Chapter 329: Shimura Danzō 2.0!

"You're right. This old man was indeed wrong!"

Faced with Minato's anger, Danzō was surprisingly calm. He had no intention of arguing.

That instead left Minato somewhat embarrassed, and the anger he had been holding onto instantly dissipated.

Danzō continued, "Of the several outcomes I simulated, what I did in reality was the worst possible choice. Not only did I create several tragedies out of thin air, I also pushed the wielder of the Rinnegan into opposition with Konoha, turning him into a genuine threat to the village!"

"In some of the other outcomes, I chose to ignore their existence. In others, I chose to support their development. In still others, I merely provided them with a certain amount of assistance."

"Ignoring them carried too much uncertainty, and the eventual outcomes varied. But in almost none of them did they end up threatening the village."

"And after providing them with varying degrees of assistance, although most of those outcomes yielded no reward, there were also some in which things developed in a positive direction..."

Minato couldn't help interrupting again.

"Isn't that the normal way things should develop? Most people in this world are normal human beings. It's not as though they're born evil. If someone receives kindness from another person, even if they don't repay that kindness with everything they have, they wouldn't normally turn around and repay kindness with hatred, would they?"

"I don't completely agree with that assessment. Human nature is far more complicated than you think."

Danzō pointed at himself.

"If we're talking about someone who was born evil, this old man doesn't think he qualifies. But as for repaying kindness with hatred... I've done plenty of that."

Minato: "..."

Ren: "..."

Danzō's blunt admission left both of them at a loss for words.

Yashiro, however, gave a cold snort.

"You're being far too generous to yourself! To be honest, in the eyes of us Uchiha, there's hardly any difference between you, Shimura Danzō, and someone who was born evil."

Danzō glanced at Yashiro but made no attempt to argue.

After hesitating for a moment, Minato still spoke up.

"Senior Yashiro, the grievances between Danzō and the Uchiha clan were caused by many different factors. Danzō was certainly in the wrong, but calling him inherently evil is going too far."

In Minato's view, the primary reason Danzō had committed so many atrocities was because of his ideology.

At certain times, Danzō had genuinely believed that he was acting for the sake of Konoha.

But when the underlying ideology was wrong, the results naturally became wrong as well.

Yashiro had no intention of arguing.

For one thing, he had only said it because of his anger toward Danzō.

For another, Minato was the Fourth Hokage. Yashiro naturally wasn't going to argue with him over something so minor.

Danzō, however, paid no attention to any of this and continued.

"In the past, even if I had simulated these possible futures, I probably wouldn't have accepted what I saw."

"But once my mind had become calm and I began looking at these events objectively from the perspective of a third party, I finally recognized my own mistakes."

"From there, I began reviewing my entire life and discovered that I had made far, far too many mistakes."

Danzō sighed softly.

"If I had only made one or two mistakes, there might have been other factors that caused my judgment to fail."

"But when there are this many mistakes, then the only possible conclusion is that the problem lies with me."

"And in fact, I was wrong from the very beginning."

Ren and Minato exchanged glances.

Danzō really had found the root of the problem.

The one who had been wrong was none other than himself.

Danzō continued, "So I began searching for the point at which everything had gone wrong."

"I was born toward the end of the Warring States period. I was fortunate enough to personally witness the history of that era, but unfortunate enough to experience its brutality as well."

"Although I only spent a few years of my childhood in the Warring States period, every one of those years was filled with blood and tears."

"I never personally went onto the battlefield. But every day, after training within the clan compound, all I could do was wait for news that another relative had died."

"Those years taught me just how cruel this world could be."

After a pause, a few traces of nostalgia flashed through Danzō's eyes.

"Then, one afternoon, the clan head of the Shimura clan returned to the compound in high spirits and announced some news to everyone."

"The war was over!"

"That was the first time I had ever seen a genuine smile on our clan head's face."

"Only later did I learn that the two most powerful clans within the Land of Fire had finally ended their thousand-year conflict and signed a peace agreement."

