Chapter 90: Uchiha Ikeizumi Has Become A Threat To The Village
“What?!!”
Koharu Utatane couldn’t help but let out a cry of alarm; the news from Sarutobi Hiruzen left her face full of shock.
She stood stunned in place, her mind swirling with a storm, taking a full five seconds to finally sort through the information in his words.
Koharu Utatane abruptly stood up, her tone unthinkable as she questioned: “Hiruzen! You just watched the Daimyo’s second son die at the hands of someone like Uchiha Ikeizumi?”
“Do you know what the death of the Daimyo’s second son means for our Konoha? Do you know how big a storm this will stir up?”
Before Sarutobi Hiruzen could speak, Koharu Utatane couldn’t help but pace back and forth.
Her facial wrinkles trembled slightly as she murmured in shock: “I knew it… letting that envoy team run into Uchiha Ikeizumi would absolutely bring no good. I didn’t expect… they really ran into each other.”
Koharu Utatane had already arranged for her subordinates to inform the envoy team sent by the Daimyo to stay as far away as possible from certain areas of Konoha Village.
Because those areas were places Uchiha Ikeizumi frequented.
It was utterly unthinkable that Uchiha Ikeizumi wouldn’t play by the rules.
That extreme Uchiha was unusually absent from those areas today, not wandering around!
Koharu Utatane even suspected if he had deliberately wanted to run into the envoy team sent by the Daimyo?
Had he already gotten the news that the envoy team was coming to Konoha?
“By the time this old man arrived, that young man had already been killed.”
Sarutobi Hiruzen took a deep breath. He glanced at Koharu Utatane, who was pacing back and forth anxiously.
He walked behind the Hokage’s desk.
He sat down with a rather complex expression.
Koharu Utatane also stopped, her old face gloomy as she said: “What about Uchiha Ikeizumi? Have you arrested him?”
Sarutobi Hiruzen looked at her.
She looked back at him.
In the silence, both had already conveyed an answer.
“Hiruzen, what exactly are you thinking?!’ Koharu Utatane suddenly felt like she somewhat understood Danzo at this moment; her blood pressure rose instantly, her face showing an unusual flush of anger.
She said urgently: “You’ve indulged Uchiha Ikeizumi countless times already! What exactly are you tolerating? Have you forgotten Sarutobi Shinnosuke… your eldest son, who also died at Uchiha Ikeizumi’s hands? Have you forgotten who Danzo fell into the clutches of? Have you forgotten how many times Uchiha Ikeizumi has defied your orders in public?”
“Now he’s caused such a huge mess, and you’re still going to indulge him? Just because his existence can intimidate some ill-intentioned lawbreakers in the village? Is that all it takes for him to kill the Daimyo’s second son, and for you to turn a blind eye?”
“Hiruzen… I don’t understand!”
Sarutobi Hiruzen fell silent, and this silence only made Koharu Utatane increasingly dissatisfied.
It made her breathing quicken with anger.
Homura Mitokado, who had been silent all along, interjected: “Hiruzen is concerned about the consequences of a forceful conflict with Uchiha Ikeizumi.”
Koharu Utatane’s brows furrowed tightly.
Sarutobi Hiruzen gripped the chair’s armrests, his gaze lowered; the armrests were already cracked under his five fingers, his face showing a layer of sinister and uncontrollable anger.
He took several deep breaths before finally calming down.
Sarutobi Hiruzen finally spoke: “For Konoha’s stability… this old man must endure. If Ikeizumi goes berserk, the threat to Konoha would be no less than the Night of the Nine-Tails back then.”
He looked at Koharu Utatane and asked: “Do you want the tragedy from several years ago to replay in Konoha once more?”
“And…”
The helplessness on Sarutobi Hiruzen’s face was visible to the naked eye: “After last night’s incident, Ikeizumi has probably become a new object of admiration for many young radicals in the Uchiha Clan. Touching Ikeizumi would be equivalent to stirring the entire Uchiha Clan.”
“Although Fugaku and Itachi are on our side, just this father-son pair isn’t enough to suppress the Uchiha.”
Koharu Utatane wanted to speak but hesitated.
In the end, she also fell silent.
Homura Mitokado sighed and said: “Instead of arguing endlessly here, we should think carefully about how our Konoha will face the furious Lord Daimyo next…”
“The massive mess Uchiha Ikeizumi has caused—we have no choice but to quickly figure out how to patch it up, even if we don’t want to help him.”
……
“I’m so tired…”
Naruto, who was short and quite skinny, plopped down exhausted on the front steps of a house, panting heavily.
