One day later.
Outside the Fire Capital.
"Huff!" Hiruzen crouched on a thick branch, panting heavily. The last time his old body had exerted itself this much was the night of the Nine-Tails' attack.
But now, years later, he was older still.
To run all the way from Konoha to the Fire Capital in one stretch left him feeling weak and strained.
Back in his youth, he would not have been winded in the least.
"…I really can't deny my age anymore," he muttered under his breath, too low for anyone else to hear.
Behind him gathered a large number of Anbu.
"Hokage-sama?" one of them asked quietly.
Hiruzen quickly smoothed over his fatigue, his face returning to calm. Standing tall, he gazed toward the Fire Capital ahead and commanded: "Enter the capital! Protect the Daimyō!"
"Yes, Hokage-sama!"
For shinobi like them, the defenses of the Fire Capital were practically nonexistent.
Hiruzen led the Anbu deep inside the city, and the samurai there noticed nothing at all.
But after only a few steps within the capital, Hiruzen immediately sensed the wrongness of the atmosphere.
The people on the streets all walked in a hurry, their faces shadowed with unease.
Shops stood closed, shutters drawn tight.
From far away, the faint sound of funeral music drifted through the air.
The entire city was shrouded in a strange, unsettling mood.
Hiruzen's heart clenched.
"Not good…" Urgently leading the Anbu at high speed toward the Daimyō's mansion, he happened to pass through the compound of a prominent noble family.
And what he saw made his face turn grave: samurai carrying out corpses one by one, each covered in a plain white cloth.
Hiruzen came to a sudden halt, and the large group of Anbu behind him stopped with him.
Their sudden appearance startled the samurai carrying the corpses.
The expression on Hiruzen's aged face was deeply conflicted. He asked directly, "These nobles… they were all killed?"
As Hokage, his presence was imposing, and the shadow cast by shinobi over the Fire Capital had yet to fade.
A samurai swallowed hard before quickly answering, "It was a shinobi called 'Uchiha Keizumi,' my lord."
The hope Hiruzen had been clinging to died completely at those words.
His throat felt dry as he forced himself to ask again, "Kei… Uchiha Keizumi—how many people did he kill?"
"I don't know."
The samurai shook his head rapidly. "I only heard that many died yesterday. That shinobi-sama, my lord… he killed from morning until night, then from night until dawn today, before finally stopping."
"When I left home this morning, it felt like even the air I breathed carried the stench of blood. The lords of the Daimyō's estate said little, only ordered our guard unit to dispose of the corpses."
Wait—!
Hiruzen suddenly noticed something off. Why did this samurai address Uchiha Keizumi as "shinobi-sama"?
Hadn't the people of the Daimyō's mansion once called him a criminal?
But this man was only a samurai of the guard. Hiruzen judged that what he knew was already the limit.
After a quick word of thanks, he and the Anbu vanished in an instant.
…
Not long after.
The Daimyō's mansion.
One after another, Anbu from Konoha descended like a murder of crows, taking positions in every corner of the estate. Each carefully concealed their presence, yet their formation had already encircled the mansion completely.
Hiruzen himself stood before the gates.
Only two Anbu were at his side.
"There's a stench of blood… not as strong as what we passed at the noble compound, but not much weaker either."
As his nose twitched slightly, Hiruzen's mood grew even heavier.
And strangely, not a single samurai or shinobi guarded the vast Daimyō's estate before him. Could it be that the Daimyō-sama felt no concern for his own safety?
Or perhaps…
Hiruzen dared not think further.
He stepped straight inside.
"H-Hokage-sama?!"
The clear voice made him pause. When his eyes shifted, he saw Mitarashi Anko.
"…Anko?"
For a moment, Hiruzen couldn't process it. Then his gaze fell on the figure beside her—Uchiha Keizumi!
"Keizumi!"
The ominous feeling in his heart had become reality.
The moment he saw Uchiha Keizumi inside the Daimyō's mansion, the moment he saw the blood staining his clothes, Hiruzen understood: the Fire Daimyō had likely already met with disaster.
But before Hiruzen could speak, a probing voice called out from the other side: "You are… the Third Hokage of Konoha? Sarutobi Hiruzen?"
Hiruzen turned his head and saw a man who bore a clear resemblance to the Fire Daimyō.
He recognized him at once—the Daimyō's eldest son!
He saw the weariness etched on the man's face, and the cautious restraint in his bearing.
Hiruzen fell silent.
He opened his mouth, but no words came. In the end, he only gave a slight nod to the Daimyō's son, acknowledging himself as the Hokage of Konoha.