"The Senju and the Uchiha. These two great clans represented the pinnacle of power in the shinobi world."

"They and their respective allies essentially determined whether there would be war or peace within the Land of Fire."

"If they wanted to fight, no one dared to stop."

"If they wanted peace, no one dared to continue fighting."

"With the two clans taking the lead, peace finally came to the Land of Fire."

"Afterward, the Senju and Uchiha clans joined forces to establish Konoha and invited the other clans to join them."

"Once those two clans stood together, the other clans within the Land of Fire had only two choices: join them or leave with their entire clan."

"And so, the first shinobi village in the history of the shinobi world was born."

"After that, clans in other regions followed their example, and the system of one hidden village per great nation gradually took shape."

"Peace had arrived just like that."

Danzō's voice grew heavier, though his eyes contained a hint of nostalgia.

Clearly, many events during that period had become precious memories to him.

"Thinking about it now, the period when Konoha was first established was the happiest time of my entire life."

"No war. No sacrifices. No bad news."

"A new place. A new house. New friends. We spent our days without a care in the world..."

"That was when I met Hiruzen, Koharu, Homura, Kagami, and Torifu."

"It was also during that time that we became disciples of our teacher, Tobirama, and studied under him together."

"Until the death of the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju, I was still an upright and righteous person."

"But after the death of the First Hokage, the First Shinobi World War began!"

"That was when I began to change."

"To be honest, the brutality of the First Shinobi World War far exceeded that of the Second and Third Shinobi World Wars."

"At that time, everyone's thinking was still largely rooted in the relatively small-scale conflicts of the Warring States period."

"When thousands of shinobi suddenly clashed on the same battlefield, everyone was stunned."

"No one was accustomed to such warfare yet. Everyone fought on nothing but courage and bloodlust. Preparations were inadequate, and the casualties were horrifying."

"That suspicious, paranoid side of me—the habit of treating everything as a potential threat—was gradually formed during that period."

Minato thought about it for a moment and felt that Danzō's explanation did make some sense.

Developing a suspicious personality in such an unfamiliar and chaotic environment wasn't particularly strange.

Ren, however, remained skeptical.

The brutal conditions of the First Shinobi World War might indeed have been one contributing factor.

But countless people had experienced that war.

Only one Shimura Danzō had emerged from it.

So the First Shinobi World War could only have been a catalyst. The fundamental cause still lay within Danzō himself.

Danzō seemed to share that view as well.

"The decisive event occurred near the end of the First Shinobi World War, when our teacher, Tobirama, sacrificed himself."

"At the time, we were negotiating with Kumogakure when an internal conflict broke out within the village."

"The militant faction led by the Gold and Silver Brothers refused to accept peace. They launched a coup d'état, killed the Raikage, and attempted to kill all of us as well, intending to continue the war."

"Teacher Tobirama and the six of us in the Hokage Guard Platoon were completely surrounded by Kumogakure's forces."

"It was then that Teacher Tobirama tested us, asking which of us was willing to stay behind and cover the others' retreat."

"Looking back now, Teacher Tobirama's test was actually rather crude."

"After all, aside from Teacher Tobirama himself, none of the six of us had the strength to hold back the Kumogakure forces alone. Even if all six of us had stayed behind, we might not have been able to stop them."

"And Teacher Tobirama was the fastest shinobi in the world at the time, having created the Flying Thunder God Technique. If he wanted to escape, no one could have stopped him."

"Teacher Tobirama had already decided to sacrifice himself to save us..."

"Wait!"

Ren couldn't help interrupting Danzō.

"Could Tobirama Senju really not have used the Flying Thunder God Technique to take all of you with him? Minato does that all the time, doesn't he?"

This was something Ren had wondered about for a long time.

In the original storyline, Minato had used the Flying Thunder God Technique to teleport the entire Allied Shinobi Forces away from the Ten-Tails' Tailed Beast Bomb.

That proved that the Flying Thunder God Technique could absolutely transport other people alongside the user.

