Vetrax
patreon
Batman in Konoha. Chapter 55. Fugaku Vs Danzo
🕑 Added 2025-07-22 17:16:09 +0000 UTCFugaku slowly ascended the stairs from the prison depths. His footsteps echoed heavily against the stone. In his right hand, he dragged the unconscious body of Hiruko by the collar—or what was left of him after the fight and the interrogation. Hiruko’s head lolled from side to side, and a bloody trail stretched behind them.
Behind Fugaku, in complete silence, walked Mikoto, Itachi, and Shisui. Their faces were set in stone—grim, unflinching. After what they had learned from Hiruko, there were no words left.
On the surface, just before the barrier, all the prisoners had already gathered. Former criminals and falsely accused shinobi now stood shoulder to shoulder in freedom. They all turned at once when Fugaku emerged from the stairwell. His appearance carried something primal—like a warrior stepping out of the dark, bearing proof of victory.
Someone opened their mouth to ask what would happen next. But in that moment—
A piercing, deafening whistle tore through the air.
From the direction of the village, beyond the barrier, Danzo came flying through the sky. In his hand spun a massive sphere of crimson chakra—unstable, sparking, brimming with destructive power. It held the energy of a tailed beast bomb. His face was twisted with fury and grim resolve.
Impact. The sphere slammed into the barrier. Space itself shuddered. Waves of chakra rippled across the protective field with a sharp crackle, like water breaking under strain. The air vibrated. The bats holding the barrier aloft shuddered. One let out a weak cry—and blood trickled from her nose.
Danzo, without waiting for a reaction, was already forming a second sphere.
“One more hit… and we won’t hold,” whispered one of the bats, struggling to stay balanced in the air.
“No need,” Fugaku said calmly. “You’re free. And… thank you for your service.”
The bats vanished in puffs of smoke. The barrier collapsed instantly. A sharp crack split the air, and nothing stood between Fugaku and Danzo now.
Danzo didn’t stop. He kept moving forward, gathering chakra for his next strike. His eyes burned with murderous intent.
“For organizing a prison break,” he hissed as he advanced, “there’s only one sentence: death. For everyone.”
Before him stood hundreds. Weakened prisoners, unable to flee due to chakra suppressors. And Danzo was ready to kill them all in one blow—to erase all evidence of his crimes.
But Fugaku stepped in front of him. Standing tall and firm, Hiruko’s body still in hand, he met Danzo’s eyes. Without fear.
“What’s going on here?” a sharp voice called from the other side.
Nara Shikaku.
They had arrived. All of Konoha. A battle formation of shinobi from every clan, armed with scrolls and blades. Medics, teachers, ordinary citizens. Even the wounded had come—on crutches, with bandages, with one eye covered. They filled the slope, silently watching.
Fugaku allowed himself the slightest smile. Shikaku had brought the people the moment the barrier fell—just as they had agreed.
Danzo stopped. His lips curled into a sneer, though he still held the chakra in place. He looked ready to kill a few hundred witnesses. But the entire village? Even for him, that was too much.
The sphere vanished. He clicked his tongue like a hunter robbed of his prey at the last second.
“Danzo is a murderer!” a voice rang out from the crowd. Haruno Mebuki. Her voice was sharp and clear. “He experiments on our own people! Turns them into monsters! He tried to kill us all!”
The crowd stirred. The mood shifted instantly—from confusion to rage. Several shinobi drew kunai. One already activated a jutsu. Shikaku’s shadow stretched forward and merged sharply with Danzo’s, paralyzing him.
“You… dare fight me?” Danzo snarled, lifting his gaze. “Your Hokage?!”
He flared his chakra. An explosion. A massive, savage burst like the one that had once come from the Nine-Tails. The shadow holding him tore. People in the crowd panicked and backed away. The air hummed with tension.
“Not them,” came Fugaku’s voice—cold and steady. “I’ll be the one to fight you.”
Danzo froze. His eyes narrowed.
“I challenge you to a duel,” Fugaku said, stepping forward slowly. “Tomorrow. Same time. At the Konoha arena. Let everyone see.”
