"Jiraiya, one of the Legendary Sannin, you've really been a poor teacher. Minato Namikaze respected you so much that he even named his son after the protagonist of your novel, yet it seems like you never cared about Naruto's life. As a teacher, you've been rather unqualified."
After briefly glancing at Orochimaru's predicament, Daniel Davis stopped paying attention to him. Orochimaru might not be the best at many things, but when it came to escaping death, he was second to none. Even if he died here in the Leaf, he had ways to come back.
"Minato…" Daniel's words caused Jiraiya to falter for a moment, but he quickly regained his composure. As one of the Legendary Sannin, Jiraiya might have acted carefree most of the time, but when it came to serious matters, he was never one to drag his feet.
"Who exactly are you?" Jiraiya asked after scanning the situation around him.
"Just someone who can't stand to see the Leaf mistreat its heroes' descendants." Daniel smiled kindly as he felt the surrounding Leaf ninjas closing in.
Jiraiya's conversation with Daniel was clearly a stalling tactic. He was buying time for the Leaf ninjas to complete their encirclement. After all, this was the heart of the Leaf Village—the longer the delay, the stronger the Leaf's position would become.
Daniel's words left Jiraiya silent. In the past, he might have been able to confidently claim that the Leaf never mistreated the families of its heroes, but Naruto's situation proved otherwise. He couldn't bring himself to utter a lie in this case.
"Oh, I almost forgot," Daniel said, smacking his forehead as if something just came to mind. "It wasn't just the Third Hokage who did all those things. Danzo and his Root operatives played a major role as well. Many of those actions were directly carried out by Danzo."
"And one more thing, Jiraiya—your other three disciples, Yahiko, Nagato, and Konan, they died because of Danzo."
"What did you say?" Jiraiya, who had been ready to attack, froze in shock at Daniel's words. The Rasengan he had just formed in his hand dissipated immediately.
"Was I not clear enough?" Daniel was about to elaborate when he noticed the outcome of Orochimaru and the Third Hokage's struggle.
Just as in the original timeline, Orochimaru's hands were sealed by the Reaper Death Seal. Although Orochimaru was much stronger now thanks to the fusion of the First Hokage's cells, this time, the Third Hokage acted far more decisively. Instead of waiting until the very end of the fight, he had used the Reaper Death Seal while still at full strength. If Orochimaru had been at his original power level, this might have resulted in more than just his hands being sealed. In a way, Daniel had inadvertently caused Orochimaru's downfall.
Indeed, Orochimaru had been set up. Not only had his hands been sealed, but Daniel's long-winded speeches had delayed him, allowing more Leaf Village elites to gather. Now, with the Sarutobi clan, Ino-Shika-Cho, the Aburame clan, and the Inuzuka clan all joining the fight, Orochimaru and his Sound Four had no chance of escape.
"Sorry, but you can't die here." With that thought, Daniel waved his left hand, and in an instant, he, along with Orochimaru and the Sound Four, vanished from their original location, reappearing about 200 meters to the north.
The spatial displacement ability of the Op-Op Fruit was far superior to Sasuke's Rinnegan-based Heavenly Hand Power. While the Rinnegan could only swap one person with another, the Op-Op Fruit could displace multiple people at once.
"Stop standing around—run!" Daniel shouted, snapping the Sound Four out of their confusion. Realizing their situation, they quickly hoisted Orochimaru onto their backs and fled toward the village's outskirts.
"They got here fast." As Daniel watched the Leaf ninjas charge toward him, he recognized the familiar faces at the front—Jiraiya, Kakashi, Guy, Asuma, and clan leaders like Shikaku Nara and Choza Akimichi.
"Hiding in the Mist Technique." Daniel formed a hand seal and used the Hidden Mist Jutsu, a common technique of the Mist Village. The strength of a technique depended largely on the skill of its user, and with Daniel's current power, his mist could easily cover half of the Leaf Village.
"Hyuga clan, find him. Wind users, blow away the mist!" Shikaku Nara's voice rang out from within the dense fog.
"Wind Style: Great Breakthrough!"
"Wind Style: Gale Palm!"
A barrage of Wind Style jutsu from the Leaf ninjas cleared a large portion of the mist, creating visibility.
"There, he's over there!" One of the Hyuga clan members quickly spotted Daniel using their Byakugan.
"The Hyuga's Byakugan sure is handy," Daniel mused as he began to move toward the Hokage building.
One of his goals in coming to the Leaf Village was the village's secret scroll of forbidden jutsu. Kabuto had already scouted out its location, but Daniel had held off on retrieving it to avoid raising alarms prematurely.
The scroll of sealing was one of the most important treasures of a ninja village, protected by powerful barriers. While Daniel wasn't concerned about the barriers themselves, the moment the scroll was removed, it would trigger alarms, so he had waited for the right moment to act.
"Who goes there?" As Daniel arrived at a hidden, barrier-guarded room on the third basement level of the Hokage building, the guards—four Anbu—immediately noticed his presence.
"It's amazing how easily Naruto managed to steal this scroll, and to think Mizuki believed he could get away with it." Daniel knocked out the four Anbu with ease and used his spatial displacement to retrieve the scroll from the sealed room.
"Sorry about this." Holding the scroll, Daniel glanced at the unconscious guards. "But at least you're still alive."
"Leave the scroll behind!" As Daniel emerged on the surface with the scroll on his back, the Leaf ninjas began their assault.
"Shadow Imitation Technique!" Several members of the Nara clan, led by Shikaku Nara, used their shadow techniques, with their shadows racing across the ground toward Daniel.
