System in Assassin's Creed

Chapter 256: Chapter 255: Burning the Shadow

---Previously---

”An Uchiha?” Danzo gasped. ”No... your chakra... your hair... it’s not...”

”I’m not an Uchiha,” Alaric stepped forward, his shadow engulfing the elder. ”I’m just a guy with better eyes than you.”

Alaric leaned in, his voice dropping to a terrifying whisper.

”Now... since you tried to rewrite my brain, I think it’s only fair I rewrite your retirement plans.”

---Now---

Hokage Monument - Fourth’s Head

Danzo did not retreat out of fear.

Fear was an emotion he had surgically excised from his psyche decades ago, buried alongside his camaraderie and his hesitation. No, he moved out of pure, honed instinct. His body reacted before his mind could fully process the impossibility of what had just occurred.

Chakra surged through his aging limbs, reinforcing muscle and tendon as he leapt backward. His sandals scraped harshly against the stone hair of the Yondaime, creating distance between himself and the anomaly in the crimson coat.

His cane, a symbol of his frailty and his authority, was discarded mid-motion. It clattered uselessly across the monument, rolling toward the edge as Danzo’s stance lowered. His shoulders squared, his weight settling into a balanced, practiced posture that betrayed none of his age.

For a brief moment, his mind reeled.

Kotoamatsukami had failed.

It was an impossibility that cracked years of certainty. Despite the decade-long cooldown, Shisui’s eye was meant to be absolute... a technique that rewrote the fabric of a target’s reality. It did not concern itself with how powerful, how wealthy, or how willful its target was. It simply was.

And yet, Alaric stood there, his eyes glowing with that geometrically complex pattern, utterly unaffected.

’It doesn’t matter,’ Danzo’s visible eye narrowed, his pupil contracting into a pinprick of focus. ’He breathes. He bleeds. He is only human.’

”You think resisting that makes you special?” Danzo snapped, his voice sharp with restrained fury. ”Power without purpose is nothing more than indulgence, and you stand there mocking me, blind to the weight you carry.”

Alaric offered no response. He remained exactly where he was, one hand in his pocket, the other holding his cigar. There was an almost lazy stillness to him, a lack of tension that irritated Danzo far more than any taunt could.

’I’ve had just about enough of this!’ Danzo’s hands blurred through seals. ”Wind Style: Vacuum Bullets!”

He took a deep breath and exhaled sharply.

Compressed spheres of wind screamed forward, tearing through the air like invisible cannonballs. They gouged shallow trenches into the stone monument as they raced toward Alaric.

Alaric merely tilted his head.

He shifted his weight just enough... a slide of a few inches to the left, a slight twist of the torso to the right. The projectiles tore past his previous position, detonating harmlessly behind him, pulverizing rock without ever forcing him to step back or raise a guard.

Danzo clicked his tongue.

”Still playing the detached observer?” he barked, already weaving seals again, his speed increasing. ”You think this is a game?”

”Wind Style: Vacuum Blade!”

The air around Danzo’s arm warped violently as pressurized wind extended into a translucent cutting edge. He lunged forward with speed that would have overwhelmed most Jonin, the blade arcing toward Alaric’s neck in a clean, practiced strike meant to decapitate.

Alaric raised one hand.

Two fingers extended, catching Danzo’s forearm just above the wrist as if intercepting a slow-motion training blow.

CRACK.

The wind blade shattered instantly. Its intricate chakra structure collapsed under the pressure of Alaric’s grip, the force redirected downward to split the stone beneath their feet instead of Alaric’s flesh.

Danzo recoiled mid-strike, eyes widening.

”You—!”

A simple flick of Alaric’s wrist forced him back several steps. His boots ground against the monument as he barely managed to stabilize himself, his arm throbbing.

”You rely too much on borrowed tools,” Alaric said casually, finally taking a step forward. ”Eyes. Titles. Justifications.”

Alaric took a drag from his cigar, exhaling a cloud of smoke that drifted between them. ’Damn... I’m a hypocrite. I rely on a System and stolen bloodlines too. Well... I don’t care.’

Danzo snarled. ”Spare me your arrogance.”

His right arm twitched beneath the black sleeve as seals formed one-handed.

”Sealing Technique: Reverse Tetragram!”

Alaric stepped forward.

The movement was unhurried to the naked eye, but the distance between them collapsed instantly. Alaric appeared directly in front of Danzo, the displacement of air hitting the elder a split second later.

THUD.

