Chapter 560: Furious Danzo

"Wood Release: Tree World!"

As Shimura Danzo's hands rapidly formed seals, a large amount of chakra within his body quickly transformed into Wood Release chakra.

Boom! Boom!

Centered on Shimura Danzo, countless trees continuously burst from the ground and grew rapidly, forming a small forest.

"Though it's still not as good as the First Hokage's, it should be enough to deal with that Sōsuke." Shimura Danzo looked at the hundreds of large trees around him and revealed a smug smile.

After more than twenty days of training, his Wood Release had improved by more than just a little.

This made Shimura Danzo feel that he was a once-in-a-million Wood Release genius.

It wasn't that Shimura Danzo was narcissistic; reality was simply like this.

Could it be that it wasn't his own talent, but rather because of "Uchiha Madara's" experiment?

That would be far too illogical—why would "Uchiha Madara" be so kind as to help him increase his strength?

Shimura Danzo now had an inexplicable confidence, feeling that even without the Ninja Sect Legacy and the Rinnegan, if he trained like this for another year, he could surpass Sarutobi Hiruzen in strength.

Of course, Shimura Danzo certainly wouldn't let go of the Ninja Sect Legacy and the Rinnegan—good things, the more the merrier.

After finishing his training, Shimura Danzo returned to the Root base and gathered all the Root ninja in Konoha.

Now only six days remained before the agreed-upon ambush date; all other Root forces had already been deployed to the Land of Rain, leaving only the Root ninja in Konoha still on standby.

"Lord Danzo, everyone is assembled and ready to carry out the mission at any time," a Root ninja reported to Shimura Danzo.

"Give this to Muyue." Shimura Danzo nodded and took out a scroll, handing it to the Root ninja.

The safest choice would have been to give the mission to Muyue right before he departed, but Shimura Danzo was worried that cutting the time too close might lead to an accident.

If it were anyone else, that would be fine, but this time it concerned his own safety—he couldn't afford to be careless.

Next, Shimura Danzo selected the weakest new recruit to guard the Root base, then ordered the Root ninja to leave the village in batches and head to the Land of Rain.

As for Shimura Danzo himself, he didn't leave immediately but instead went to the Hokage Building.

He wouldn't be able to appear in Konoha for the next few days, so before leaving, he wanted to show his face in front of Sarutobi Hiruzen.

He had been doing this consistently for the past few days—showing up in front of Sarutobi Hiruzen every four to six days to maintain his presence.

Shimura Danzo walked to the door of the Hokage's office. When he was about to push the door open, his hand stopped in midair.

Knock, knock. Shimura Danzo knocked on the door of the Hokage's office.

After all, they had been old classmates and comrades for so many years; thinking about what he was about to do, Shimura Danzo felt he should give Sarutobi Hiruzen a bit more respect now.

"Come in." Sarutobi Hiruzen's voice came from inside the office.

Shimura Danzo pushed open the wooden door and entered the Hokage's office.

Sarutobi Hiruzen looked at Shimura Danzo with some surprise; when he heard the knock, he thought someone had come to report on a mission, but he hadn't expected it to be Shimura Danzo.

"Danzo, what's the matter? If it's about that same old thing again, don't bother saying it." Sarutobi Hiruzen put down the document in his hand and asked.

Although knocking was a good habit, this was Shimura Danzo after all, and Sarutobi Hiruzen always had a feeling that an unexpected courtesy hid ulterior motives—like it was a thief's guise.

"Of course not." Shimura Danzo, seeing that his rare polite gesture had not received a good response, felt a little displeased.

"It's off-duty hours now. I just wanted to see if you've finished handling official business. If you have, I'm inviting you out for a drink." Shimura Danzo said flatly.

Sarutobi Hiruzen showed an expression of surprise, even more surprised than when he had seen it was Shimura Danzo knocking.

"I've pretty much wrapped up the official work, but are you sure you want to treat me to a drink?"

Although Shimura Danzo wasn't born poor and with his considerable strength he certainly wasn't lacking in earning power, he was inexplicably frugal.

Sarutobi Hiruzen had never seen Shimura Danzo treat anyone to a meal.

This was uncommon among ninja, because ninja had high incomes and it was normal to treat friends to dinner after a mission.

Compared to expenses like ninja tools and training medicines, treating someone to a meal really didn't cost much.

"If you don't want to drink, forget it." Shimura Danzo darkened his face and turned to leave.

"Drink? Of course I'll drink." Sarutobi Hiruzen agreed with a cheerful laugh.

