[Starting in Naruto with a Daily Login System] Chapter 65: The Price of Power

Danzo thought it was his moment.

Hiruzen was dead. The chair was empty. The village was shaken, vulnerable. Easy prey for a man like him, who thrived in fear and chaos. Who believed power wasn't something earned but taken. And he thought it was finally his turn.

He thought wrong.

I found him where cowards always hide: deep underground, in the belly of one of his old ROOT compounds. A place that reeked of blood, secrets, and silence. The lights flickered like they didn't even want to stay on, casting eerie shadows across walls that had seen too much. Perfect.

I didn't sneak in. Didn't mask my chakra. Didn't play the ninja game.

I wanted him to feel me coming.

You took Hiruzen from us. From me.

My footsteps echoed through the empty corridors, a slow, deliberate rhythm that announced death was on its way. Each step sent ripples of chakra through the floor—my calling card.

Let him sweat.

Three ANBU ROOT agents appeared in my path. Faceless. Voiceless. Just masks and weapons. I almost felt sorry for them.

Almost.

"Move," I said.

They didn't.

Godspeed flickered across my skin—lightning chakra enhancing every cell, every muscle fiber. One second they were standing, the next they weren't. I didn't kill them. Didn't need to. Three unconscious bodies hit the floor before the air displaced by my movement even settled.

Sorry kids, but your boss and I have an appointment.

The compound twisted deeper underground, a labyrinth designed to confuse and trap. But I knew these corridors—had memorized them from intelligence reports, from whispers, from the tearful confessions of those who escaped this hell.

I pushed open a massive steel door, its hinges groaning in protest.

And there he was.

Danzo stood waiting, half in the shadows, bandaged arm held close to his side. His face looked calm, but his good eye kept watching me, sizing me up like I was just another problem to fix.

"Kakashi," he said, like we were old friends meeting by accident, his voice remarkably steady for a man who should be terrified. "I expected you."

"Then you should've run."

My Six Eyes turned on by themselves, showing me everything about him: his chakra paths, how his body looked tense, how his left foot was ready to move fast. He was ready to fight.

Good luck with that, old man.

He didn't blink. "You can't stop this. The people need order. They need a strong hand. One that doesn't hesitate. One that doesn't let sentiment cloud judgment."

I almost laughed. It was so perfectly Danzo—wrapping his lust for power in the language of necessity and sacrifice.

"Is that what you told yourself? Right before you stabbed the Hokage in the back?"

The room temperature seemed to drop a few degrees. The air between us grew heavy with chakra.

"Hiruzen was weak," Danzo said, his voice hardening. "He always was. Even in his prime, he lacked the vision to do what was necessary. The Will of Fire he preached about? It's not about kindness, Kakashi. It's about strength. About burning away what doesn't serve the village."

"Funny how what 'serves the village' always seems to align with what serves you."

His good eye narrowed. "You think you understand? This village was built on blood and sacrifice. I've given everything—"

"You've taken everything," I cut him off. "There's a difference."

"I warned you, didn't I? After our last encounter. I told you what would happen if you continued to interfere."

He didn't wait for my response. A flicker of movement, and suddenly three kunai were slicing through the air toward me.

Amateur hour.

I caught the first between two fingers, dodged the second, and let the third graze my cheek. Just enough to draw blood. Just enough to make him think he had a chance.

"Is that it? Because I'm getting bored."

I didn't wait for his answer.

Godspeed activated.

One moment he was standing. The next, his body exploded backward as my fist crushed into his ribs, chakra-enhanced impact cracking the wall behind him. I heard bones snap. Felt the satisfying crunch of his ribcage giving way.

For Hiruzen.

He coughed blood, tried to counter with a wind release jutsu. Too slow.

I appeared behind him mid-spin, heel connecting with the back of his neck. The force sent him sprawling forward. He collapsed, rolled, shakily pushed himself up, spitting blood onto the stone floor.

"You're weak," he gasped, wiping crimson from his chin. "Too emotional. You don't understand what this village needs."

"I understand perfectly," I said, walking toward him with measured steps. "It doesn't need another tyrant with a God complex."

He shot wind chakra at me—Vacuum Blade, one of his best tricks. Blades of air sharp enough to cut steel flew at me, almost too fast to see.

Been there, dodged that.

