Konoha.
The Senju Clan compound.
Seeing Sarutobi Hiruzen bow his head, Chiba turned toward Danzo, who was still rolling on the ground.
Danzo’s wails gradually weakened.
He lay in the dirt, gasping for breath.
Cold sweat mixed with mud and grime, covering his aged, deeply lined face.
Although his arm had been torn off by force, he was still a Kage-level powerhouse.
Naturally, he would not lose consciousness on the spot.
His earlier writhing had merely been a signal to Sarutobi Hiruzen.
He had been waiting for Hiruzen to intervene.
Waiting for Sarutobi Hiruzen to use his political influence to save his life by force.
But Sarutobi Hiruzen had failed.
Danzo understood perfectly well that Hiruzen had completely abandoned him to preserve his position as Hokage.
Since there was no escaping this, Danzo could no longer continue playing dead.
He braced his remaining left hand against the ground and shakily rose to his feet.
Blood dripped from his shoulder and quickly stained a broad patch of soil red.
Danzo looked around.
The Uchiha Clan’s scarlet Sharingan.
The Hyuga Clan’s cold Byakugan.
The undisguised contempt of the Ino–Shika–Chō trio.
Every prominent clan in the village looked at him as though he were trash.
Danzo suddenly laughed.
The sound was hoarse and unpleasant, like the cry of a night owl.
“What do any of you understand?”
“Konoha is a towering tree!”
“Wherever there is light, there must also be darkness!”
“I am that darkness!”
He raised his remaining left arm and pointed at everyone present.
“If I hadn’t handled all those unspeakable matters over the years, Konoha would have been annexed by the other four great shinobi villages long ago!”
“Do you think peace simply fell from the sky?”
“No!”
“I bought that peace through countless conspiracies, assassinations, and betrayals!”
Danzo grew more agitated with every word.
The wrinkles on his face bunched together under the strain of his emotions.
Then he abruptly turned and stared at Chiba.
“The Senju Clan has already declined.”
“The Uchiha Clan is nothing but a pack of ungrateful wolves.”
“Was it wrong for me to try to control your power?”
“Only by perfectly fusing the First Hokage’s Wood Release with the Uchiha’s Sharingan can Konoha give birth to a new god!”
“Everything I’ve done has been for Konoha!”
“You fools have no right to judge me!”
Danzo’s voice echoed across the open ground.
It was met with an even more unsettling silence.
“What a fine excuse—’for Konoha.'”
“So that gives you the right to use your comrades’ corpses as experimental material?”
“It gives you the right to plunder the legacies of Kekkei Genkai clans at will?”
Chiba sneered, his voice filled with contempt.
Then he seemed to think of something.
He turned toward Uchiha Fugaku at the front of the crowd.
“Clan Leader Fugaku.”
“Since this old dog covets the Uchiha’s power so much, I have a suggestion.”
“Why don’t you show him some mercy and adopt him as your son?”
“Let him take the Uchiha name.”
“As long as he kowtows to you three times every morning, you can reward him with a pair of Sharingan whenever you’re in a good mood.”
The entire compound fell silent.
No one had expected Chiba to say something like that.
He was truly grinding Danzo’s dignity into the dirt.
“Lord Chiba must be joking.”
“The Uchiha Clan may have fallen on difficult times recently, but we don’t accept just any piece of trash into our clan.”
“If a beast like Danzo, who is lower than a pig or dog, entered the Uchiha gates, I fear he would sully the eyes of our ancestors.”
Uchiha Fugaku immediately understood Chiba’s intent.
Without the slightest hesitation, he straightened his back and replied with open contempt.
The two played off each other perfectly.
Every word was like a resounding slap across Danzo’s face.
“You brat…
How dare you humiliate me!”
Danzo’s face instantly turned dark purple with rage.
His eye became bloodshot, and his remaining hand clenched tightly.
The sneer vanished from Chiba’s face.
He could not be bothered to waste any more words on such a rotten man.
A strand of emerald-green Wood Release chakra began gathering rapidly.
The surrounding air instantly became unbearably heavy.
Chiba’s killing intent locked firmly onto Danzo.
He prepared to crush this scourge to death.
“Lord Chiba!”
At that moment, Uchiha Fugaku suddenly stepped forward.
He clasped his hands and bowed deeply to Chiba.
“This old dog not only desecrated the Senju Clan, but also insulted the Uchiha.”
“I beg you to show mercy, my lord.”
“Leave this old dog for me to deal with!”
“The Uchiha’s blood debt must be repaid by the Uchiha themselves!”
Uchiha Fugaku’s request caught everyone by surprise.
He was normally timid and submissive, retreating time and again before pressure from the village leadership.
Yet today, he had taken the initiative to request the right to execute Danzo in front of the Third Hokage.
Chiba raised an eyebrow. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
He understood Uchiha Fugaku’s intentions.
The Senju Clan had claimed the spotlight today, and the power of Wood Release had shocked everyone present.
If the Uchiha did not want to be reduced to a supporting role, they had to demonstrate comparable strength now.
Killing Danzo was the perfect opportunity.
“As you wish!”
Chiba shrugged indifferently.
It did not matter to him whose hands killed Danzo.
From beginning to end, Chiba’s only objective was to make Danzo disappear.
“Thank you for granting my request, my lord!”
Uchiha Fugaku’s spirits immediately lifted when Chiba agreed.
He turned and walked toward Danzo, one step at a time.
All the ninja present consciously began to retreat.
Within seconds, they had cleared a space more than two hundred meters wide.
Hyuga Hiashi activated his Byakugan and stared intently at the center of the field.
Nara Shikaku frowned, his mind working at high speed.
Sarutobi Hiruzen gripped his pipe, veins bulging on the back of his hand.
But he remained rooted to the spot like a wooden stake, neither intervening nor pleading for mercy.
As the Third Hokage, he had tacitly consented to the execution.
At the center of the clearing, Uchiha Fugaku faced Shimura Danzo.
The cold wind stirred dust across the ground, and the atmosphere turned grim.
Although Danzo had lost an arm, he remained a genuine Kage-level powerhouse.
The experience accumulated through decades of life-and-death battles was not something an ordinary person could match.
Most importantly, he knew he would not leave this place alive today.
Since he was going to die anyway, he intended to drag someone down with him.
Chiba was too powerful.
Danzo could not kill him.
But if he could drag the Uchiha Clan leader down to hell, he could at least eliminate a major hidden threat to Konoha.
“Fugaku.”
“Even with only one arm, killing you will be as easy as slaughtering a chicken!”
Danzo spoke coldly, his left hand already gripping a kunai.
Uchiha Fugaku stopped at the taunt.
There was no anger on his face, only killing intent cold enough to freeze the air.
“Danzo.”
“You keep saying you want the Uchiha’s power.”
“Then today, I’ll let you witness the Uchiha’s true power!”
The moment he finished speaking, Uchiha Fugaku’s three-tomoe Sharingan began to transform.
The tomoe elongated and merged, weaving themselves into an incomparably complex pattern.
In an instant, cold and violent chakra erupted from Uchiha Fugaku’s body.
Mangekyō Sharingan!
This was Uchiha Fugaku’s trump card, concealed for many years.
Not even his closest family—his wife and son—knew about it.
But today, to establish his authority and end the village leadership’s covetous designs upon the Uchiha, Uchiha Fugaku revealed his Mangekyō Sharingan in public.