Under the cover of night, Hiruzen stood in front of the gratings that blocked off the entrance to the sewer system of a city not far from the Hidden Leaf.

“They have built a base in the sewers?” he asked.

“Yes, Lord Hokage,” answered one of the ANBU-nin beside him.

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” said Hiruzen, gazing into the darkness his eyes couldn’t peer through, “but I assumed he would choose a nicer base for his hiding place. His penchant for comfort and cleanliness has been clear as he has climbed up in the years.” Hiruzen was the same; his old bones demanded clean surroundings and a comfortable chair to sit in.

“What is the possibility of stealth?” Hiruzen asked for the sake of asking.

“Close to nil… none,” the ANBU-nin corrected himself.

“Let’s proceed then. I shouldn’t keep him waiting.” Hiruzen understood his old friend well enough that if Danzo were indeed hiding in the base, he wouldn’t run away without a conversation. He smiled bitterly. It also meant that Danzo was confident in his ability to escape.

An ANBU-nin stepped forth while unsheathing his sword. In the blink of an eye, the sword returned to the scabbard after imperceptible slashes. There was no commotion; the air itself didn’t move as cuts appeared in the iron bars, and a portion of grating fell away, detached from the rest.

Hiruzen rolled his shoulders, feeling the weight of his armor as he stepped into the sewers. The shinobi gear had come a long way since his hay days. The young people these days wore their thinner chain mails and flak jackets—he stuck to his plate armor; he liked the slight weightiness. He was too old to learn new tricks.

The corridors of the sewer were grimy, with water and gunk flowing in between. Hiruzen had to physically stop himself from recoiling at the rotten smell that permeated the entire area. Perhaps this was why Danzo had chosen this base, so Hiruzen would have to walk through this mess to meet him.

“Which direction?” Hiruzen turned to ask the Hyuga among the ANBU-nin.

“Something is blocking my eyes, which means someone is trying to hide something,” said the Hyuga ANBU-nin as he stepped ahead of the group of shinobi to lead the way.

There was no hiding from the Hyuga and their Byakugan. Through the years, some fuinjutsu seals had been developed to stop the Byakugan’s vision, but because Byakugan was needed to test those seals and the Hyuga had ensured that none of their clan members would ever help in creating something that would give up their Dojutsu’s advantage—the anti-Byakugan seals weren’t very good. The best ones could block the Byakugan’s vision, but when the all-seeing eye encountered something it couldn’t perceive, it clearly indicated that someone was trying to hide from them.

There were ways to evade the Byakugan, but that had more to do with tricking the Hyuga, who used the Byakugan, than the eyes themselves.

The small company of shinobi walked through the sewers, where the silence was only interrupted by the flow of water and the squeaks of rats. The silence was then shattered with bright flashes of fire and lightning.

“Incoming,” the calm voice of a sensory-nin alerted the group.

Hiruzen didn’t need to take a single step as ANBU-nin stepped before him to protect him. Hiruzen gazed ahead in the sewer, and the light from the ninjutsu flooding the tunnels showed him the enemies. Masked shinobi who looked no different from the Hidden Leaf ANBU were attacking them,

‘What’s the point of all of this?’ he thought with a sigh.

The flurry of ninjutsu in the constrained space ruthlessly stripped away the bricks on the walls, and the entire structure shook. The people living above the ground would probably be startled by the sudden earthquake assaulting their homes and buildings.

Hiruzen raised his hands to weave hand seals to perform a jutsu before the jonin around him erased the part of the city from existence. But before he could even mix chakra, Danzo’s ROOT shinobi dropped to the ground like flies, like someone had cut the marionette strings from a puppet. Even the ANBU-nin protecting him were confused by the sudden change in the situation.

“We should move onwards.”

Hiruzen turned back to look at the ANBU-nin standing in the very back. The fires from the destruction cast a light on his front, and Hiruzen could see the two Sharingan rotating in the man’s eyes.

It was Uchiha Itachi.

‘Genjutsu…’ Hiruzen guessed. ‘What terrifying power… and so young.’ Hiruzen was envious and glad that the Uchiha clan had produced such a youth. But what Hiruzen valued more in the young man wasn’t his talent but the Will of Fire that burned brightly within.

Itachi reminded Hiruzen so much of the father when the current Uchiha clan head was young.

Hiruzen recalled the day Fugaku had informed him that he had named his youngest son after Hiruzen’s father, Sarutobi Sasuke, in hopes that little Sasuke would grow to be just as strong as a shinobi. He shook his head. Time and circumstance had changed the man, and Hiruzen knew he was partly to blame. Hiruzen wondered in worry if Shisui’s death would change Itachi the same way Fugaku had changed.

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“Let’s move,” Hiruzen said after the fuin-nin sealed the ROOT-nin so they would still be there after they returned. There was information to be extracted from Danzo’s pawns.

They encountered more resistance, but they couldn’t stop the Hokage’s party for long. It wasn’t surprising. Hiruzen knew Danzo wouldn’t use his best men to buy time. All of this kerfuffle was simply an annoying game to drag the affair out more than it needed to.

“Was the city informed to clear out the area above?” asked Hiruzen.

Ichi replied, “Yes, Lord Hokage. The collateral casualties will be the lowest possible should the situation spring out of control.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Hiruzen said.

They soon reached the entrance of the underground bunker built well beneath the city, where no normal person would stumble unless they were searching for the location. The heavy metal door was covered in fuinjutsu seals, protecting the bunker from intruders.

“Stand back,” Hiruzen said as he stepped forth.

He weaved hand seals and clapped his hands together for jutsu formula seals to spread out in the air before white smoke puffed out and a black bo-staff with gold ends of great thickness and length appeared in his arms.