I cut through them with Lightning's Fury, the buzzing Rasengan ripping his wind blades apart and then hitting his shoulder. It sounded like a thousand birds all crying out at once—like my old chidori but way stronger.

He screamed.

I let him.

"You know what your problem is, Danzo?"

I dropped him with a chakra-infused punch to the gut that sent him to his knees, then grabbed him by the collar and dragged him through his own compound. His heels scraped against the floor, leaving trails of blood like macabre breadcrumbs.

"You've spent so long in the shadows, you forgot what real power looks like."

I pulled him past the empty rooms where kids were once trained to be weapons. Past the dark rooms full of secret jutsu scrolls. Past the cells where they beat kids until they only knew how to obey. Past all the proof of lives he broke.

How many Sai's have you created? How many children did you steal?

I threw him to the floor of what looked like his office. A plain room with just a desk, a chair, and walls full of scrolls—all the secrets he'd kept to himself over the years.

"Look at what you built. Look. At. It."

He didn't speak.

So I made him.

A finger gun to the leg. Compressed air tore through muscle. He screamed.

"How many lives did you ruin down here? How many kids did you break just to feed your delusion of control?"

Another shot. The other leg. He howled.

I crouched beside him, watching the blood pool beneath him. In the back of my mind, a quiet voice wondered if this was what I had become—someone who tortures a defeated enemy. But then I remembered Hiruzen's body. The look of surprise frozen on his face. The knife in his back.

Some people deserve what's coming to them.

"You killed Hiruzen because he wouldn't let you off your leash. You thought the village would thank you. That they'd beg you to save them. But the truth is, they don't even know who you are. And when they find out? They'll spit on your grave."

He was trembling now. Bleeding. Face white with pain and something else.

Fear.

Good.

"It still won't change anything," he wheezed, blood bubbling between his lips. "You can kill me, but someone will take my place. Someone always does. The village needs people like me—people willing to walk in darkness so others can stay in the light."

For a second—just a tiny moment—I almost got his point. Almost. Then I thought of Hiruzen’s dead eyes. The way Root trained kids. The Uchiha killing he would have made happen if I hadn't changed things.

There's a big gap between doing tough but needed things and just being plain evil.

"You want to be Hokage?"

I crouched beside him, voice quiet.

"Then stand. Say your name. Let the village see what a Hokage looks like."

He couldn't.

He wouldn't.

So I grabbed his face, forced his gaze to mine. In his one good eye, I saw a lifetime of paranoia, of scheming, of convincing himself that his way was the only way.

"You will never sit in that chair. You will never be remembered. You'll vanish, like the rot you are."

He tried to reach for a kunai hidden in his robes.

I broke his arm.

And then I ended it.

No dramatic line. No last word. Just steel through his throat. A clean, merciless cut.

Danzo Shimura died choking on blood and fear, alone in the darkness he loved so much.

I stood there for a bit, watching him bleed out. Feeling... nothing. Not happy. Not sad. Just sure that this had to happen.

Got rid of one bad guy. But there are more out there.

I took his good eye. Burned his body with a fire jutsu so hot it turned bone to ash. Scattered what was left.

Nobody. No hero to cry over. No one to remember him.

When I stepped outside, the sun was coming up over Konoha. The sky was pink and gold, the kind of pretty sunrise that makes you think things can get better. The air smelled like wet grass and far-off rain.

For the first time in days, the air felt clean.

I jumped from roof to roof until I got to the Hokage faces carved in the mountain. The village was still asleep, not knowing their bad dream had just ended—and not knowing about the worse ones coming. I sat on top of the Fourth's stone head, looking at the village I promised to keep safe.

What now?

Hiruzen was gone. Danzo was gone. The masked man was still out there, waiting, planning. And somehow, I knew he was watching me. Maybe even now.

I checked how I was doing. My chakra was low but not gone. My Senju blood was already fixing the small cuts and bruises from the fight. The Six Eyes had turned off, saving me from using up all my chakra.

Just another day as Kakashi Hatake, ninja from another world with crazy powers from a weird system.

Christ, I need a drink.

But this wasn't peace.

This was just the beginning.

Something was coming. Something bigger than Danzo, bigger than village politics. I could feel it in my bones.

And as the sun rose higher, casting my shadow long across the monument, I made a silent promise to Minato, to Hiruzen, to all of them.

I'm ready.