"Shadows, huh? Lumos!" Daniel chuckled, raising his left hand above his head and extending his index finger. A dazzling beam of light burst forth from his fingertip, forcing the surrounding ninjas to shield their eyes. In the blinding light, the Nara clan's shadows vanished without a trace.
The Lumos spell, originally from the world of Harry Potter, was meant to be a simple lighting charm. However, when used cleverly in battle, it could have remarkable effects. With Daniel's current abilities, he could cast most spells from that world without a wand.
This spell, while not an offensive one, was certainly a Nara clan's worst enemy.
Taking advantage of the momentary blindness, Daniel used the Body Flicker Technique to dart out of the encirclement.
"Lightning Blade!" Just as Daniel broke free, a silver flash of light approached him from the side. With a quick glance, Daniel recognized the attacker: Kakashi, using his signature technique, the Lightning Blade.
"Fast, but not fast enough," Daniel thought as he leaned slightly to the left, reaching out with his right hand. To Kakashi's surprise, Daniel caught his wrist mid-strike.
"The Sharingan... should I take it now? It's the key to dealing with Obito's Kamui, after all." Daniel hesitated for a moment, staring into Kakashi's left eye. If it were anyone else, he wouldn't hesitate to take the Sharingan, but this was Kakashi, and that made things different.
This hesitation cost him his chance. Sensing something from above, Daniel looked up to see Jiraiya descending toward him with a massive Rasengan in hand.
"Wouldn't you risk killing Kakashi?" Daniel wondered, but before the thought could fully form, Kakashi disappeared in a puff of smoke.
"A shadow clone, huh? Impressive, as expected of Kakashi," Daniel thought. In the next moment, he summoned his own Rasengan, equal in size to Jiraiya's, infused with an enormous amount of chakra.
Boom!
The collision of the two Rasengans created a massive explosion of chakra, sending shockwaves that destroyed the surrounding buildings. Fortunately, the area had already been evacuated due to the Konoha Crush plan, so there were no casualties.
"A Rasengan?" Jiraiya, who had been thrown back by the explosion, and Kakashi, watching from a distance, were both stunned. This was the signature technique of the Fourth Hokage, and only a few in the Leaf knew how to use it. Yet here was Daniel, wielding it with ease.
"Insects." Just as Daniel was about to speak, a swarm of black insects appeared around him—Aburame clan members had joined the fight, sending their parasitic insects to attack him.
"The job's done. No more playing around." Losing interest in testing the Leaf's strength, Daniel used his spatial displacement to reappear 100 meters ahead, quickly speeding away with the Body Flicker Technique.
The Op-Op Fruit's spatial displacement could have taken Daniel completely out of the Leaf Village in an instant, but he deliberately limited the range to keep certain people guessing.
"After him!" Despite Daniel gaining considerable distance, the Leaf's top ninjas, led by Jiraiya, Kakashi, and
Guy, pursued him relentlessly. After all, the scroll of sealing was a vital treasure they couldn't afford to lose.
"Stop! Don't chase him." After a brief pursuit, Shikaku Nara raised his hand, signaling the Leaf ninjas to halt. Aside from Jiraiya, Kakashi, and Guy, who continued the chase, the others obeyed his command.
"Shikaku, why are we stopping?" one of the ninjas asked.
"With his space-time ninjutsu, chasing him like this won't do us any good. We must be wary of a potential diversion. Leave him to Jiraiya and Kakashi. We have more pressing matters to attend to."
"Understood."
Shikaku and Inoichi Yamanaka exchanged worried glances. The Third Hokage's death was a major blow to the Leaf, but the revelations Daniel had exposed posed an even greater threat. If mishandled, the once-united village could descend into internal strife.
How could ninjas give their all for the village when they learned that its leaders had been intentionally sacrificing some of them?
At this point, no matter how much the higher-ups insisted that Daniel's words were enemy lies, rumors, or conspiracy theories, the damage had been done. It was like mud sticking to their reputations.
In some ways, the Third Hokage's death might have been a blessing. With him gone, people could focus on honoring his sacrifice. But if he had lived, things would have been much worse.
And now, the Hyuga and Hatake clans would need to be appeased. Both were influential families within the village. Despite Kakashi's solitary demeanor, the Hatake clan was not as small as it seemed. Likewise, the importance of the Hyuga clan's Byakugan to the village was clear to both Shikaku and Inoichi. In the ninja world, clans and villages were intertwined.
Meanwhile, in a dense forest northwest of the Leaf Village, Sasuke stood on a tree branch, glaring coldly down at Naruto and Sakura.
"You two are so annoying. Even now, you're trying to convince me to return to the Leaf. Naruto, are you an idiot? Don't you care about avenging your parents? I care about avenging mine."
Sasuke's voice dripped with contempt. "And you, Sakura, you're pathetic. You say you'd do anything for me, but how about destroying the Leaf Village for my sake?"
"Why is everything falling apart like this? The Third Hokage isn't himself, Sasuke isn't himself, and even Jiraiya-sensei—ahhh!" Naruto, clutching his head in frustration, let out a loud scream as red chakra began to erupt from his body. The overwhelming power of the Nine-Tails' chakra instantly sent Sakura flying.
"Why? Why is everything falling apart like this? Kakashi-sensei, Jiraiya-sensei!" Naruto growled through clenched teeth as the tails of the Nine-Tails' chakra began to form behind him, slowly revealing a third tail.
Daniel's words had hit Naruto the hardest, completely shattering his understanding of the Leaf Village. Especially the truth about his parents' deaths, leaving him torn between his affection for the Third Hokage and his reverence for his parents.
The confusion and turmoil in Naruto's heart finally triggered his transformation into the Nine-Tails' state.
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