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If anyone else had invited him, Hiruzen Sarutobi would probably have been too lazy to go, but since Shimura Danzo was treating, Hiruzen Sarutobi had to go at least once.

Considering the implications, the two didn't eat at the shop; instead, they had someone buy sake and snacks and ate at Shimura Danzo's home.

"What made you think to invite me for a drink today? But let me be clear—no work talk over dinner." Hiruzen Sarutobi picked up a skewer from the bowl and said leisurely.

Danzo's behavior was somewhat unusual; Hiruzen thought that Danzo might be trying to take a different approach and get his proposal approved over drinks.

"I invited you because I felt like it," Danzo said flatly.

Previously, his reason for never treating others was simple—he didn't want to spend money on other people, and besides, Hiruzen and the others weren't short of cash.

As for why he was treating today, Danzo couldn't quite explain it either; it was just a whim to invite Hiruzen for a meal.

Seeing that Danzo really seemed to be just treating him to a simple meal, Hiruzen put down the half-eaten skewer and raised his sake cup.

"How rare. Ever since I became Hokage, I haven't seemed to have a drink with you and En and the others," Hiruzen lamented.

Hiruzen had become Hokage in a time of crisis, and for a long time after becoming Hokage, he was so busy that he rarely even went home, let alone had gatherings with friends.

Later on, he wasn't as busy, but by then everything had changed. Hiruzen was Hokage, while Homura Mitokado, Shimura Danzo, and the others were elders and Hokage advisors.

Although they were still friends, for various reasons, the way they interacted gradually changed, and they could no longer joke and drink as freely as before.

"Hmph." Danzo couldn't help but snort coldly.

In his view, Hiruzen was completely showing off. If he were given the position of Hokage, he would be willing to live in the Hokage's office every day.

"If Teacher hadn't sacrificed himself back then, the outcome might not have been this way."

Danzo thought that the situation at the time was so critical that it impaired Tobirama Senju's judgment, leading him to directly appoint Hiruzen as the Third Hokage.

If it had been a fair competition, he might not have lost to Hiruzen.

"Indeed, if Teacher hadn't sacrificed himself, Konoha would be more prosperous now," Hiruzen nodded and said.

Whether as a Hokage or as a master of jutsu development, the loss of Tobirama Senju was a tremendous blow to Konoha.

Seeing that Hiruzen had misunderstood his meaning, Danzo couldn't be bothered to explain and continued chatting desultorily.

"Hiruzen, sometimes you need to be more decisive. We are the strongest ninja village; we need to assert our authority."

"Asserting authority is necessary, but it shouldn't be by amassing armies to invade other countries."

As they talked, the two clashed over their differing political views; neither compromised, each sticking to their own position.

Danzo thought Hiruzen was indecisive, while Hiruzen thought Danzo was too aggressive.

When the sake bottle was nearly empty, Danzo directly started clearing things away, silently announcing the end of the small gathering.

Hiruzen gave a wry laugh, stood up, said goodbye, and left.

After Hiruzen's figure disappeared from sight, Danzo returned to the Root base.

"I wasted eight hundred ryo." Danzo felt that treating Hiruzen was not even as good as spending that eight hundred ryo to buy some food for Yamato.

Buying food for Yamato would at least earn him gratitude; buying drinks for Hiruzen only brought him grief.

At that time, there were only four ninja in the Root base; aside from one ninja guarding the base, the remaining three were waiting for Danzo to set off together.

After returning to the Root base, Danzo went to a secret room.

"This time is too dangerous. One insurance is not enough," Danzo thought as he took out a box filled with unknown liquid from a secret compartment in the room.

Danzo quickly opened the box and fished out a blood-red eye.

He prepared to transplant a second Sharingan.

Because as a non-Uchiha, he couldn't voluntarily deactivate the Sharingan after transplanting it, even though Danzo had mastered the Uchiha's forbidden technique Izanagi, he had only transplanted one Sharingan.

First, the Sharingan, if not deactivated, would continuously consume chakra; second, if he transplanted both eyes, he would have to cover both, which would look too strange.

Now that he had transplanted Hashirama's cells, chakra was no longer an issue. Most importantly, contending with "Uchiha Madara" for the Rinnegan would be extremely dangerous, and Danzo wanted an extra layer of insurance.

The transplant surgery was completed quickly. When Danzo opened his eyes, he felt his condition was better than ever.

"Is there some connection between the Senju and the Uchiha? Why does transplanting a Sharingan feel like this now?" Danzo felt somewhat puzzled.

