195 CH_6.24 (195)

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As Hiruzen took a step to push off the ground to dart toward Hiruzen, multiple ROOT-nin appeared from within the walls. Unfazed, Hiruzen ignored them all, aware of their presence all along. They had a Hyuga and a sensory-nin; an ambush was nigh impossible.

He was only focused on Danzo, leaving everything else to his ANBU-guard.

Hiruzen raised his bo-staff over his head and swung it down at Danzo, who calmly raised his cane and struck the bo-staff from the side. Hiruzen's face twitched when an overwhelming force forcibly changed the trajectory. The cane shattered at first contact, but the bo-staff missed the target, cracking the ground beside Danzo's feet. He remained calm as ice as the narrow space was plunged into a hostile battle.

Danzo stared down at Hiruzen. One moment, his eyes were tranquil as an undisturbed lake surface, but they flickered with killing intent in the same split second as he thrusted the broken end of the cane into Hiruzen's chest. Hiruzen effortlessly parried the broken cane with a kunai and struck a counter-attack in the same movement. Danzo side-stepped the kunai. Smoke puffed from within his sleeve, and a tanto blade slid out into his hand. He swung it down towards the base of Hiruzen's neck, who once again parried the blade.

Instead of building pressure, Hiruzen took a step back with his hands moving up to weave hand seals.

Danzo reacted by moving away from Hiruzen to create the most space. As he took a step back, the bo-staff transformed back into Enma with a large puff of smoke, and the Monkey King grabbed onto Danzo from behind and held him in place.

"Got you, you back-stabbing hyena," Enma said, baring his sharp teeth at Danzo.

Thick currents of lightning sparked around Hiruzen's arm as he pointed two fingers at Danzo.

Not a muscle changed on Danzo's face as the lethal lightning from a B-rank jutsu reflected in his eyes. He watched the jutsu, knowing that Enma would have to free his hold not to get caught, but also realized that with the experience, coordination, and trust between the two, it would be too late for Danzo to do anything by the time Enma freed him.

The lightning currents grew in speed and volume. The moment Hiruzen stiffened his arm, Danzo knew Hiruzen couldn't hold the jutsu any longer.

Danzo relaxed his body within Enma's grasp before pushing chakra through his body to create a sudden spike of power. Monkey King Enma was known to be indestructible and unstoppable—which meant he had extremely high endurance—but in no way did that mean he couldn't be moved around.

Danzo lifted Enma and flipped them both so Enma's back now faced Hiruzen.

The timing was perfect, as Hiruzen could neither cancel the jutsu nor could he hold it any longer. Hiruzen raised his arm and thrust it towards the ceiling for a brutal arc of lightning to jolt out and rip through the metal, concrete, and the tons of ground above them.

The entire bunker shook in a terrifying manner. The metal around them groaned, signaling that the jutsu had caused immense structural damage. The light bulbs illuminating the space, half of which had already shattered from the fighting, all went down, plunging the entire room into darkness.

Everyone, ANBU and ROOT alike, paused for a moment as everyone understood that a massive weight of the ground above them could come crashing down at them at any moment. Their abilities made it so there was a high chance of survival even if the bunker caved, but no one was going to take a chance against nature itself, trying to bury them alive.

A strong gust of wind blasted into the room, and Enma was thrown back, forced to release Danzo because of the ninjutsu. Enma, uninjured, stamped his feet to the ground to stop and roared at Danzo.

Hiruzen strained his ears. He heard the muffled sound of Danzo's slippers and a flutter of his clothes. Danzo was on the move. He asked Enma to follow, and they jumped down into a narrow tunnel. The tunnel stretched in one direction with a light at the end.

"We must hurry," Enma said as he hurried along the tunnel.

Hiruzen nodded and followed Enma but stopped after a few steps.

"Wait," he said, his voice echoing in the narrow space.

Hiruzen turned back towards the dead-end side of the tunnel. His fingers twitched as he breathed out a shaky breath. He joined his hand to create a release hand seal. The genjutsu shattered, and the dead-end suddenly extended into a tunnel going in the opposite direction. He could even pick up faint sounds from Danzo's sandals.

"Crafty bastard, we almost fell for it," Enma spat and stepped into the other direction when Hiruzen put a hand on his shoulder. Enma was shocked and blurted the first thought that came into his mind. "Are you letting him go!? I harshly disagree, Hiruzen! You must see through your old friendship for what all the man has done."

Hiruzen didn't reply. His eyes were trained on the tunnel bent to the side, blocking his view of the end. His breaths turned deep as chakra bubbled inside his body. More chakra than he had ever actively produced in years flowed through his chakra pathway network like a flood—the last time he had mixed this much chakra was years ago when he had tried to apprehend Orochimaru.

His bony fingers weaved a hand seal, and the chakra obeyed his command.

Fire Release: Fire Dragon Jutsu

Like a spark dropping on gasoline, fire for the B-rank jutsu erupted from Hiruzen's mouth in the shape of the dragon. The tunnel was too narrow to contain the flames, and the fire dug into the walls to make space for the dragon that refused to be contained, scorching and incinerating anything and everything in its way.

The Sarutobi clan were known for their affinity to Fire-Style ninjutsu much like the Uchiha. Hiruzen shared his clan's affinity, but unlike his clan members or those of the Uchiha clan, he was the Third Hokage of the Hidden Leaf, the God of Shinobi, the Professor who had mastered all nature transformation.

He pushed the B-rank jutsu beyond what most people could even master through their lifetimes. The fire burned hotter, and the dragon grew longer. It couldn't even be called a B-rank ninjutsu as it approached the destructive capability of an A-rank ninjutsu.

But it wasn't enough.

Hiruzen weaved more hand seals.

