Danzo's execution

The torches along Central Street flared to life one after another.

Night had fallen completely, but no one in Konoha went home.

Root's files covered the temporary long tables. The Konoha Military Police Force guarded the perimeter, while several Konoha Jonin kept the crowd in order. More than a dozen Root ninja still knelt on the ground, their chakra sealed and their masks removed, revealing blank, youthful faces.

Danzo was held at the very front.

He had lost his right arm, and his outer robe was soaked in blood. Golden formulas pinned down the Reverse Four Symbols Seal on his chest, leaving him unable even to destroy himself.

Such a wretched sight had no place on Konoha's Hokage's aide.

But everyone had seen it.

Naruto stood at the other end of the long table, holding the inventory of his sealed inheritance. He was in no hurry to open it.

The first debt of the night had yet to be settled.

Danzo had to die.

Not to vent his anger.

But to show everyone that today's reckoning was no argument, nor a child's tantrum.

Actions had consequences.

The Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, stood on the side facing the Hokage Building, with ANBU behind him.

He neither sat down nor left.

He knew what Naruto intended to do.

"Naruto, Danzo is the Hokage's aide. Even if he is guilty, Konoha must interrogate him before passing judgment."

Naruto looked up at him.

"Konoha will interrogate him?"

He pointed at the Root files on the long table.

"He's the one who conducts the interrogations."

Then he pointed at the Third Hokage.

"You're the one who approves them."

Finally, he pointed at the two Hokage Advisors who had already arrived, their expressions grim.

"And the advisors' office took my living allowance."

Utatane Koharu gripped her cane, her voice shrill. "Naruto Uzumaki, don't you dare slander us! We don't personally handle financial transfers. Someone must have falsified the records!"

Naruto did not look at her.

He picked up a living allowance transfer record from the table and handed it to Uchiha Tekka.

Tekka unfolded it and read out the signature field.

"Hokage Advisors' Office. Utatane Koharu's seal."

A stir ran through the crowd.

Mitokado Homura's face turned livid. "The seal could have been used without permission."

Naruto nodded.

"Then you can kneel and wait for the investigation too."

Both advisors' expressions changed at once.

The chakra tails behind Naruto swept across the ground.

"I wasn't asking for your opinion."

The two Chunin behind the Hokage Advisors tried to move, only for the Konoha Military Police Force to draw their blades and block them.

The tension tightened again.

Sitting on the ground, Danzo suddenly laughed.

His voice was hoarse, but laced with venom.

"Hiruzen, do you see? This is the jinchūriki you've indulged."

"If he dares kill me today, he'll dare kill you tomorrow. The day after that, he'll dare destroy Konoha."

Naruto walked up to him.

"You talk too much."

He raised his foot and stamped down on Danzo's knee.

Crack.

Danzo's left knee shattered.

A muffled groan escaped his throat.

The onlookers went pale, but no one spoke up for him.

A man who sent orphans onto operating tables, stitched Uchiha eyes into his arm, and treated a jinchūriki as an experimental subject had no right to demand dignity.

Naruto picked up a file.

"Uchiha Maki. Eight years old."

He picked up another.

"A-San. Seven years old."

Then another.

"Konoha Orphanage. Group B. Nineteen people."

With every name he read, another scroll was placed before Danzo.

At the seventeenth, an elderly woman in the crowd fell to her knees, sobbing so hard she could no longer make a sound.

She had recognized her grandson's name.

Back then, she had been told the child had died in the unrest at the border.

He had actually been taken into Root.

Naruto set down the last scroll.

"You said it was for Konoha."

"They were people of Konoha too."

Danzo raised his head, blood running from the corner of his mouth.

"Sacrifice the few to preserve the many. That is what a shinobi village is."

Naruto bent down to look at him.

"Wrong."

"That's just the excuse you made for yourself."

He raised his hand.

Chakra condensed into a golden sealing spike and pierced Danzo's abdomen.

The remaining chakra inside Danzo was locked down completely.

Naruto turned to the Third Hokage.

"One last time."

"Are you going to protect him?"

The Third Hokage's fingers slowly curled into fists.

The entire village's eyes were on him.

If he protected Danzo, the Root files, the embezzled funds, the jinchūriki surveillance, the arm full of Uchiha Sharingan—every dirty deed would be tied to him.

If he did not, Danzo would die before his eyes.

He had fought Danzo his entire life, and indulged him just as long.

Now the price of that indulgence lay before him on Central Street.

The Third Hokage opened his mouth.

Danzo looked at him.

"Hiruzen."

There was no plea for rescue in that name, only a reminder.

A reminder of how many things they had done together that could never be made public.

The Third Hokage closed his eyes.

"Take him to the Prison first."

Naruto heard him out, a faint smile on his face.

"So you're still protecting him."

The Third Hokage opened his eyes, his voice strained. "I'm upholding procedure."

Naruto turned to Tekka.

"Which Konoha procedure allows the Hokage's aide to gouge out the eyes of ninja from his own village?"

Veins bulged on Tekka's sword hand.

"None."

Naruto turned to a Konoha Jonin.

"Which procedure allows experiments on orphans?"

The Jonin's expression was grim.

"None."

"Which procedure allows a jinchūriki's suffering to be written up as an observation report?"

No one answered.

Naruto nodded.

"Then we don't need procedure."

Danzo's expression changed.

He tried to speak, but Naruto's hand was already pressed against the top of his head.

It was not a Tailed Beast Bomb.

It was not a fist.

It was a Sealing Jutsu.

Golden formulas drove down through the top of Danzo's head, sealing his chakra pathways, his Cursed Seal, and every contingency he could possibly have.

Then Naruto drew the short blade at Uchiha Tekka's waist.

Tekka did not stop him.

Naruto offered the blade to the elderly woman kneeling on the ground, trembling with sobs.

The old woman looked up, her eyes filled with bewilderment.

"He killed your grandson."

Naruto's voice was level.

"Will you do it, or shall I?"

The old woman's hands shook too badly to hold the blade.

She was only an ordinary person.

She hated him, but she had never killed anyone.

Naruto waited two breaths, then took the blade back.

"Then I'll do it."

Danzo jerked his head up.

"Nine-Tails brat, you'll regret—"

The blade flashed down.

Danzo's voice stopped in his throat.

His head rolled to the front of the long table, and blood flowed along the flagstones toward the Root files.

The crowd did not cheer.

There was only heavy breathing.

Naruto returned the blade to Tekka, then turned and picked up the inventory of his sealed inheritance.

The instant he tore open the seal, an ANBU came sprinting from the direction of the Hokage Building and dropped to one knee before the Third Hokage.

"Lord Third!"

"Someone opened the Underground Vault beneath the Hokage Office ahead of us. Some of Lord Minato Namikaze's belongings... are missing."