When he had transplanted one Sharingan, Danzo's feeling was that he had added a life-saving trump card while also gaining a permanent negative status effect.

If we only talk about combat ability, he with one Sharingan was weaker than he was before the transplant.

But now that he has Hashirama's cells and has transplanted another Sharingan, he actually feels stronger, which surprised Shimura Danzo somewhat.

He only wanted to increase fault tolerance, never expecting to gain a power boost.

"Danzo-sama." A Root member handed over a specially made cloth strip.

Shimura Danzo didn't think too much; he picked up the gauze and covered his eyes. All of this could be studied later. The most important thing now was to obtain the Ninja Sect legacy and the Rinnegan.

In terms of stirring up trouble, Shimura Danzo was very proactive. Soon he led the Root ninja to arrive at Amegakure.

"Danzo, your eyes?" Hanzo noticed that Shimura Danzo was no longer using bandages to wrap his head and right eye, but instead covered both eyes with an opaque cloth.

"Just a small matter, it won't interfere with our plan." Shimura Danzo said calmly.

This pair of Sharingan was his trump card; he would not reveal it until the moment of assassinating Sosuke.

"No problems on Sosuke's side?" Shimura Danzo asked.

"He has already accepted the invitation to observe the Chunin Exam." Hanzo nodded in reply.

The event Hanzo chose to hold was the Chunin Exam.

However, to reduce impact, Hanzo did not hold a joint Chunin Exam, just a normal Chunin Exam.

"Now we just need to wait five days for Sosuke to arrive, and then we can proceed with the plan as scheduled."

"But, is Konoha only sending this many people?" Hanzo looked around, glancing at the thirty Konoha ninja around Shimura Danzo, and narrowed his eyes.

"Sometimes, a small elite force is more effective." Shimura Danzo said indifferently.

This was already all the ninja Shimura Danzo could mobilize without alerting Sarutobi Hiruzen.

Among them, some ninja were not even registered with Konoha; they were ninja trained outside Konoha by Shimura Danzo.

"After all, Konoha is not like Amegakure. Making too much noise at once would attract many eyes."

Hanzo frowned slightly, but didn't say much.

He had no intention of using Konoha's power to eliminate Sosuke, so he didn't care much about how much power Konoha brought. It was just that Shimura Danzo's words bothered him a bit.

In the following days, Shimura Danzo was not much different from when he was in Konoha.

Most of his time was spent researching Wood Release, and then plugging any gaps in the plan to surround and kill Sosuke.

When there was only one day left before Sosuke arrived at Amegakure, Shimura Danzo received two pieces of bad news.

The first piece of bad news was that his Wood Release's power increase had slowed down.

Actually, Shimura Danzo could accept this; it might be due to absorbing too much knowledge recently, not a big problem.

The second piece of bad news made Shimura Danzo very upset.

"Hanyu Muyue actually dropped the ball at this time!" Shimura Danzo looked at the information sent by the Root ninja from Konoha, his face agitated.

According to the plan, Muyue was supposed to leave for Amegakure immediately after finishing class today.

With Muyue's strength, it wouldn't be a problem to reach Amegakure before dawn if he traveled at full speed.

This way, Muyue only needed to take two days off to "rest," and then could act as his trump card in the Land of Rain to deal with Sosuke and "Uchiha Madara."

But today, Muyue was invited by Sarutobi Hiruzen to have dinner at his home for some unknown reason, and Hiruzen would also explain ninjutsu to Muyue.

Given Muyue's persona toward Sarutobi Hiruzen, refusing the invitation required a suitable reason.

Thus, Muyue didn't leave Konoha until eight o'clock in the evening.

Shimura Danzo was very angry. He could understand that refusing badly would indeed easily reveal a flaw.

But regardless, Muyue still failed to complete his task.

As a Root ninja, one should prioritize him above all, sparing no cost.

"I'll reprimand him after it's over. With his speed, he should still be able to arrive before Sosuke comes." Shimura Danzo let out a breath.

To prevent such an accident, he had reserved some time for Muyue. Even if Muyue couldn't make it before the battle started, he would definitely arrive after the fighting had been going on for a while.

Shimura Danzo gradually calmed down. His plan was still under control.

Apart from the time when the Second Hokage was covering the retreat, from what I can see, Danzo Shimura basically had bandages wrapped around his face most of the time, so I think he probably transplanted the Sharingan quite early as a "revival coin" to save his life.