The grotesque scene unfolding before Tobirama filled him with a deep, instinctive sense of foreboding.

This genjutsu—this thing—was no ordinary illusion. It carried the scent of the Uchiha's ancient taboo: Izanami.Yet even as he analyzed it, he realized it wasn't truly Izanami. It was something… derivative. Something worse.

His sharp mind immediately traced the pattern back to one man.

Danzo.

He had taken the lingering hatred saturating the Land of Water—the ceaseless bloodshed, the silent screams of the Hidden Mist—and twisted it into fuel. That accumulated resentment, centuries thick and saturated with despair, had been grafted into a Sharingan illusion and allowed to fester. The result was this abominable construct: a recursive genjutsu that fed on malice itself.

But Tobirama noticed something others would not.

Although the villagers' hatred seemed boundless, it had reached a plateau—its strength no longer increasing. This meant the illusion had limits. Its growth had been exhausted. The genjutsu was self-sustaining, yes, but no longer self-evolving.

It was a trap, not a world.

Too sinister… too deliberate.

Tobirama's patience thinned. He had no intention of lingering inside this malformed space any longer.

The next instant, he wove signs with ruthless precision, merging the regenerative properties of his Edo Tensei body with his devastating Mutual Exploding Tag Technique.

If this illusion was a cage, then he would obliterate it.

"Hmph!"

With that sharp exhale, a blinding surge of chakra erupted from him.

The explosion that followed was catastrophic.

A violent wave of flame and force tore through the illusory world, bending the boundaries between reality and genjutsu until they twisted and cracked like shattered glass.

The world screamed.

Fragments of mist and light warped, folded, and convulsed as Tobirama's Edo Tensei body detonated again and again—each regeneration followed by another explosion, relentless and exacting.

Once. Twice. Ten times.

Each detonation shredded another layer of illusion. The genjutsu's grip loosened, its structure fraying under the repeated trauma.

Fifteen explosions later, Tobirama's sharp eyes caught it—a flicker in the air, a single fracture where illusion and reality overlapped for the briefest instant.

Without hesitation, his hands blurred once more.

"Seal!"

The ground beneath him pulsed with blinding light as his sealing formula detonated.

Reality tore open.

The oppressive illusion shattered like a mirror struck by lightning. The mist dissolved, the hollow laughter of villagers vanished, and Tobirama's consciousness snapped back into his true body.

When he opened his eyes, the stench of real blood filled his lungs.

He was back. The real Hidden Mist Village—its chill air, its fog, its deathly silence—surrounded him once more.

And standing only a few paces away, calm and composed, was Danzo.

Behind him, a dozen Mist shinobi had already formed a semi-circle, hands flashing through seals, ready to lock Tobirama within a binding barrier.

But Tobirama did not panic.

The air around him darkened, the chill of his killing intent freezing even the mist itself.

The moment he broke free from the illusion, the chain of Mutual Exploding Tags he had triggered within his Edo Tensei body continued to detonate in sequence—one final surge of fury.

BOOM!

A thunderous explosion tore through the street, forcing the Kirigakure shinobi back. Smoke and debris billowed into the air, swallowing the scene in chaos.

As the dust settled, a silhouette emerged—unscathed, resolute.

Tobirama's Edo Tensei form had completely regenerated, his eyes sharp as forged steel.

His voice, when he spoke, was as cold as the ocean depths surrounding the village.

"Danzo… I didn't expect you to have fallen this far."His tone dripped with disdain."To think you've allowed yourself to become nothing more than a puppet of the Uchiha's curse."

Danzo's single visible eye narrowed. A flicker of something—anger, pity, or perhaps arrogance—passed through it.

"Instead of worrying about my state, Tobirama-sensei," he replied evenly, "you should worry about your own."

Before the last word left his lips, his form blurred—vanishing with a faint spatial distortion.

Flying Thunder God.

Tobirama's own technique.

"...!"

In that instant, Tobirama's body flashed as well. The two figures reappeared simultaneously—Tobirama behind Danzo, his kunai aimed cleanly for the throat.

But Danzo reacted instantly.

Clang!

Steel met steel, sparks bursting between them as the two locked blades—teacher and student, mirrored across time.

For a heartbeat, everything else fell silent.

The mist swirled around them, the scent of ozone thick in the air, their gazes meeting like blades crossing in silence—one cold and calculating, the other burning with grim conviction.

They no longer stood as master and pupil.Only rivals bound by their own darkness.

A heavy silence hung between them before Danzo finally spoke, his voice low, edged with a bitterness that had long festered."Tell me, Sensei… why did you choose Hiruzen back then—and not me?"

Tobirama's reply came without hesitation, cutting through the mist like a blade."Danzo, because from the very beginning, I never even considered you."

A twisted smile curved Danzo's lips, though it did little to hide the fury trembling beneath."Heh… never considered me, huh? That's a good one, Sensei."

He tried to sound amused, but his voice cracked. His chakra began to stir, warping the mist around him into something heavy and suffocating.

The street darkened. The very air grew tense, thick with killing intent.