Combination jutsu was the skill-extensive technique of mixing two compatible ninjutsu into one to produce a much stronger ninjutsu. It was performed by two people, as one person could only perform a jutsu at a time. Hiruzen wasn't those people. He could actively perform two ninjutsu at a time—he could simultaneously cast two B-rank ninjutsu at a time with ease… given the right conditions, he could even do it with two A-rank jutsu.

As though someone had turned the fuel injector dial to eleven, the flames burned even hotter, jumping several levels hotter, and the fire erupted in volume, pushing against the tunnel even harder, turning some of the soil into molten lava.

The indestructible Monkey King Enma stepped back as the sheer heat from the flames began to sting his skin and singe his fur.

Combination Ninjutsu: Wind Augmentation: Fire Release: Heavenly Fire Dragon Jutsu

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Danzo escaped into the tunnel after taking advantage of the sudden blackout in the corridor to cast a genjutsu. He didn't expect the genjutsu to stop Hiruzen for long, but he expected it to hold long enough for him to escape.

It would have been wiser, and the logical decision to escape in the wind before Hiruzen even had the opportunity to send summons for him—but he wished to see him in the eye as he said his piece. It was his selfish desire to tell Hiruzen how and why they had arrived at the present.

The moment Uchiha Shisui had escaped from his ambush alive, he knew there was a chance that the news would reach the Uchiha clan and the entire village. It was a risk he had considered and had taken measures to reduce risk, but Uchiha Shisui had proven to be a troublesome adversary who had not only escaped alive but killed more than three-quarters of the finest ROOT-nin he had chosen for the mission.

It was a beyond-expensive operation—but it was worth it for the safety of Hidden Leaf. He couldn't let the cursed Uchiha, who had awakened the Mangekyo Sharingan, threaten the village. As long as Uchiha Shisui was sent to the afterlife, he wouldn't have minded the deaths of all involved in the operation.

What he didn't expect was the Uchiha clan accusing him of stealing both of Shisui's eyes. He had only managed to get his hand on one of the eyes. Shisui had escaped with his other eye—which Danzo deeply regretted.

Either the Uchiha were not telling the truth, or they indeed didn't have the second eye. Danzo wondered why for both options. Did they want Hiruzen to believe that the second eye was destroyed so he wouldn't be threatened by them—or did the Uchiha clan truly didn't possess the second eye?

What Shisui had done after his escape was a mystery that couldn't be solved by anyone but the man himself.

Seeing that Hiruzen had brought the young Uchiha prodigy along with him, he tested to see if Uchiha Itachi knew something—but other than hatred and anger, the boy didn't give anything that would tell Danzo what had happened to the second eye.

Danzo felt the genjutsu he had laid down shatter.

It was much faster than he had anticipated. Father time hadn't been kind to him.

He picked up his speed and headed towards one of the exits. They had built an underground branching maze with dead-ends and false-openings, filled with deadly traps, and only ROOT-nin knew the correct path to the true secret exit. He had noticed Hiruzen had brought a Hyuga along, which was an annoyance, but he had instructed his ROOT-nin to kill or at least occupy the Hyuga so his Byakugan wouldn't be used to track him down.

As long as he lost Hiruzen and his summon, he would be able to escape.

Danzo had raised his hands to weave hand seals to create clones to jerk the tail of his scent, when he felt a faint rumble beneath his feet. He glanced up as dust fell from the ceiling of the tunnel. He glanced back—for a moment, he saw nothing of concern—but then things changed. The temperature rose, and then he felt the heat arrive on his skin, and before he could genuinely react, a dragon's head made of fire hounded after, drowning everything behind it in fire.

He immediately used the Body Flicker Jutsu to shoot forward so as not to get eaten by the flames. He judged that he could keep ahead of the flames—but the moment that thought struck, the volume of flames rose, the fire grew hotter, and he could feel the intense heat assaulting his flames.

In an instant, he realized he wouldn't be able to stay ahead.

'Not even trying to take me alive now, are you, Hiruzen?'

Danzo jumped up towards the ceiling with lightning-quick hand seals and burrowed upward into the ground. He could no longer exit through the exit—creating a new emergency exit was the only option.

He never underestimated Hiruzen's power. The man was stronger than him from the day they had met as little babies. The gap had only increased as they grew and Hiruzen came into as the God of Shinobi, a perfected living weapon of mass destruction. But Danzo didn't think that Hiruzen would try to kill him—he was more valuable alive than dead. His ROOT network itself was enough reason for his capture because without him, it would take Hidden Leaf a decade to dismantle his operation.

The moment he breached the ground, the intense, pressured flames rose behind him, chasing after him as he hastily burrowed up. It didn't take long for Danzo to gather that the flames were faster than him, and he was bound to be enveloped in them.

He focused on every tenketsu in his body and released chakra to create a pseudo-protective layer to protect himself. It was not Hyuga's Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven—but it was the best option while he continued to burrow to the top so he could escape as soon as possible.

The flames enveloped him, burning away the chakra layer that Danzo continuously replenished. The fire burned his skin, the air burned, his lungs burned, and his eyes blurred until he was functionally blind, forcing him to close then— the ground around him heated, interfering with his ninjutsu that he was using to burrow up. He gritted his teeth as the fire ate at him.

He only took a breath when he emerged above ground and jumped out of the flames, rolling on the ground to put them out and extinguishing them with a burst of chakra from every tenketsu to snuff them out.

The smell of burnt hair and skin overwhelmed his senses as he got up to his feet to walk away.

'Where is he?'

He hadn't taken the risk of meeting Hiruzen without thought. He had an escape plan with contingencies set up to avoid capture.

"Surrender or die."

Danzo stopped as the words reached his buzzing ears.

He stopped and turned back to see Hiruzen with his bo-staff.

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