Danzo's Last Mistake

Earth Land, Ishgar, Kingdom of Fiore, the Village Hidden in the Leaves.

June, x787.

It took about three hours for Danzo and his Root shinobi to gather everything that Alfonzo could not take away in their base. All the while, Alfonzo watched them. At the same time, he was reading through all the reports he stole, copying them into his [Archive Magic] database. And what he found made him positively giddy.

"Damn, I almost wanna pull Danzo into a hug and give him a big kiss." Alfonzo muttered to himself gleefully. "To think, he kept a copy of every Jutsu scroll the village has ever owned. Even if no one in his organization could use them due to the nature of their magic power or magic power cost. Even the stuff from the Scroll of Seals is in here."

That's right, now in Alfonzo's [Archive Magic], he had a copy of every Jutsu that had been submitted to the village library. He even had a full copy of every Jutsu in the Scroll of Seals, a compilation of all the Jutsu that were deemed too dangerous to be learned by the shinobi in the village.

["This seems like a God send to me." Bedlam said with a cheshire grin. ["With your magic power control and amount, you should have no problem learning the [Shadow Clone Jutsu]."

"Yeah, but I think that will complement Lici's style even more than mine." Alfonzo replied. "Just imagine all the stuff she could do with her stealth and multiple copies of herself."

["Yeah, Lici will become even more awesome than she already is."] Riot said in a lovestruck tone.

["Simp."] Bedlam said while rolling his eyes. Then, after Riot started glaring at him , he smiled before continuing. ["Although that's true, I was talking about after the baby is born. You could just make a [Shadow Clone] whenever it starts crying at night. Then, you'll be able to go back to sleep."]

"Nope, not doing that." Alfonzo replied, sounding as if he was offended. "I know you saw how much trouble that caused for Naruto in Boruto. As long as I can help it, all my interactions with my children will be the real me. [Shadow Clones] can take care of whatever I was working on when they want or need my attention."]

Although Bedlam made that suggestion, when he heard Alfonzo's response to it, he smiled brightly. In fact, he would have actually been disappointed had Alfonzo agreed with his suggestion.

["Hey, they're leaving."] Riot said, pointing out the movements of Danzo and his subordinate shinobi.

Hearing that, Alfonzo put away the scroll he was reading. Then, he looked at Danzo and the rest of Root. And when he confirmed that they were indeed ready to leave the base, he quietly followed them.

"Damn, there are a lot more of these mother fuckers than I thought there were." Alfonzo grumbled to himself. "At first glance, I can count at least a hundred of them."

["What's it matter?"] Riot asked. ["When they get far enough from the village, just shoot a [Linear Cannon] at them and wipe them all off the map."]

"Yeah, that's not gonna happen." Alfonzo replied while smiling awkwardly. "I mean, if I did that, I would change the entire landscape in this region. Plus, I promised to bring Danzo in alive."

["Besides, there are probably some people in there who never wanted to be part of Danzo's root."] Bedlam added. ["Not to mention the ones who could actually be rehabilitated. Besides, we're too good at what we do to have to resort to large scale destruction to take down a bunch of grunts like these."]

Although he did not respond, Alfonzo agreed with the last point Bedlam made. So, he followed Danzo and the Root as they left the base. Then, as the very last member of Root walked through the secret exit that led out of the village, Alfonzo flashed behind him, wrapped an arm around his neck, slapped a few sigils for silencing over his mask, and pulled him back into the base.

Meanwhile, Danzo was walking near the front of the group. However, he was surrounded by his most powerful and skilled subordinates. All the while, he was muttering to himself, unable to understand why Hiruzen would finally put his foot down now.

"This isn't like Hiruzen." Danzo muttered to himself. "Without any proof, he would never order my arrest. And with the seals I put on my Root ninja, there's no way he got anything out of the ones that were captured. IN fact, I need to make time to break them out of prison when I get a chance. It's not like that fool Hiruzen will make any changes to the barrier after my escape. He didn't change anything after Orochimaru left, either."

Unfortunately, Danzo never got the report about Alfonzo negating his [Seals]. Because after they could get the Root shinobi talking.. Or rather, after Inoichi, Ino's father, got into their heads, they found out about the moles in all the village's most important departments rather quickly before subduing them just as fast.

