“Orochimaru, I am not negotiating here… this is an order!” said Danzo in an ordering tone!
As soon as these words came out of Danzo’s mouth, both Orochimaru and Uchiha Tsukihi’s faces became gloomier.
The way Danzo is behaving in front of them, it is as if he has completely substituted himself as the current Hokage of Konoha. His tone of ordering Orochimaru is that of a superior ordering his subordinate when Orochimaru is not his subordinate at all, Orochimaru and Danzo are in a cooperative relationship, hence their status is equal, but Danzo seems to have forgotten this face… and he even dared to sweep his gaze at Homusubi with a provocatively.
Although both Homusubi and Orochimaru had expected that after becoming the temporary Hokage Agent and getting the political power of Konoha Village in his hands Danzo will inevitably swell, neither of the two expected this guy to become so rampant!
Such behavior is simply unreasonable!
Moreover, Danzo didn’t care about Orochimaru and Homusubi’s reaction, and dared to declare, “I am Hokage now! You should understand what this identity means!”
At this moment, Danzo’s mindset seems to have changed completely, and he seems to believe that, ‘Now, I am the center of the world, and everything must revolve around me!’ which is obviously not the case…!
Looking at Danzo’s disgusting face, Tsukihi thought in annoyance, ‘It seems that using him for too long would be impossible because his ambitions have started to swell… I must speed up the things, else dealing him will start to get more and more troublesome… because there is no telling what move he might make now that he has become the Hokage Agent of Konoha Village.’
Tsukihi could feel that ever since Danzo became the Temporary Hokage Agent and saw the possibility of his rise, he has started to get out of control… And so, the only option she has is to speed up things.
When Tsukihi was considering her next set of plans, Orochimaru suddenly raised his eyes, and without showing any weakness while facing Danzo, he shook his head with a chuckle and said, “Shimura Danzo, you seem to have forgotten that I am Konoha’s rogue-nin, have been for a very long time… so, your Hokage’s identity… oh, I am sorry, that was my mistake, your identity of ‘temporary Hokage Agent’ cannot control me… and your orders are useless on me… if you want Hyuga Kuroto’s resignation, go ahead and ask him yourself…”
Danzo stood up abruptly and while releasing killing intent towards Orochimaru he shouted in anger, “Orochimaru!”
Orochimaru was not perturbed by Danzo’s killing intent or anger-filled shout, he was still sitting on his seat and while casually looking at Danzo, he licked his lips and asked with a smirk, “So, now you want to kill me? It’s understandable, I don’t blame you. Go ahead and try your best. But the question is, can you, do it? Are you capable enough? Not to mention without alerting anyone in Konoha? After all, it would be very troubling for the ‘temporary Hokage Agent’ if ‘anyone’ were to find me and Homusubi in your base, right Homusubi-san?”
Tsukihi was speechless, she didn’t particularly want to get involved in this fiasco, however, now that Orochimaru has thrown the dice towards her, she had no choice but to speak something and she could only warn Danzo as a member of Amatsukami, “Shimura Danzo, I know that defeating the former Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen who has been suppressing you for decades has given you some inexplicable self-confidence… but I want to tell you that this self-confidence is of no use in front of the two of us… I also want to remind you that the ones sitting here are neither your enemies nor your friends and neither are we your subordinates nor are we your superiors… we are working here based on a cooperative relationship… so, your orders in the name of Hokage are useless here… moreover, the name and identity of Hokage has never meant anything in my eyes… Not to mention, you have neither been appointed as the Hokage at this time nor do you have any qualities or strength to match a Hokage as of yet.”
“You!” Danzo glared at Homusubi… he really wanted to teach her a lesson… but upon remembering the identity of the other party as a member of Amatsukami and the unfathomable strength that she and her organization seems to have, he could only force himself to restrain.
Of course, he didn’t forget to swear to himself in his mind, ‘Whether it is the Amatsukami Organization, the Akatsuki Organization or Orochimaru’s Otogakure… wait until I complete the ritual, after that, I will destroy each of you one by one like stepping on lowly bugs!’ and then sat back with gloomy aura enveloping his body.
Ignoring the cold killing intent on Danzo’s body, Tsukihi said, “Let’s get back to the topic, has the task of capturing the candidates with selected Kekkei Genkai completed?”
Danzo replied with a ‘humph’, “How can such a simple task be difficult for me?”
