Danzo didn't hesitate.
The moment he saw Uchiha Akuma standing frozen, vision blurred, and missing an eye, he activated Kotoamatsukami without ceremony.
A simple glance was all it took. His chakra surged like a blade straight into Akuma's mind.
The young Uchiha stiffened, as if someone had unplugged his nervous system and he was waiting to reboot.
That was the power of the jutsu: manipulate will, rewrite the mind, suppress consciousness. An illusory world wove itself inside the victim's mind, one where the enemy became an ally without even realizing it.
The Uchiha hidden in the trees watched and remained still.
"…We're screwed," Nanfeng whispered, devoid of emotion.
Izumi stared at Akuma. No one spoke. Only the wind rustling the leaves, and the faint echo of slaughter from the east.
If Danzo had won, it was over for them all.
Some Root operatives glanced at the collapsed, bleeding Akuma without showing any reaction. No shock, no satisfaction—just another mission complete.
A Root captain stepped forward. His voice was low, flat, unfeeling.
"The target has been neutralized."
The rest nodded mechanically.
No one spoke of the fallen comrades. To Root, the dead were just operational cost.
Meanwhile, the Uchiha surrounded Izumi and Tamao like they were the last embers of their clan.
The air was tight with tension.
Suddenly, Tamao—mangled, bloodied, with his arm twisted like a dry branch—stood up.
"BIG BRO DIDN'T LOSE!!!" he roared, his voice breaking but loud enough to echo through the forest clearing.
Since childhood, Tamao had never seen Akuma break a promise.
When he said he'd get him out of the hospital, he did—even if it meant earning the clan's scorn.
When he said they'd avenge the Uchiha, he brought him to kill Danzo.
Even if Akuma died...
He wouldn't lose.
The Uchiha lowered their heads—not in defeat, but in respect.
Danzo, expressionless, looked at Akuma. His hand—precise, steady—finished extracting the young man's left eye, blood misting the air.
"Finished," he muttered to himself.
There was no emotion in his voice. No pride. No joy. Just a statement of fact.
He took the Sharingan and inserted it into one of the slots on his modified right arm—altered with Hashirama's cells. The eye fit perfectly, embedded into prepared tissue.
Another surgical enhancement. Another weapon.
But then...
The Sharingan began to flicker.
Danzo noticed immediately. His expression didn't change, but his mind did: calculating, alert, uneasy.
"The chakra is unstable," he murmured, examining his arm. "The flow isn't right."
And then… something triggered.
The Sharingan he'd just stolen was activating Izanagi.
Danzo recognized it instantly. The very forbidden jutsu he had used mere seconds ago.
The one that rewrites reality for a short time.
He looked at Akuma. His eyes were closed—but there was the faintest smile on his face.
Danzo narrowed his own.
"How…? You made no seals. Your hands weren't free. You had no time."
There was no reply.
Silence was an answer in itself.
And then he understood.
"A transcription seal… You set it up beforehand," he muttered, more to himself than to the boy.
Akuma opened his eyes, though only one truly saw.
The Kotoamatsukami Sharingan gleamed from his right socket.
"Close enough," Akuma said calmly.
Akuma's Izanagi had activated.
He had erased his own defeat: the loss of the eye, the mental manipulation, even the theft of Kotoamatsukami. All of it—gone. Rewritten.
Now, the Kotoamatsukami had returned to its rightful place.
Danzo didn't scream in horror. But his breath paused for a full second.
His own eye was empty.
The Sharingan he had stolen… was gone.
"No… No way."
"Hehe," Akuma chuckled with a chilling grin. "I'll explain so you can die happy. Before I met you, I swapped my left eye for Inahori's Sharingan… just in case I needed to use Izanagi. Guess my gamble paid off."
"The Izanagi erases what's bad. You stole my eye… and Izanagi gave it back."
Akuma's right Sharingan flared like a black shuriken.
His left eye reignited like a blazing spear as he restored his original Sharingan.
Eight Thousand Lances.
In front of him, Danzo stood frozen. His mind struggled to process the situation, like a broken loop of logic.
Akuma stepped forward. His chakra surged again.
The air thickened with tension.
The demon's eyes were back.