"Cough… cough… Akira Ren… you win…"
Danzō Shimura looked dazed.
His body was weak and trembling.
He realized that vines had bound him tightly.
He couldn't move.
Even the chakra inside his body was nearly depleted—he couldn't gather it at all.
After enduring three days and three nights of torment and humiliation inside Tsukuyomi, his mind had been severely damaged.
At this point—
he could no longer tell what was reality and what was illusion.
"Kill me… Akira Ren."
He looked at the boy in front of him—far too young, yet terrifyingly powerful.
Hatred and unwillingness lingered in his eyes.
But more than anything—
there was defeat.
His spirit seemed completely drained.
With a bitter smile he said:
"You must be very satisfied… humiliating me like this."
"No, no…"
Ren looked down at him coldly.
Seeing Danzō completely broken and stripped of all his sharp ambition, he spoke indifferently.
"Killing you would be far too merciful."
"You like using Kotoamatsukami to control others, don't you?"
Ren's lips curved with mockery.
"Then I'll let you experience what it means to be trapped by your own web."
Danzō had already used Kotoamatsukami once.
The ocular power left in Shisui Uchiha's eye was nearly exhausted.
But Ren was different.
He didn't lack ocular power at all.
To him, Shisui's remaining power was just icing on the cake.
"No… you bastard—!"
Danzō's eyes widened.
Fear and rage filled his voice.
He struggled desperately.
For a man like him—
being controlled by a mere child was worse than death.
Ren's crimson right eye began spinning.
The intricate Mangekyō pattern rotated slowly.
"Now…"
"You'll personally experience the strongest genjutsu."
"Kotoamatsukami."
In an instant—
terrifying ocular power invaded Danzō's brain.
His will was rewritten.
Completely.
Permanently.
Command: Eternal loyalty to Akira Ren.
"Lord Ren."
The next moment—
the hatred and despair vanished from Danzō's face.
His expression softened.
He stopped struggling.
But his mind had already suffered catastrophic damage.
His consciousness finally gave out.
Thud…
The vines retracted.
Danzō's blood-covered body collapsed to the ground.
"Passed out?"
Ren wasn't surprised.
He calmly knelt down beside the grotesque right arm.
From the blood-soaked flesh, he removed a Sharingan.
Then he carefully implanted it back into Danzō's empty right eye socket.
A gentle green glow formed in his palm.
He used medical ninjutsu to heal the wound.
This was necessary.
If other members of Root discovered that Shisui's eye had disappeared,
they might suspect their leader had been compromised.
And for Ren—
ordinary three-tomoe Sharingan were meaningless.
Only Mangekyō-level ocular power could strengthen his own Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.
At that moment—
someone approached.
It was Tsunade.
She had finished observing the battle and walked over.
Seeing Ren healing Danzō, she looked surprised.
"You're not going to kill him?"
"You're actually healing him?"
Although she hadn't known Ren for very long,
she already understood his personality.
This was a boy who could beat himself nearly to death just to train his taijutsu.
He was not soft-hearted.
Otherwise he wouldn't have infiltrated the Uchiha Clan compound that night
and taken Sharingan from the corpses.
"Killing him would be easy."
Ren shrugged.
"But that would be too merciful."
"And before you're ready to openly confront the Konoha leadership, killing him would make cleanup troublesome."
"So…"
"Let him work for us instead."
The real reason he spared Danzō wasn't fear of retaliation.
He didn't care about the reaction of Hiruzen Sarutobi or the elders.
The real concern was something else.
What if someone used the forbidden technique Edo Tensei?
If Danzō were resurrected later, that could become extremely annoying.
Even destroying the corpse wouldn't guarantee safety.
Root or Orochimaru might still have tissue samples.
A hidden enemy like that would be troublesome.
Controlling him directly solved everything.
More importantly—
it gave Ren control over Root.
Root would become the sharpest blade in his hand.
One aimed straight at the heart of Konoha's leadership.
And with Danzō as his puppet—
the village's forbidden techniques,
Tobirama's research notes,
secret clan jutsu—
all would become accessible.
Eventually,
once Danzō's value was completely drained,
Ren could decide whether to keep him—
or kill him.
Tsunade frowned slightly.
"Are you sure there won't be problems?"
"No need to worry."
Ren smiled confidently.
"Through Shisui's eye, I've already obtained Kotoamatsukami."
"With my current ocular power…"
"If he ever breaks free of my control…"
"There's only one way he could try."
"Death."
In theory, Kotoamatsukami even affected the soul itself.
Even death might not free him.
Though Ren wasn't planning to test that theory.
Tsunade nodded slowly.
"That works."
In her mind,
she was determined to make Ren the future Hokage.
With Root under his control,
his path to power would be much easier.
Politics was complicated.
Force alone couldn't solve everything.
She didn't want Ren to become another cold politician like the current elders.
Ren only smiled silently.
He had never wanted to become Hokage.
What interested him was something else entirely.
Becoming the man of the Fifth Hokage.
Of course…
being the man of the Fifth Mizukage wouldn't be bad either.
Then he suddenly looked toward the forest.
"Lady Tsunade."
"Root members are approaching."
"They're almost here."
"So… I'll leave the acting to you."
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