The eerie, withered trees around Danzo writhed as though alive, their gnarled branches twisting into grotesque shapes. Roots spread hungrily across the ground, bursting through stone and earth, stretching like a suffocating net that swallowed Konoha whole.

Root operatives, drilled in discipline, withdrew in perfect order at Danzo's command. Only his most loyal core remained by his side, their faces expressionless, as though resigned to sharing his fate.

Meanwhile, Konoha's defenders surged forward. From within the village walls and beyond, shinobi converged—led at the forefront by Tsunade herself. Her strikes shook the battlefield; each titanic punch reduced entire swathes of trees to splinters and dust.

But the destruction was fleeting. The withered trees regenerated at a nightmarish pace, thicker and stronger than before. Tsunade's fury began to feel hollow—her fists tearing apart what could not be permanently destroyed.

At the heart of this grotesque forest stood Danzo. His body was studded with countless Sharingan, each one flickering with a cold, blood-red light. Their malevolent glow painted him in an aura that even made Senju Tobirama, seasoned in countless wars, feel a chill deep in his bones.

This aura…This jutsu… it's not just Wood Release. He's trying to merge something far darker…

Tobirama's eyes hardened. He glanced toward Hiruzen—and his heart sank. His former student, once called the "Professor," stood paralyzed, spirit broken, no fire left to lend.

Tobirama exhaled slowly, his face turning to stone. If Hiruzen would not act, then he would.

His fingers blurred.

Mutual Exploding Tag Jutsu!

Seals glimmered into existence, exploding tags appearing in swarms like a deadly storm, plastering themselves across Danzo's body.

Without pause, Tobirama followed with a torrent of razor-thin water blades. They wove around Danzo in a choking lattice, closing every path of escape. The Second Hokage meant to end it here, decisively.

But Danzo… didn't even flinch.

Instead, his gaze fixed only on Hiruzen Sarutobi.

"Hiruzen…" his voice rasped, low and guttural.

"Hokage, in your eyes and mine… was it not always about burning ourselves to light Konoha's path?"

He stepped forward. One step. Two. The water blades hissed closer, the tags primed to ignite, yet Danzo ignored them completely—his focus locked on his old comrade.

"But now… you can't even summon the will to kill me."

Hiruzen's head lifted slowly, meeting Danzo's scarlet gaze. In those eyes, he saw not only corruption and hatred—but the shadow of the man he once called brother-in-arms.

"Danzo…"

The name left his lips like a plea.

Danzo raised a withered wooden sword, its crooked blade extending like a grim invitation. He lowered it, offering the hilt to Hiruzen, as though daring him.

"Kill me, Hiruzen. You are Hokage. Tobirama-sensei is but a corpse—his words carry no weight. This choice… rests with you alone."

Hiruzen's breath hitched. Memories flooded him—their youth, their battles side by side, their arguments over what sacrifices peace demanded, the endless push and pull between their philosophies. Bond. Rivalry. Friendship. Betrayal.

The Sharingan in Danzo's palm snapped open, glaring straight into his soul.

Hiruzen's chest tightened. The truth clawed at him: he could not waver any longer.

Tears welled in his eyes, but beneath the grief, the mantle of Hokage once more anchored his heart.

"…I'm sorry, Danzo."

With a sudden motion, Hiruzen seized the withered blade. His body surged with long-buried resolve.

The strike was clean, swift, and merciless.

Danzo's head fell. Blood sprayed across the twisting roots as his body crumpled. The forest of withered trees shuddered violently, then froze in silence.

Hiruzen closed his eyes, the sword still trembling in his grasp. His shoulders shook under the crushing weight of both duty… and loss.

He had killed his comrade. His friend. His rival.But above all… he had killed the man who had become Konoha's greatest shadow.

Perhaps, only for the briefest second, Danzo truly died.

Yet in that single second, it was as though the entire Shinobi World shuddered.

Two Sharingan embedded in his body closed in eerie unison, like a pair of candles snuffed out by the void.

Far away, on the road back to the village, Kakashi—returning with Jiraiya—felt his heart hammer violently in his chest. His breath caught; it was as though something unseen, something immense, was clawing at his very spirit.

Even farther still, in the Land of Rice Fields, Uchiha Obito froze. A jagged throb resounded in his chest, his heart pulsing as if gripped by invisible chains. Slowly, he reached into his cloak and drew out a small glass vial. Inside, a lone Sharingan glimmered faintly.

