When Are You Going to Wake Up?

At the bottom of the pit, the severed Wood Release arm covered in Sharingan was still twitching slightly, and strange little branches had even begun to sprout from it.

The crimson eyeballs, smeared with muddy water, snapped open when stimulated. The sight made people's stomachs churn and sent chills down their backs.

Utatane Koharu stared at the severed arm for a long while without moving, then suddenly exchanged a glance with Mitokado Homura.

The understanding they had built over decades clicked into place in that instant.

The panic on Koharu's face was forcibly suppressed by anger. She abruptly raised her head, her voice so shrill it nearly cracked.

"Hiruzen! What do you mean by this? Are you trying to pin the blame for human experimentation on us, saying we were secretly protecting Danzo?!"

Mitokado Homura hurriedly pushed up his glasses, one lens chipped at the corner, then stepped forward to clear himself.

"Exactly! Root's funding channels are incredibly complicated. Every resource allocation we approved was for Battle-time mission requirements!"

"Danzo secretly made something this disgusting behind everyone's backs. Were we advisers supposed to personally oversee every single expense?"

"What gives you the right to throw this filth at us?"

The two shouted one after the other, raising their voices as high as they could, desperate to let every ANBU present hear how innocent they were.

The surrounding ANBU slowed their movements. Some secretly looked toward the bottom of the pit. No one believed experiments on that scale could have bypassed logistics and the Medical Department.

Looking at the two familiar old faces before him, wrinkled and weathered, Hiruzen no longer sighed or tried to smooth things over.

After decades of friendship, he could not even get a single honest word from them today.

The fire in his chest instead slowly