“A duel?” Danzo repeated, then suddenly smirked. “Fine. I’ll personally execute you for slandering the Hokage. In front of everyone. Like the traitor you are.”
His eyes dropped to Hiruko’s body.
“Return him. He’s mine.”
Fugaku raised an eyebrow slightly.
“He’s my trophy. He won’t go anywhere until he undoes at least some of what he’s done—until he restores those he turned into monsters.”
He summoned the bats. They emerged from smoke, wrapped their thin limbs around Hiruko, and vanished with him.
Danzo watched as Hiruko slipped from his grasp. And he could do nothing.
Fugaku walked past him. Past the silent crowd. Past shinobi with drawn kunai and civilians whose eyes held both fear and hope. He walked home. Without looking back.
And everyone who saw him at that moment understood—tomorrow, everything would be decided.
///
The house was unusually quiet.
Fugaku took off his cloak and stepped into the kitchen. A flicker of chakra—and a cloud of smoke burst on the floor, from which Hikari and Sasuke tumbled out simultaneously, as if someone had yanked them from another world. Both gasped for air, disoriented by the sudden shift in atmosphere.
“Well?!” Sasuke jumped to his feet at once, his face burning with impatience. “The bats said someone broke through the barrier! Was it Danzo?!”
Mikoto silently poured tea into the cups. Her hands moved with measured precision—just like they always did before serious conversations.
“Your father is going to fight the Hokage tomorrow,” she said calmly, as if talking about the weather. “A duel. At the arena.”
Sasuke blinked. Several times. His gaze darted from his father to his mother, then to Itachi and Shisui. Hikari straightened up, her face calm, but her fingers involuntarily curled into a fist.
“How did this happen?” she asked, a little louder than usual.
Fugaku sat at the table, bracing his hands on his knees. He hadn’t wanted to involve the children. Once, he would’ve shielded them. But… he had finally accepted the fact that shinobi grow up fast. The children needed to learn now.
“Tell them everything,” he said without looking up. “No exceptions.”
Itachi and Shisui exchanged a brief glance. Itachi nodded first.
“Danzo became a jinchūriki,” he said flatly.
Sasuke frowned.
“But you said all the tailed beasts were under control…” He looked at his father, confused. “So who was it, then?”
“Not only tailed beasts can be sealed,” Shisui explained. “There’s a yōkai called Reibi. The Phantom Leech. Massive. Horrifying. Living darkness.”
“Ugh,” Sasuke grimaced at the thought. “Danzo stuffed a leech into himself?”
“He used Uzumaki scrolls to do it,” Itachi added. His voice was cold, almost mechanical, as if he were describing a pathology, not a person. “The same scrolls Danzo got by selling Hinata to the Kumo shinobi.”
Mikoto snorted, sipping her tea.
“And he lied, claiming it was to strengthen Naruto’s seal. Danzo has always used Konoha as a cover—but everything he did was for himself. The intel’s reliable. Straight from Orochimaru.” She winked.
“In any case,” Shisui went on, “with the Uzumaki techniques, Danzo fully enslaved Reibi. Not as a partner—but as a tool.”
“Unlike a bijū, Reibi doesn’t generate chakra,” said Itachi, looking straight at Sasuke. “It feeds on pain. On dark emotions. On suffering. And it converts that into energy.”
Hikari listened, completely focused.
“To keep the leech fed,” Mikoto continued, now without a trace of softness, “Danzo was abducting people from all over the Land of Fire. He tortured them endlessly.”
Sasuke froze. He hadn’t been prepared for that kind of detail.
“But even that wasn’t enough for him,” Mikoto’s fist clenched. “Together with Hiruko, he was rebuilding shinobi bodies. Turning them into monsters. Eternal prisoners of pain. He planned to unleash them on neighboring countries—capture survivors and torture them. Endless agony means endless chakra.”
Shisui lowered his eyes.
“With that plan, Danzo could’ve surpassed any jinchūriki. He could create millions of clones. He would become a one-man army.”
A heavy silence settled over the room. The warm tea on the table remained untouched. Something oppressive lingered in the air—the shadow of a future that could have come to pass if they hadn’t intervened.