A palm strike landed squarely against Danzo’s chest. It wasn’t a blow meant to kill, but the precision was terrifying. Danzo’s body was lifted off its feet and sent flying backward, smashing into the stone surface of the monument and fracturing it beneath him.

”You try to speak of purpose,” Alaric continued, following at a walking pace, ”but all I hear is fear dressed up as duty.”

Danzo forced himself upright, blood trailing from the corner of his mouth. He spat on the ground. ”You wouldn’t understand. You’ve never had to choose who lives and who dies for the sake of something greater.”

He formed seals, his chakra flaring wildly.

”Wind Style: Vacuum Great Sphere!”

A massive orb of compressed wind expanded outward, engulfing Alaric’s position entirely. The resulting explosion shook the entire monument, sending dust and shattered stone billowing into the air like a localized storm.

Danzo watched through the haze, breathing hard, his chest heaving.

Then, a hand emerged from the smoke.

With a single downward motion, Alaric dispersed the remaining wind pressure. He stepped out, his coat barely disturbed, not a scratch on him.

”You stand there judging me,” Danzo shouted, frustration and exhausion finally bleeding through his iron control. ”But when chaos comes, men like you vanish! It is people like me who remain in the shadows doing what must be done!”

Alaric stopped a few meters away and tilted his head slightly.

”...Are you done?”

Danzo froze.

Alaric looked him over briefly, checking his fingernails before adding, almost idly, ”Oh. You’re tired? But it’s my turn.”

He moved.

Danzo barely managed to raise his arms before the first open-handed strike snapped his head to the side. A knee drove the air from his lungs, followed instantly by another blow crashing into his ribs before his feet could even touch the ground again.

The sequence flowed without pause or wasted motion. It was a dissection.

Danzo tried to counter, tried to weave seals, tried to raise his arm... but a fist slammed into his jaw, then another, and another. His body was lifted off the stone and driven back down hard enough to create a crater.

Alaric stood over him, looking almost bored.

”This,” Alaric said as another strike landed, cracking a rib, ”is what happens when someone mistakes ideology for invincibility.”

Danzo gasped, vision blurring as his body screamed for chakra he could no longer afford to waste. Fear, cold and unfamiliar, crept into his gut for the first time since he had become the Darkness of Shinobi.

And Alaric still hadn’t started trying.

’Swift Release... activate.’

Then... he moved.

There was no explosive burst of chakra or sudden displacement that announced it. There was only the quiet certainty that Alaric was no longer where he had been, and that Danzo was already too late.

His arms came up on instinct rather than thought, barely managing to intercept the first strike. Yet the impact rattled his bones, force traveling through his guard and into his shoulders, numbing his fingers before he could reset his stance.

A second blow followed immediately. It wasn’t aimed to finish him, but to disrupt. Alaric twisted Danzo’s torso awkwardly, a strike clipping his side that sent him skidding across the stone.

Danzo scrambled, boots scraping as he fought to stay upright. He tried to widen the distance, to regain control of the spacing where his ninjutsu could breathe, but Alaric remained close. Suffocatingly close.

Danzo lashed out with a counter... a sharp elbow meant to break momentum.

Alaric caught it mid-motion. He redirected it downward, stepping inside the opening and driving a short, precise strike into Danzo’s midsection that folded him like a hinge.

Another blow followed, then another. Each one placed where it would interrupt balance rather than end the fight, forcing Danzo to stagger and correct himself again and again.

”You preach control,” Alaric said calmly as he advanced, his movements smooth and economical. ”But you’ve never learned what it feels like to lose it.”

Danzo growled, forcing chakra through his limbs to reinforce his body. He swung again, mixing brute force with technique... strikes honed through decades of assassination and battlefield experience.

For a moment, it almost worked. His footwork tightened. His timing improved.

But Alaric simply adjusted. He blocked one strike with his forearm while stepping past another, his counter landing squarely against Danzo’s ribs, driving the air from his lungs in a sharp exhale.

Danzo stumbled, barely avoiding a follow-up that would have taken his legs out from under him. In desperation, he leaped back, weaving seals mid-air.

Alaric followed without haste. He closed the distance before the technique could fully form, striking Danzo across the jaw with enough force to snap his head sideways and scatter the gathering chakra.

”You rely on contingency after contingency,” Alaric continued, his tone almost instructional. He parried another frantic strike and answered with a palm to Danzo’s shoulder that sent pain lancing down his arm. ”Eyes you didn’t earn. Men you didn’t trust. Plans layered so thick you forgot how to fight without them.”

Danzo tried to respond, to shout something back, but the words dissolved into a grunt as another blow landed. His body was absorbing punishment faster than his chakra could compensate. He attempted a low sweep, hoping to force separation.

