Chapter 247: The Dark Snake

Konoha prepared for Tsunade to become the Fifth Hokage while she began work at the hospital.

Naruto waited beside Kakashi's bed.

"Grandma Tsunade, how is he?"

"His body has been preserved extremely well," she said. "He looks healthy enough that, without the chakra readings from his mind, I might doubt he was injured at all."

Kakashi's physical vitality remained strong. Tsukuyomi had broken him mentally.

Tonbo's genjutsu had kept the sleeping body accepting food and treatment while Tsunade repaired the worst mental pathways. Muscle tone, circulation, and chakra production remained far better than the length of the coma suggested. That healthy appearance made the invisible injury more disturbing rather than less.

Under everyone's expectant gaze, his visible eye opened.

Tsunade leaned above him.

"So big..." Kakashi began. Consciousness caught up with his mouth. "Lady Tsunade. It has been a long time."

She ignored the first words with professional restraint. "How do you feel? Is anything still uncomfortable?"

Kakashi tested his body. "Mostly fatigue. I feel as though I had a long dream where someone sat beside me eating apples and asking whether I wanted one."

Tonbo laughed.

"Konoha's genius Kakashi, defeated this badly by a junior. How embarrassing."

"So it was you." Kakashi gave him a flat stare. "Do not speak to me. I need rest."

Tsunade looked equally unimpressed with the joke. "Itachi must be extremely strong to leave you in this condition."

Another dangerous missing-nin from Konoha. The pattern reminded her too easily of Orochimaru.

"His genjutsu was beyond anything ordinary," Kakashi said.

Training with Tonbo had given him extensive experience recognizing and dispelling illusions. Kakashi entered the fight prepared to break an attack in less than a second. Tsukuyomi made that knowledge useless. Within the fraction of a second before release, he experienced three days of torture. His mind sustained the damage before his body could complete the answer.

Ordinary genjutsu distorted the senses while time outside continued normally. A prepared shinobi could disrupt chakra, use pain, or rely on a partner. Itachi controlled the victim's sense of time inside the Mangekyō illusion. By the moment a partner saw Kakashi freeze, the three subjective days had already passed.

"How did it compare with my genjutsu?" Tonbo asked.

He had never experienced Tsukuyomi himself and wanted a direct comparison from someone who knew both.

Kakashi glanced at him. "There is no comparison."

Tonbo smiled. "You have excellent judgment. I am pleased you trust my strength so completely."

"I meant that your genjutsu cannot be compared with Itachi's."

Tonbo's illusions could be broken after capture. Kakashi believed the only defense against Tsukuyomi was preventing it from taking hold. Once trapped, a victim had no meaningful opportunity to escape.

The others grew solemn. Tonbo was regarded as Konoha's strongest genjutsu specialist, yet Kakashi dismissed the comparison. Tsunade understood why he had remained unconscious for so long.

"Kakashi, what is that supposed to mean?" Tonbo demanded. "And why are all of you looking at me like that? Itachi is almost ten years younger. Being surpassed by a junior would be humiliating. Do not compare the version of me you once fought with the one standing here. My genjutsu has improved enormously."

He had held back during his spar with Kakashi and now paid for the mercy by being underestimated.

Tonbo also possessed techniques Kakashi had never seen. Heart Steel, his distributed nervous control, and the new Spiritualization research all changed the comparison. Kakashi judged from an older encounter and from the overwhelming pain still fresh in his mind.

"If you ever experience Tsukuyomi, you will stop saying that," Kakashi replied. "You may be able to defend before it begins. That is different."

"Uncle Tonbo, stop boasting," Naruto said. "Kakashi-sensei had to lie here for weeks to bring us that information."

"We can discuss the intelligence later," Tsunade said. "Kakashi is awake. Take me to the next patient."

Might Guy had waited behind her with barely contained hope. Lee's injuries had tormented him since the exam. Now that the greatest medical shinobi had returned, he finally had a chance to ask for help.

He shifted from foot to foot while Tsunade finished with Kakashi, unwilling to interrupt and unable to remain still. Every extra minute felt like another minute in which Lee's future narrowed. When Tsunade turned toward him, Guy straightened with the intensity of a shinobi receiving a mission.

Far from Konoha, Orochimaru endured the pain in his arms inside a dark cave.

Kabuto fed him the latest medicine.

"The time is approaching," Orochimaru said. "Is the route ready?"

"I found a way through Konoha's barrier. Captain Tonbo truly is formidable. He altered the entire system after becoming Acting Hokage, which made every route you prepared before the invasion useless."

Kabuto spoke with genuine admiration. Tonbo had also changed departmental codes and internal challenges. Circumventing them had required money, false patterns, and more time than expected. Tsunade's return might lead to another revision before he could use the breach.

The old access route depended on a sensor blind spot and a code stolen before the exam. Tonbo closed the first and invalidated the second. Kabuto's new plan used chakra-masking tools to resemble ordinary civilian flow, then crossed during a maintenance interval discovered through several layers of observation.

Orochimaru gave a cold sound. "Tonbo may be the most formidable person I have observed. He is always doing something and never reveals the full extent of his strength."

Their few meetings and every report produced the same unease. Tonbo appeared ordinary, yet continued becoming stronger without pursuing the obvious ambitions that guided most powerful shinobi. Orochimaru recognized the shape because it resembled his own younger self: a person working in the shadows toward a distant private purpose.

The Analysis Team, his teaching, marriage, and temporary office all created an image of a successful Konoha shinobi. Orochimaru did not believe that image could explain the speed of Tonbo's growth or the breadth of his research. Something deeper had to be guiding him.

Perhaps serving as Acting Hokage was another step in that plan.

"You care about him a great deal," Kabuto said. "Is he truly more dangerous than the Third?"

"Do not underestimate him, and avoid unnecessary contact. He may be more dangerous than I am."

Kabuto had already designed the Sasuke operation around that warning. He obtained expensive tools that concealed chakra from sensory techniques and planned to approach only after Tonbo relinquished the office.

"I have no intention of fighting an unknown specialist. Sasuke is Lord Orochimaru's objective."

Orochimaru watched his capable subordinate secure the medicine.

"I trust you, Kabuto."