Chapter 170: Kotoamatsukami Gambit
'Danzo, what have you done this time?' Hiruzen thought and told his secretary to call Shisui.
...
"Good evening, Lord Third," Shisui said, bowing a little.
"Good morning, Shisui. Why did you want to meet me?" Hiruzen directly went to the main point, not wasting time with pleasantries.
Shisui once again put a scroll on the table. Hiruzen sighed and sent all of his Anbu guards outside since Shisui didn't speak after putting the scroll on the table.
After all the guards left, Shisui activated his sharingan and looked around. Seeing him activate his sharingan, Hiruzen was intrigued rather than becoming angry, thinking, 'He is making such a thorough check. It looks like this time, Danzo went way overboard. Fine, I will use this chance to reduce his power to such a level that he will only be useful during wartime and will remain inactive the rest of the time.'
This was the reason Hiruzen was unable to actually punish Danzo, no matter what he did. Danzo was the reason Konoha was able to hold its own against all other ninja villages during war times.
Since Konoha had the most amount of fertile land, during every great ninja war, all other ninja villages targeted Konoha unilaterally.
It was Danzo's schemes that made them fight internally, so that Konoha didn't have to face all other villages alone. Because no matter how powerful Konoha was during that time, it could not hold its own against all other ninja villages alone. And since a new war might happen again, Hiruzen didn't want to lose his most powerful weapon, at least not until he could get someone at the same level of scheming as Danzo. Because Danzo had become way too greedy in the last decade and had done many questionable things.
After Shisui confirmed scanning the room, he looked toward Hiruzen and said, "Lord Third, this scroll contains the bodies of a jonin and three chunin belonging to Konoha."
Hiruzen's eyes went wide. 'Jonin, really? Are you planning on going to war against the Uchiha clan, Danzo? Maybe age is really affecting your mind now.' Hiruzen thought, but he didn't say anything, allowing Shisui to continue speaking.
"Lord Third, I hope you remember my brother, Kaida Uchiha, right?" Shisui asked.
Hiruzen just nodded his head.
"He is once-in-a-generation talent of our clan, on par with Itachi. He is just 9 years old and has already evolved his sharingan to the level of 2 tomoe, and his kenjutsu is almost at my level."
This was the second time there was a movement on Hiruzen's face, small enough that Shisui wouldn't have noticed it if his sharingan wasn't activated.
'I was right, that boy does have the potential of becoming an S-rank ninja. Too bad he is an Uchiha, otherwise I would have groomed him for the Hokage's position, but still, he could become a valuable part of Konoha in the future...' Hiruzen thought.
Shisui continued after giving Hiruzen time to completely understand the situation.
"Don't tell me..." Hiruzen said.
"Yes, Lord Third. Maybe because Kaida had pointed us in the direction of his scheme, he wanted to eliminate him. Danzo wanted to eliminate MY BROTHER," Shisui said angrily, with his mangekyo activating naturally.
Hiruzen was about to curse Danzo in his mind when his mind went blank for a second. Shisui had already activated his mangekyo Sharingan, using anger as his excuse. When Hiruzen looked into his eyes during the conversation, Shisui activated his Kotoamatsukami with his full strength because his target was none other than Hiruzen, the most powerful man present in Konoha at the moment.
Within 1 second, Shisui was able to amplify Hiruzen's thoughts. Both his anger towards Danzo and his favor towards Kaida were improved by 5 times.
As Fugaku had continuously said not to make the effect visible, he stopped at 5 times. Otherwise, Shisui was more than capable of making Hiruzen Danzo's sworn enemy.
But that would have been the most idiotic thing to do. Also, the reason Shisui brought both dead bodies and Kaida's latest achievement in front of Hiruzen before using Kotoamatsukami was so that the thoughts would be active in Hiruzen's mind when Shisui used his ability, making it easier for him to use.
But no matter how much Shisui had prepared, his target was Hiruzen, so even his mangekyo ability was strained while working on Hiruzen's mind.
Even though he had only required one second to complete his work, that one second felt like eternity to Shisui since even a single mistake, and he would have to become a rogue ninja at that moment.
Attacking the Hokage was not a simple matter, which is why when he successfully completed his task, Shisui sighed in relief in his mind, but not showing any emotion on his face.
Since Hiruzen was already thinking of removing Danzo's power for some time, when Shisui activated his Kotoamatsukami and strengthened his feelings 5 times, those thoughts became similar to, 'Danzo has done more harm to the village than good in the past decade. Now, even if he works his ass off, Konoha will still suffer during the next ninja war since he has taken so many talented ninja into Root and killed them in the name of training, a sacrifice for peace.'
'The strength of the village is now nowhere near the level it should be if all of those talents were allowed to show their potential. Maybe we would have become strong enough to stand against all those villages without using any schemes at all.' Though this was just his excessive thinking, which would become meaningless if Hiruzen decided to focus on this logically since not many of those talents would have become elite jonin, let alone Kage-level ninja.
But still, they would have been better than dead bodies, so it was true that the strength of Konoha may have been 1.5 times what it was now, but it was nowhere near enough to go against all four great ninja villages alone.
After using his ability, Shisui said, "Sir, now this has become too big of an issue for our clan, and we will officially raise our complaint after some time." Shisui said and left the Hokage's office.
Normally, Hiruzen would have called Danzo at this moment to 'talk' to him about this and give him a little scolding not to do this in the future and handle this situation before it became big.
But now, he just sat on his chair, with a smoke pipe in his mouth and his eyes looking towards the Hokage's rock. 'Sensei, the load of this position is becoming increasingly heavy.'
....
Shisui told everything from start to finish without missing a single detail to Fugaku.
"How sure are you that Hiruzen would not feel anything about your genjutsu?" Fugaku asked because no matter how much he trusted Shisui and his ability, this task was way too dangerous.
If any mistake was made, he either had to disown Shisui or directly go against the whole of Konoha with his clan, both of which were unacceptable for him.
"I am 100% sure, otherwise I wouldn't have been standing in front of you at this moment and would have run to the Land of Waterfalls or something," Shisui said with a smile.
(A.N: It was Shisui's death which resulted in the breaking final straw and initiating the Coup at full phase)