Chapter 139: The Ineffective God of the Sky
The night in Konoha was deathly still.
Aside from the occasional chirping of insects, the village was wrapped in silence. Most of its citizens were deep in slumber, dreaming away the stress and fatigue from the day before.
Only a select few remained active in the shadows—watchful, unseen.
The Anbu moved silently through the dark alleys and rooftops, their presence undetectable to ordinary civilians. Hidden in the folds of the village's architecture, they kept a vigilant eye on any potential threats from outside—or within.
"Have all the nearby Anbu been dealt with?"
The voice was cold, unfeeling—filtered through the only visible gap beneath thick white bandages.
On a narrow street tucked away in the forgotten corners of Konoha, Shimura Danzo stood at the base of a worn-down apartment building, eyes narrowed at the dimly lit window above.
This place reeked of loneliness.
Every unit in the building was dark and lifeless—except one.
Only one apartment still showed signs of habitation, faint light flickering behind cheap curtains. The rest had been abandoned long ago, evacuated by wary civilians who didn't want to live near the Nine-Tails' Jinchūriki.
The few who remained were out-of-towners, rarely home—shinobi and laborers who worked most of the year abroad.
"Yes, sir," came a hushed reply.
A masked ninja appeared in front of him, kneeling with perfect form. "They've been knocked unconscious as instructed. No casualties."
Danzo gave a curt nod of approval.
"Good. Have everyone secure all nearby entrances and exits. No one gets in or out until I'm finished."
Like shadows coming to life, more masked figures emerged from the darkness. Silent. Coordinated. Precise.
Dozens of Root operatives surrounded Danzo in an instant, kneeling in unison.
Loyal. Wordless. Deadly.
"Disperse."
The command left his lips like a whisper, and the Root ninjas vanished once more, fading into the walls, alleys, and rooftops like phantoms.
Danzo was alone again.
Step by step, he ascended the staircase, movements slow and measured. Though old in body, he walked with a rigid posture—calm, collected, predator-like.
No wasted breath. No noise.
He reached Naruto's door.
He didn't use jutsu. No brute force. No flashy technique.
He simply reached into his robe and pulled out a key.
Inserted it.
Click.
The lock turned with a barely audible snap.
Danzo's expression darkened.
Something felt off.
The subtle movement from inside the room—a shifting weight, a sharp breath drawn in half-sleep—it was barely noticeable. But Danzo had survived the Warring States era. He knew what danger felt like.
He entered the apartment without hiding his presence.
The time for stealth had passed.
The bedroom was dim.
And just as he crossed the threshold—
Thunk!
A kunai screamed through the air and embedded itself into the wooden frame beside his head.
Danzo didn't flinch.
He simply tilted his head to the side and straightened it again, calm as ever.
Across from him, standing on the bed in rumpled pajamas, was Uzumaki Naruto.
His expression was ice.
"Who are you?"
Naruto had already entered combat mode. His posture was taut, eyes sharp, his body radiating instinctual defiance.
Danzo smiled faintly, just as he had in Ryosuke's predictive dream.
"I didn't expect you to be so vigilant... Even in your own home, you sleep with one eye open."
But before he could utter another word, something happened—something that had not been in the dream.
A fiery red chakra surged from Naruto's body, bursting into the air like a tidal wave.
Within seconds, his entire form was engulfed in the Nine-Tails' energy.
Naruto didn't wait.
He leapt for the window, glass shattering around him as he launched himself into the night.
"…Tch. What a child."
Danzo scowled, already pulling away the bandages from his face.
From beneath the wrappings, a crimson glow flickered—deep and mesmerizing. The Sharingan spun into life, its shape unmistakable.
The Mangekyō.
"You belong to Konoha," Danzo muttered, his eye beginning to pulse with power. "You will—"
But before the technique could fully activate, Naruto was already gone.
No pause. No hesitation.
He had launched himself out the window, untouched, unaffected.
"Stop him!" Danzo roared.
The order blasted through the comms in every Root operative's earpiece.
Gone was the calm, calculated commander.
Now, he was furious—and confused.
That shouldn't have happened.
With Shisui's eye—Uchiha Shisui's Mangekyō Sharingan—Danzo should've been able to overwrite Naruto's will. Even with the Nine-Tails, it should've worked. Uchiha once controlled the Nine-Tails with their eyes. Danzo had that power. He even had Senju chakra—Orochimaru had reinforced his seal.
Everything should've been perfect.
So where did it go wrong?!
Thump—thump—thump—
Root agents exploded from the shadows, racing across rooftops and alleyways, kunai drawn, eyes tracking their target.
Danzo launched himself out the window, cloak billowing, Mangekyō eye glowing in the dark.
Ahead of them, Naruto tore through the village—red chakra cloaking him, bubbling violently across his body. His hands were no longer human. They were claws.
Beast-like. Ferocious. Free.
He ran on all fours, moving across walls, wires, rooftops—whatever got him closer to escape. His speed was monstrous. His chakra pulsed like thunder.
The Nine-Tails' power was devouring his form, enhancing him beyond anything the Root agents had anticipated.
The night wind carried tension through the village.
Alarmed by the sudden flare of chakra, the Anbu scrambled from their posts—some joined the Root operatives in pursuit, while others moved swiftly to alert the higher-ups.
---
"What are you going to do?"