“Danzo has climbed too high already,” Itachi said quietly. His eyes were hard. “His chakra measures in oceans. He’s mastered Tsunade’s regeneration technique. There are no limits left for him. He can open the Eighth Gate—and survive.”
“Dad…” Sasuke looked at him, worried. “And you challenged him?”
Fugaku answered calmly, without hesitation:
“It was the only right decision.”
“But the whole village was there,” Shisui mumbled uncertainly, scratching his head. “We could’ve swarmed him. Even a bijū can fall to a mob.”
“And turn it into a slaughter?” Fugaku cut in coldly. “Danzo wouldn’t have held back. The result would’ve been a ruined Konoha. Hundreds dead. And in the end, he might’ve simply disappeared. A victory over a dead city doesn’t interest him. He craves power—not ashes.”
He leaned forward, his voice deepening, gaining a harder, metallic edge:
“We're just lucky Danzo still carries childhood wounds. He still can’t forgive Tobirama for not making him Hokage. But imagine if he hadn’t started with Konoha. If he’d chosen weaker countries, villages without defenders. Step by step, settlement by settlement, he could’ve built an empire. And by the time he returned here—he would’ve been unstoppable.”
Shisui exhaled quietly. Hikari clenched her fists. Sasuke furrowed his brow and lowered his gaze.
“Besides, today we might’ve seen just a shadow clone,” Fugaku continued. “But tomorrow, he’ll come in person. Danzo can’t afford to lose. He won’t underestimate me. He still holds on to hope. A dream he’s carried since Tobirama’s death: to become Hokage. He’ll come to crush me.”
“To scare everyone, to keep power…” Mikoto whispered. “Do you really believe you can stop him?”
Fugaku slowly raised his eyes to her. There was no fear in them. No pride. Only cold certainty.
“Danzo is a selfish killer. In other words, just a bandit,” he said with a faint smirk. “And people like that don’t beat me.”
///
The Konoha Arena—usually the site of the third stage of the Chūnin Exams—had become a silent courtroom today.
Everyone had gathered. From academy students to the clan elders. The air trembled with tension, as if the village itself held its breath.
The sky was blanketed in gray clouds. Cold rain drizzled down, soaking into the sand of the arena. In the center stood Fugaku and Danzo, both stripped to the waist—only bandages, gloves, and belts. Raindrops ran down their bodies, bringing neither cold nor relief. Just one more irritating sound before the storm.
“I’m watching him through the Mangekyō,” Mikoto relayed through the ring, seated high in the stands. “It’s the real Danzo. Not a clone.”
Fugaku gave a slight nod. His eyes were already active, Sharingan spinning, catching every micro-detail. He had no doubts, but the confirmation mattered.
There were no referees. This was a death match. There would be no rules.
No speeches, either. Everything had already been said.
They launched forward at the same moment.
Taijutsu. No jutsu. Only blows. Every clash was like an explosion. The ground quaked beneath their strikes. Sand leapt under their feet, revealing cracks in the stone foundation.
Danzo had reinforced his body with some unknown technique. His muscles clung to his bones like steel. He matched Fugaku’s speed and strength—Fugaku, whose size and power came from Venom.
And not even Fugaku’s eyes could trap him in genjutsu. Reibi protected his mind like multilayered armor. But not from analysis.
Fugaku watched. Read him. Predicted him.
After ten seconds, he knew enough.
He struck ahead of the rhythm—short, sharp, precise. A clean hit to the jaw.
A dull thud. A crunch. Danzo went flying, spinning like a discarded doll. He sailed across half the arena and landed on one knee.
The crowd roared. The sound was deafening. Hundreds of voices, one unified cry.
“Filthy Uchiha eyes,” Danzo hissed as he rose. The wound on his lip closed before he could even wipe the blood. “No more games. I’ll end this now.”
He unleashed chakra. Opened the Seventh Gate.
The wind howled. Sand was blasted off the arena. Stone cracked beneath his feet. His body flushed red, cloaked in steam. His eyes burned with fury.
Fugaku stared at him silently. Suppressed a smirk. Everything was going according to plan.
One humiliating strike—and Danzo had already abandoned strategy for hand-to-hand combat.
