No sooner had Hiruzen Sarutobi said, "Quick, take me out the window," than Hatake Sakumo's voice rang out:
"Trying to run? You think you can get away?"
The hooded figure had still been some distance away when he began speaking, but by the time he finished, he was right in front of the man and the beast.
Hiruzen Sarutobi and Enma both felt their scalps tingle.
So fast!
Hatake Sakumo couldn't be bothered to waste words on Hiruzen Sarutobi.
With one arm severed, Hiruzen Sarutobi posed no threat. He couldn't form hand seals with one arm, so he couldn't use the forbidden technique that posed the greatest threat to Sakumo: the Reaper Death Seal.
The real trouble was this summoned beast, Enma.
Hatake Sakumo knew full well that Enma was a summoned beast. If things went badly, he could simply undo the summoning and flee.
Then word that Hatake Sakumo had killed Hiruzen Sarutobi would spread from that monkey's mouth.
So Enma had to die first.
The White Fang dagger stabbed straight at Enma's heart.
Enma reacted quickly too, clapping his two enormous, fan-sized palms together in an attempt to seize the dagger. He had always prided himself on his peerless body and boundless strength.
Unfortunately, the White Fang he faced today was coated in Armament Haki.
Sharper and more indestructible.
White Fang pierced straight through his palms...
"Puchi."
The blade penetrated his heart.
The instant it pierced him, an advanced application of Armament Haki activated. Internal Destruction!
The force erupted from his heart and traveled along his blood vessels, reducing the organs inside Enma's body to powder, one after another.
Enma violently spat out a mouthful of blood. His massive body shook violently, and his strength visibly ebbed away.
But he truly was an old companion who protected his master. Before dying, he clung to the blade with all his might and roared with his last breath:
"Hiruzen, run!"
Hiruzen Sarutobi had no time to grieve.
With one arm severed, he could only shuffle along the base of the wall in disarray, trying to escape through the window.
Hatake Sakumo tried to pull White Fang free, but the summoned beast had such a tight grip on it that he couldn't get it out right away. He didn't cling to the blade. Releasing it for the moment, he concentrated Armament Haki on his fist.
Pitch-black and gleaming coldly, it covered his fist like a layer of armor.
He raised his arm and slammed a punch at Hiruzen Sarutobi, who was shuffling toward the wall.
"Boom!"
At the last moment, the battle-hardened old ninja instinctively turned sideways and ducked, narrowly dodging the blow.
The iron fist grazed his scalp and smashed into the wall. As though struck by a monstrous beast, the wall collapsed with a crash, scattering shattered bricks and stones across the floor.
His punch missed, but Hatake Sakumo followed immediately with a kick, his foot wrapped in the same pitch-black Armament Haki.
How could forty-nine-year-old Hiruzen Sarutobi, at his "half peak," with one arm severed and only half his life left, possibly stand against Hatake Sakumo, who was thirty-five, in his prime, and had mastered top-tier Armament Haki?
He had dodged the punch, but he couldn't dodge the kick.
"Boom!"
The kick landed squarely on Hiruzen Sarutobi's thigh, snapping it off and sending it flying!
Hiruzen Sarutobi was hurled backward and slammed into the ground with a shrill scream. He lay there, unable to get up again.
He knew he wouldn't survive.
With his last breath, he tried to shout his enemy's name in a hoarse voice:
"The enemy is..."
Before he could utter a single sound of "Hatake Sakumo," Sakumo had already brought his foot down on his head.
"Splat."
It was like crushing a watermelon underfoot.
Blood and brain matter splattered across the floor.
And so Konoha's Third Hokage, the legendary figure who had claimed to stand alongside the First and Second, died in his own home.
The commotion outside had already awakened the people in the Sarutobi residence. Footsteps and shouts filled the corridors.
Hatake Sakumo strolled unhurriedly over to Enma, who had long since stopped breathing, and pulled White Fang from his heart.
He tucked the blade into the sleeve of his hooded cloak, slipped through the gap in the wall he had punched down, and vanished into the night.
Hiruzen Sarutobi's eldest son, the sixteen-year-old Sarutobi Ken, arrived first. He saw one wall of his parents' bedroom collapse and then saw the masked figure emerge.
He had barely taken half a step forward when he abruptly pulled back and turned into the room to check on his parents first.
The entire Sarutobi residence descended into chaos.
The four-man ANBU squad assigned to guard the Sarutobi residence had grown suspicious the moment the wall collapsed with a crash.
When they emerged from hiding to investigate, they found the residence in an uproar. Lord Hokage's bedroom had collapsed, every room was brightly lit, and figures were moving about.
With all this commotion, something serious had clearly happened.
Then they came face-to-face with a hooded, masked figure.
"Who goes there?"
"Take him down!"
The four sprang into action almost simultaneously, lunging at the figure from four directions with blades and Kunai drawn.
Hatake Sakumo recognized the four of them just from the designs of their masks.
They wore the animal masks characteristic of ANBU members: a cat, a hawk, a wolf, and a dog.
The post of ANBU commander stood vacant, with four squad captains serving below it. Before he was "bullied," Hatake Sakumo had been the most senior and strongest of the four, commanding Squads One through Four.