Summoning Jutsu: Monkey King

Transformation: Adamantine Staff

“—Has getting older given you dementia that you have forgotten your manners, Hiruzen!? Summoning me directly in this form—” The deep voice of Monkey King Enma immediately admonished his long-time friend and summoner.

The surrounding ANBU-nin gazed at the staff in shock and awe. It was the Third Hokage’s weapon of choice, whose heavy use through the decades of warfare had contributed to the legend of the ‘God of Shinobi.’

Hiruzen smiled apologetically. “Apologies, my dear friend. I require your help, and this day has already been too long for me…”

“—What is the problem, Hiruzen?—” asked Enma with a hint of concern for his friend.

“Danzo,” was all Hiruzen said.

“—… I see—” Enma replied. For a moment, the ANBU-nin sensed that the Hokage’s summon was looking at them. “—I never liked that man. I warned you to be careful, and yet my sage advice fell like stone on your deaf ears!—”

“Yes, and I shall resolve that today, dear friend,” said Hiruzen.

Enma hummed.

Hiruzen turned to the ANBU-nin. “I care for no one less, but we can’t let Danzo escape. We must catch him today; cripple him if you must, but don’t kill him.”

He turned to the bunker door. He lifted the bo-staff, and the weight strained his arms and body. He had used Enma’s weight to great advantage in his youth, but it had become a burden with his aging body. His golden years of taijutsu and bukijutsu had long past after all.

But whatever he had now was more than enough.

He dug his feet into the ground and struck the bunker door with Enma. The adamantine staff was akin to Vajra—unbreakable and unstoppable. The fuinjutsu seals protecting the door were shredded and destroyed by pure unadulterated force. The metal groaned as the door bent at the point of impact, but before the bo-staff could tear through the metal, the door came off its hinges, blasting it back into the wall behind.

Hiruzen exhaled deeply and stepped into the bunker where a receiving party of masked ROOT-nin awaited him.

“I will say this only once: surrender and step aside, and I will let you live. Get in my way, and I will gut you where you stand.” Hiruzen slammed the bo-staff on the ground, his bloodlust and chakra mixing together to create an oppressive environment.

The ROOT-nin stepped back, drawing their weapons in defense. Hiruzen could smell the fear lingering in the air, but seeing they refused to surrender, there was only one response.

“Death it is,” said Hiruzen, his eyes losing their luster. He ignored the calls of his ANBU guard and stepped forth.

Two ROOT-nin charged him. Hiruzen swung his bo-staff as they struck out with their swords, their strikes boosted by bukijutsu.

‘Danzo trained them well, but…’

“—Weak!—”

They were nothing when compared to Enma.

The bo-staff extended its length at the last moment, sweeping the ROOT-nin in one stroke, smashing them into the walls. Hiruzen raised the bo-staff high and slammed it on the ground— the entire bunker shook as if hit with a high-magnitude earthquake.

Hiruzen took out four shurikens and threw them at the ROOT-nin. A split second after they took to flight, the four shurikens turned into eight… sixteen… thirty-two… sixty-four, and barraged the ROOT-nin, who had limited space to dodge and could only defend them head-on.

Hiruzen threw his bo-staff toward the ROOT-nin on the left while he rushed to the right. Enma transformed back into his original body and jumped on the group of ROOT-nin with the ferocity of the monkey king.

On Hiruzen’s side, a ROOT-nin weaved hand seals for a ninjutsu.

‘Boar, tiger, snake, tiger… Fire-Release.’

The first few hand seals reflected in Hiruzen’s eyes.

He deduced the ninjutsu… and moved to counterattack. Hiruzen’s hands moved faster than the ROOT-nin and completed his ninjutsu a split second before the ROOT-nin despite starting considerably later.

A stream of water slammed into the jet of flames and extinguished the fire before it could even pick up significant heat. Steam sprayed out of impact, and the ROOT-nin squinted his eyes, trying to peer through only to see Hiruzen breaching his personal space with a kunai.

He tried to parry, but Hiruzen’s strike was a feint.

The second kunai strike went through the ROOT-nin’s chest and heart, passing clean through the body. The kunai appeared out from the body with the Hokage’s arm deep in the ROOT-nin’s body. Hiruzen watched the light leave the ROOT-nin’s eyes before pulling his arm out of the body.

He turned to face another ROOT-nin. Before the masked shinobi could react, Hiruzen weaved one-handed hand seals as he pulled the sword from the man he had just killed.

The ROOT-nin flinched and jumped up—but it was too late as two earthen spikes shot up from the ground, tearing through the metal floor; they went clean through the man’s legs, fixing them to the ground. A split second later, Hiruzen drove the sword through the man’s heart.

Hiruzen pushed the dead man to the side and, without even looking, shot his arm to the side and tightened his claw grip.

The space, which had been empty a moment before, shimmered, and another ROOT-nin became visible. Hiruzen lifted the man in the air, and as he stared into the ROOT-nin’s eyes, Hiruzen tightened his grip and crushed the man’s neck with one hand.

Without a word, Hiruzen dropped another body to the ground.

He looked to the other side of the bunker, where Enma had literally ripped a man’s body into pieces and was pummeling another one into the ground.

In the half minute, they had entered the bunker if, including Enma’s contribution, six men had died due to Hiruzen while his ANBU guard had been only left with two ROOT-nin to contest against.

His skin was wrinkled, his back was crooked, there was barely any muscle on his body—he very much looked like a sickly old man. But with three dead men laying at his feet, his arm dripping from someone else’ blood and not a sign of exertion on his body—there was no denying it…

Sarutobi Hiruzen was still one of the deadliest shinobi on the planet.