With a few swift Body Flickers, the two of them put the devastated forest far behind.
Under the moonlight, Shisui’s face was still pale.
Although the medicinal pill had eased the pain in his shoulder, the blood loss and exhaustion from the fierce battle couldn’t be erased so easily.
“Advisor…” Shisui said, his voice filled with lingering fear and heartfelt gratitude.
“If you hadn’t arrived when you did…
my eyes…”
He didn’t dare imagine the outcome.
Without Yu’s intervention, he wouldn’t have merely lost his Mangekyō Sharingan.
He would likely have lost his life as well.
Yu kept walking without slowing.
“Danzo has coveted the Uchiha’s eyes for a long time,” he said evenly.
“Tell me everything.
Exactly what did he do?”
Shisui nodded and briefly recounted the entire ambush—how Danzo had led Root’s forces, demanded his Mangekyō Sharingan, and forced him into a desperate fight for survival.
Even now, Danzo’s naked greed and ruthless cruelty still haunted him.
“So he’d stop at nothing just to get those eyes…”
Yu’s expression darkened.
That old bastard…
Still as despicable as ever.
“Advisor…” Shisui hesitated.
“Danzo won’t give up after today’s failure.”
Yu glanced sideways at him.
“Don’t worry.”
“He won’t be causing trouble for much longer.”
He stopped and turned to face Shisui.
“Go back to the Uchiha district.
Tell Fugaku and Itachi everything that happened tonight.
They need to prepare—and reassure the clan.”
Shisui blinked.
“Advisor…
what are you planning to do?”
A bad feeling crept into his heart.
Yu’s voice remained calm.
Too calm.
It was the kind of calm that came just before a thunderstorm.
“The roots beneath Konoha have grown too deep…”
“…and far too rotten.”
His eyes grew cold.
“It’s time to tear them out.”
Shisui’s pupils shrank.
“You’re going to Root’s headquarters?”
That place was the darkest corner of Konoha.
Danzo had spent decades turning it into an underground fortress, packed with elite shinobi, hidden traps, and forbidden techniques.
“Advisor, please reconsider!” Shisui urged anxiously.
“Root’s headquarters isn’t somewhere one person can simply storm—”
Yu raised a hand, stopping him.
“They’re nothing more than rats hiding in the sewers.”
“I’ll be back before long.”
It wasn’t arrogance.
It was absolute confidence in his own strength.
Shisui stared at him for a long moment before letting out a helpless sigh.
“…Please be careful.”
He knew there was no changing Yu’s mind once he had made a decision.
From one of the surviving Root operatives left bound by Wood Release: Great Tree Binding Burial, Yu easily extracted the location of Root’s headquarters.
Under the torment of Tsukuyomi, the man’s mind collapsed almost instantly, spilling every secret without resistance.
Yu had no interest in wasting words on fanatics.
“Go.”
He gave Shisui a nod.
Shisui bowed deeply.
Without another word, he vanished into the night with a Body Flicker.
He had to return to the Uchiha immediately.
Yu watched him leave.
Then—
Flying Thunder God Technique.
Space rippled.
The next instant, he appeared deep beneath Konoha before the entrance to a vast underground complex.
Root Headquarters.
A place where sunlight never reached.
A nest where countless conspiracies and atrocities had festered for decades.
The entrance was heavily guarded.
Several Root shinobi lay hidden in the darkness, their chakra signatures carefully concealed.
To Yu’s senses…
They were full of openings.
He didn’t even bother hiding.
He simply walked toward the entrance.
“Who’s there?!”
The guards finally noticed him.
Several kunai whistled toward him from the shadows.
Yu didn’t even raise his eyes.
Kamui.
The space before him twisted.
Every incoming weapon vanished into the dimensional vortex without leaving a trace.
Before the Root shinobi could react—
Yu disappeared.
One of them had barely begun forming hand seals when a chill ran across his neck.
Darkness swallowed his consciousness forever.
The combination of the Flying Thunder God Technique and close-quarters combat was so fast that it bordered on the impossible.
“Enemy attack!”
A shrill alarm echoed throughout the underground fortress.
The entire Root headquarters sprang into action.
Countless shinobi poured from every corridor, killing intent surging as they charged the lone intruder.
Yu stood calmly in the center of the passageway.
Expressionless.
“Wood Release: Deep Forest Emergence!”
The underground trembled violently.
Unlike the colossal forest he had summoned outside, these trees were smaller—
But denser.
Harder.
Deadlier.
Massive trunks burst through the stone floor, crushing walls apart.
Razor-sharp branches pierced everything in their path like giant spears.
Screams erupted throughout the corridors.
Bones shattered.
Blood splattered across the rapidly growing forest.
Most Root shinobi never even saw their killer before they were impaled, crushed, or torn apart by the overwhelming force of Wood Release.
Scarlet soaked both the twisted trees…
And the cold stone floor.
“M-Monster!”
One survivor stared in horror at the nightmarish scene.
“He’s a monster!”
Yu continued walking.
Every living presence that entered his sensory range vanished moments later.
Kamui erased reinforced gates and defensive fortifications as though they had never existed.
Tsukuyomi dragged even Root’s strongest operatives into mental hell, driving them mad until they slaughtered one another.