Slowly, Danzo raised his weapons—two warped twin blades of darkened wood, as if carved from the heart of a dead forest. A sickly aura oozed from them, carrying both the essence of decay and the vitality of stolen life.

In the next instant, Danzo's figure blurred—his feet detonating with chakra.He lunged forward, a streak of black lightning.

His twin blades slashed and spun in relentless arcs, the sound of steel hissing through the mist.Each swing was surgical and merciless, born from years of suppressed resentment.A single misstep could have torn Tobirama apart.

But Tobirama did not flinch.

With a faint flash of blue light, his form vanished—Flying Thunder God.

"You say I'm a puppet of the Uchiha?" Danzo roared, his voice echoing across the empty street. "I am Danzo Shimura—the Root of the Leaf!"

When Tobirama reappeared, he stood calmly behind him, blade drawn, his expression unreadable. The mist shimmered across the steel like rippling water.

Danzo turned sharply, eyes burning with intensity. Both of his blades swung outward, unleashing a surge of Wood Release Chakra that erupted into a swarm of gnarled vines.

The roots tore through the stone street, lashing and twisting toward Tobirama like venomous serpents, seeking to bind and crush him.

Tobirama, however, slipped between them effortlessly—his teleportation flashes weaving through the storm of roots, his precision so immaculate that each dodge missed death by the width of a hair.

Then—an opening.

A flicker of motion, too subtle for the eye to follow.

Whoosh!

Tobirama appeared before Danzo, thrusting his blade cleanly through his chest.Blood spattered across the withering roots, staining them crimson.

"Do you see now, Sensei?" Danzo rasped, the corners of his lips curling into a grim smile. "This is the Root of the Leaf—unyielding, eternal."

To Tobirama's surprise, Danzo showed no pain.

Instead, from the wound, blackened vines burst forth, writhing and twisting until the gash sealed completely. His flesh regenerated, the red of blood replaced by the green of invasive wood.

"…So you've grafted Hashirama's cells to this extent." Tobirama's eyes narrowed. "You've desecrated even his gift."

Danzo's expression turned wild. "Tobirama-sensei… come dance with me!"

He swung his twin blades again, and the Wood Release exploded outward—this time like a tidal wave. The very street convulsed under the pressure, stone splitting, buildings eroding into dust.

The air filled with the hiss of roots and steel, the clash of chakra and flame.

The master and the disciple became blurs of motion—one teleporting in flashes of light, the other surging forward in waves of dark wood and fury.

Each time Tobirama's blade found a vital point, Danzo's regeneration erased the wound within seconds. It was like fighting a reflection that refused to die.

The entire street became a storm of sparks, shredded roots, and distorted chakra.

And yet, Tobirama's expression remained calm. He no longer sought victory.

This was not a battle to win—it was a lesson to end.

He had seen enough of Danzo's corruption. Enough to understand that the man before him was already lost to the cycle of control and resentment he once claimed to oppose.

After all, this was not the battlefield of the past—not the day he had sacrificed himself to save his comrades from the Cloud.

This time, he would not die for a broken ideal.

As he prepared another seal, Tobirama's gaze softened for just a moment.Through the mist, Danzo's contorted figure overlapped with a memory—the young man who had once trained under his shadow, desperate to prove his worth beside Hiruzen.

"…Danzo."The whisper barely escaped his lips.

Then, with a final flicker of light, Tobirama vanished—Flying Thunder God, gone without a trace.

Danzo stood motionless for several seconds, his chest heaving, his grip on the twin blades tightening until they creaked. His expression twisted between pride and anguish.

When he finally lowered his weapons, the vines receded into the earth, leaving behind only silence.

He turned and began walking, each step slow and heavy, suppressing the wound that still pulsed beneath his regenerated skin.

Far away, Tobirama reappeared at the border of the Land of Water.The mist here was unnaturally thick, rolling like a living creature.

He stiffened immediately—senses razor-sharp.

Out of the fog, a distorted figure emerged, its outline blurring like rippling glass.

A familiar voice, distant yet piercing, echoed through the haze.

"Where are you going, Second Hokage-sama?"

The voice was calm, emotionless, and chillingly familiar.

From the shadows stepped Obito, his spiral mask glinting faintly, and behind it, a single scarlet Mangekyō Sharingan pulsed with malevolent light.

Before Tobirama could react, the world around him twisted again—colors bleeding together, reality folding in on itself.

When the distortion cleared, he found himself once more in the same cursed streets of the Hidden Mist Village.

The illusion had reset.

Danzo was there again, stepping out from the fog, twin blades in hand, his form unnaturally youthful—like a younger echo of himself, reanimated by hatred.

And behind him, Obito's chakra stirred the air, silently reinforcing the cycle.

Tobirama's expression darkened, his voice sinking into a quiet fury."So… that's it. You've merged your Mangekyō with Danzo's roots to craft this endless cage."

Danzo smiled faintly, eyes alight with manic devotion.

"Tobirama-sensei… come. The dance isn't over yet."

The mist closed in once more. The cycle began anew.