"You rat bastard!" Kawaki yelled out and extended his hand, showing off his Kama marks while making it vague if the haziness present in his eyes was due to the lack of control over his unnatural powers or because of Danzo's influence from before. A volley of chakra blasts took off at Sage Naruto who just turned to the source of the attack in confusion.

"K-Kawaki…" Naruto grunted while his body emerged with damage to his clothes and multiple bruises and mild burns all over from the result of Kawaki's destructive attack.

"How dare you attack Danzo!? Konoha is the place that sheltered me after I ran away, don't you think I deserve a little bit of happiness after what those Kara fuckers put me through!?" Kawaki yelled at Naruto.

Danzo's power that he has imposed on Kawaki was frightening. Kawaki didn't seem all too brainwashed, he didn't refer to Danzo with a submissive honorific which implied that Kawaki was willing to serve his master like a good, little, brainwashed boy that he was. All it took from Danzo was one subtle push and Kawaki descended into the murky territory of madness without entirely gulping on the Danzo kool-aid.

"You're confused, Kawaki, Danzo's done something to you, hasn't he!?" Naruto swiped his hand through the smoke, dispelling a large handful of the rising dust. "Don't you get it – you don't need to prove yourself to Konoha to be a part of it, you know. Danzo's not good for Konoha anyway. He's just gonna use you for your power, like just another tool! You won't be any better off in Danzo's Konoha than you'd be in Kara, you know!"

"Just what the fuck do you know about my pain!? About what I've been through!?" Kawaki roared out, letting something that's been rooting deep down inside him out all at once.

"I know that the only way to change it is to kick Danzo and his vision for Konoha in the nuts, you know!" Sage Naruto had completely taken his eyes away from Danzo and turned to Kawaki.

"Careful!" Kiyomi's voice beamed in Naruto's head. "Let me take care of Kawaki, if he's been brainwashed, there's no better person for the job than me. You just focus on your rampage."

Naruto glanced at Kiyomi from afar, acknowledging her mental message and turning back to Danzo and his recovering Root unit of chosen bodyguards.

Kawaki threw his hands beside him, shaping them into living, fleshy scythes and preparing to charge at Naruto. Kiyomi jumped in the way and blocked his cross-shaped slash that threatened to behead his despised enemy with one attack but it wasn't until she actually met her kunai with Kawaki's own living weapon of a body that she realized the difference in strength between them. With a rude shove of his weapons, Kawaki sent Kiyomi down. Her ninja tool clanged by Kawaki's feet cut into two. Kiyomi crawled back on the ground, clutching her chest and the crimson gash crossing it.

"You never liked me to begin with, of course, you'd protect him!" Kawaki said while he brandished his weapons and changed his arms into hatchets. Aiming to utterly decimate his fallen opponent, the punk unleashed a hail of hammer strikes that would have left Kiyomi as just tenderized and an unidentifiable slab of meat had she not rolled backward and placed her hands together.

"Mind-Body Switch!" she chanted out. But before her mind could phase out of her body, an invisible shockwave sent her rolling back and smashing into something rough way on the other side of the forest. This was really bad! Kiyomi clutched for her burning ribs, the gash on her chest didn't let up either and she was beginning to feel low on chakra to keep it from bleeding as it should have bled. If she truly ran out of juice – she'd end up going pale and passing out in less than a minute, that on top of Torune's nano-insect infection rotting her body would kill her in no time at all.

"Now stay the fuck down," Kawaki stared at her with a demeaning look. "As much as you might want to kill me, you don't have the power to do that. I see no difference in the trash that is too weak to do what they want and people that don't want to do that thing, to begin with."

Kiyomi extended her feet and dug them into the grass. She could feel the crunchy snapping of fallen branches and twigs that had fallen from the trees in the chaos they've caused in the place while the Yamanaka heiress pushed herself up, using the tree that supported her on the back as a counterbalance for the push with her legs.

"You're wrong. The people I want dead are criminals. You're not one, not yet…" Kiyomi exclaimed. She wanted to move her bloody hair out of the way of her face as the blurry vision was clouding her battle potential enough as it was but she focused on the more immediate issue of brainwashed youth that was a living weapon of mass destruction that she had promised to handle. "And I'm ready to prevent you from doing something that'll make me want to kill you with all my resolve as a ninja!"

