyone's nostrils along with the heat waves churning within the Four Violet Flames Formation.
Only the crackling of flames remained in the underground ruins.
The veins bulged on the hands of dozens of elite ANBU maintaining the formation as they gripped their blades. Beneath several nearby masks, Adam's apples bobbed violently, while barely concealed shock and uncertainty flashed in their eyes. They were Leaf Village's sharpest blades. They had killed and seen blood, but this slaughterhouse, where the descendants of fellow village shinobi were treated as expendable materials, utterly shattered the limits of what they could accept.
This was Root? This was the underground foundation meant to protect Leaf Village?
Hiruzen Sarutobi's face twitched violently. Purple firelight made the age spots on his face flicker in and out of view. He stared at the skull by his feet, his chest heaving as his breathing rasped like an old broken bellows.
Of course, he knew Danzo's methods were not clean. To keep the Uchiha Clan in check and maintain Leaf Village's stability, he had tolerated Root's existence and even Danzo's secret research into First-Generation Cells. But he had never known that Danzo had gone so mad as to target children of the Hyuga Branch House and create this slaughterhouse full of grotesque remains!
Once this scandal came to light, Danzo would not be the only one to die. His prestige