"No, that's not important right now." Danzo continued while touching a particular storage scroll that was tucked away in his clothes. "For now, I need to find Orochimaru. I'm certain he would be willing to help me return to the village. And if I let him study that boy's magic item, he'll definitely jump at the chance to work with me. And when we do, we can kill Hiruzen. Then, with Hiruzen dead, getting my wanted status revoked will take no effort at all. On top of that, there will be no one left to get in the way of me taking my rightful place as Hokage."

So caught up in plotting his revenge and eventual rise to power, Danzo did not notice the fact that the number of Root shinobi he was leading were reducing in number rather quickly. And although the members of Root did noticed, they were ordered to escape as quickly as possible. So, they did not report the disappearance of their comrades.

Earth Land, Ishgar, Kingdom of Fiore, Valley of the End.

About forty-five minutes later, the group Danzo led reached the Valley of the End. Knowing that he was close to the hideout Orochimaru and the other Rogue Scientist, Mayuri Kurotsuchi used a few years ago, he decided that would be the first place he stopped. And with the use of [Earth Style Ninjutsu], he would be able to fortify it into a new base.

"The shadows are the darkest just under the light." Danzo muttered to himself when he realized that he had reached the Valley of the End. "Hiruzen would never think that I would hide so close to the village."

With that, Danzo turned around to give his shinobi orders on what to do when they arrived at their new base. However, when he did, he could not help but notice that their numbers had been thinned significantly.

"What is this?" Danzo asked with a scowl as he noticed that his nearly one hundred Root shinobi had been reduced to just over thirty. "Where are the others?"

In response, none of the remaining shinobi said a word. They knew that their companions had been disappearing. However, none of them knew where they were. So, they could not answer Danzo's question.

After a few moments of silence, Danzo's frustration was mounting. Nothing had been going right for him ever since he gave the order to capture Alfonzo and Elicia. Still, as a seasoned shinobi, he was able to regain his calm rather quickly. Then, just as he was about to open his mouth to speak once again, a different voice rang out over the area.

"Well, that took a lot longer than I expected it to." A voice Danzo remembered from almost six months ago said. "I mean, you're supposed to be one of the strongest shinobi in your village. But it took you this long to realize that more than half of your forces were missing. I gotta say, I'm seriously disappointed."

Hearing that voice, Danzo's visible eye widened. Then, his expression of surprise turned into one filled with fury.

"Alfonzo Marcus!" Danzo shouted angrily. "Show yourself. I know everything that's happening is because of you!"

"Yeah, I just admitted that." Alfonzo said, the fact that he was rolling his eyes evident in his tone.

"I don't know what you've done to Hiruzen, but I'll make you pay for your crimes against the Hidden Leaf." Danzo continued, willfully ignoring Alfonzo's retort.

"Oh, you mean other than giving him proof that you were behind the attacks on me and Lici?" Alfonzo asked, making his voice sound as innocent as he possibly could. "I mean, negating the seal you put on your little group of nobodies probably helped with that."

Hearing that, Danzo froze. And it took a little while for hm to process what Alfonzo said. But when he did, everything finally clicked for him. Like Hiruzen, he just realized exactly how skilled Alfonzo must be to have the title of the best magic item crafter on Ishgar. In fact, that was the whole reason he wanted to capture Alfonzo in the first place.

However, Danzo, who had never had his [Seals] broken in the past had grown over confident, thinking that his [Seals] were unbreakable. So, he never even considered an outcome where Alfonzo could negate them if his shinobi had been captured alive. Then, again, he never even considered the possibility of his shinobi being captured alive in the first place.

Once he connected the dots, Danzo was able to calm himself quickly. Then, he discreetly signaled one of the remaining Root shinobi, a member of the Hyuga clan he kidnapped years ago, to use his clan's Kekkei Genkai, the Byakugan, to find Alfonzo.

The Byakugan, otherwise known as the All Seeing White Eye, is the clan trait of the Hyuga clan, and is what makes them such a formidable clan. With the ability to see everything around them within a certain area or extend their vision over fast distances in a straight line, not to mention the ability to see magic power, the Byakugan makes them unrivalled when it comes to scouting or sensing those around them.