Kawaki's eyes widened and his look softened a bit. His body returned to what seemed like its default state, the Kama markings disappeared while the nano-sized cells in the scientific ninja tool that was his entire body retracted back to being just a normal human arm.

"You feeling okay now?" Kiyomi smiled through the pain coursing through her entire body.

"Better, what did that fucker do? Did he brainwash me!?" Kawaki turned to Danzo.

"Something like that…" Kiyomi breathed out with a hint of something wet in her lungs that she didn't like, something that drove a painful impulse from her lungs that made it feel like they were being skewered.

"You tried to brainwash me too…" Kawaki muttered.

"Yeah, to kick out whatever influence I would have found of Danzo in your mind, nothing more." Kiyomi turned her head toward the recovering unit of Root assembling beside their leader. It was good to see them pushing their luck on their last legs after the beatdown that Naruto laid on them earlier but it wasn't like the alliance of Team Minato and Team Hokage were in that much better of a condition. "You just didn't seem like yourself, talking about working for the man, you know?"

"He made me say what now!?" Kawaki flipped out.

"Calm down… Kawaki-san… This is no time to charge at the enemy blindly." Minato staggered closer to Kawaki and prepared to attack the enemy despite the pitiful state he was in. The speedster might not have been decimated in battle like a lot of the less fortunate folks but Torune's infection was doing its nasty work with frightening efficiency and rate on the body of the future Fourth.

"Oppose your fate at your own peril, Minato Namikaze," Danzo warned the young man. "Without your signature technique that would define your battlefield presence in your prime you are just a shell of the man you'd once become and if you continue to fight on, Torune's infection will only do the dirty deed faster."

"Meiko-san…" Minato turned to the redhead blacksmith. "I'm afraid I have found myself a bit underequipped in the battle I am about to engage in, could you perhaps lend me a blade of your own collection?"

"Sure…" Meiko nodded and moved her hand over her chest. A pair of swords that curved in the middle and formed a simplistic, appearance akin to that of a lightning bolt appeared from an emerald, cross-shaped glow topped with a red-gleaming sealing glyph. The redhead flung the pair of swords to Minato who caught them and stabbed one of them into the ground, feeling like wielding the pair of them would have taxed his body too much in its current state whereas wielding one of the pair with both hands served as an ideal way to utilize the weapon.

"Body Flicker!" Minato lowered his sword and blinked out of perception, Danzo's Root unit found it utterly ridiculous that the young man chose to charge at all of them but Minato's speed, unmatched even in his youth before he had discovered his Flying Raijin Technique, made the superior teamwork of the Root unit irrelevant.

Minato's feet landed behind Danzo while the bandaged shinobi of the Root felt the cold edge of Meiko's blade press to his throat while Minato held it in a reverse grip, threatening the life of his opponent directly.

"I will give you one chance to flee and meet whatever fate befalls you in your own universe and time. I do not know who you are but I will not hesitate to strike you down for good if you do not heed this warning." Minato spoke softly but the weight behind his words seeped even into the being of one as hardened as Danzo was. The stout self-proclaimed protector of Konoha only stared into a blank point in the distance instead of mocking such a soft approach to combat as he would have normally done.

"This is why tragedy befell Konoha under your rule, young Minato. You are strong and your words carry weight, however, sometimes you must strike before you warn. That is just the type of dirt that one must get on their hands walking the path of a ninja." Danzo proclaimed shortly before the sharp edge of the blade opened his throat while Minato blinked away without moving the position of his blade which triggered a beheading as clean and swift as its user.

A popping noise following a cloud of smoke suggested a Substitution Jutsu having been deployed. Minato turned and kneeled on the branch he positioned himself onto, witnessing the manner in which Danzo had cheated death, considering it quite odd that the veteran chose such a manner of cheating death instead of his Izanagi technique. Only when Minato began spotting minor inconsistencies with his location and position that he realized that it was not Danzo who used the Substitution Jutsu but Fuu instead, replacing his leader with one of his scarecrow-like puppets.

