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To be safe, Danzo had decided to regroup with Hiruzen Sarutobi and the others before dealing with this musclebound brute.
With Hiruzen and the village's top fighters keeping him occupied, there was no way his Kotoamatsukami would miss. Once it hit, it was absolute. Total control.
That was the plan.
What he hadn't expected was for his subordinates to fold like wet paper. They barely held out a few minutes before scattering in defeat.
He never even got the chance to meet up with Hiruzen.
Cornered and unable to escape, Danzo had switched tactics. He stalled—threw out threats, spewed nonsense, anything to buy time to activate Kotoamatsukami.
And it had worked. Perfectly.
He'd just gained a powerful enforcer. A loyal attack dog who would never betray him.
"With you as my mad dog," Danzo muttered, eyes gleaming, "wiping out the Uchiha will be effortless. Even the Hokage's seat will be mine for the taking."
"And if Hiruzen dares object, I'll show him what true power looks like. Hahaha!"
He was practically trembling with excitement, already picturing himself ascending to the position of Hokage with Akira at his side.
He turned coldly to the man before him.
"What are you standing there for? Kneel and greet your master, you mad dog!"
Akira didn't move.
Didn't blink.
Didn't even react.
Danzo frowned. Was the technique still settling in? Was some shred of the man's will resisting?
His voice sharpened.
"Are you deaf? I told you to kneel!"
At last, the large man's knees began to bend, slowly lowering as if about to kneel.
Danzo nodded, pleased. A smile crept across his face.
"That's more like it."
He barely had time to savor the moment.
A massive hand swung out.
Smack.
The sound cracked through the air. Danzo's smug grin froze in place as his entire body spun and flew backward.
Akira dusted off his hands, expression mocking.
"Gotcha, idiot. You really believed that?"
Not far away, Danzo lay sprawled on the ground, dazed.
What just hit me?
For a second, his mind simply refused to process it.
Then the pain bloomed across his cheek.
He turned his head—and saw Akira striding toward him.
Danzo's face twisted in horror.
"That's impossible! Impossible! My Kotoamatsukami clearly struck you! Why can you still attack me? Why do you still have your own will? Why weren't your memories altered?!"
Kotoamatsukami—the strongest genjutsu.
How could it fail to control some muscle-headed brute who only knew how to fight with his fists? It made no sense.
Shock. Confusion. Fear. Disbelief.
Under the assault of those emotions, Danzo looked less like a calculating mastermind and more like a gambler who'd just lost everything, shouting hysterically in denial.
"No! That's impossible! Absolutely impossible!"
He kept raving, unable to accept that what he'd thought was a flawless victory had just flipped completely on its head.
Smack.
Akira grabbed him by the collar, hauled him up, and slapped him again.
The screaming stopped.
"Why?" Danzo rasped, eyes bloodshot, face twisted. "Why weren't you controlled?"
Akira looked down at him, chin lifted in quiet arrogance.
"Forget you, a thief. Even if the original owner of that eye, Uchiha Shisui himself, used Kotoamatsukami on me, he still wouldn't control me."
He wasn't boasting. He was stating a fact.
At the end of the day, Kotoamatsukami was just the ability of a regular Mangekyō Sharingan. It worked on most people.
But controlling someone with an Eternal Mangekyō?
Impossible.
And that wasn't even mentioning the Rinnegan in his other eye.
The Eternal Mangekyō stood a tier above the regular one. The Rinnegan was two tiers higher.
If he could still be controlled by a standard Mangekyō technique while possessing both—
The Sage of Six Paths might as well claw his way out of the afterlife in embarrassment.
Smack. Smack. Smack.
Akira unloaded over a dozen brutal slaps in rapid succession.
"You dare call me a mad dog? Feeling pretty proud of yourself, huh?"
Another round followed.
"Ahhh! You bastard!"
Danzo's face was swollen beyond recognition, puffed up like a pig's head. Yet the hatred burning in his single eye was savage, murderous.
"I am the leader of Root! Second only to the Hokage in all of Konoha! How dare you humiliate me like this, you dog!"
"Die! All of you, die!"
He shrieked like a madman.
Then Akira heard it.
A faint hissing sound.
Something had been ignited.
Explosive tags.
Danzo had triggered every last one on his body.
Of course, he knew ordinary explosions wouldn't kill Akira. That wasn't the point.
The next instant—
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The Danzo in Akira's grasp exploded into shredded flesh.
Smoke filled the air.
Akira brushed it aside and narrowed his eyes.
Had Danzo really chosen suicide? Unable to endure the humiliation, had he decided to blow himself up?
Dead?
The man known as the darkness beneath the Hokage… gone that easily?
A few slaps and he detonated himself?
Akira suddenly grinned.
No way.
That old dog cherished his life too much to end it so simply.
The next moment—
"Susanoo: First Form."
Two enormous purple skeletal arms materialized around him.
Rumble—!
Like the blades of a massive fan, the giant arms spun violently, sweeping everything around him flat. Buildings collapsed. Walls shattered. Structures crumbled into rubble.
Within moments, a wide clearing had been carved out.
Then the skeletal arms dissolved. Akira folded his arms and stood there, expression blank, waiting.
Time ticked by.
At a certain point, at roughly his three o'clock—
A figure suddenly appeared out of thin air.
A smile tugged at Akira's lips.
"Finally decided to show yourself, old bastard."
Danzo stared at the flattened surroundings, eyes wide with disbelief.
"You… how did you know I used Izanagi?!"
The Sharingan beneath the bandages over his right eye had already turned a lifeless gray.
Akira let out a short laugh.
"Please. A coward like you? You'd choose suicide that easily?"
"And don't think I don't know that eye can cast Izanagi. Trying to escape with a trick like that? You're seriously underestimating me."
His gaze was pure contempt.
He knew Danzo all too well.
Unless absolutely cornered, the man would never choose to die alongside his enemy.
"..."
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