He carefully looked around left and right, finding that aside from some Konoha villagers staring at him with strange gazes, no suspicious figures appeared in his field of vision.
“Phew!”
“Time to slack off a bit…”
Obviously, the “suspicious figure” in Naruto’s mind was Uchiha Ikeizumi!
But the next second.
His peripheral vision suddenly caught a familiar figure appearing, and when he hurriedly shifted his gaze, he was so startled his breathing nearly stopped, his heartbeat slowing by half a beat.
“Hiss!”
When he sensed the other’s gaze and it was cast over as if in response, Naruto was so scared he sprang to his feet like a shot.
He grabbed the broom beside him.
He hurriedly swept left and right.
“Add ten days.” When a ghostly voice sounded from the side, Naruto was so frightened his hair stood on end; he turned his head in panic and saw Uchiha Ikeizumi, who had been a hundred meters ahead just a second ago, now standing right beside him!
Naruto nearly burst into tears.
Could he even go on living like this?
What Naruto didn’t know was that the Anbu ninja hiding in the shadows, tasked with surveilling him, wanted to cry even more.
‘Why has Uchiha Ikeizumi come again?!?!’
The Anbu ninja desperately wanted to step out and block Uchiha Ikeizumi from contacting Uzumaki Naruto. After all, the Hokage had said to keep Uzumaki Naruto as far away as possible from Uchiha Clan ninjas.
However…
The Anbu ninja always felt that if he showed himself, Uchiha Ikeizumi probably wouldn’t give him any face. And if he forced it, he seemed no match at all.
He fell silent.
In the Hokage’s orders, mixing in a bit of his own judgment occasionally shouldn’t be a problem, right?
The Anbu ninja chose to hold position for now.
After all…
Uchiha Ikeizumi didn’t look like he wanted to manipulate the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki; wasn’t this guy always proclaiming he followed absolute justice?
Since he was an absolute justice devotee, he surely wouldn’t do something to recreate the Night of the Nine-Tails, right?
On the other side.
Naruto’s attention was drawn to the few drops of blood staining Uchiha Ikeizumi’s clothes, a trace of unconcealed doubt appearing on his small face.
“Senior, wait for me…”
Until he heard a pleasant voice approaching from afar.
Naruto curiously looked and saw the beautiful black-haired long straight big sister who always followed this terrifying man; he also noticed a fat orange cat perched on the girl’s shoulder.
“Meow~ Lord Ikeizumi killed over a dozen villains today, which should deter quite a few ill-minded guys for a while.”
—The orange cat spoke!!!
Naruto screamed wildly in his heart.
Huh?
Wait…
Naruto’s pupils shrank, the bitter expression on his small face freezing solid as his stiff gaze shifted back to Uchiha Ikeizumi’s bloodstained clothes.
Kijiro’s words “killed over a dozen villains” echoed endlessly in Naruto’s little head.
His small face instantly paled.
“Please don’t kill me!!!”
“I know I was wrong!!!”
Seeing a blond kid prostrating in a standard dogeza pose before Lord Ikeizumi, wailing loudly, Kijiro muttered in doubt: “…What’s wrong with this kid?”
Senior Izumi stroked her smooth chin and muttered: “Looks like he misunderstood something. But…”
Looking at Naruto’s skinny and weak appearance.
Senior Izumi hesitated: “Senior, this kid doesn’t look very healthy. Is it okay for him to do such high-intensity labor reform?”
Senior Izumi always felt that with Naruto’s thin arms and legs, he might suddenly keel over while sweeping the streets.
Uchiha Ikeizumi said expressionlessly: “He’s the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki; this level of intensity is a piece of cake for him.”
Senior Izumi suddenly realized: “Oh, so… Huh? Nine-Tails Jinchuriki?”
She was stunned for a moment.
Kijiro explained from her shoulder: “Lord Ikeizumi once said this kid has the Tailed Beast sealed inside him that caused the Night of the Nine-Tails chaos, called the ‘Nine-Tails.’ Uzumaki Naruto, as the container of the Nine-Tails, is called the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki.”
Senior Izumi: “!!!”
The girl stared at Naruto with an unthinkable gaze.
Nine-Tails…
Nine-Tails Demon Fox!
Her Sharingan had awakened on the Night of the Nine-Tails, and her father had also died at the Demon Fox’s hands on the Night of the Nine-Tails.
“Ike-Ikeizumi Senior… so does that mean he…”
The girl’s voice trembled uncontrollably.
Uchiha Ikeizumi said flatly: “He’s just a container, and one forced into it. He became a Jinchuriki right after birth and had no choice in the matter at the time.”
