Chapter 183: One Punch to Shatter Everything
The moment Danzō saw Koharu arrive, he turned immediately to Tobirama.
"At the time, our intelligence indicated the Uchiha were preparing a coup. Hiruzen, Koharu, myself, and Homura discussed how to respond—"
"Tell me directly. Who voted for it, who voted against it."
Tobirama had no body capable of physical fatigue in this state, and yet he was, unmistakably, exhausted.
He genuinely could not have predicted that the students he remembered — driven, idealistic, full of conviction — would end up like this. Hiruzen's indecisiveness. Danzō's naked self-interest.
These two had been among his strongest students. Only Kagami had been their equal.
"All four of us voted. Homura voted against. Danzō and Koharu voted for the clan's elimination. I abstained."
Hiruzen exhaled, and for a moment he seemed to be back in that room, seven years ago.
Tobirama's expression shifted at the mention of Homura's vote.
At least one of them kept their judgment intact.
But the relief lasted only a moment before his frown deepened, turning back to Hiruzen.
"You're the Hokage. You abstained?"
"Monkey, you've held that position for decades. Do you genuinely not understand what the title carries?"
"Especially on a decision of that weight."
"You disappoint me."
Hiruzen took the words in silence.
He was old. By that point he'd mostly wanted to find a successor, train them properly, and step back from all of this with some dignity intact.
"Where's Homura. Where is he right now."
Tobirama scanned the room. Mitokado Homura wasn't present.
"Danzō was beaten back on the River Country front previously," Sakura offered, sliding in beside him. "I had him reassigned and put Elder Homura in his place."
"He's at the front line now, fighting the Sand."
Tobirama nodded at this. Of his six students, Homura had always been the unremarkable one in his memory.
But context mattered. Surrounded by students who'd all failed some basic test of integrity, the one who'd simply kept doing his job properly stood out by sheer contrast.
Watching the pink-haired girl address him by name without a title attached, Danzō's expression darkened slightly.
"Teacher." His voice was tight. "Is there anything else you'd like to say?"
Tobirama frowned at him.
The young man he remembered — ambitious, always at the front line in battle — had become someone who calculated everything purely in terms of self-interest.
"Is there something about this particular junior that's caught your favor, teacher?"
Danzō's eyes settled on Sakura.
...?
Sakura looked at him, genuinely confused.
I expose your dirt and you immediately go looking for mine?
Let me think about what I've actually got. Running through the house with my shoes on as a kid and getting yelled at by my mom — does that count?
"Is that a problem?"
Tobirama, who had only intended to help develop the yang-release technique and then go quietly back to the Pure Land, was now learning that his casual questions had unraveled significantly more than he'd bargained for.
There was no way he could return to rest with this much exposed underneath the surface.
Konoha's calm exterior was apparently hiding considerably more rot than he'd expected. Power consolidated in the same hands for decades had clearly bred exactly the kind of corruption he was now staring at — and that was just from the Uchiha incident alone. Sakumo's death. The Sand infiltration deep into the village's interior on a previous occasion.
That last one bothered him most. If Sand shinobi had reached that deep into Konoha, someone on the inside had made it possible. Intelligence. Border patrol. Internal security — multiple departments had to have failed simultaneously, or been compromised.
And whoever was responsible held real authority, not a minor post.
"Teacher, Haruno Sakura's capabilities are genuinely strong." Danzō's voice carried false reasonableness. "But her ambitions need to be watched carefully."
...?
Sakura's eyebrows went up.
Ambitions? Me? Since when?
Hiruzen, smoking quietly nearby, found himself genuinely startled by the accusation.
"This girl has carried hidden blades since childhood. Ambition has been visible in her since she was young."
Danzō's smile turned cold, and he produced a yellowed sheet of paper from inside his robe.
You kept that? That was a throwaway exam answer from years ago, why does it still exist—
Sakura looked at her own old graduation exam in his hand and felt something close to secondhand embarrassment.
Hiruzen, glancing at the paper, started to mentally prepare a defense of Sakura — and then actually read it. And found himself, against his own instinct, agreeing that Danzō's underlying point wasn't entirely without merit.
What eight-year-old genin candidate proposes a strategic framework for splitting the entire ninja world in half and consolidating it under Konoha?
Tobirama frowned, read through the exam quickly, and looked at the girl beside him.
"You wrote this?"
"I wrote it."
She admitted it without hesitation, and something close to satisfaction crossed Danzō's face.
If I can't have the prodigy, the dead prodigy is the next best outcome. Failing that — drag her down publicly, into the mud, where the village can watch.
"Creative," Tobirama said, "but built on a number of assumptions that wouldn't survive contact with reality."
