The Sarutobi Clan Compound.
The paper door stood half open. Light squeezed through the gap from the corridor, casting a thin strip across the tatami.
Sarutobi Tsukikage knelt on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably as she held Konohamaru in her arms.
Konohamaru's face tilted upward. His eyes were closed, his lips slightly parted, as though he were asleep. But his complexion was wrong: the ashen gray of the dead.
The gray had spread from his cheeks to his ears, then down his neck, like a thin layer of frost.
There was a wound on his neck.
It was deep and vicious, severing his carotid artery completely. By the time the Medical Ninja arrived, he had bled out.
Tsukikage's tears fell one after another.
They landed on Konohamaru's face, on his ashen skin, on that gruesome wound. They pooled at its edge before running down his neck and soaking his collar.
Another body lay beside her.
A jōnin in a standard Konoha flak jacket lay facedown on the floor, a trickle of black blood at the corner of his mouth. The blood had pooled on the floorboards, giving off the scent of bitter almonds.
He had been one of Konohamaru's guards. Yet he had struck the child he was meant to protect with a fatal blow!
Then, the moment it was done, he had swallowed poison!
Cruel and brutal!
To Konohamaru and to himself!
A killer like that either had no other choice or believed in his cause with absolute conviction!
Hiruzen Sarutobi stood beside the paper door, his back against the frame and his hands hanging at his sides. His gaze rested on Konohamaru's face, his ashen skin, the enormous, hideous wound.
The wrinkles on Hiruzen's face looked several times deeper than usual. They ran from the corners of his eyes