The moment he sensed Root, Naruto immediately abandoned the idea of sneaking into the Hokage Office!
He withdrew his gaze from Hokage Rock.
Then he lifted his foot again, turned around without hesitation, and left.
He continued toward Konoha Hospital.
Although countless thoughts had raced through Naruto's mind while he stood there, only a few seconds had passed in reality.
For Naruto, who was always shouting about becoming Hokage, that was a perfectly normal amount of time to stop.
Root's watchers clearly had not noticed anything unusual.
But...
What the hell was going on?!
Naruto's expression remained unchanged, but an uncontrollable storm raged within him!
Why had Danzo suddenly tightened his surveillance on him?!
Could it have something to do with Orochimaru?
Even before Orochimaru defected from Konoha, he had already been closely connected with Danzo.
Even the origin of Danzo's entire right arm was deeply tied to Orochimaru.
Could Orochimaru have colluded with Danzo again at this point?
Judging only by their identities, Orochimaru was a Konoha traitor while Danzo was one of Konoha's higher-ups...
Orochimaru and Danzo stood on opposing sides. The two of them should have been utterly incompatible.
But they were both people who put profit above all else. There was a strong possibility that they would use one another and cooperate again.
This was not a baseless guess on Naruto's part.
In the original story, during the chaos of the Chunin Ninja Exams—when Hidden Sound and Sunagakure attacked Konoha together—Danzo had not shown himself. It was hard for Naruto not to speculate about what Danzo had been thinking.
Danzo in particular had an unstable right arm. With sufficient chakra, he could keep it under control, but once his chakra was overly depleted, the First Hokage's cells in that arm would go berserk.
That was why