Minato screamed out in pain but none could hear him, his consciousness was left to scream into the voiceless oblivion of the prison inside a straw puppet with a transformation tag as well as an entrapment tag put onto it. It was a remarkable feat of combined sealing techniques that did Minato in, making the young man wonder if perhaps he had been sleeping on the craft altogether. It didn't seem to matter how strong or fast he was, how adamant his will was when some guy with a pair of paper tags could have overcome all of it.

"What did you do to Minato!?" Kushina yelled out, sending shockwaves from just the threatening aura spreading off of her alone. The chakra she emanated was fright incarnated, her entire appearance turned dark and blurry, her eyes seemed like they were empty and devoid of any emotion but blind wrath while her long and vigorous scarlet hair rose to the air, rustled by her own overflowing fury, exploding from within.

"Kushina, please calm down, this is no time to rush at the…" Kotaro tried pacifying the Red Hot Habanero but it was a couple of moments too late. Like a crimson flare, the kunoichi charged but not directly at Danzo and his gang, instead smashing the tree they stood on and forcing them to scatter apart. A flash of red blinded Fuu and when the image of knuckle-cracking Kushina appeared right in front of him in all of her glorious fury, the Yamanaka wished he had remained blinded.

Kushina's fist blasted Fuu in the gut like a shotgun, the Yamanaka spewed blood as his own eyes whited out to match the blindness of his assailant as the Yamanaka crashed from up above like a shooting star, having strained his body and chakra system too much to use Substitution to save himself after he had just tricked Minato into replacing himself into a puppet.

"Four Symbols Seal!" Kushina yelled out, weaving a hand seal with the same hand that had just blasted Fuu away as a complex, black pattern manifested on the area where she had punched Fuu with the sealing glyph emerging from a black spot in the center.

It was just a measure to ensure that the enemy would not be running away, as well as to make sure that whatever nasty jutsu he had cast would end at once while Kushina reared her fist for the finishing blow. Adamantine Sealing Chains emerged from behind Kushina and wrapped around Fuu's limbs as well as his core, pulling the unconscious shinobi in for one more finishing blow which Kushina delivered with the ruthlessness that well justified her nickname.

Fuu's lifeless body slammed into the ground, leaving a massive crater while the trees located around it either became consumed by the all-shredding shockwave and turned into woodchips or rattled across the hurling gust of wind that Kushina's punch had created and got flung aside as if thrown by the world's mightiest trebuchet. Surrounded by such violent rampage, as much as Torune wished to interfere with the demise of his comrade, whether final or otherwise, he couldn't do so. It was tough to say if Danzo cared about losing another tool in his satchel as the stalwart man just stared at the devastation with a stern and unmoved face from afar.

"Holy shit, mom…" Naruto stared at the destruction further in the distance where Kushina had flung the unfortunate Yamanaka trickster with shock in his face.

"Torune…" Danzo sighed. "I see no other way to win, except for the Black November Maneuver. Now, more than ever, I require your utter devotion."

"Y-Yes, Danzo-sama…" Torune nodded and turned back at the enemy. The Aburame turned into a living swarm of violet while the cloud dispersed.

"He's bolting?" Kotaro wondered aloud.

"No. He's around…" Sage Naruto looked around with seriousness switching out the respectful sense of fear toward Kushina's rampage. "They're plotting something nasty."

"You're the only one who can sense him, Naruto-san…" Minato emerged from the bushes, covered in light gashes and scratches over his face. With the seal that Kushina had placed on Fuu, the mind switcheroo trick that Fuu had trapped Minato in had ended as well. "Please leave Danzo-san to me while you disrupt the enemy. If Danzo-san thinks this is their chance for victory, it is a source of concern."

"Can you do it, you know?" Sage Naruto raised an eyebrow, hesitant to run after Torune who had stopped fleeing the field 250 m. away from the battlefield and changed direction cardinally, rushing a similar distance to the other side.

"I must. More so, I have the support of everyone as well." Minato scanned the field, even with the gravity of his injuries, feeling resolved to finish this.