There were plenty of other examples that supported this.

Even if Minato had been able to teleport the entire Allied Shinobi Forces because of the Nine-Tails' chakra, Tobirama only had six people to transport.

And Tobirama was a Senju.

Surely his chakra reserves couldn't have been as poor as Kakashi Hatake's?

"Uh... I can explain that."

Before Danzō could answer, Minato spoke somewhat sheepishly.

"Although Lord Second's Flying Thunder God Technique was already quite advanced, he hadn't developed it in the direction of transporting other people."

"I was the one who developed that application myself."

"So it wasn't that Lord Second didn't want to take them with him. He simply hadn't yet developed a way to transport other people with the technique."

Unlike Minato, whose two signature techniques were the Rasengan and Flying Thunder God Technique, Tobirama was known as a master of forbidden techniques.

The Flying Thunder God Technique was merely one of his many techniques.

It was therefore perfectly understandable that Tobirama hadn't devoted most of his effort to developing it to the same extent Minato eventually did.

"That's exactly what happened."

Danzō confirmed Minato's explanation and continued.

"The situation was far too urgent at the time. Moreover, the Hokage Guard Platoon's duty was specifically to protect the Hokage."

"So none of us suspected that it was merely a test."

"And during Teacher Tobirama's test, I was slower than Hiruzen by a single step and lost my chance at the position of Hokage."

"That was what I believed at the time."

"In fact, I continued believing it until quite recently."

Ren immediately became interested.

"Oh? So you see things differently now?"

Danzō nodded and sighed.

"The position of Hokage carries enormous responsibility. Given Teacher Tobirama's cautious personality, how could he possibly decide who would inherit the position based on a test like that?"

"The evaluation of the next Hokage had actually begun long before then."

"Teacher Tobirama had been searching for the most suitable successor and had already more or less settled on his choice."

"His test had actually been aimed at only one person from beginning to end."

"Hiruzen."

"And Hiruzen didn't disappoint him."

"He was the first to step forward."

"I simply failed to see that before, and I remained bitter about losing by that tiny margin."

"From that moment onward, becoming Hokage became my obsession."

"And that obsession caused me to fall."

"It made me abandon my principles. Eventually, it developed to the point where, despite not possessing the title of Hokage, I exercised the authority of one."

"I resorted to any means necessary to prove that I was no worse than Hiruzen."

"I acted recklessly to prove that I was more qualified than Hiruzen to become Hokage."

"I crossed every line imaginable to prove that I could do a better job than Hiruzen."

"I kept saying that everything I did was for the sake of the village."

"But in reality, I simply wanted to prove that I was more suited than Hiruzen to become a competent Hokage."

"And because of that, I made one wrong choice after another."

"Take the wielder of the Rinnegan, for example."

"The threat he posed was only part of it."

"What I really wanted was the power of those eyes."

"Once I obtained that power, I would be one step closer to becoming Hokage."

"The human experimentation was the same."

"Suppressing the Uchiha clan was the same."

"Suppressing the other shinobi clans was the same."

"Even what I did to Sakumo Hatake..."

"Everything I did was simply to accumulate power for the sake of becoming Hokage and eliminate obstacles standing in my way."

"I claimed it was for the village."

"But in reality, it was for the sake of becoming Hokage!"

"And as for the things I did for the village, I only did them because it was the village of the Hokage I wanted to become!"

Danzō's expression was filled with defeat.

Coming face-to-face with his true nature was clearly difficult for him to accept.

After all, he had shouted "For the sake of Konoha!" for decades, until he himself had come to believe it without question.

When a person wears a mask for too long, tearing it off can be painful enough to wound them to the bone.

Within the endless cycles of Izanami, it had taken Danzō a very long time to see this truth.

And only after completely believing it, accepting it, becoming accustomed to it, and finally acknowledging it could he awaken from Izanami.

The Danzō standing before them now was a Danzō who had seen himself clearly, accepted himself, and found himself again.

Shimura Danzō 2.0!

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