If he’d started with an army of shadow clones, each wielding dark Rasengan, this fight would’ve been far more difficult.
But Danzo wanted to prove he could win in taijutsu.
And that would be his downfall.
Fugaku stepped forward, accepting the challenge. His body began to transform before their eyes—his skin darkened, thickened into leathery armor, claws and wings sprouted. With each second, he became a hybrid of man and bat. The crowd gasped—even those who knew of his strength weren’t prepared for the sight.
When the transformation was complete, he activated Sage Mode. His beastly form grew stronger—his skin denser, muscles more powerful, and a red gleam ignited in his eyes. Thanks to his animalistic nature, he could maintain Sage Mode without aid. This time, he opened six gates—and thanks to Sage Mode, he could sustain them without harming his body while keeping the Sharingan active.
“Only six gates?” Danzo sneered, glaring at his mutated opponent with contempt. “Pathetic. I’ll smear you into the ground.”
They clashed again. The battle exploded like a hurricane.
Fugaku was dominating—relentlessly and without pause. Every beat of his wings summoned whirlwinds that slashed at Danzo like blades. His claws carved deep furrows into flesh, his fangs tore through muscle. Even with regeneration, Danzo was falling behind—he couldn’t dodge, couldn’t escape the gaze of the Sharingan.
“How can you be faster than me?!” Danzo roared, lying at the bottom of a crater while his body spasmed, trying to heal. “I’ve opened the Seventh Gate—you’ve only opened the Sixth!”
“To kill you, that’s more than enough,” Fugaku snapped, diving down with claws aimed straight at his face.
“Let’s see how you handle this!” Danzo growled and suddenly formed a seal, pressing his fingers to his heart.
He opened the Eighth Gate.
A devastating wave of chakra blasted in all directions, throwing Fugaku back. Red steam erupted from Danzo’s body, boiling his blood. The ground cracked beneath his feet.
Before Fugaku could blink, Danzo was already there—striking with savage speed, launching him into the sky. The assault was merciless: every hit cracked bones, the sound of it echoing through the entire arena. With a final blow, Danzo slammed Fugaku into the ground, raising a towering cloud of dust.
Danzo landed heavily, wheezing:
“What do you say now?!”
“That you’re an idiot,” came a voice from the side.
Fugaku kicked him off his feet.
Danzo crashed... right into the same crater where he thought his enemy had been crushed. He turned his head—and saw “Fugaku’s body” dissolve into mud.
“A clone…” he gasped.
Fugaku stood beside him. Calm, unshaken.
“This is why I never open the Seventh Gate,” he said. “That kind of power surge isn’t worth losing ninjutsu and genjutsu.”
“We… we’re not finished,” Danzo rasped. “I’ll recover…”
“No,” Fugaku replied. “You won’t. You don’t have enough chakra left to heal those injuries.”
“What are you talking about?! I have all the chakra in this world!” Danzo screamed—but one of his teeth fell out. His skin turned pale. His muscles trembled. “I can’t activate the regeneration… What did you do to me?!”
“Not me. Your friend—Hiruko,” Fugaku said, locking eyes with him. “He knew you’d try to kill him someday. So he wrote a fūinjutsu formula that stops Reibi from absorbing negative energy. I placed the seal across the arena last night.”
“No… No…” Danzo began to crawl away, mumbling like a madman. “This… this is impossible…”
“Never underestimate fūinjutsu. After all, it’s how humans defeated the tailed beasts.”
Danzo said nothing. His body shriveled, turned gray, withered like an ancient mummy. He was dead.
The dust over the arena settled. At the center of the crater stood Fugaku, still in his hybrid form—wings outstretched, crimson eyes glowing. He didn’t move. He only watched. Waiting for their judgment.
At first, the crowd was silent. Then someone started clapping. Another joined. And soon, the entire arena was chanting:
“BATMAN! BATMAN! BATMAN!”
Fugaku allowed himself a faint smirk.
Some names don’t let go—even after death.
Comments
Jan
There are no scenes planned from Kurama's point of view.
Phantom knight who can’t think of a better nicknam
Hey could we see a kurama pov if I remember correctly kurama knows what’s going on via ninshu