"Alright!" Naruto nodded and took off.

Minato and the remaining genin all faced Danzo who was now alone to weather their wrath. Kotaro reached for his pouch and threw a handful of explosive kunai at Danzo, what seemed like an ordinary displacement move became an immediate threat to Danzo's life once Kotaro flashed through his set of hand seals and cloned the ninja tools to at least six times that number. Danzo took it to the air but then a stray explosive blast caught him and sent him plummeting from above. Kotaro went through an attempt to pick Danzo out from mid-air with a well-placed Fire Release jutsu but the strain from Torune's nano-sized insects built up, forcing the young man to surrender to the strain and slump down.

Meiko followed up from where Kotaro left off, she turned around her axis and flung the buckler she had unsealed from her right forearm and coated with an orange chakra coating. The shield spiraled straight at Danzo as if being laser-guided and shot out wild sparks from underneath, a detail that most observers found curious. The buckler slammed into Danzo's throat, smashing it beyond repair, Meiko grit her teeth, revealing a piece of wire that lit up blue when chakra channeled through it, as the chakra traveled across the steel wire, it revealed a complex network of straight lines attached to the handle of the shield that allowed for precise control and upon carefully utilizing the String Reeling Technique, Meiko let the shield bash Danzo a good couple of more times across without enough force to break his limbs and shatter his skull but the old man's image faded away.

Kiyomi cried out in pain when Danzo gripped her from behind, using Body Flicker on top of his Izanagi replacement while one more eye closed forever on Danzo's unnatural-looking arm. She was already having great trouble bleeding so the additional pressure on her airways just made Kiyomi let the pent up blood the taste of which she felt in her mouth out.

"Unless you wish death upon your friend, you will stand down for a few more moments." Danzo declared as he tightened the grip on Kiyomi's throat further, he was as desperate as his stranglehold upon his hostage for his combination with Torune to be a success, it appeared. His double feature of Body Flicker on top of Izanagi did cost him nearly half of the chakra he had left to that point, after all.

"All is set, Danzo-sama!" Torune flashed on a taller branch, proving Danzo's despicable bargain for time to be very successful.

"S-Sorry guys…" Sage Naruto grunted, covered in violet spots all over as he appeared just a few moments before Torune. "He got me a bit, you know…"

"Now, it is time for the Black November…" Danzo declared and looked to Torune. The Aburame weaved a single hand seal and set off all of the sealing tags he had placed on different areas of the Forest of Death all at once, forming a mahogany hue barrier around the battlefield of a rectangular shape.

"Do it!" Danzo encouraged his comrade who appeared to be hesitating.

"B-But… Danzo-sama, you're in the way…" Torune objected.

"You fool, it is a suicidal maneuver anyway!" Danzo scolded his subject but then his vision blanked out when Sage Naruto flashed up to Torune with a pair of Rasengan in his hands.

"Rasengan Barrage!" Naruto exclaimed whilst throwing his hands out into Torune's gut. The fact that Torune had infected the young man with his corruption already made the Sage bolder to attack without any reservation where previously he'd have struggled to engage the enemy with his nano-insect armor still up. Torune croaked in pain and flew off aside like a ragdoll. The attack expended the last of Naruto's natural chakra as, just after Torune took off, the markings underneath Naruto's eyes faded away and his eyes returned to normal with an orange pulse of chakra leaving his body.

"Torune, you fool…" Danzo bit his lip in frustration when the necessary piece for his Black November combination had flown off without any indication if he was still alive or dead. "Oh well… You are all infected anyway, even if the combination isn't perfect, you will all die eventually!"

Danzo ripped his top off and allowed a body-wide sealing symbol comprised of black lines form over his chest. The sealing glyph expanded in ethereal black symbols floating off to each side while a spray of black ink attempted to catch up to the fleeing parts of the sealing glyphs. A raging, black sphere howled violently, eradicating all in its path within the range of its reach which expanded at least halfway across the distance sealed off by Torune's barrier technique.

Silence reigned after the incomplete Black November. Danzo's lifeless body laid dead in the middle of the sphere, having sucked everything within the range of his Reverse Four Symbols Seal to die with him.