Light flashed across the arena.
Danzo wore a white robe, his right arm wrapped in bandages. Scars covered his face, and a cold, sinister light flickered in his lone eye.
Opposite him stood the towering Akainu, draped in the navy's Justice Coat. His expression was as cold as an ancient iceberg, and his entire body radiated suffocating heat.
"For the peace of Konoha, a potential 'destabilizing factor' like you must be eliminated here."
Danzo spoke first, his tone brimming with righteousness.
Akainu did not even raise his eyelids. He merely spat out a single word in contempt.
"Scum."
The battle erupted in an instant!
"Wind Release: Vacuum Great Sphere!"
Danzo opened his mouth and spat out several spheres of highly compressed air, sending them screaming toward Akainu!
Yet Akainu could not even be bothered to dodge.
He let the Wind Release shells strike him, but his body turned into flowing magma the instant they touched him. Every attack passed straight through, without exception.
"Is that all you've got?"
Akainu's voice was filled with disappointment.
"The darkness of the ninja world amounts to no more than this."
"Hmph!"
Danzo snorted coldly. His figure vanished in an instant and appeared behind Akainu, the kunai in his hand wrapped in a razor-sharp wind blade as he thrust it toward Akainu's back, straight for his heart!
But what greeted him was a fist made of scalding lava!
"Great Eruption!"
BOOM-!!
The enormous lava fist, hot enough to melt steel, was unstoppable!
Danzo's kunai melted into liquid iron the instant it made contact!
His entire arm, along with his upper body, was instantly vaporized by that terrifying heat!
His first life was gone.
Everyone in the audience thought the battle was over.
But the next second, Danzo appeared at the other end of the arena,