Tsukihi nodded slightly and said, “Since all the targets are captured, so all the preliminary preparations for the ritual are completed, and now we can move to the next step… and that is to choose the location where you want to perform the ritual.”
Considering that this matter is extremely important for him, Danzo put away the gloomy aura and killing intent and asked, “Do you have any suggestions?”
Tsukihi ignored Danzo’s behavior and directly said without playing around, “Since the Kekkei Genkai selected by having a higher concentration of Water Chakra nature… so we have to choose a location that can balance the excessive Water Chakra Nature… and we don’t have many such locations as option…
Either the location can be inside an active Volcano, or in the middle of a scorching desert…
If you choose an active Volcano, it would have a maximum balancing effect on excessive Water Chakra Nature, but make note that if you do choose an active volcano, then you wouldn’t be able to draw energy from a planetary phenomenon as Hiruko did…
Of course, you can also choose desert, and as long as the altitude of the sand dunes is high enough, you will be able to draw energy from the planetary phenomenon, however, the balancing effect on the excessive Water Chakra Nature would decrease.”
Danzo nodded, and asked again, “And which is safer and has higher chances of success?”
“Inside an active Volcano.” Answered Tsukihi, and then explained, “For the success of ritual, balancing of all Chakra Natures is more important, so I’d suggest performing the ritual inside an active volcano.”
Personally, I would suggest that you perform the ritual inside an active Volcano because the balancing effect is more important.”
Orochimaru also added, “Hiruko used the planetary phenomenon to supply Chakra because he lacked resources that would supply him Chakra… now that you are ‘Hokage’, this problem can be solved quite easily.”
Orochimaru was talking about the Chakra Transmission technology. Chakra Transmission Technology is not too high-end for one of the five great shinobi villages… and is used quite often in many things.
One of the examples would be the Chakra Cannon of Kumogakure… That Chakra Cannon draws Chakra from a group of Shinobi.
If Danzo also deploys the Chakra Transmission technology for his ritual, then the problem of insufficient Chakra can be solved quite easily and he will get a continuous Chakra supply.
Danzo nodded slightly and took out a map of the Shinobi Continent.
All the active volcanos that can be used for the ritual have been marked on the map with a red pen, this shows that Danzo has already considered this far and has been searching and screening out the locations for his ritual accordingly.
Pointing at one of the active volcanos marked on the map, Danzo said, “I have personally surveyed this Volcano… Everything is up to standards… moreover, this volcano is in the Land of Fire so moving a lot of manpower would be convenient and wouldn’t attract the attention of any other nation…”
Hearing Danzo’s words, Tsukihi thought to herself, ‘Humph, so he has already thought this far… it seems that I can’t let my guard down against him for even a single minute…’
Orochimaru had the same thought…
But neither of them said anything for they understood that this rule applies to all three of them. As even Danzo hasn’t completely let down his guard against Orochimaru and Homusubi.
And it doesn’t even matter as this is only natural.
In fact, whether Homusubi or Orochimaru, they won’t intentionally disrupt Danzo’s ritual… because even if they do their best and take care of everything, the probability of Danzo succeeding and surviving is very low, so there is actually no point in disrupting the ritual.
Both Orochimaru and Homusubi understand this, and as such, they only want to collect as much data and information as possible for their own purposes.
Regardless, if Danzo is vigilant, let him be… it doesn’t matter.
Danzo didn’t know Homusubi’s thoughts, and went on to say, “In two weeks, I will be able to complete all the arrangements of the ritual ceremony… After that, I will perform the ritual.”
Homusubi nodded…
At this time, Orochimaru licked his lips and said, “If you want to further increase the success rate of your survival, then I would recommend you to undergo body modification… That white arm that you showed me a few days ago should also be used to replace that current arm of yours… it will stabilize the Sharingan and Mokuton inside your body.”
However, Danzo was hesitant and said, “I will think about it before giving my decision.”
“Then you better think about it and decide as quickly as possible…” said Orochimaru and added after a pause, “After the body modification, your body would need a period of rest to adjust to the changes, so the sooner the transformation is completed… the better and safer for you.”
Since Homusubi also didn’t want to let Danzo delay the ritual any more than he already has, she added, “You’d better complete the ritual before Akatsuki Organization makes their next move… otherwise, the position of Konoha’s Hokage would slip from under your butt and you will keep looking around…”
When the position of Hokage came into question, Danzo’s nerves tightened… he immediately stood up, then turned around, and while walking towards the exit, he said, “I will give you my answer within two days…”