The failure of Kotoamatsukami meant the death of Danzo's last hope.
His face twisted, color draining until his skin looked like old parchment. The pain that swept through him wasn't physical—though his body screamed from Naruto's earlier beating—but something deeper. More fundamental. The agony of a man watching his final card get burned before he could play it.
When the technique had activated, when Shisui's stolen Mangekyō had released the ultimate genjutsu, Danzo had felt it connect. Felt the invisible threads of chakra reach out toward Naruto's mind, ready to rewrite his will, to transform him into the perfect puppet.
And then those threads had struck something.
A wall. Seamless. Without gaps or cracks or any point of entry whatsoever. The Kotoamatsukami had crashed against it like waves against a cliff, breaking apart without leaving so much as a mark.
I couldn't even touch his mind, Danzo thought, the realization settling in his stomach like ice. How can I rewrite his will if I can't even reach his consciousness?
The answer was simple: he couldn't.
And with the failure of Kotoamatsukami, Danzo faced a grim inventory of his remaining options. His Wind Style techniques couldn't scratch Naruto's Iron Body conditioning. His Root operatives were annihilated. His Sharingan couldn't track Naruto's speed. His ultimate genjutsu had failed completely.
Which left him with exactly one option.
Getting beaten to death.
Danzo had spent his entire life determined to become Hokage. He'd schemed, manipulated, sacrificed others, committed atrocities all in service of that singular goal. How could someone with that level of ambition simply accept death?
But in Naruto's hands, what choice did he have? Where could he run? What technique could save him?
For the first time in decades, Shimura Danzo felt genuine despair.
It tasted like ashes.
"Desperate, Danzo?" Naruto's voice cut through his spiraling thoughts like a knife. The boy smiled, and there was nothing kind in the expression. "Don't you love dying in despair? Isn't this what you've given to so many others?"
"No." The word escaped Danzo's lips as a whisper, then grew stronger. "No! I won't die. I can't die. Konoha is still waiting for me to make it strong. I need to prove to Sensei that I was more suitable for Hokage than Hiruzen ever was."
His head shook frantically, side to side, denial made physical. His heart hammered against his ribs hard enough to hurt. "I can't die here. Not like this. Not when I was so close!"
Naruto looked at him with something that might have been pity if it weren't so cold.
"You're insane," Naruto said quietly.
The words struck harder than any fist.
"I'm not crazy!" Danzo's voice cracked, rising to a shout. "You're the crazy one! I hate people looking at me like that. I hate it!"
That expression on Naruto's face—the pitying gaze of someone looking at a broken thing—triggered something in Danzo. He was Shimura Danzo. He was Konoha's shadow. He was the one who looked down on others, who judged them, who decided their fates from the darkness.
He wasn't supposed to be pitied.
He wasn't supposed to be the one looked down upon.
Rage exploded in his chest, hot and mindless. Chakra surged through his modified arm, flowing through the Hashirama cells threaded through his tissue. His hand slammed against the ground.
Wood Style: Tree Root Prison!
The bloodline limit of the First Hokage erupted from his palm. Massive roots burst from the earth, thick as tree trunks, growing with impossible speed. They wrapped around both Naruto and Danzo, cocooning them in layers of wood that grew and twisted and multiplied until they'd formed a massive tree that hadn't existed seconds before.
In the darkness inside the wooden prison, Danzo's breathing echoed. He'd trapped them both. Trapped himself with the monster. But maybe—maybe in close quarters, in darkness, with the wood pressing in from all sides—
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Naruto's fists moved like pistons. Each punch annihilated wood, reducing ancient-strong roots to splinters and dust. Light poured through the holes his fists created, and in seconds the prison was more hole than wood.
Naruto stepped through the remains, brushing wood dust from his shoulder.
He appeared in front of Danzo, who stood frozen in shock.
Then Naruto's fist drove into Danzo's chest.
The impact lifted Danzo off his feet and launched him backward. His body folded around the strike point, and he could feel things breaking inside him—ribs, sternum, organs compressing from the transmitted force. His body tumbled through the air in a spray of blood.