Alaric stepped over it effortlessly. He drove a knee into Danzo’s chest, sending him crashing onto his back.

CRACK.

Stone fractured beneath him.

Danzo rolled instinctively, narrowly avoiding a downward strike that would have pinned him. He forced himself upright again, breathing heavy now. His movements were no longer sharp; they were strained, desperate flailing.

”You think fear is weakness,” Danzo rasped, summoning what defiance he could as he raised his trembling guard. ”Fear is what keeps a village alive.”

”No,” Alaric replied. He closed in once more, catching Danzo’s wrist and twisting it just enough to break his stance before striking him across the face with the back of his hand. ”Fear is what keeps it obedient.”

Danzo staggered, vision blurring as the world tilted. Alaric remained in front of him, unhurried, inexorable.

Another strike drove into his side. A sharp blow to the sternum. A sweeping motion that sent him sprawling once more, his body skidding across the monument like discarded equipment.

By the time Alaric stopped, Danzo was on one knee. One hand braced against the fractured stone, his breath coming in ragged pulls as his chakra flow faltered under the strain.

Alaric stood over him, looking down with neither hatred nor urgency. It was as if the outcome had been decided long before the first blow was thrown.

”You built your power on the idea that no one would ever be allowed to stand above you,” Alaric said quietly. ”That’s why you never learned how to fight someone who already has.”

Danzo’s fingers dug into the stone. His mind raced. Fear was no longer theoretical but immediate, pressing against the walls of his resolve as he searched desperately for an option that still remained.

And for the first time, none presented itself.

”You’re wasting time,” Danzo rasped, lifting his head just enough to meet Alaric’s gaze. ”Beating an old man proves nothing.”

Alaric looked down at him, expression neutral, waiting.

Danzo took that silence as permission to speak, to negotiate.

”You think you’ve already won,” he continued, forcing steadiness into his voice. ”But killing me here accomplishes nothing. Root still exists. The council still stands. Konoha will move on without you.”

He shifted his arm slightly... careful, subtle. The black sleeve creaked faintly as the seal beneath it resisted movement.

”You’re intelligent,” Danzo pressed on. ”You understand systems. Remove me now, and someone worse will fill the vacuum. Someone less predictable. Someone you won’t see coming.”

Alaric exhaled slowly through his nose, amused rather than convinced.

”Quit your yapping, I know you’re buying time,” he said. ”Not well, but I’ll give you credit for trying.”

Danzo’s jaw tightened, but he did not deny it.

”I already know what’s under that sleeve,” Alaric continued, his eyes flicking briefly to Danzo’s arm. ”Hashirama’s cells. Stolen eyes. A seal designed to ration those eyes for Izanagi.”

Danzo froze. The blood drained from his face.

Alaric tilted his head slightly. ”Go on. Take it off.”

For a moment, Danzo simply stared at him, suspicion warring with desperation.

”You’ll regret letting me do this,” he said finally.

”Maybe,” Alaric replied evenly. ”But I doubt it.”

Danzo laughed hoarsely. He reached for the seal.

The black sleeve peeled back as chakra pulsed unevenly, revealing the grotesque sight beneath: pale, grafted flesh reinforced by Hashirama’s cells, embedded with rows of Sharingan eyes running along his forearm like a twisted gauntlet.

Ten in total. Each one half-lidded, dormant, waiting.

Danzo straightened. Strength flooded back into his posture as certainty returned to his mind.

”Ha... Haha Hahahahaha!”

”This is the difference between us,” he said, voice steadier now. ”While you rely on confidence... I rely on preparation. Preparation always beats confidence!”

He moved.

Danzo lunged forward, faster than before, chakra reinforced by desperation and artificial vitality. His strikes were sharper, more reckless, less restrained.

Alaric met him head-on. He parried and redirected each attack with minimal movement, their exchange blurring into a tight, violent rhythm as stone cracked beneath their feet.

Danzo overextended.

Alaric calmly seized the opening.

A strike crushed Danzo’s throat, collapsing cartilage and cutting off his breath entirely. A precise blow snapped his neck at an unnatural angle.

Danzo died instantly.

Reality twisted.

The corpse dissolved into nothing, the world rewriting itself as one of the Sharingan eyes on Danzo’s arm dimmed and closed permanently. Its tomoe froze in place as life was restored elsewhere.

Danzo staggered back into existence, gasping, shock flashing across his face.

”One,” Alaric remarked, tracking the closed eye. ”You might feel rejuvenated with Hashirama’s cells, but that means nothing to me.” ’It’s got nothing on my ”Hashirama’s Physique”.’