He'd acknowledged the basic concept — leveraging existing resources to bring Wind, Lightning, and Earth Country to heel — but the execution had real holes. Any version of this plan assumed the other three nations wouldn't notice the threat building until it was too late. One misstep, and a coordinated response from all three would be more than Konoha could absorb.
In fact, that was almost exactly what had nearly happened — Onoki had once glimpsed Hashirama's silhouette during the Chunin Exams and seriously considered allying with the Fourth Kazekage to eliminate Hiruzen on the spot. Even with Tsunade and Jiraiya both in the village at the time, neither could have stopped Dust Release if it came to that.
"I just wanted to show off a little." Sakura took the exam back from Tobirama and tore it into pieces in front of Danzō. "Didn't expect anyone to take it this seriously."
"You—"
Danzō's face went cold watching the paper scatter at his feet.
"By that logic — your jinchūriki, your last surviving Uchiha, the Ino-Shika-Cho heiress, every powerhouse standing around you — are all of them part of the same design?"
"Eight years old and already plotting to swallow the ninja world. Now you're thirteen, surrounded by the future of this village's entire strength."
"If you forced Hiruzen's hand and seized the title — who exactly would be left to stop you?"
"Konoha would fall, and it would fall because of you."
Danzō's voice had risen, sharp enough that he was nearly pointing directly at her, the accusation of treason hanging unmistakably in the air.
Koharu, standing nearby, paled and took two quick steps back from him.
She had her own complicated history right now and no interest in being adjacent to whatever this turned into.
She personally found the pink-haired girl irritating. But she also wasn't blind to the obvious — this girl had both the strength and the political weight to back up everything Danzō was accusing her of, if she wanted to.
If Danzō hadn't pulled out that exam, Koharu wouldn't have known this prodigy had been showing this level of capability since age eight.
Anyone with functioning eyes could see the trajectory by now. Hiruzen had clearly designated her his successor — temperament and ability both pointing the same direction. She might genuinely become the youngest Hokage in Konoha's history.
Danzō's whole life had orbited around the Hokage seat, never letting go of that dream, reality be damned. If Sakura claimed it — at thirteen — a man currently seventy years old had no realistic path to outlasting her.
Watching this play out, Koharu finally registered something she should have understood a long time ago: her old teammate had never stopped wanting that chair.
"You're saying my student — my chosen successor — intends to commit treason?"
Hiruzen spoke before Sakura had a chance to.
His eyes, usually so mild, had gone cold and fixed on Danzō.
He'd admit to indecisiveness. He'd admit to a lack of accountability over the years. But accusing the successor he'd spent everything cultivating, in his final stretch, of plotting rebellion—
That was the line. Hiruzen felt something close to laughter at the absurdity of it.
My own crown prince, colluding with foreign powers? Who else in this entire village is supposed to take this seat after me?
Danzō, caught flat-footed by Hiruzen's sudden intensity, had nothing immediately ready to say.
Tobirama watched the exchange with calm detachment.
If anything, Danzō's outburst had cooled his temper rather than inflaming it further. Power had clearly done more than corrupt the man's character — it had made him careless and arrogant enough to say something this transparently self-serving out loud, in front of witnesses.
"Danzō."
He put a hand on the man's shoulder.
"You've gotten old."
"Put down the power. Go home. Rest."
Sakura, watching Danzō produce that particular argument, felt mostly deflated rather than alarmed.
She'd expected something at least cleverer.
Her family had lived in Konoha since its founding. Clean lineage, unimpeachable loyalty. She was the Hokage's final, hand-picked student. Given the village's current situation, she was about the only viable candidate for succession standing in the room.
And Danzō's counter to that was — accusing her of plotting against the village she was the obvious heir to? Did he expect her to spend the next fifty years politely waiting her turn like some forgotten crown prince?
The longer she'd lived in this village, the more she'd accumulated — experience, standing, perspective. She didn't undervalue herself anymore, and false modesty had its limits before it became self-sabotage.
That was simply the position she occupied now.
And exactly as had just happened, she hadn't even needed to defend herself against Danzō's slander. Someone else had done it for her — and not just anyone. The sitting Hokage himself.
Realistically, she could have killed Danzō where he stood right now and walked away from it cleanly.
But the cleanup afterward would be more trouble than it was worth, and Danzō was still the Hokage's lifelong colleague, politically speaking. She had use for him continuing to make moves for a while longer.
Whether she ended him personally down the line, or let circumstances handle it some other way — that was a question for later.
Danzō left.
He left looking considerably smaller than when he'd arrived.
Stripped of authority again. Not for the first time.
He didn't particularly care about the authority itself, in the abstract. But the encounter had clarified something he hadn't wanted to fully admit before: there was no legitimate, internal path left to dismantling Sakura's position in Konoha.
If the Hokage seat was ever going to be his, the route there didn't run through this village anymore.
