Naruto hovered in mid-air, looking down at everything below.
Danzo, over a dozen Root members, the unconscious Ino and Iruka, and several Fuinjutsu already prepared by the Root members at their sides.
His gaze swept over the layout of the sealing formation, and he instantly understood Danzo's plan.
"It seems you were waiting specifically for me, Danzo."
Kurama Mode!
A golden Chakra cloak and mantle enveloped his entire body, and the six black magatama on his collar swayed slightly in the night wind.
Then, Light Release was added, and a white film of light appeared on the surface of the golden cloak.
The next second, Naruto vanished from mid-air, diving straight toward the rock platform where Danzo stood at extreme speed.
Faced with such speed, Danzo hadn't even had time to shift his gaze from the sky before Naruto appeared right in front of him.
Naruto reached out with his right hand, grabbing the eye socket of Danzo's bandaged right eye. With a forceful tug, he ripped out Shisui's Mangekyo Sharingan. At the same time, he grabbed Danzo's right elbow and twisted it in the opposite direction, tearing off the right arm grafted with Hashirama cells and ten Sharingan.
Before Danzo could even feel the pain, a flash of golden light appeared as Naruto materialized beside Ino and Iruka and retreated to the edge of the surrounding forest with them.
"Ahhhh!!!" Danzo screamed.
He knelt on the rock platform, with two bloody pits remaining where his right hand and right eye had been.
Without the suppression of the Sharingan, the Hashirama cells grafted into his body went out of control. Wood grew wildly from his severed arm, consuming his entire body at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Danzo gritted his teeth and drew a Kunai with his remaining left arm. He slashed through the branches, and cut himself free from the petrified torso, rolling to the side.
"Enemy attack!"
The Root ninjas finally reacted but just as they shouted these words, golden points of light lit up at the edge of the distant forest.
The lasers were so fast that the Root members didn't even have time to make any defensive moves before their bodies were pierced.
Rumble...
Explosions erupted one after another in the mountains, and eight Root members were instantly reduced to charred remains amidst the fire and rubble.
After the round of attacks, only Danzo, Torune, and Fu remained at the scene.
"Danzo-sama, please retreat!"
Torune and Fu stood in front of Danzo. One released Kikaichu to form a defensive net in front of them, while the other performed hand seals, preparing to launch the Mind Body Switch Technique.
Just then, a golden light shot from the edge of the forest and appeared before Torune's Kikaichu defensive net, piercing through the center of the swarm.
Naruto's figure coalesced from the light, blood dripping from his right hand.
Torune looked down and saw a incision through his chest. Kikaichu poured out from the wound, swarming onto his body in an attempt to repair the impossible-to-fix injury.
Fu's arms remained in the posture of performing hand seals, but a thin line of blood appeared on his neck.
So fast...
This was the last thought that surfaced for both Torune and Fu before their corpses fell to the ground simultaneously.
Naruto walked toward Danzo.
Danzo struggled to stand up from the pile of rubble, supporting himself with his cane using his remaining left arm, and saw the face illuminated by the golden light.
His left pupil shrank to a pinprick. "You... you are Naruto? Impossible, this appearance?"
Danzo thought of something, his face full of horror. "Could it be that you have already mastered the power of Nine-Tails?!"
Naruto raised his right foot and stomped Danzo onto the ground. "Danzo, is this your will of fire? Kidnapping people in the village, not even sparing teachers and Genin. Does a person like you even deserve to think about the position of Hokage?"
"When the Third Hokage was alive, you were just a worm. After the Third Hokage died, you hopped around for two days. Did you really think you could fly?"
"Naruto, how dare you insult me!" Danzo was enraged.
He struggled desperately to crawl up, but Naruto's foot seemed to weigh a ton, pinning him firmly to the ground and leaving him unable to move.
"Even the Second Hokage knew back then that the future belonged to the young, so he volunteered to stay behind to cover the retreat, handing the path to survival and the position of Hokage to the young."
"What about you? Holding Root in your hands, what have you done all these years?"
"You eliminated everyone who could threaten your path to becoming Hokage."
"You spread rumors that forced Konoha White Fang to choose between his mission and his comrades, leading to his suicide."
"My father, Minato... With your intelligence network in Konoha, how could you not know the information about the masked man?"
"Yet you provided no intelligence, watching idly as Nine-Tails attacked the village, watching my parents die in battle."
"Nagato and his friends created the Akatsuki for the sake of peace, but you colluded with Hanzo and, in the name of Konoha, forced them into the terrorist organization they are now."
"The Uchiha Clan extermination... You forced Itachi to do it, and then turned around and dug out the Sharingan of the entire clan to install on yourself."
"The current state of Konoha, lacking successors, is entirely caused by you."
"Danzo, tell me, what use are you to Konoha?"
With every point Naruto made, he applied more pressure to Danzo's head with his foot. Half of his face had been scraped raw by the ground, and blood seeped from the broken skin.
"Ahhhh!"
"Naruto, what do you know? Everything I did was for Konoha!"
"Hmph, for Konoha? Isn't this just for yourself? You are truly shameless." Naruto sneered.
He knew that nothing he said would change this old man, and prepared to finish him off.
Just then, the sound of footsteps and branches being snapped came from the distance.
Sensing that Tsunade and Jiraiya were approaching, Naruto removed his foot from Danzo's head, and Kurama Mode faded, returning him to his normal appearance.
Jiraiya and Tsunade, accompanied by dozens of Anbu, rushed over from the other end of the mountain path.
When the Anbu behind Tsunade saw the scene, they instinctively slowed their pace.
The entire mountain had been blasted into a charred ruin, rubble and severed limbs were scattered everywhere. The corpses of Torune and Fu lay in the middle of a pile of debris, and none of the dozen or so Root members were standing.
"Tsunade, save... save me..."
When Danzo saw Tsunade, a glimmer of light appeared in his eyes. He moved his left arm, which was still capable of movement, and tremblingly reached out toward Tsunade.
"Old man, settle down."
Naruto kicked Danzo, sending him rolling across the ground several times until he landed right at Tsunade's feet.
The Anbu behind Tsunade fell into collective silence as they looked at Danzo on the ground, covered in blood, with his right arm severed at the elbow and nothing left of his right eye socket but a bloody hole.
In their memory, Danzo was the Konoha Elder who looked down on everyone with cold eyes. Now, he was a completely different person.
Naruto walked toward the edge of the platform where Ino and Iruka were still lying on the ground. He gathered Chakra in his palms, and placed them on both of their foreheads. Gentle Chakra flowed into their Chakra pathways, dispelling the residual nerve paralysis from when they were knocked unconscious.
"Cough, cough..."
Ino and Iruka opened their eyes one after another.
"Naruto..."
Dazed, Ino saw Naruto close by. Before she could ask what had happened, her peripheral vision caught the scene not far away.
Tsunade, Jiraiya, the Anbu behind them, and that person covered in blood on the ground.
Iruka quickly reacted, propping himself up on the ground. He scanned Naruto's body, and only after confirming he wasn't injured did he breathe a sigh of relief.
"Anbu, take Danzo to the dungeon and wait for interrogation." Tsunade raised her hand and gestured to the Anbu behind her.
"Yes, Hokage-sama!"
Several Anbu stepped forward and dragged Danzo up from the ground.
While being held up, Danzo glared at Tsunade with his left eye, his voice hoarse. "Tsunade, how dare you lay a hand on me! I am a Konoha Elder! You should be dealing with the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, he is the one who beat me like this!"
But no one answered him.