The Daimyō's eldest son seemed to perceive what this suddenly arrived Hokage was thinking. Forcing a stiff, tired smile onto his face, he said to Hiruzen, "My father already paid the price yesterday for his wrongful deeds."
Hiruzen: "!!!"
As expected!!!
A look of sheer horror flashed deep in Hiruzen's eyes, and in that instant it felt as though the sky itself had collapsed.
Even the two Anbu standing behind him, and those hidden in every corner around the mansion, all showed a sudden change of expression.
In the very next moment—
Every gaze converged on Uchiha Keizumi, each one filled with disbelief.
This Uchiha who upheld [Absolute Justice]…
He had truly assassinated the Fire Daimyō with his own hands!
And worse—
After killing the Daimyō, he had brazenly remained in the Fire Capital, even standing openly inside the Daimyō's own estate!
Was there any shinobi more audacious than this? Any Uchiha more extreme?
Compared to Uchiha Keizumi, even Uchiha Madara—who once clashed in ideology with the First Hokage—seemed less extreme!
And they all heard the deeper meaning within the Daimyō's son's words.
Especially in that phrase, "wrongful deeds."
Did this mean that the Daimyō's own son had chosen to swallow his rage, even though his father had been killed?
That would explain why Uchiha Keizumi could still stand here openly in the Daimyō's mansion, and why the Daimyō's son said nothing against him.
Tch!
Hiruzen's scalp tingled, a chill racing down his spine. He could hardly imagine how the nobles of the Land of Fire would look upon him, the Hokage of Konoha, after this. Surely they would believe Keizumi had acted at his command!
Especially when he saw the Daimyō's son avert his gaze from him, a flicker of avoidance in his eyes—Hiruzen felt as if the heavens themselves had fallen.
Even if he leapt into the Konoha River, he would never wash away this stain of suspicion.
It was a misunderstanding!
He, the Hokage of Konoha, was just as much a victim of Absolute Justice!
"Keizumi!" Hiruzen finally burst out, unable to contain the storm within. His old face was on the verge of collapse.
If not for the Daimyō's son standing nearby…
He might have lost control completely!
"What exactly are you doing?" Hiruzen's words were forced through clenched teeth. "That was the Daimyō, the sovereign of the Land of Fire! Konoha shinobi are his subjects! We are the sword in his hand, opening new lands; we are the shield protecting our homes and our nation! Not vipers who turn back to sink our fangs into the hand of our lord!"
Hiruzen could no longer even describe the emotions tearing through him.
He was certain his eyes must have been bloodshot red, and even his fingertips trembled with fury.
"And you…"
Hiruzen's breathing grew uneven. He had thought that the massacre of hundreds in Tanzaku Town was already the limit of what Uchiha Keizumi could do.
And those hundreds had indeed been criminals, so Hiruzen had resolved not to pursue Keizumi for that matter.
But who could have imagined that after leaving Tanzaku, Uchiha Keizumi would pull something so shocking it would rock the entire shinobi world!
"And you chose to become that viper! This is no longer justice—you are destroying the very order and laws of the shinobi world! Do you mean to set yourself against the entire shinobi world?!"
Hiruzen's tone was full of disbelief.
Uchiha Keizumi's eyes remained utterly calm as he replied, "Wasn't I already an enemy of the shinobi world before this? Especially in your eyes—[Absolute Justice] has always been a creed you could never accept, hasn't it?"
Those few words left Hiruzen momentarily choked for a response.
"Keizumi! This is different!"
After regaining himself, Hiruzen's face was grim as he said, "Until now, your justice stood only against evil. But after this, both evil and order will stand against you!"
"The shinobi world… cannot tolerate a shinobi who assassinates a Daimyō!"
Keizumi answered coldly, "Correction. I walked in openly, and in the name of [Absolute Justice] executed the Daimyō of the Land of Fire for his crimes, ending a source of corruption at its root."
"[Absolute Justice] does not stoop to back-alley assassinations. Even when raising a blade against evil, it is done openly, without shame."
Hiruzen: "…"
What was this correction supposed to mean? Did this brat just ignore the entire point of everything he had been saying?
Hiruzen nearly fainted from rage.
The biggest mess Keizumi had caused before was the killing of the Daimyō's second son. That had been a serious problem, yes, but not beyond repair. Otherwise, Hiruzen would not have had the confidence to cover up the body until now.
But this time, Keizumi had toppled the very heavens themselves. This mess was so vast that even he, the Hokage of Konoha, was utterly powerless to fix it.
And the very one who started it all stood there with an air of complete indifference.
How could Hiruzen not be furious?
How could he possibly keep himself composed?!
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