Addendum to Previous Chapter

"Minato Namikaze... Flying Thunder God... the blue Asura Giant..."

Danzo sat quietly in the Root base, as gloomy as ever.

Yet the several scrolls on the desk before him made him frown deeply. Based on his understanding of Hiruzen Sarutobi, he would never do anything pointless.

Hiruzen Sarutobi—his senior fellow disciple, both friend and rival—had ruled Konoha for many years. His methods had become ever more refined, and sometimes, even Danzo could not fully see through what Hiruzen was thinking.

"The candidate for Fourth Hokage... besides Orochimaru and Jiraiya... could it be?"

With a dark expression, Danzo looked at the scroll on Minato Namikaze in his hand and narrowed his eyes slightly. The dim yellow light fell over his face, yet it seemed unable to illuminate his features.

In the past, although he had seen how highly Hiruzen Sarutobi regarded Minato Namikaze, he had never connected the position of Hokage with an ordinary Jonin from a civilian background, even knowing that this disciple of Jiraiya, one of the Three Legendary Sannin, was attempting to master the Flying Thunder God.

However, Minato Namikaze's rise had been far faster than Danzo had anticipated.

He had studied the intelligence scrolls concerning the Cloud Shinobi battlefield countless times.

With access to special channels, Danzo still had no way of learning overly specific details of the battle. But from the firsthand intelligence, he could conclude that Jiraiya had been key to fighting the Eight-Tails, though Minato Namikaze's contributions had also been immense.

Yet it was as though the Three Legendary Sannin had risen to fame back then. Through his battle against A of the Cloud Shinobi and the Eight-Tails, Minato Namikaze had gained status and renown nearly equal to that of the Three Legendary Sannin under Hiruzen Sarutobi's sudden promotion.

Still, it seemed somewhat overdone, and that was why Danzo had detected something amiss. Minato Namikaze, whom he had thought would become Jiraiya's right-hand man, had unexpectedly become one of Orochimaru's rivals for the position of Hokage.

"Hiruzen, what exactly are you thinking?"

"What qualifications does some snot-nosed brat have to become Hokage..."

Danzo's office was not large; it could even be called crude. The dark underground chamber, nearly devoid of decoration, was lit only by dim lamps.

As if he had figured everything out, Danzo slammed his hand against the nearby wall. The furious strike, infused with Wind-style Chakra, carved countless fine cuts into the entire wall. Light filtering through the tiny cracks flickered in his eyes. As though he had thought of something, he slowly rose with the aid of his cane.

"It seems the hidden piece I planted back then has become a crucial link..."

"Only..."

"The Blue Asura... what an impressive display..."

After leaving his office, Danzo suppressed the boundless fury in his heart and quietly waited for the boy who had emerged from Root and, at not even thirteen years old, had already faintly earned the title of Blue Asura.

The lights aboveground seemed entirely unrelated to Root. This corner, as though forgotten by the world, gave off a pungent stench of rot and mold that had seeped into the hearts of every Root ninja. The decayed darkness mixed within had become the eternal destination of Root's ninja.

Seated upon a high platform, Danzo remained expressionless amid the flickering dim light. He slowly closed his eyes, as though sensing something...

"Soul Sonata No. 3: Bone-Slicing Blade!"

"Disperse!"

Kato Osamu stood quietly in the forest, forming hand seals as he slowly dispelled the illusion. The Root ninja standing before him had eyes as muddled as chaos, utterly devoid of life.

He raised his gaze slightly. A blue ghostly radiance emerged, and strands of soul energy transformed from his eyes into dark-blue lightning, shooting into the Root ninja's mind.

"Your name is A-Three too..."

The forest was shrouded in a darkness Kato Osamu could not fathom. From A-Three's memories, he roughly understood that Danzo had grown suspicious and wary because of what he had done on the Cloud Shinobi battlefield.

The unfamiliar secret technique and unreasonable ninja talent had given Danzo a faint sense that things were slipping out of his control, even with the Cursed Seal in place.

"Find a suitable time to die, understood..."

"Of course..."

Seemingly somewhat unaccustomed to his new body, "A-Three" slowly turned his neck.

The same indifference as Kato Osamu's gradually changed into the original ruthlessness and gloom. Having inherited all of A-Three's memories, "A-Three" was no longer any different from the original.

The woods lay in shifting shadows. Beneath the moonlight, winter's bare branches seemed to have cast off all their burdens, roaring in the wind as they rose straight toward the sky.

A-Three leaped up and landed atop a dead branch, shaking the remaining snow from the tree. He turned back to glance at Kato Osamu before vanishing from sight.

Kato Osamu headed deeper into the forest.

The entrance to the Root base barrier, hidden in a corner among the trees, looked like a bottomless abyss glowing with black ghostly light in Kato Osamu's blue-lit eyes.

He roughly understood that once he stepped inside, there would no longer be any road back.