I'm going to die. This is it. This is how it ends.
But even as the thought formed, Danzo's remaining Sharingan activated.
"Izanagi!" The forbidden technique of the Uchiha clan!
Reality twisted. The damage that should have killed him—the shattered bones, the ruptured organs, the internal bleeding—suddenly became illusion. Dream. Unreal. His body reformed, solid and whole, and he landed safely on his feet instead of crashing broken into the ground.
For exactly one heartbeat, Danzo felt relief.
Then he heard the whistle of displaced air.
"BANG!"
Another fist, this one catching him in the lower abdomen. The air exploded from his lungs. His body jackknifed, and he flew backward again.
At least Izanagi will last sixty seconds, Danzo thought desperately as his body tumbled. Sixty seconds to think. Sixty seconds to find an escape.
He landed, activated Izanagi again, and the damage vanished.
One of the Sharingan on his arm closed, its light extinguished. Each use of Izanagi consumed one eye. He had eleven remaining.
"Clever," Naruto said, and his voice carried genuine interest. "You're converting real damage into dream damage. Interesting technique."
He tilted his head, studying Danzo like a particularly fascinating insect. "I wonder how long you can keep it up?"
Then Naruto moved.
This time he didn't give Danzo even a second to breathe. His fists became a blur, each strike landing with devastating force. One punch to the chest. Another to the ribs. A third to the shoulder. Each impact would have been lethal. Each one forced Danzo to burn another Sharingan just to survive.
The eyes on Danzo's arm closed one by one, their light dying like candles snuffed out.
Danzo became a ragdoll, suspended in the air by the continuous impacts. He couldn't fall because Naruto's fists kept hitting him, keeping him airborne like a volleyball being juggled. He couldn't defend because he couldn't see the attacks coming. He couldn't counter because every fraction of a second was consumed by pain and the desperate activation of Izanagi.
All he could do was endure.
And burn through his remaining eyes.
Ten Sharingan left. Nine. Eight. Seven.
Sixty seconds per eye, Danzo calculated through the haze of pain and terror. Eleven eyes remaining when I started. That's eleven minutes if I'm careful. But at this rate...
Naruto was hitting him multiple times per second. Each strike forced another Izanagi activation. The eyes on his arm were closing faster than the seconds were passing.
Six. Five. Four.
I'm going to die, Danzo realized, the thought crystallizing with perfect clarity. Hiruzen is dead. The opportunity is right in front of me. Everything I wanted, everything I worked for, and this child is going to kill me before I can take it.
The bitterness of that realization was more painful than any physical blow.
Three eyes. Two.
Not fair. It's not fair. I deserve this. I earned this. Why is he stopping me?
One eye remaining. The last Sharingan on his arm flickered weakly, the tomoe barely spinning.
And in the space between one punch and the next, Danzo's mind retreated into memory.
The rain was cold. Danzo remembered that. Cold rain falling on the Land of Lightning's border, turning the ground to mud that sucked at their sandals with every step.
The Kinkaku Force was pursuing them. Ginkaku and Kinkaku themselves, the legendary Golden and Silver Brothers who'd survived being eaten by the Nine-Tails, who wielded the Sage of Six Paths' treasures, who'd already killed multiple jonin.
Second Hokage Senju Tobirama ran at the front of their group, his white hair plastered to his skull by rain. Behind him: Danzo, Hiruzen, Homura, Koharu, and two others whose names Danzo could barely remember now.
"Sensei," Hiruzen panted. "They're gaining on us."
Tobirama's expression was grim. "I know. At this rate, they'll catch us all."
The words hung in the rain-soaked air, their implication clear. If they all kept running, they'd all die. Someone needed to stay behind. Someone needed to buy time with their life.
"I'll do it," Tobirama said. "I'll hold them off while you—"
"No." Hiruzen's voice cut through the rain. "Sensei, you're too important. The village needs you. Let me stay behind."
And in that moment, Danzo's throat had closed. The words he should have said—"I'll do it"—had stuck like bones. Fear had wrapped around his heart like iron bands.