Tobirama watched him go, expression unreadable, nothing stirring underneath it.
He knew Danzō wouldn't simply fold and disappear after this — the man wasn't built that way. But Tobirama's own presence here was borrowed and temporary, only carrying weight because of who he'd once been and the residual authority of having been Danzō's teacher.
The actual, lasting solution belonged to Hiruzen. Or to whoever inherited this mess after him.
"Hiruzen. I won't pretend to fully untangle right and wrong here anymore."
"You're old too. You understand what I mean by that."
Hiruzen exhaled, long and slow.
He understood exactly what Tobirama meant. Before stepping down, clean up what needs cleaning, and properly establish whoever comes next.
Who needed cleaning up, and who needed establishing — neither one required further explanation.
"Yes, teacher. I understand."
But Danzō had grown into something with real institutional weight — Root answered to him personally, not to the office of Hokage. Cutting him out cleanly now would mean major surgery on a tree that had been growing this way for decades.
Root, on paper, was a small training division inside ANBU — a handful of operatives. In practice, its reach had spread through multiple departments across the village, intelligence chief among them.
Removing that kind of entrenched problem before retirement was a genuinely heavy undertaking. Danzō himself liked to describe Root as the village's roots — the unseen support structure beneath the visible tree.
If the roots had rotted, and worse, were now actively drawing nutrients away from the tree to feed themselves — they needed to be cut, completely, with no remainder left to regrow.
But none of that could happen mid-war. It would require patience. Wait for the fighting to end, then move.
"I'm heading out," Sakura said, waving. "Got somewhere to be."
The yang-release technique had reached a workable shape. She wasn't going to delay practicing it any longer than she had to.
How long has this been sitting on the shelf, honestly.
Tobirama excused himself to Hiruzen and fell into step behind her.
He was, after all, currently bound to her summoning. And testing a brand-new jutsu carried its own unknown risks. He intended to stay close in case anything went wrong.
Hiruzen looked around the empty council chamber, exhaled, and reached for his now-cold tea.
A voice came from a corner he hadn't checked.
"An old man your age, drinking cold tea?"
"Don't come crying to me when your stomach acts up."
Tsunade, having gotten bored, had pulled some chairs together into an improvised bed and was lying across them.
"Heh. Fair enough." Hiruzen set the cup back down, smiling faintly. "No cold drinks, then."
"Old men need to act their age." Tsunade swung herself upright. "Come on. Kushina's actually a decent cook. Let's get you something hot tonight."
She took his arm and started pulling him toward the door before he could object.
"Kushina, hm." The name brought Hiruzen's thoughts back around. The girl had been instrumental in cracking Kumogakure's guerrilla tactics in the previous campaign. He hadn't gotten around to figuring out an appropriate reward yet.
"A junior cooking for her elder," Tsunade said, leaning in with a grin, "the elder should probably show some appreciation in return, don't you think?"
"Ah. So that's what this was actually about."
Hiruzen laughed despite himself. Apparently the reward conversation now had to include a gift for Tsunade too. The woman had gotten sharp about extracting things from him, somewhere along the way.
Night.
Training Ground Three.
Sakura sat in continued practice of the yang-release body technique she and Tobirama had developed together.
Lightning Release Body Technique was about explosive output. Speed and hardness. That was its entire identity, and Konoha — having now obtained the actual training method — had been studying the framework directly. Lightning chakra stimulated cells, producing speed and reaction time beyond normal limits, paired with substantial offensive and defensive enhancement.
Simple to describe, genuinely difficult to execute — the technique relied on precise nature-transformation and shape-transformation control that most shinobi never developed at all.
Yang-release demanded considerably more.
In Sakura's working model, the theoretical endpoint of yang-release mastery looked like Naruto's Six Paths Sage Mode in the original story — capable of pulling Guy back from the brink even after he'd opened the Eighth Gate, something close to restoring life to dead flesh.
She didn't need anything that extreme yet. What she needed right now was the groundwork for Shikkotsu Forest Sage Mode.
Tobirama watched her, cross-legged under a tree in the dark, with sustained attention.
Beyond his brother, almost no one had genuinely mastered yang-release. And no one who had ever come close to surpassing Hashirama in it.
By rights, Hashirama himself should be the one teaching this. But—
Hashirama's particular way of thinking had never been suited to instruction. That was, in fact, the entire reason Hiruzen — who should by seniority have studied under Hashirama directly — had ended up Tobirama's student instead.
Fortunately, Tobirama understood his brother's biology intimately enough to substitute adequately.
Yang-release, by definition, sat on the positive half of the yin-yang balance that underpinned chakra itself — complementary to a shinobi's spiritual energy. Both yin and yang pointed at chakra's fundamental nature, the same root that every elemental affinity — wind, water, fire, lightning, earth — eventually traced back to.