Wood Release: Great Tree Binding Burial and Wood Release: Cutting Sprigs Jutsu alternated seamlessly, turning entire squads into nourishment for the ever-expanding forest.
He moved through Root Headquarters like the incarnation of death itself.
Efficient.
Merciless.
Unstoppable.
Deep within the headquarters…
Inside the central control room…
Shimura Danzo watched everything unfold through an enormous surveillance display.
His carefully cultivated army…
The organization he’d spent decades building…
Was being annihilated like dry grass before a wildfire.
Blood vessels bulged across his lone eye.
His body trembled with overwhelming rage—
And growing fear.
“Shingetsu Yu…”
Each syllable escaped through gritted teeth.
He had never imagined…
One man could possess this level of power.
That terrifying Wood Release.
That impossible space-time ninjutsu.
Those unavoidable mental attacks.
“…Deploy every remaining operative!”
Danzo roared into the communications device.
“Activate the final defensive line!”
“Kill him at any cost!”
Only a few brief screams answered him.
Then…
Silence.
Complete silence.
Danzo’s heart slowly sank.
The underground kingdom he had painstakingly built was collapsing before his eyes…
In a way he couldn’t understand.
And couldn’t stop.
“What…
are you?”
Fear wrapped itself around his heart like a venomous serpent.
He couldn’t stay here waiting to die.
With a violent motion, Danzo ripped the bandages from his right arm.
The grotesque limb beneath was covered with Hashirama’s cells and embedded with more than a dozen Sharingan.
A sinister chakra filled the room.
“I haven’t lost yet!”
His expression twisted into madness.
As long as he still possessed Izanagi…
There was still hope.
BOOM!
The alloy door to the control room exploded inward, ripped apart by massive tree roots.
Yu stepped through the opening.
Not a speck of dust clung to his clothes.
It looked less like he’d fought through an army…
And more like he’d finished routine housekeeping.
“So…”
Yu glanced around casually.
“Your ‘Root’ isn’t very firmly planted after all.”
Danzo glared at him.
The Sharingan embedded in his arm slowly spun, glowing with eerie crimson light.
“You think you’ve already won?”
With a roar, Danzo charged.
Several Sharingan on his arm shut simultaneously.
Izanagi.
Yu didn’t move.
He merely smiled.
“The same trick…”
“…won’t work on me.”
Just as Danzo’s attack was about to land—
Yu’s body blurred like a ripple on water.
The strike passed harmlessly through empty space.
At the same instant—
A thick wooden spike erupted from the floor.
It pierced straight through Danzo’s chest.
“…Gh…”
He looked down in disbelief at the timber protruding from his body.
He died.
Then—
Reality rewrote itself.
Izanagi activated.
Death became nothing more than an illusion.
Danzo reappeared several meters away.
His breathing had grown noticeably weaker.
Another Sharingan on his arm had gone permanently blind.
“Impossible…”
His face turned pale.
Yu had predicted everything.
Even the precise timing of Izanagi.
“I told you.”
Yu took a single step.
He was suddenly standing in front of Danzo again.
“Izanagi forces fate itself to change by consuming the vitality granted by Hashirama’s cells.”
His voice was calm.
Almost conversational.
“How many more deaths do you think that arm can sustain?”
Danzo’s heart shook violently.
He knows…
He even knows how Izanagi works?!
Fear finally overwhelmed him.
“Again!”
He roared and activated Izanagi once more, desperately searching for even the slightest chance of survival.
Wood Release.
Taijutsu.
Space-time ninjutsu.
Like a cat toying with a mouse, Yu killed him over and over again.
Every attempt to attack.
Every attempt to flee.
Every resurrection.
Danzo died.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Each revival left him weaker than before.
Each activation extinguished another Sharingan forever.
Despair consumed the darkness of Konoha.
When the final Sharingan on his arm finally lost its light, becoming nothing more than an ordinary blind eye…
Danzo collapsed onto the floor.
His chakra was exhausted.
Every trump card had been spent.
Yu walked over slowly, looking down at him.
“The power of Hashirama’s cells…”
“…was never meant for someone like you.”
Before Danzo could respond, thick wooden vines shot from Yu’s hand and wrapped tightly around the grotesque arm.
“AAAAAAAH!”
Danzo’s scream echoed through the ruined headquarters.
Wood Release surged.
With a brutal wrench—
Yu tore the entire transplanted arm from Danzo’s body.
Blood sprayed across the floor.
Without hesitation, Yu sealed the severed arm using Wood Release: Cutting Sprigs Jutsu, completely isolating the Hashirama cells and the embedded Sharingan from any remaining chakra.
“As for you…”
“Adamantine Sealing Chains.”
Golden chakra chains burst from behind Yu, wrapping around Danzo’s battered body layer after layer.
In an instant, every last trace of chakra within him was completely sealed.
Yu swept his gaze across the shattered control room.
Scattered throughout were countless classified documents and scrolls.
Evidence.
Enough to expose every crime Danzo had committed and nail him permanently to Konoha’s pillar of shame.
The festering cancer that had lurked in Konoha’s darkness for decades…
Had finally reached its end.
Yu grabbed the bound Danzo by the collar as casually as if he were lifting a dead dog.
“As for the Sharingan you’ve stolen…”
“I’ll be taking every single one back.”
Danzo was barely conscious.
He no longer had the strength to answer.