Chapter 119 (Patreon)

Before entering Takigakure, Chiyuki had warned Shisui, Kakashi, and the others that Danzō might be involved.

They had been on guard from the moment they emerged from the lake, making it easy for them to notice that several people in the crowd were behaving strangely.

Before they could decide whether to act, however, Chiyuki had already begun forming hand seals.

In less than a second, a thin layer of frost spread across the bodies of four men.

Ordinarily, cold at that level would not have been enough to freeze an average person, much less Root shinobi who had endured Danzō’s brutal training.

Yet no matter how fiercely the four men struggled, they could not move at all.

Surprise flashed through Kakashi’s visible eye.

He had encountered that kind of technique on the battlefield before. It was a common support technique among Ice Release users, meant to hinder an enemy’s movements and slow the formation of hand seals.

It should not have been capable of immobilizing four trained shinobi completely.

Fortunately, this was hardly the time to dwell on his curiosity. The four men Chiyuki had restrained were the same ones Kakashi had already noticed behaving suspiciously.

Only after the ANBU moved in and sealed the four men’s chakra did Takigakure’s residents finally react.

They stared nervously at the group of outsiders who had suddenly appeared in their village.

“Please remain calm,” Chiyuki said. “Konoha received information that Takigakure had been seized by rogue shinobi. Hokage-sama sent us here to help.”

Her gentle smile eased some of the tension among the villagers, but they did not lower their guard completely.

The last group to enter their village had also claimed to be from Konoha. In the end, those men had taken their leader’s child hostage and killed anyone who dared to question them.

Takigakure had landed in its current predicament precisely because it trusted Konoha too readily. Otherwise, with the Hero Water in its possession, Danzō’s handful of men would never have infiltrated the village so easily.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that Danzō alone had caused more damage than dozens of spies from enemy villages.

He excelled at bringing disaster upon his own village and its allies, all while using Konoha’s name to further his schemes.

Whenever those schemes collapsed, he simply walked away and left Konoha with yet another enemy.

Fortunately, Chiyuki’s group had arrived before Danzō could carry out the rest of his plan.

With the villagers guiding them, they soon found Takigakure’s imprisoned leader, Shibuichi, along with his seven- or eight-year-old son, Shibuki.

“Leader Shibuichi, please accept Konoha’s sincere apology for what the rogue shinobi Danzō has done to Takigakure.”

Chiyuki first presented the official documents she had brought before explaining Danzō’s defection from Konoha.

Shibuichi had no choice but to accept the apology. No matter how angry he was, Takigakure was simply too weak for him to voice that anger openly.

In the past, the village had possessed at least a thousand people who could be called shinobi. However, when Kakuzu defected several decades ago, he slaughtered Takigakure’s leaders and many of its jōnin. The village had been declining ever since.

Fewer than a hundred jōnin remained now, and even they could not compare to the jōnin of the Five Great Shinobi Villages.

Forget Konoha—even Sunagakure, presently the weakest of the five great villages, could wipe Takigakure out with ease.

Now that Konoha had offered him a way out, Shibuichi had to accept it. Worse still, he was expected to thank them for coming to his aid.

“If I’m not mistaken, Danzō came to Takigakure for the Seven-Tails and the Hero Water, correct?” Chiyuki asked.

Shibuichi nearly rolled his eyes.

Aside from those two things, what else did Takigakure possess that someone like Danzō would covet?

However, when he looked at the masked ANBU standing across from him, then at the Copy Ninja Kakashi and the renowned Shisui of the Body Flicker, he could only nod honestly.

“Danzō arrived in Takigakure a month ago. He claimed to be carrying out a secret mission under Hokage-sama’s orders. While he was speaking with me, his men secretly seized Shibuki and our jinchūriki, Fū. They killed or wounded several of my guards before imprisoning me here.”

Shibuichi clenched his teeth whenever he spoke Danzō’s name. The old man had carried himself like an honorable Konoha elder, only to turn on them without the slightest hesitation.

With his son and Fū held hostage, Shibuichi had no choice but to reveal the location of the Hero Water.

Fortunately, Danzō had brought only a small number of subordinates and still needed Takigakure’s people alive for the rest of his plan. Otherwise, once he obtained the jinchūriki and the Hero Water, the village might have been turned into a graveyard.

Shibuichi’s expression suddenly changed.

“This is bad! Danzō’s men are still in the underground cavern, training Fū. If they realize you’ve arrived, they might—”

Kakashi and the others immediately understood what he meant, and their expressions grew grave.

If the Seven-Tails broke free, there was no telling how many of them—apart from Shisui—would make it out alive.

Worse still, if the Root operatives realized that the situation outside had fallen beyond their control, they were fully capable of releasing the tailed beast and dragging everyone down with them.

Just then, Roy returned to Chiyuki’s side. He told her that he had already found Fū and dealt with Danzō’s men.

After entering Takigakure and helping Chiyuki identify the Root operatives hidden among the villagers, Roy had begun searching for the tailed beast’s presence.

He eventually located Fū deep inside an underground cavern, along with the Root operative overseeing her training.

When it came to cruelty, few could compare to Danzō.

Fū was not even four years old, yet his men had subjected her to brutal, inhumane training. They relied on the enhanced recovery granted by her status as a jinchūriki and showed no concern whatsoever for whether her small body could endure it.

Bringing Fū out on his own would have been inconvenient, so Roy killed her instructor with a single blast before returning to tell Chiyuki where she was.

After learning that he had already found Fū, Chiyuki calmly picked up where Shibuichi had left off.

“Then we need to hurry. Take us to her.”

Although she knew there was no longer any danger below, she still had to maintain a cautious appearance.

With Shibuichi leading the way, the group passed through another underwater passage and entered the underground cavern.

There, they found Fū unconscious beside the instructor’s charred corpse.

“This...”

“Ahem. The Seven-Tails’ chakra must have gone out of control, causing it to kill Danzō’s man in retaliation,” Chiyuki said without so much as blinking.

The ground was scarred by an explosion, and both the burns and the nearly charred corpse were impossible to overlook. How could the Seven-Tails, which possessed no Fire Release affinity, have caused any of this?

Shibuichi did not believe her for a moment, but he wisely chose not to expose the lie.

There were clearly more Konoha shinobi in Takigakure than the ones standing before him. If Danzō returned, those hidden ANBU would provide another layer of protection.

Shisui and most of the others, however, knew little about the Seven-Tails. They had no real reason to doubt Chiyuki’s explanation and assumed that her conclusion was probably correct.

Only Kakashi gave Chiyuki a quiet, unreadable glance.

Years of ANBU service had made him exceptionally skilled at reconstructing events from the traces left behind. He recognized the scorch marks immediately; he had seen the same kind of fire-based attack at Kushina’s home.

That meant at least one more person from Konoha had accompanied them to Takigakure—someone highly proficient in Fire Release.

Chiyuki clearly knew that person was here.

What Kakashi could not understand was how anyone had managed to remain hidden from both him and Shisui for so long.

Even a Kage-level shinobi would struggle to conceal every trace of their presence from veterans as experienced as they were, unless that person possessed some highly unusual ability.

If Kakashi had not trusted Kushina, he might already have lifted his forehead protector and used the Sharingan to expose whoever was lurking in the shadows.

An unidentified presence that could move beyond his senses was hardly reassuring.