“For now, this is all we can do.”
Inside Treatment Room Two, Yuya Kudo looked at Danzo, who had been wrapped in so many bandages that he resembled a mummy.
“We’ll begin researching a more complete treatment plan as soon as possible.”
Her tone remained professional.
Danzo might have been one of Konoha’s highest-ranking figures.
And yes— being reduced to this state by a supposed Kumogakure spy was extraordinarily embarrassing.
But Yuya was still a medical ninja.
She had standards.
Normally, she wouldn’t laugh at a patient.
Unless she couldn’t help it.
And right now, the only reason Yuya wasn’t struggling to suppress a laugh was because she was far more worried about Koji suddenly collapsing outside.
Her carefully trained student had abruptly lost consciousness without warning.
How could she not be concerned?
If Danzo’s condition hadn’t been considerably more urgent—and if Koji hadn’t appeared physically stable—Yuya wouldn’t have remained here personally overseeing Danzo’s treatment.
In fact…
the more she thought about it, the more suspicious the timing seemed.
Koji had been perfectly healthy beforehand.
Then he’d entered Treatment Room One with Danzo.
Less than half an hour after leaving— he suddenly collapsed.
Yuya couldn’t help wondering whether Danzo had done something to her precious student.
Unfortunately, she didn’t know about Shisui Uchiha’s Mangekyō ability.
Nor did she know exactly what had happened inside Treatment Room One.
If she had possessed both pieces of information, someone with her experience might have been able to piece together far more of the truth.
The Uchiha clan had been gone for years.
But they had once been Konoha’s most powerful clan.
Their famous prodigies hadn’t simply disappeared from people’s memories.
And Shisui Uchiha had been one of the greatest among them.
Of course, the Uchiha most hated throughout Konoha now was unquestionably Itachi Uchiha— the man believed to have massacred the entire clan.
The irony was almost ridiculous.
When the Uchiha had still existed, most people in Konoha hadn’t particularly liked them.
Now that the clan was gone…
people occasionally found themselves regretting the loss.
Especially whenever the village faced conflict.
Human nature really was strange.
Danzo lay silently on the hospital bed.
Something felt wrong.
Very wrong.
Even though Shisui’s eye had been taken from him, the boy he’d placed under Kotoamatsukami shouldn’t have reacted like that.
Koji’s sudden collapse made no sense.
Unless…
there was something about Kotoamatsukami that even Danzo himself didn’t understand.
Or perhaps— something had happened to Shisui’s eye after it was taken.
Danzo’s visible eye narrowed.
For all his flaws, he had once been considered talented enough to study under the Second Hokage.
Tobirama Senju might have had an obvious distrust of the Uchiha clan, but his judgment when selecting students had hardly been poor.
When Tobirama died and Hiruzen’s generation was suddenly forced to carry Konoha through crisis, they had performed well enough for the village to survive.
Danzo hadn’t reached his position through incompetence.
During the ambush earlier, he had still possessed ways to reverse the situation.
The problem was information.
Shinobi battles were often decided by whoever knew more.
And Koji— a transmigrator who remembered Danzo’s future— knew far too much.
Danzo’s battle against Sasuke after the Five Kage Summit had exposed nearly all of his most important secrets.
First— the Sharingan embedded in his right arm couldn’t simply be activated whenever he wished.
He had to remove the seals suppressing the arm first.
Second—
Danzo’s obsession with Shisui’s right eye was obvious.
And finally, there was his last-resort sealing technique that could drag an enemy into death alongside him.
With that much information available in advance, if Koji still couldn’t devise a method to counter Danzo…
then he might as well forget fighting altogether and spend the rest of his life as a quiet medical ninja.
“How is Koji?”
The moment Yuya stepped out of Treatment Room Two and allowed the waiting Root operatives inside, she turned toward Rie Shibata.
“There’s nothing physically wrong with him.”
Rie answered calmly.
“Overall… it looks almost as though he just woke up from a genjutsu.”
At Rie’s level, she obviously wasn’t qualified to participate in Danzo’s treatment.
Checking Koji, however, was completely within her ability.
Unfortunately for Danzo—
Root was wheeling him out toward a private ward at exactly that moment.
Which meant he heard every word.
His face showed no reaction.
Though, considering almost his entire head was wrapped in bandages with only his left eye exposed, reading his expression would’ve been difficult anyway.
“A genjutsu?”
Yuya frowned.
“I’ll examine him myself.”
Rie’s conclusion felt strange.
Who would bother using genjutsu on a medical ninja?
Unless…
it had been the Kumogakure infiltrator.
Witnesses had reported that the assassin had briefly come into contact with Koji.
So perhaps Koji had been caught in some kind of genjutsu during that encounter.
He was still a relatively young medical ninja.
Even an ordinary chunin often had mediocre resistance to genjutsu.
It wasn’t impossible.
Danzo continued being wheeled toward his ward.
But inside his mind—
Rie’s words kept repeating.
Like he’d just awakened from a genjutsu. New chapters come out on novelping.com first.
Combined with Koji’s sudden collapse…
Danzo felt as though he were approaching the answer.
One question still bothered him.
Why would Kotoamatsukami suddenly stop working?
Before long, however, someone arrived with information that seemed to provide the missing piece.
And that person was none other than one of Danzo’s closest guards.
The Root operative leaned closer to the hospital bed and reported everything they’d learned.
Danzo’s remaining eye sharpened.
“You’re saying that when the Kumogakure infiltrator died…”
“…he threw the scroll he was carrying into the flames?”
Danzo’s mouth was heavily wrapped in bandages, although there was no major injury there.
Perhaps Yuya had simply gotten tired of listening to him.
More realistically, the bandages were part of the extensive stabilization required for the entire right side of his body.
The attacker hadn’t merely severed an arm.
Danzo had lost the shoulder and even part of his rib area.
Medical ninjutsu could accelerate healing.
But in his current condition— short of summoning the Sage of Six Paths himself, there wasn’t much anyone could do about everything that was missing.
“Yes, Lord Danzo.”
The guard answered carefully.
“According to the operatives who witnessed it, that’s exactly what happened.”
“The burned corpse has already been taken by ANBU for examination.”
The man chose his words cautiously.
Danzo had never had much respect for the ANBU directly controlled by the Hokage.
And now, at such a critical moment, ANBU had taken possession of the body belonging to the man who had mutilated him.
If Danzo became angry…
the consequences might fall on whoever happened to be standing closest.
But the guard had misunderstood.
Danzo wasn’t thinking about ANBU.
He was thinking about the scroll.
And about Koji.
And about Shisui’s eye.
For years, Danzo had endured the erosion caused by Hashirama cells and the Mangekyō Sharingan.
Then— a gifted medical ninja suddenly appeared.
Using the tools already available to him, Danzo had attempted to force that medical genius into his service.
From his perspective, there had been nothing unreasonable about the plan.
Then the Kumogakure infiltrator— a man who had disappeared without a trace for months— suddenly reappeared.
And of all possible targets…
he chose Danzo.
Danzo lay there in silence.
Somewhere deep inside, he couldn’t shake the feeling that even the heavens themselves had decided to work against him.
This was seriously playing dirty.