He'd wanted to volunteer. Had known he should volunteer. But his mouth wouldn't open. His courage wouldn't surface. All he could think was: If the monkey stays behind, if Hiruzen dies, then I'll be the one Sensei names as Hokage.
It was shameful. Cowardly. Everything a shinobi shouldn't be.
But Danzo had stayed silent.
And then Tobirama had smiled. "Good answer, monkey. My test—you passed. From now on, Konoha is yours. Be a good Hokage. Make the village strong and peaceful."
Danzo's heart had shattered.
"Monkey, take them and go. I'll handle the pursuers alone. Konoha is in your hands!"
Tobirama had turned and charged back toward the Golden and Silver Brothers, alone, buying time with his life for students who would carry on his will.
And Hiruzen had become Third Hokage.
All because Danzo had been too afraid to speak.
That memory had haunted Danzo for decades. How many times had he replayed that scene? How many times had he tortured himself with "what ifs"?
If I'd spoken up first. If I'd volunteered before Hiruzen. Would Sensei have chosen me instead?
But then the other thought would surface, poisonous and comforting in equal measure:
No. No matter what I'd done, Sensei favored the monkey. If I'd volunteered, he would have just said: "Okay, Danzo, you handle the pursuers. Monkey, you go become Hokage and remember to avenge Danzo." The outcome would have been the same.
It wasn't my fault. It was never my fault. Sensei was biased from the beginning.
That lie—that beautiful, poisonous lie—had let Danzo live with himself. Had let him transform his cowardice into righteousness, his shame into resentment.
I should have been Hokage. Sensei was wrong to choose Hiruzen. Everything I've done since then has been to correct that mistake.
The last Sharingan on Danzo's arm flickered.
Sixty seconds had passed.
Naruto's fist drove toward his face, and this time, there was no Izanagi left to save him.
"IT CANNOT END LIKE THIS!" Danzo's scream tore from his throat, raw and desperate. "I WILL NOT ACCEPT THIS!"
The fist connected.
Danzo's body exploded into blood mist.
Red droplets hung in the air for a moment, catching the light, before slowly dispersing like morning fog burned away by the sun. Where Shimura Danzo had stood, there was now only empty space and the faint smell of copper.
Naruto lowered his fist, looking at the settling mist with mild curiosity.
"Not accept,'" he murmured. "I wonder what he meant by that?"
But Danzo was dead, and dead men offered no answers. Naruto shook his head and let the question drift away. He had more important matters.
His parents' remains.
Naruto's body shrank back to normal size, the transformation releasing with a flex of will. He stood at his regular height of 1.7 meters, looking at the Root facility's entrance. Somewhere in that underground labyrinth was the laboratory Orochimaru had described. Somewhere in there, his parents waited.
Following Orochimaru's directions, Naruto moved through the facility. The corridors were sterile, lit by harsh fluorescent lights that turned everything the color of old bones. No decorations. No personality. Just clean lines and locked doors and the faint smell of antiseptic failing to mask something worse underneath.
The laboratory door was reinforced steel, sealed with multiple locks.
Naruto kicked it once.
The door, frame, and part of the surrounding wall exploded inward in a shower of metal and concrete.
The laboratory spread before him, and Naruto stopped breathing.
It was huge. Industrial. Rows upon rows of examination tables, each one equipped with restraints and drainage channels. Glass cylinders lined the walls, floor-to-ceiling containers filled with preservative fluid. And floating in those fluids...
Body parts.
Arms. Legs. Organs. Heads. Some of them adult-sized. Some of them small. Too small.
Naruto's eyes tracked across the containers, his expression going cold and empty. One cylinder held what looked like a heart, still connected to a tangle of blood vessels. Another contained a brain, suspended in pale yellow liquid, the surface grey and wrinkled.
And there, in the corner, smaller cylinders. Infant-sized.
Babies. Preserved like specimens. Their tiny bodies curled in fetal positions, skin pale as milk, eyes closed as if sleeping.
Something hot and violent rose in Naruto's chest. His hands clenched into fists hard enough that his knuckles cracked.
