Chapter 259: No Matter Whether I Come Back This Time Or Not, You Must Become The Hokage!

At those words, the Root members all sank into silence again, inwardly conflicted. Though the boy before them was young, one could even say still a child, with his strength, if he truly refused to cooperate, there was nothing they could do to stop him.

At that delicate moment of confrontation, Danzo Shimura, who had already taken several steps away, stopped walking.

He did not turn around. With his back facing everyone, he spoke in a deep voice, his tone carrying both the helplessness of an elder toward a stubborn junior and the relief of finally understanding something.

"That’s enough, competitive kid. Just obediently go with them."

"This old man... is only going to fulfill a promise that was delayed for decades, to retrieve something... that should have belonged to me from the very beginning."

After speaking, he stepped forward once more. This time, there was not the slightest hesitation in his footsteps.

But his final words rode clearly through the night wind into Shinichi’s ears: "No matter whether I come back this time or not."

"You must become Hokage!"

Leaving behind those words, Danzo Shimura’s figure completely merged into the darkness ahead. Moonlight fell upon his gradually receding shoulders, casting his shadow upon the ground, solitary, yet straight as a blade finally unsheathed, determined to sever all shackles.

Shinichi said nothing more, nor did he attempt to forcibly break through the Root members’ obstruction.

He merely stood there in silence, his gaze following that back figure, straight as a blade, yet filled with resolute loneliness, as he watched him step by step into the darkness that seemed capable of swallowing everything.

In the end, he merged with the darkness itself, disappearing completely from sight.

...

Some time later, the night had grown even deeper.

The thunder echoing through the mountains of the Land of Lightning became denser and more violent, as though the heavens themselves were enraged.

A lone figure walked neither fast nor slow, steadily stepping into a mountain pass deep within a forest that was all too familiar.

After all these decades, this mountain forest still looked the same.

The same trees.

The same stones.

The same night, so thick it could not be dissolved.

As though time itself had stopped here, waiting for someone to return, to finish the words left unsaid, to complete the things left undone.

The still figure seemed to be both pondering and reminiscing. In his ears, it was as though the self-questioning roar from decades ago once again echoed, a desperate cry that had only dared to rage within his heart.

"Say it! Hurry and say it!"

"Why?! Why can’t you say it!?"

Decades ago, when faced with the life-or-death choice of who would serve as bait to lure away the enemy, the young man he once was had struggled repeatedly in his heart. Yet in the end, because of his own cowardice and hesitation, he never managed to say those words aloud.

Decades later, the same place.

The same situation.

The same person.

Once again, he stood upon this land, facing the same choice.

But the difference was that he was no longer young.

And this time, he no longer hesitated.

"Of course, I’ll be the bait. You all are the future inheritors of the Will of Fire who will protect the village!"

His teacher’s voice seemed to transcend time itself, sounding once more beside his ears.

"You are all still young. That moment will come eventually. Before then, preserve your lives."

Back then, he had not understood the deeper meaning within his teacher’s words. He had only been drowned in overwhelming guilt and helplessness.

During the decades that followed, he hid within the deepest shadows of Konoha, arming himself with schemes, calculations, and ruthlessness. His heart grew increasingly dark, numb, even twisted, while the meaning of those words seemed forever sealed away along with his teacher’s departure.

Until this moment.

Until he personally made the same choice and once again stood upon this land that had haunted half his life like a nightmare.

Danzo Shimura suddenly understood.

Wherever leaves dance, fire also lives on endlessly.

The flames will continue illuminating the village, allowing new leaves to sprout.

Teacher, now I, too, am following in your footsteps, protecting the village’s young buds.

Just as you protected us back then, now it is my turn to protect those young people who represent the village’s brand-new future.

Let the village’s youth become the true pillars that will shoulder the future!

At that thought, a smile appeared at the corner of Danzo Shimura’s mouth. The smile shed the gloom and darkness that had long shrouded him, revealing instead a clarity and openness that belonged to a distant age of youth.

He slowly removed the black-gray kimono draped over his body, revealing the brown battle armor underneath.

This was the armor his younger self wore in his spirited youth. It was also the very set he had worn on that murderous night decades ago.

But after that night, Danzo Shimura had put it away. Although he had carefully preserved it and occasionally taken it out to wipe it clean, he had never worn it again.

He had thought he would never wear it again in this lifetime.

That armor, along with the passionate and ambitious version of himself, would remain forever buried within darkness.

Yet before setting out, as if guided by fate, he had taken it out once more and solemnly put it back on.

Perhaps, somewhere deep within, he had long been waiting for this moment.

Waiting for a chance to stand once more upon this land, not as the leader of Root, but as Danzo Shimura, to complete the final conversation delayed for half a lifetime, with his teacher and with his own hesitant past self.

Danzo Shimura took a deep breath. The air of March was still cold, but it could not extinguish the fire blazing ever more fiercely within his chest. His heart, numb for decades, suddenly beat once.

Then a second time.

A third time.

Faster and faster, it was not fear or cowardice; it was a feeling he had forgotten for decades, a feeling he had almost believed he would never experience again in this lifetime, hot-bloodedness!

"Hahahahaha..."

A low laugh escaped uncontrollably from his throat. At first, it was a suppressed rumble, but it gradually grew louder, more unrestrained, until it became a hearty burst of laughter, as though trying to wash away the gloom of half a lifetime!

He had found it!

He had finally found the most precious thing he had lost in this forest on that murderous night so many years ago.

At the same time, someone walked out of the woods.

No, not walked out; it should be ’appeared’.

As though he had always been there, waiting for a very long time.

The man was very young, handsome, and with a straight back. He wore that same brown battle armor, his chest still rising violently as though he had run an incredibly long distance, as though he had wandered within this forest for decades yet never managed to escape the maze.

And now, he had finally walked out of the forest that trapped him and arrived before Danzo Shimura.

One old, one young.

Separated by decades, they quietly looked at one another within this murderous forest.

The young man looked at him, his chest still heaving, his lips moving slightly as though trying to say something. The words he could not speak had been trapped for decades, lodged in his throat, becoming a scar upon his heart.