Unfortunately for Alfonzo, that meant the Hyuga under Danzo's command would be able to see through Elicia's [Hiding in Plain Sight] spell. Luckily, Alfonzo was expecting something like this. So, when he sensed magic power gathering in one of the shinobi's eyes, Alfonzo finally made his real move.

"[Electromagnetism Magic: Thunderclap and flash]." Alfonzo chanted.

*Bang!* *Flash!*

In the next instant, the entire area was lit up with a bright flash, temporarily blinding everyone. However, the effect was amplified for the Hyuga, as he was looking in all directions. Meaning, he was hit by quite a bit of sensory overload. At the same time, an equally loud sound of explosion rang out over the clearing, leaving all the shinobi with their ears ringing.

"Argh~~~~~~~~!"

Despite the ringing in their ears, the entire group of Root shinobi heard the sound of someone screaming in pain. And they all knew who that scream belonged to, Danzo. So, using their well-trained senses, they closed the circle around Danzo and prepared for battle.

A few moments later, the effects of Alfonzo's spell faded. And when they did, the first thing the Root Shinobi noticed was Danzo cradling his face. Unlike Danzo's usual appearance, however, the bandages covering the right side of his face had been ripped away. On top of that, there was a large amount of blood streaming down his face from beneath the hand he was using to cover his injured eye.

The next thing they noticed, after scanning the area, was Alfonzo standing a short distance away from the group and depositing an eye with a red iris and three black tomoe surrounding a black pupil into a small bottle filled with a solution meant to preserve organic material.

"Alright, that takes care of the most troublesome part of all this." Alfonzo said as he capped the bottle before putting it away with all the documents he stole from the Root base. "Now, I can begin the hunt for real."

"Damn you!" Danzo roared angrily while glaring at Alfonzo with untold amounts of malice. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"

"Yeah, I took away something that doesn't belong to you." Alfonzo replied nonchalantly. "And I plan to do the same with that arm of yours, too."

That only seemed to make Danzo even angrier.

"Kill him! Kill him and recover that eye!" Danzo shouted. "No, don't kill him. Bring him to me alive. Then, I'll use the Kotoamatsukami and make him my obedient puppet. And the first thing I'll do is have him kill his wife and unborn child."

Immediately, the atmosphere in the Valley of the End froze. Then, Alfonzo's magic power exploded out of his body, putting pressure on all the shinobi in the area. In fact, the pressure was so strong that some of the weaker shinobi, meaning those at the rank of Special Jonin and lower, were slammed into the ground before losing consciousness. The stronger shinobi, on the other hand, were forced to their knees, unable to stand, no matter how hard they tried.

Then, there was Danzo, and although he was not forced to his knees, he could feel his knees shaking, seeming as if they would give out at any moment. And when he looked into Alfonzo's eyes, he felt something that he had not felt since the First Great Shinobi war…

Fear… Primal, unadulterated fear that seeped directly into his soul.

"You know, you really shouldn't have said that, Danzo." Alfonzo said in an eerily calm tone. "There are few things that can make me this angry. And unfortunately, targeting my family is one of them. And you've made the mistake of doing it twice, in one day, no less."

As he spoke the last sentence, Alfonzo began walking towards the group of immobilized shinobi. And his steps were slow and deliberate.

Meanwhile, another person, also under the effects of Elicia's [Hiding in Plain Sight] spell stood atop one of the trees at the entrance to the Valley of the End. And that person was Irene, who followed Alfonzo and Danzo as they left the village, just in case Alfonzo needed help. There were a hundred grunts to deal with, after all.

However, after seeing Alfonzo take them out as they traveled, Irene felt that her presence was unnecessary. However, since she had come this far, she decided to watch it to the end.

"I'm glad I never put that plan of taking Elicia and the others hostage into motion." Irene muttered to herself. "His strong spike in emotion just caused his magic power to surpass Gildarts, by a fair amount, I might add. And that's without releasing Riot and Bedlam. There's a chance he might have been able to kill me back then if I wasn't careful. OH well, let's just enjoy the torture. This should be fun."

As she spoke the last part, Irene took off her hat, reached inside, and pulled out a bottle of wine and a glass to enjoy the show with a drink.