Chapter 629: Return of the Scapegoat King
"That... entity... seems to be gone? Hiruzen, did you see those last few scythe swings clearly?"
Seeing the light fade from the inner sanctum, Danzō whispered to his old partner. His viewing angle had been poor.
The Third Hokage nodded, his tone certain. "Yes. That was Uchiha clan martial arts. Kagami used some of those moves back in the day."
"Damn the Uchiha! This old man knew they were scheming! And that... that little brat from the Uzumaki clan..."
Suddenly, the Third Hokage looked sharply at Danzō. Danzō's body was blurring, as if a force was squeezing him out. Looking around, Hiruzen saw the same thing happening to the other living pillars.
Their bodies flickered, and they heard the faint sound of restraints snapping.
The Third looked up. In the main hall, the Hannya masks were cracking one by one. The souls sealed within, still unconscious, began to drift away toward the underworld. Hiruzen thought he caught a glimpse of the First Hokage's figure among them, but he didn't see the Second or the Fourth.
A voice in the void seemed to urge him, too, to rest, to return to eternal tranquility. But he felt his wishes were unfulfilled and refused. The voice had almost no binding power. Unwilling? Then suit yourself...
Was this good or bad? The Third Hokage couldn't understand it at all, and no one was around to explain. He only knew that Danzō was rapidly fading. In a few moments, his old partner might be gone.
But Hiruzen was ruthless. He was already dead; what was there to fear? Whatever happened, it couldn't be worse than his current situation.
As Hokage, as the "Professor," he had studied far more jutsu than the world knew. As long as a ninjutsu or kinjutsu didn't require a Kekkei Genkai, he could basically use it. If not for his advanced age and the energy-draining duties of the Hokage, he might have developed techniques that would have shaken the modern world.
The village only possessed an incomplete version of Dan Katō's Spirit Transformation Technique. It was a Hiden jutsu, and as Hokage, he technically had no right to learn it. But... rules were just rules. How could they restrain a Hokage who had held power for over thirty years? I won't learn it, but I can certainly... look.
The Third was already dead when Ino completed the jutsu. In his memory, the version he read was missing the beginning—the part about how to turn chakra into a spirit. But all the subsequent steps were there.
Normally, he couldn't practice it. But now, he was a spirit.
I'm already a ghost. What's the point of 'transforming'? I'll just skip to the later steps.
The moment he felt the restraints of the Reaper Death Seal vanish, Hiruzen followed the instructions of the Spirit Transformation Technique. He wrapped his soul in chakra and drilled straight into Danzō's body.
Half a minute later, the Shinigami's great hall collapsed, its god having fallen. All previous restraints—the living pillars, the Reaper Death Seal—failed. Danzō and all the other pillars were expelled from the dimension and back into the world of the living.
"Cough! Cough, cough!—"
Danzō gasped desperately for air. Having spent so long in the Shinigami's dimension without breathing, the simple instinct felt foreign. He choked, forcing it too hard, then not at all. It took a long moment for him to normalize.
He looked just as he had in the other dimension: a bare, scrawny chest, tattered pants, and bare feet. He looked like an old vagrant.
"I'm back?... Damn Uchiha! This old man is back!"
He looked at the harsh, rugged rocks around him. It was a desolate landscape, but he was ecstatic.
I'm finally fcking back!*
"Let's go check on Konoha first," Hiruzen's voice echoed in his mind.
Danzō's face darkened. He had half a mind to use the Reverse Four Symbols Sealing on his old partner, but he was too reluctant to die himself. He figured that once he returned to the village and took charge of Root again, he could surely find a way to counter, or even seal, the Spirit Transformation Technique. And then, Hiruzen... hmph!
He looked around gloomily. "Hiruzen, you're wrong. We should eliminate these guys first."
All around them—on the rocks, by the creek, in the treetops—were their "fellow sufferers," hanging haphazardly, still unconscious.
Danzō and Hiruzen were a two-in-one. Their combined spiritual energy was the strongest, granting them a high resistance to the dizziness from the abnormal teleportation. They woke first. The other unlucky souls were still out cold.
"They are not your enemies, nor have they wronged you. There is no need to kill them," Hiruzen said.
Danzō sneered. "But they deserve to die."
Why? Because they saw me in such a pathetic state. For that alone, they deserve to die!
His attitude was resolute. The Third Hokage didn't press the issue, just as he hadn't in countless arguments past. You want to do evil, I will warn you. If you insist, it has nothing to do with me.
Danzō was a standard Kage-level shinobi. Killing a group of unconscious people was no challenge at all.
Shlick. Thud.
He killed over sixty people in one go. Were there any stragglers? Probably, but none nearby. Hiruzen urged him to hurry back to the village. Danzō didn't delay further.
With over a century of ninja experience between them, navigating by the sun, rivers, and trees was trivial. They quickly found their bearings and ran toward Konoha.
Danzō had spent nearly a year as a laborer in the Shinigami's dimension. Had he improved? His taijutsu, certainly. That year of 007-style labor had restored much of his former condition. The Death force had affected him; his Hashirama cells and Sharingan were suppressed, and his muscles lacked explosive power. He could no longer dream of kicking Madara of the Six Paths like Guy.
But the trade-off was that his muscles rarely fatigued. He could run all day without tiring.
The two old men crossed mountains and rivers. When they arrived at Konoha, they found the village engulfed in war with the White Zetsu army.
Kumo was nearly crippled, but their valiant resistance had culled the 100,000 Zetsu down to 80,000.
Now, those 80,000 White Zetsu were crashing down on Konoha like Mount Tai.
Looking down from the hills, they saw a vast, endless sea of white enemies.
The White Zetsu were weak, but that was relative. Compared to Ino, they were trash with a power level of five; she could wipe out dozens with a single breath. But to an average ninja, the Zetsu were not weak. They were clones of Hashirama cells. Their physical stats alone put them at the Chunin level.
Eighty thousand Chunin-level enemies rushing in at once. Konoha was under immense pressure.
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