The four before him were Squad Two.
His former subordinates now stood in their own captain's way, blades raised.
In the end, Hatake Sakumo held back from killing them.
For one thing, Squad Two had followed him for years. For another, once he became the Fourth Hokage, these men would all be his subordinates.
He didn't draw White Fang from his sleeve, meeting them barehanded instead.
A clash fought purely with Taijutsu unfolded in the chaotic courtyard. He struck with tremendous speed, yet held back some of his strength.
He punched the nearest man in the abdomen. The man grunted and crumpled.
He kicked away the second attacker and followed up with a chop to the back of his neck.
All four were knocked down and left unconscious, one after another. He didn't kill a single one.
Hatake Sakumo lowered his fists and disappeared into the night without looking at the four sprawled on the ground.
Taking advantage of the chaos at Hokage Sarutobi's residence, he changed direction and headed straight for Shimura Danzō's home.
If he was going to kill them, he would finish them all off together.
Unfortunately, after searching Shimura Danzō's house inside and out, he came up empty-handed.
Danzo wasn't home. He didn't linger, turning to leave without his breathing beneath the mask faltering in the slightest. The schemer was most likely holed up in Root's base.
Having confirmed Danzo's absence, he didn't stay any longer and swaggered out through the front gate.
His manner made it clear that he wanted to be noticed.
Sure enough, no sooner had he appeared than four Root ninja leaped out, shock written on all their faces.
These four were elite operatives assigned by Root specifically to guard Danzo's home.
Danzo had neither wife nor children, but how could his residence, the home of Konohagakure's "shadow," be left unguarded?
Those stationed here were naturally no ordinary people.
Yet these four Root elites hadn't noticed when the masked, cloaked figure had slipped inside right under their noses.
They only noticed him when he swaggered out through the front gate.
One of them was the first to recover. He kept his voice very low, but couldn't suppress the anger in it.
"When did he sneak in? And we didn't even know?"
The man beside him turned livid and reached for the Kunai at his waist. Through gritted teeth, he said:
"Who cares when he got in? Take him down first and interrogate him! Otherwise, when Lord Danzo returns, can we bear the responsibility?"
"Get him!"
At the low shout, the four sprang forward, closing in on the figure from four directions at once.
Hatake Sakumo paid the four rats surrounding him no heed and didn't even break stride.
This was exactly the effect he wanted.
He had swaggered out to draw these rats from the shadows, saving himself the trouble of hunting them down one by one.
Now all four had shown themselves together, saving him the effort.
White Fang slid back into his hand from his sleeve, and Hatake Sakumo swung it casually.
A flying slash shot out, wrapped in pitch-black Armament Haki as before.
The two Root ninja in front stared at the black-glowing slash flying toward them, their eyes widening. Their bodies recoiled half a step before their minds could react.
So fast!
Too late to dodge!
The one on the left drew his blade with a swish, while the one on the right gripped his Kunai tightly. Both held their weapons across their bodies to meet the slash head-on.
They actually felt confident.
Across the entire Shinobi World, only the village's "Konoha White Fang" and "Mifune," the samurai leader of the Land of Iron, could use a flying slash. But so what?
Their blade and Kunai were special weapons forged by Root from refined iron. Ordinary swords would have their edges turned against them.
They were more than enough to stop one slash.
As long as they blocked it, the four of them could surround the man together, and he wouldn't escape even if he had wings.
The two exchanged a glance and shouted in unison, preparing to meet the blow head-on.
Unfortunately, their expectations were grand, but reality was harsh.
"Crack."
The moment the slash struck their weapons, Root's prized, specially made refined-iron weapons snapped like dry twigs.
The weapons weren't the only things that broke.
The black slash continued unabated, cutting both men in half.
The two Root ninja still wore confident expressions as they died on the spot, without even a grunt.
The remaining two stared, their eyes nearly popping out.
"What?"
"Run! Go back and report to Lord Danzo!"
The two fled in different directions.
Hatake Sakumo flicked his hand, sending White Fang flying like a projectile weapon straight through one man's back and heart.
The man fell with a thud, another one dead.
The other had gotten a little farther, but Hatake Sakumo caught up in a few bounds using the Body Flicker Technique and Taijutsu. He threw an ordinary-looking punch coated in Armament Haki,
"Bang!"
A huge hole was blasted straight through the man's chest, killing him on the spot.
All four Root ninja had been wiped out in the space of a few breaths.
Hatake Sakumo stood where he was, feeling the lingering warmth on his fist, and suddenly felt... a little unsatisfied.
Ever since obtaining Hawkeye Mihawk's top-tier Armament Haki, he had found himself increasingly fond of this kind of Taijutsu combat, where every punch hit flesh. It was clean and decisive, and every punch drew blood-far more satisfying than any ninjutsu.
He was now even a little too lazy to use the original owner's Lightning Release techniques.
He retrieved White Fang, wiped the blood dripping from its blade on a Root ninja's corpse, and tucked it back into his sleeve.
Then he set off toward Root.
Hiruzen Sarutobi was dead.
A ruthless gleam showed in Hatake Sakumo's eyes behind his mask.
Shimura Danzō, wait for me!