"Danzo," he whispered. "Your death was too easy."
He forced himself to keep moving, to keep searching. His parents were here somewhere. That was the mission. Find them. Take them home. Give them a proper burial.
The examination tables were empty, thank whatever gods existed. But the equipment around them told stories. Restraints worn smooth from use. Drain channels stained rust-red despite cleaning. Surgical tools arranged in neat rows, each one precisely placed.
How many people had died on these tables?
How many had been dissected while still alive, their screams muffled by gags or jutsu?
Naruto's stomach churned, but he kept moving. Kept searching.
And then he found them.
On a table in the back corner, covered by a white sheet. The sheet was clean—clinically clean—but underneath, Naruto could sense the familiar signatures. Blood that matched his own. Chakra residue that resonated with his cells.
His parents.
His hands shook as he reached for the sheet. For a moment he hesitated, terrified of what he might find beneath. What condition would they be in? What had Danzo done to them?
Naruto pulled the sheet back.
They lay side by side, his mother and father. Their bodies had been preserved—too well preserved, the flesh waxy and artificial-looking. But they were intact. Complete. Whatever research Danzo had been conducting, he hadn't started dissecting them yet.
Thank whatever gods existed for small mercies.
Minato's face was peaceful, eyes closed, blonde hair fanned around his head. He looked young. Too young. Barely thirty when he died, and his body showed no signs of aging since.
Kushina lay beside him, her red hair still vibrant despite death, her features soft in rest. They looked like they were sleeping. Like they might wake up any moment and smile.
But they wouldn't.
They never would.
Naruto's throat closed. His eyes burned. He stood there, looking at the parents he'd never really known, and felt something crack in his chest.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry it took me so long. I'm sorry you had to stay in this place."
His hands moved with careful precision, lifting their bodies as gently as if they might break. He cradled them against his chest, their weight almost nothing, and turned toward the door.
But something else caught his eye.
Another table. Another covered form.
Naruto recognized the body structure even through the sheet. Remembered blowing it apart in the Forest of Death during the Chunin Exam. Orochimaru's previous vessel.
Danzo had retrieved the corpse, stitched the pieces back together, and added it to his collection.
Even a Sannin's body isn't safe from your greed, Naruto thought.
He stood there for a long moment, his parents' bodies in his arms, looking at the laboratory that had consumed so many lives in the name of Konoha's strength.
"This place," Naruto said quietly, "shouldn't exist."
He carried his parents out of the laboratory, through the sterile corridors, up toward fresh air and sky. Behind him, the Root facility stood silent and empty, a monument to decades of atrocity committed in shadow.
Naruto set his parents down gently on a patch of grass outside the facility entrance. He looked at them one more time, memorizing their faces properly now that he had time.
Then he turned back toward the underground base.
His hands formed a single seal, and he exhaled.
Fire erupted from his mouth in a massive column, the flames white-hot with concentrated chakra. The stream poured into the Root facility's entrance like liquid destruction, flooding down corridors and through doorways, consuming everything it touched.
The fire spread with hungry speed. Paper ignited. Wood turned to ash. Glass cylinders shattered from the heat, their contents burning away to nothing. The bodies preserved in chemical baths became fuel, their fat rendering in the flames.
Naruto stood there for ten minutes, feeding chakra into the conflagration, making sure the fire reached every corner. Every room. Every last piece of evidence that this place had ever conducted its horrible research.
The underground facility became an oven. Then a crematorium. Then a tomb filled with ash and molten metal and nothing else.
When Naruto finally stopped, smoke poured from every entrance, thick and black, rising into the evening sky like a funeral pyre visible across half the village.
The Root base that had existed for decades, that had served as Danzo's personal kingdom of darkness, would burn completely. Nothing would remain but scorched stone and the memories of the dead.
Naruto turned away from the flames. He lifted his parents' bodies again, cradling them carefully, and rose into the air.
Behind him, fire roared and consumed.
Ahead, the sky waited, clear and open and free.
He flew toward home, carrying his parents at last, while the Root burned itself to ash below.