A calm voice echoed in Naruto's mind, layered with presence but devoid of panic.
Though cloaked in the chakra of the Nine-Tails—now with two tails manifesting behind him—Naruto's consciousness remained startlingly clear.
His feet pounded against the rooftops, racing through the village at full speed. He answered without hesitation.
"I think… I should find the Third Hokage. Ask him directly about this."
It hadn't even been a full minute since the chaos erupted, but Naruto's thoughts had already raced through countless conclusions.
Moments earlier, he'd awakened from sleep to find a strange, bandaged old man standing in his apartment. Before he could question the intruder, a voice he knew—Ryosuke's—resounded in his mind.
"That man is dangerous. Don't think. Don't hesitate. Just run."
There was no time for doubt.
One sentence.
And Naruto obeyed.
"So you still trust the Third Hokage," Ryosuke observed, his tone unreadable.
From a distance, he followed Naruto's movements closely. Now that the Anbu had all been pulled into pursuit, stealth was no longer a priority.
Danzo was involved.
That changed everything.
Ryosuke couldn't afford even a sliver of risk.
He didn't rely on sensory ninjutsu to track Naruto. Instead, he tapped into the perspective of his own Byakugan—temporarily anchored within Naruto's body—to observe the situation directly.
"It's been nine years," Naruto muttered, slightly adjusting his route.
"If you count from the time I could understand the world, then… six or seven, at least."
"He's been the closest thing I've had to family. Other than you. I don't want to believe he'd do something like this. I don't believe he'd send someone to kill me. I just… I want to hear the truth from his own mouth."
Naruto's voice carried weight—not naivety, but conviction.
Even so, he changed direction.
Rather than heading toward the Hokage Tower in the village center, he veered away—toward the outskirts.
As he moved, another tail sprouted behind him, swelling his chakra even further. The pressure increased. The noise became harder to ignore.
And so did the pain.
The Nine-Tails' chakra gnawed at him from the inside, threatening to unravel the threads holding his body and mind together.
"Maybe I shouldn't go to the Third Hokage."
"Maybe… I should make him come to me."
Naruto communicated his thoughts directly to Ryosuke, the Byakugan acting as a conduit between their minds.
"In my current state, if I storm into the center of the village, they won't listen to me. They won't give me a chance to explain. They'll just label me as unstable and seal me away again."
"But if I run outside the village—draw the danger away—I might buy enough time. Lower the threat level. Force them to respond instead of contain."
Ryosuke, still trailing from afar, allowed a rare smile to form.
"A wise choice."
He sounded genuinely impressed.
Naruto had grown.
The seeds planted through months of quiet mentoring had finally sprouted.
This level of clarity in a crisis… it was beyond what most genin could achieve.
It had been worth it—waking up in the middle of the night to weaken the Five Elements Seal on Naruto's body… and to subtly shield him from the effects of Kotoamatsukami.
"Don't waste your attention on those chasing you," Ryosuke advised. "Just focus on your route. I've taken control of a portion of your chakra."
Naruto blinked. Right. The Byakugan...
Ryosuke's power wasn't just watching—it was rooting itself inside him.
His body had already evolved beyond the Hyuga limit. His bloodline now mirrored that of the Ōtsutsuki, and his eyes—Byakugan awakened to their true form—held power on par with, or even superior to, a standard Mangekyō Sharingan.
But Shisui's eyes were special.
And with the infusion of Senju cells… Danzo's power wasn't something to take lightly.
If Naruto focused too much attention on the illusion, if he hesitated for even a second, it could slip past his defenses.
That's why Ryosuke had to step in.
Danzo had accounted for everything—except Ryosuke.
Had things gone according to plan, Danzo might have succeeded in seizing Naruto's will for a few seconds—long enough to restrain him. Long enough to make him disappear into Root's shadow.
But not tonight.
Ryosuke's intervention had already shattered that fragile possibility.
He had unraveled the Five Elements Seal.
He had blocked the eye technique before it activated.
And now, Ryosuke was lending his chakra directly to Naruto—not just puppeteering his body as he once did in the past, but empowering him.
This wasn't possession.
This was divine reinforcement.
The lines between their chakras were blurred.
Naruto now wielded a fragment of Ryosuke's strength.
---
"Who are you, kid?"
A new voice rumbled from deep within.
Naruto's body shuddered slightly as the Nine-Tails stirred, its tone gruff and uncertain.
"Your aura… It's familiar. Feels like the old man's."
It didn't name him, but Ryosuke understood.
The "old man" could only refer to the Sage of Six Paths.
"We're cut from the same source," Ryosuke replied coolly, his tone drifting between serious and amused.
"He's my ancestor, in a way. No surprise our auras feel similar."
He didn't elaborate.
He didn't need to.
The Nine-Tails could sense it.
After all, Ryosuke had shared some of the same essence as Ōtsutsuki Hamura—brother of Hagoromo.
And even if Ryosuke hadn't devoured a Chakra Fruit like Kaguya, his power was now pure, derived directly from his third transformation. His very life force had reached the tier of the divine.
"Be careful."
For the first time, Ryosuke's voice lost its steadiness.
A ripple of caution passed through their shared connection.
"It's not just Danzo and Root anymore. There are others in the village… someone's moving in the shadows."
Whoever it was—they weren't aligned with Root.
And they weren't ordinary.
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