It was Uchiha Gen's eye.

And at this moment, it began to turn.

The tomoe whirled, faster and faster, until the entire eye spun with unnatural speed, radiating a suffocating aura. An unfathomable power seeped from it, a power so dense it felt like the very air distorted around the glass.

On the night of the Uchiha clan's destruction, Obito recalled Gen's chilling words—words that now branded themselves into his mind like an eternal curse:

"When the owner of the Mangekyo Sharingan enhanced by my left eye dies, the concepts and desires he possessed in life will be permanently transformed into the ability of my right eye..."

And Danzo had died.

Even if only for a moment, the truth of death was enough.

That truth detonated through Konoha.

The grotesque, withered trees that had been quietly festering in the soil suddenly writhed to life. They surged upward like ravenous serpents, their twisted roots and branches bursting from the ground. In mere heartbeats, they swallowed half the village, blotting out light and sound beneath an oppressive canopy of decay.

In the silent archives of the Konoha Ninja Academy, where dust lay heavy on forgotten papers, Gen's unfinished homework stirred. His ink reappeared across the page with ghostly clarity:

"Danzo and Hiruzen—both men who sought to become Hokage, to illuminate the village in their own way..."

"The shadow of the fire will illuminate the village, and then new leaves will sprout again..."

"This is the dream of every Hokage..."

And then, the words ceased.

The paper shook.

From the heart of Konoha, an eruption tore through the stillness.

A terrifying heat surged outward, hotter than any katon jutsu, hotter than any flame wrought by man. A hellish inferno consumed the village streets. Houses crumbled to cinders in an instant. Shinobi and civilians alike screamed as their bodies were devoured by fire too intense to resist.

The withered trees, once choking the village in shadow, were now ignited. They flared like torches, feeding the growing inferno until all of Konoha became a single, seething sea of fire.

Shockwaves split the earth. Entire districts collapsed as if the village itself were writhing in agony.

From the hills beyond, Kakashi stood paralyzed, his lone visible eye widening in horror. His body trembled—not from the heat, but from the crushing awe and fear pressing against his soul.

"What… what is happening…?" he whispered.

It was clear. The moment Danzo's soul slipped into death, even for an instant, his lifelong hunger to become Hokage was carved into the fabric of Gen's eye. That ambition had twisted, crystallized, and now manifested as a calamity.

Kakashi's gaze fell to his own eye, panic crawling into his thoughts.

Right eye… is the one in my hand the left, or the right?

Obito, too, stared at the spinning Sharingan in his vial, uncertainty gnawing at him. The power inside was monstrous, impossible to measure. And yet, he felt his own Sharingan—and Kakashi's, by some unseen tether—pulse with sudden clarity, as though amplified.

This ability… it's unnatural. It's dangerous. And yet… if it brings me closer to Rin's world… then I will accept it.

In the ruins of the Hokage's office, Hiruzen Sarutobi collapsed to his knees, his chest heavy as iron. His old eyes reflected the inferno consuming his village—the village he had sworn to protect.

He had slain his lifelong rival, his companion of shadows. But in doing so, he had unleashed a hell beyond reckoning.

"Danzo…" His voice cracked, trembling between grief and horror. "What… have you done?"

The great light of the Hokage—the fire that was meant to illuminate Konoha—had now become the fire that annihilated it.

And then, beyond the burning horizon, a lone figure emerged.

Danzo.

His form reconstituted through the forbidden jutsu he had staked everything upon. His bandaged face turned toward the blazing village, and for a moment, his single visible eye narrowed, deep in thought.

One by one, masked Root operatives materialized around him, their silhouettes solemn and waiting.

Danzo exhaled slowly. Two of his Sharingan were gone, their flames extinguished forever in today's gambit. But to him, the price was worth it.

Looking to his subordinates, he spoke, his tone calm, almost coldly resolute:

"Come. We leave Konoha behind—for now. This village will fall into chaos, but from its ashes, I will return. And when I return…" His eye gleamed with iron will. "…it will be as Hokage."

From the hillside, Kakashi's whisper drifted in the wind, repeating the words etched in Gen's cursed paper:

"The shadow of the fire will illuminate the village… and then new leaves will sprout again…"