Naruto: Starting as the Third Hokage with Tears in His Eyes

Chapter 626 Using a borrowed knife to kill

He didn't look at the burning village in the distance, nor did he pay attention to Kaguya Honebami's extremely arrogant shouts.

He simply walked to a small table in the center of the deck and sat down leisurely.

Then, he picked up the teapot on the table and poured himself a cup of still-warm barley tea.

"Glug."

"Glug."

The soft sound of tea being poured into a cup seemed so out of place, yet so clearly audible, against a background filled with killing, explosions, and wails.

Each syllable was like a heavy hammer blow, striking the hearts of the Hozuki siblings.

"Hokage-sama!"

Hozuki Kaigetsu finally couldn't hold back any longer, his voice trembling uncontrollably, "The village..."

Hiruzen Sarutobi picked up his teacup, his movements unhurried and deliberate.

He gently blew away the tea foam floating on the surface of the water.

Then, I took a sip.

The warm tea slid down his throat, and he let out a satisfied sigh.

Only then did he raise his eyes and calmly look at Hozuki Kaigetsu.

His eyes were as deep as a starless night sky, revealing neither joy nor anger, only a pure, unfathomable calm.

"Um."

He responded.

Just a single "hmm".

Then, Hiruzen Sarutobi put down his teacup and turned to look at Hozuki Shio beside him, whose body was trembling like a leaf falling in the autumn wind due to fear and anger.

The sea breeze blew, making the hem of his black clothes flutter.

Behind him were towering flames, burning villages, the remains of his former colleagues, and a human tragedy unfolding.

But on his face was a faint smile, as if he were watching a unique drama unfold.

Hozuki Kaigetsu followed the Hokage's gaze, watching Kaguya Honebami's maniacal laughter atop the Mizukage Building, and the Kaguya clan members slaughtering the moderates...

A chilling thought, so cold it almost froze his blood, suddenly rushed into his mind.

knife……

Hiruzen Sarutobi needs a sword.

A sword sharp enough, insane enough, and unreasonable enough, to cut away the entrenched rotten flesh of Kirigakure and the stubborn factions that hindered his implementation of new policies.

And Kaguya Honebami's sword... is so useful.

Isn't that the case...?

To use someone else to do one's dirty work.

On the deck, the sea breeze carried the acrid smell of burning fire and the sweet, metallic taste of blood, rushing towards us.

Hozuki Kaigetsu clutched the revitalization plan he treasured tightly, the outline of his bones clearly visible beneath his skin.

"Hokage-sama!"

His voice was distorted by extreme suppression, carrying a plea he himself was unaware of, "Kaguya Honebami has gone mad! He's purging all factions! Once he consolidates the village, we'll completely lose all opportunities, and... we might even be besieged!"

Behind him, Hozuki Shio's purple eyes, which always sparkled with wildness and vitality, were now empty.

She clung tightly to her brother's arm, as if it were the only physical thing she could hold onto.

Those purple eyes reflected the distant village, where her home once stood, where she and Terumi Mei trained together, and where the training ground nearly flooded after she first learned the Water Transformation Technique.

The twenty Konoha Anbu members on the deck stood like twenty-one silent statues, their expressions tense to the extreme beneath their masks.

They were like fully drawn bows, waiting only for the command to unleash destructive arrows.

However, the man who gave the order simply drank the slightly cold barley tea in one gulp, and then slowly poured himself another cup.

The scalding hot tea was poured into the cup, and white steam rose up, blurring the hellish scene behind him.

"Hai Yue."

He finally spoke, his voice as calm as if he were discussing the weather, "A good surgeon never operates before an abscess has fully matured."

Hiruzen Sarutobi raised his eyes and looked at the village that had been completely engulfed in flames and carnage.

"Look at the Kaguya clan, those deeply ingrained bloodline diseases, those die-hards who oppose change, those opportunists hiding in the shadows, fickle and ambivalent..."

He extended a finger and gently traced it in the air, as if sketching an invisible map.

"Tonight, all the poison in Kirigakure has gathered in one place."

He put down his teacup, the bottom of which collided with the table with a crisp, light sound.

Amidst the background noise of explosions, screams, and roars, this soft sound resonated clearly in everyone's heart.

"Perfect, it makes it convenient for us to remove it all at once."

Surgeon... abscess... excision...

These words, like cold scalpels, precisely dissected Hozuki Kaigetsu's brain.

He looked at Hiruzen Sarutobi's face, which flickered in and out of the firelight, and an unprecedented sense of dread gripped his heart.

It turned out to be the case.

From the demonstrations at the docks to the relentless pressure at the negotiating table, and then to that mineral map that could drive any ambitious person mad... everything was being accelerated.

It hastened Kaguya Honebami's ambition, his madness, and his determination to launch a coup.

Hiruzen Sarutobi came to perform a surgical operation.

Kaguya's clan is a boil, those wavering fence-sitters are necrotic tissue, and Hozuki Kaigetsu himself... is perhaps the chosen scalpel used to cut open the skin.

He thought he understood the grand scheme of Naruto, and the greatness of conquering destruction through creation.

But only now did he realize that what he had seen was just the tip of the iceberg that the Hokage wanted him to see.

Beneath that sea of ​​kindness and gentleness lies an absolute coldness and rationality capable of freezing everything.

Hiruzen Sarutobi put down his teacup, the bottom of which collided with the table with a crisp, light sound.

Amidst the chaotic background noise, this soft sound seemed like a command.

He finally turned to Uchiha Shisui, who had been standing silently behind him like a shadow.

"Still water".

Hiruzen Sarutobi's voice was flat and emotionless.

"It's too noisy outside."

Uchiha Shisui bowed slightly, without making a sound; it was merely a bowing gesture.

At this moment, those gentle eyes seemed to have all their light drained away, leaving only pure darkness.

"When does the Hokage wish to quiet this down?"

His voice was equally flat, like a precision instrument programmed with a set program.

Hiruzen Sarutobi looked up at the distant sky, which was dark and gloomy, with only the firelight painting a reddish hue.

"Before I have breakfast."

"Yes."

Shisui replied.

There were no superfluous actions, no grand and impassioned promises.

With just a turn of his head, his figure vanished silently into the night, like a drop of ink falling into clear water.

At the same moment he turned around, the twenty elite members of the Dark Guard behind him, like shadows swallowed by ink, vanished silently from the deck using a perfectly synchronized, silent teleportation technique.

On the deck, only the sound of the wind, the firelight, and the two Kirigakure siblings, speechless with utter shock, remained.