Danzo snarled and attacked again, abandoning finesse in favor of raw output. He unleashed wind blades point-blank, reinforced his limbs, struck with everything he had left.

Alaric stepped through it all. He wove between techniques, allowing one attack to graze him only to catch Danzo mid-motion and drive a fist clean through his chest.

Danzo looked down at the hand protruding from his torso, disbelief etched across his face.

Alaric crushed his heart.

Reality rewound again.

Another eye went dark.

Danzo screamed this time. Fury overtook reason as he hurled himself forward, attempting to overwhelm Alaric through sheer repetition.

Fire met wind. Earth shattered beneath them. Water condensed into blades only to be dispersed with a flick of Alaric’s wrist.

Each time, Alaric ended it differently.

A blade of compressed lightning severed Danzo’s spine.

A wall of earth closed around him and collapsed, crushing him to paste.

Superheated air cooked him from the inside out without burning the skin.

A single finger strike shattered his skull.

Each death was clean. Efficient. Unavoidable.

Each revival cost him an eye.

Seven left.

Five.

Three.

Danzo’s movements grew erratic. Panic seeped through his discipline as he realized the truth: Izanagi was not saving him... it was simply extending the lesson.

By the time only one eye remained glowing faintly on his arm, Danzo staggered back. He was bloodied, shaking, his breathing uneven.

”This isn’t possible,” he muttered, looking at his arm. ”Someone should have noticed. The village—”

Alaric cut him off. ”—I sealed the area.”

Danzo looked around wildly, finally noticing the silence. The absence of distant voices. The lack of ANBU interference.

”A privacy barrier,” Alaric continued. ”Large enough. Thorough enough. No one can see or hear us here.”

Hope flickered... and turned into absolute desperation.

Danzo poured chakra into his legs. He turned to flee.

He never took a step.

The air itself betrayed him.

Wind, shaped with impossible precision, twisted around Danzo’s head. Not as a blade, but as a grip... fingers of pressure plucking delicately at his eye socket.

PLOP.

The Sharingan... Shisui’s eye... was torn free.

Danzo screamed.

It was shrill, raw, unfiltered, echoing uselessly against the sealed space.

Alaric winced and covered one ear. ”Wow. I swear that sounded like a girl screaming.”

Danzo collapsed, clutching his face as blood poured between his fingers. His body finally gave out as the last of his safety nets vanished. His legs buckled, and he dropped to his knees, gasping, broken, blind, and utterly spent.

Alaric approached slowly, levitating Shisui’s eye into a small storage jar he produced from his inventory.

”I could’ve used Kotoamatsukami on you if not for the cooldown,” he said thoughtfully, corking the jar. ”You’re a veteran shinobi, your mind would be useful... y’know.”

He stopped in front of Danzo.

”But I wouldn’t sleep well knowing I let you keep breathing. Vile people like you don’t deserve to be in this world.”

Danzo lifted his head weakly, hatred and terror mixing into something hollow. ”W-Who... who are you to judge?”

”It doesn’t matter,” Alaric added calmly. ”Sorry, no hard feelings.”

His eyes shifted.

There was a sudden influx of energy from Alaric that made Danzo shiver violently. Alaric’s Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan was already deactivated, but there was something much more... powerful within those eyes, despite them being their normal blue color.

Without movement, without seals, without effort, flames erupted around Danzo’s body.

They were precise. Controlled. Absolute.

Phoenix Fire engulfed him completely. It consumed flesh, bone, and chakra alike, leaving nothing behind. No ash. No residue. No anchor for an Edo Tensei.

The fire vanished as quickly as it appeared.

’Well... considering he wasn’t able to use the Wood Release or his summon, the fight was too easy,’ Alaric thought, looking at the empty space where the Darkness of Shinobi had stood moments ago. He nodded to himself.

”Well,” he said, turning away, ”you won’t be reanimated. Thankfully so.”

The area within the vicinity wasn’t too badly damaged. While one could tell there was fighting here from the cracks in the stone, it didn’t matter. There was no body to investigate. No evidence to point to a culprit.

Alaric then looked at the spot where Danzo was for the last time before floating up into the air. The view of the village was still great, despite the small mishaps from the invasion damages.

’Well... I think this starts the three-year time skip of the Naruto story.’

He drifted higher, the wind catching his coat.

’Whatever should I do from now on?’

The village continued its repairs below, oblivious. It never knew how fast it lost its shadow against the sun that surpassed the meaning of the ”Will of Fire”.

.

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