Chapter 19: Hokage, Too, Is the Enemy of Justice

Hiruzen Sarutobi departed with two Anbu squads, leaving Kakashi and six Anbu operatives behind to clean up the aftermath.

“Molten Release Bloodline Limit… The destructive power of this technique is absolutely staggering!”

Kakashi inhaled the air thick with sulfur—so potent even the masks couldn’t fully block it. His eyes, dull and weary, swept across the ruined landscape. A flicker of shock passed through his dead fish-like gaze.

Before him, the ground was a cracked and cooling sea of lava, pockmarked with craters of all sizes and depths. Half a block of the village had been erased as if wiped away by an invisible hand. The air still radiated intense heat, making Kakashi feel uneasy even from a distance.

At the edges of collapsed ruins, molten rock still dripped slowly downward—so much so that one might mistake the scene for the mouth of an active volcano.

Kakashi spotted two Root ninja corpses. One had been severed in half—only the lower half remained. The other was split completely in two, its torso torn open, its body neatly bisected.

Kakashi sighed, hands in his pockets.

The bodies were easy enough to dispose of—just tidy them up and send them back to Root.

But this… this devastation? How was he supposed to clean up this?

Uchiha Iizumi had gone completely off the rails.

Yet…

Perhaps he was one of the few in the village who still remembered the Fourth Hokage.

Kakashi recalled Iizumi’s words.

“Only this way… can we honor the Fourth’s sacrifice.”

Absolute Justice…

That wasn’t so bad.

Just as Kakashi was lost in thought, he noticed a small figure staggering to her feet in the distance—someone wearing the uniform of the Uchiha Police Force.

A young girl from the Uchiha clan.

She looked dazed, but after a moment, she turned and hurried after the retreating figure of Uchiha Iizumi.

Kakashi paused. Then, with a shrug, he decided to ignore it.

…

On the other side of the wreckage.

“I… I swear I’ll never do it again… Can you please put me down now? I can walk on my own!”

“C’mon… can you at least leave the door open for a bit? Iruka-sensei will be so disappointed if he finds out…”

“I really, really know I was wrong…”

Naruto’s voice grew weaker with every sentence, cracking at the end.

Tears—large, heavy drops—rolled down his small face.

He truly regretted it.

He had caused a catastrophe with a single prank. A prank that had erased half a street of the Leaf Village.

Hundreds of people now had no homes.

And worse—someone had died.

But the man who had him by the back of his shirt—Root—didn’t even glance at him.

“P-Please wait, Iizumi-senpai!” A weak voice called out from behind Uchiha Iizumi and Naruto.

Iizumi slowed.

A girl rushed forward, pale-faced, her steps unsteady.

“Sorry, senpai… I… I passed out after using Sharingan… I just couldn’t hold on…”

Izumi’s voice trembled with shame. She wanted to vanish into the earth. She felt like a burden.

She had opened her eyes at five years old during the Nine-Tails’ attack—three tomoe from the very start. An unprecedented talent in Uchiha history.

But…

What a disaster.

Her chakra reserves were pathetically small.

Compared to Kakashi, who was considered a chakra powerhouse, she had barely more than zero point zero one Kakashi’s worth.

Among her peers at the Academy, her chakra levels were near the bottom.

“Uchiha Izumi.”

“Here!”

The instinctive response snapped her back to attention.

“Answer two questions. First—what’s your take on what just happened?”

Izumi glanced at the weak girl beside her.

“What happened…?”

She paused.

A foggy memory surfaced—her last sight before passing out: Iizumi-senpai confronting the Leaf Village’s Root.

Then, waking up to see Iizumi-senpai clashing with the Hokage himself.

All because of a child’s prank—just a little mischief that spiraled into chaos.

And yet… so much conflict had followed.

Was it really worth it?

As that thought crossed her mind, she remembered her senpai’s words: Absolute Justice.

She remembered the twisted horrors of the Ninja World—the senseless tragedies that defied all reason.

A father killing his own daughter.

A son murdering his mother.

Two events so horrifying they shattered her understanding of the world.

They had changed everything.

They made her finally understand what Absolute Justice truly meant.

“I… I don’t think you were wrong,” Izumi said, taking a deep breath. Her small face grew serious.

“Even the smallest evil, left unchecked… left unchallenged… will only grow. One day, it will become something far worse.”

She steadied herself.

“Senpai… I’ve always wanted to protect the Leaf Village. But I never knew how.

Until I met you.

Now I know.

As long as I keep using my power to purge evil from this village… one day, it will be better.”

“That… is my understanding of Absolute Justice.”

Uchiha Iizumi regarded her.

“Newcomer. You’re no longer zero points. You’ve earned at least ten.”

Izumi hesitated. “How many points is a perfect score?”

“One thousand.”

Izumi: “….”

Well. As long as it wasn’t negative, she’d take it.

“Senpai… what’s the second question?” she asked, voice trembling.

Uchiha Iizumi spoke.

“What do you think of my ‘retreat’ just now?”

Izumi froze.

“Senpai… that wasn’t retreat!” She clenched her jaw, her expression firm.

“Out of everyone in the Leaf Village… only you have been quietly holding on to Absolute Justice.

Even the other elders in the Investigation Corps misunderstood you.

And yet, you’ve stood alone—fighting for justice, all this time.”

“If you’d fought physically with the Hokage and the others… then the village’s Justice…”

She inhaled deeply, courage rising.

“…might have had no one left to defend it. There might never be another person like you.”

“You’re overcomplicating it,” Uchiha Iizumi interrupted.

“To uphold Absolute Justice, you need absolute power. Otherwise… you’ll end up like me—forced to back down.”

“Remember this feeling. The frustration. The anger. Remember how the evil of the Ninja World stands above us, laughing.”

Izumi nodded fiercely.

“One day… I will cleanse them all in the name of Absolute Justice.”

Uchiha Iizumi said it plainly, without shame—words that left Izumi stunned.

“Including the Hokage.”

“That’s the third lesson I teach you.”

“Politicians care only for power. For balance. To them, Justice is just a word—empty, meaningless.”

“The Hokage… is also an enemy of Justice.”

Izumi’s mind went blank.

The man dragging Naruto by the back of his shirt—Uchiha Iizumi—now shifted his focus back to the reward.

Three Red Mark criminals.

Three confirmed kills.

And thanks to Izanagi, Danzō—whose life had already been erased once—was now truly dead.

…

…

(End of Chapter)

Chapter end