Kijiro also said: “Meow, Lord Ikeizumi said the mastermind behind the Night of the Nine-Tails was Uchiha Obito. He used the Mangekyo Sharingan to control the Nine-Tails and orchestrated the whole Night of the Nine-Tails.”
“In other words…”
Kijiro paused; knowing Senior Izumi’s past, it continued: “The one who killed your father wasn’t this kid. When your father died at the Demon Fox’s hands, he was just an ordinary infant.”
Senior Izumi tried hard to steady her thoughts, firmly memorizing this name.
—Uchiha Obito!
Their voices weren’t lowered at all; they spoke openly right in front of Naruto.
Naruto, who had been dogeza-pleading for Uchiha Ikeizumi to spare him, was now dumbfounded.
He was the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki?
He was the Demon Fox’s container?
Inside him…
There was really a Demon Fox?
This terrifying man probably wouldn’t lie about this, right? At this moment, he seemed to understand why some people secretly called him a Demon Fox kid or an embodiment of disaster.
“Sor…”
“Sorry…”
Naruto’s voice was as faint as a mosquito’s; tears “plopped” down, his skinny body trembling, his voice choked with sobs, his tone full of bewilderment and helplessness.
……
There’s no such thing as an airtight wall in the world.
The various ravings and shouts from Goyuen Kyusuke and the others before death let many witnesses know their identities.
And the news of “Daimyo’s envoy killed” swept through the entire Konoha like a hurricane in a very short time.
Many thought that after last night’s events, Konoha’s somewhat chaotic situation would settle down for a bit. They didn’t expect another major incident in less than a dozen hours!
And…
The culprit was still Uchiha Ikeizumi!
……
Konoha, Anbu Base.
“Nan Wu…”
Sarutobi Asuma, with a cigarette in his mouth, quietly stared at Nan Wu’s corpse, also one of the Twelve Guardian Shinobi. The headless, bloodstained body looked particularly eerie.
Asuma took a deep breath, then exhaled a heavy puff of smoke, his heart filled with only the emotion of indignation.
The Twelve Guardian Shinobi had a complex composition; these twelve elite ninjas weren’t all loyal to the Daimyo of the Land of Fire. They were somewhat like the Uchiha Clan, divided into the moderate faction led by Asuma and the radical faction led by Kazuma.
The moderate faction advocated maintaining the current balance between the Daimyo of the Land of Fire and the Konoha Hokage, while the radical faction believed the Konoha Hokage was unnecessary altogether, and ninjas should be controlled by the Daimyo.
Nan Wu was a member of the moderate faction, Asuma’s good friend.
But now, he had become a corpse.
“Phew—”
Asuma reached out to close Nan Wu’s wide-staring eyes, his bearded face clouded with gloom.
“Twice now, old man… are you going to keep enduring? When did you, as the Konoha Hokage, become so weak? Is one Uchiha Clan ninja, Uchiha Ikeizumi, really that important?”
He was muttering to himself.
Asuma had never forgotten that his brother died at Uchiha Ikeizumi’s hands.
Every time he saw his brother’s widow’s sorrowful expression.
Asuma found it hard to suppress the hatred surging in his heart.
Then, Asuma’s gaze wandered around. Over a dozen corpses lay here, each headless, with the Daimyo’s second son “Goyuen Kyusuke”‘s body particularly conspicuous, deepening the gloom on Asuma’s face.
The death of the Daimyo’s second son would surely enrage the Daimyo of the Land of Fire, as Goyuen Kyusuke was his most beloved child.
When that time came.
The relationship between the Daimyo and Konoha might stiffen.
And the radicals among the Twelve Guardian Shinobi were probably waiting for this opportunity. Once they learned of this, they would surely urge the Daimyo of the Land of Fire to target Konoha.
They might even want to use it to ensure Konoha has no Hokage Position in the future.
“Old man, you’re the Hokage; can’t you see that?”
Asuma had bitten through his cigarette butt; he muttered alone: “Uchiha Ikeizumi’s existence is more harm than good for Konoha. You should see that more clearly than I do. But the problem is, why have you been indulging him all this time?”
“My brother was killed by him…”
“Nan Wu was killed by him…”
“The Daimyo’s son… couldn’t escape his clutches either.”
Asuma believed the Land of Fire’s prosperity came from the delicate balance between the Daimyo and Konoha. But Uchiha Ikeizumi’s actions would surely break that balance!
Once the balance was broken.
The Land of Fire…
Konoha…
Would no longer know peace!
He lit another cigarette: “Old man, allow me to oppose you once more… Uchiha Ikeizumi has become a threat to the village. But maybe you’re used to my rebellion by now.”
……
……