Everyone carried both yin and yang, in some proportion.
Yang-release specialists tended to cluster among taijutsu fighters and medical ninja. Anyone exceptional in either field necessarily carried strong yang chakra. Tsunade. Guy. Lee.
Sakura combined both disciplines simultaneously, and on top of that carried unusually strong yin chakra — which meant she had a built-in safeguard against yang-release running uncontrolled if it ever scaled too high too fast.
Through his sensory range, Tobirama watched a faint green aura of life-force settle over her entire body, slow and steady, nourishing it cell by cell.
Cultivating the cells, specifically. Not stimulating them.
Sakura's combat profile had already built a powerful yang foundation organically — every engagement she fought leaned on taijutsu and medical technique simultaneously. Tobirama noted, with mounting attention, that the grass beneath her and the tree at her back seemed to be growing more vigorously than they should be.
Is that—
Wood Release?
The thought surfaced and then dissolved almost immediately.
Not Wood Release. Pure life energy, unattached to a Kekkei Genkai. The two were related but fundamentally distinct.
Still — the quality of life-force radiating off her reminded him uncomfortably of his brother.
If Sakura hadn't looked nothing like either Hashirama or Tsunade, he might genuinely have mistaken her for Tsunade's biological daughter.
Time passed. Sakura's eyes opened slowly.
Green eyes, bright in the dark.
She found Tobirama nearby and spoke without preamble.
"This is going better than expected."
He nodded.
"That tracks. Yang-release was always going to come naturally to you. You're not starting from zero."
He paused.
"Have you considered Wood Release?"
Sakura blinked.
Wood Release?
"Wood Release is a Kekkei Genkai formed from water, earth, and yang chakra in combination. My brother is the only person who's ever fully mastered it."
"You already understand what it's capable of."
He watched her steadily.
"Given your aptitude, your existing yang foundation, and my direct support — developing it wouldn't be difficult."
Sakura turned the offer over.
Wood Release. The technique that had ended the era of constant warfare. The Nine-Tails had been a kitten in front of it. The Buddha statue at full size dwarfed even a complete Susano'o — Hashirama's wood-clone, by comparison, had been a footnote standing at its feet.
The raw ceiling on it was enough to flatten entire campaigns.
She looked at her own hands.
Could I actually learn that?
She made a fist, and unrelated to anything she'd just been thinking about, found her mind landing on Enma.
On Enma's son.
The infant one. Enko, still in his cradle.
The one who, generations from now, would become Konohamaru's summon during Boruto's era.
Her eyes widened slightly. There was a question underneath all of this she couldn't avoid anymore.
Would Wood Release actually do anything against an Ōtsutsuki? Against Isshiki? Against Momoshiki? Against whatever was left, somewhere, of the so-called God of the Ōtsutsuki clan, if that figure was even still alive?
Or, more precisely — did Wood Release work on the Ōtsutsuki at all?
"Wood Release."
She looked up at Tobirama.
He stood tall in the moonlight. She trusted his ability. She trusted her own.
Developing it would not, genuinely, be difficult.
But—
"No."
Tobirama's expression went still with surprise.
The technique that ended an era of constant war. The technique that broke Madara himself in open combat.
And she's turning it down without a second thought?
He had personally spent a substantial stretch of his life, after Hashirama's death, trying to study and preserve what Wood Release represented. Even he hadn't been able to let it go entirely. And this thirteen-year-old had just declined it in two words.
"The First's Wood Release is genuinely strong. I know that."
"But that was his path."
"Mine isn't the same as anyone else's."
"What I need is one fist—"
She lifted her hand, fingers spreading slightly, and pressed her palm flat against the night sky, as if she meant to close her fingers around the moon itself.
That's where a real Ōtsutsuki is. Up there.
Jutsu didn't work on them. Genjutsu didn't work on them. Every documented engagement against that bloodline confirmed the same thing.
Only taijutsu had ever landed.
Body. Fist. That was the only category of force the established intelligence said actually mattered against them.
A fist was the only truth that held up under that kind of scrutiny.
Her timeline was too short to spend any of it chasing something that wouldn't matter when it counted.
Researching Wood Release, by that measure, was simply wasted time.
"Shatter everything."
She said it quietly, like she was stating a fact rather than a goal.
Tobirama looked at her for a long moment, processing.
No clan standing behind her. No bloodline backing the claim. Just her own hands, and whatever she could build with them.
One fist. Strong enough to break anything in front of it.
Even Wood Release — the single greatest inheritance the Senju clan had ever produced — set aside without hesitation, in exchange for something purer and harder to dilute.
Interesting.
Tobirama found, somewhat against his own expectations, that he liked this girl more with every conversation.
☆☆☆
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