Danzo's Riddle

Rayzen was rudely awakened to the fact that people are easily shielded from the truth when they have a bias.

He had previously known from Chizuru that if he became a medic-nin that stays away from the frontlines, he will be named as a coward by the Uchiha clan. But it didn't register in his mind that what she said was no exaggeration!

He learnt from Akihira that it was truly the case and that the extremists have spread rumours of him ' learning medical techniques in a hurry to leave the battle at the frontlines '.

The patriarch also informed him that he didn't have to worry anymore about that. Since after the commotion he created that day, no one would think that Rayzen was afraid of battle, having found trouble and fought with the powerful ninjas of police force while he was just an academy nin.

Rayzen just wanted to learn medical techniques to increase his survivability in the field. He had no intention to stay back in the village and treat people, nor had he the time to delve deeply into the field as he had a lot of things to learn and master, which means some things have to be sacrificed.

If he had time in the future, he will surely learn more. But for now, what he needs is to rapidly increase his strength and survivability.

Hearing from Rayzen that he delved into medicine out of interest and a desire to the increase his survivability, Akihira didn't force him to stop, instead he recommended the best medic of Uchiha clan to him, Uchiha Midori.

Having gone through all the schemes of the old, the corrupt and the ruthless, winning the fights and falling into some traps, he felt that he need to have some peace of mind. Although his mind was fully functional and he could go through all their future schemes without any stress due to his rising soul force, it was a habit of his to relax after going through some intense stuff. As he felt that it would increase his imaginative and creative thinking, which was really important in the grand scale of things!

Hence he decided to visit Uchiha Midori at a later time, when he was not preoccupied with anything or atleast when he hit a ceiling in his training.

...

The sky was getting darker when he left the patriarch's house. He first visited Takeshi and informed him that everything was fine and that he will explain everything later, as he needed some alone time.

Takeshi understood that the kid was feeling tired and needed to freshen up. So he didn't keep him for long.

For Mikoto, he did the same. And after leaving her area, he dispersed into smoke. The same as what happened when he left Takeshi's.

The original Rayzen was roaming all over the public attractions of the Hidden Leaf. He played with some kids, slyly helped the civilians in dealing with some rough and drunk b*stards, enjoyed the scenic places, visited the hot springs and ate various types of foods.

In the middle of his revitalizing journey, he found a partner. A beautiful civilian girl by the name of Emi. She was 15 year old and already looked mature.

When he saw her for the first time, she was being harassed by a group of three men among whom was one drunk Genin. After learning enough of what was happening, he swiftly took them out and deposited them into the trash cans.

He learnt that the part of the civilian area which she belonged to was the poorest place in the Hidden Leaf, where people easily got away with crimes. The two men apart from the Genin where from her place and they usually harrassed her. They aimed to do something more sinister, with the help of the Genin who would handle all the backlash.

To make her happy for atleast this day, he took her with him all over his journey. After leaving her at her shabby home that also worked as an inn, whose owner was an old lady that adopted her, he left back to Uchiha residential area.

Before leaving he had informed her, his name and how to look for him, without alerting his enemies, if she needed any help.

As he was on his way back, he found the street he was walking familiar, although it was his first time through the route. It was a few minutes later, he figured out where he was walking through. It was none other than the street where the protogonist of this world lived during the course of his story.

He found nothing special about this place other than the poverty that was apparent to everyone's eye. Although crimes did happen, none dared to offend the village, as that was certain death.

At a glance, this area appeared to be lax in security, but Rayzen felt there was a reason for such a place to exist in this village. A very important reason.

He unleashed his soul force to check something out. And was astonished to see that there were elite ninjas watching over certain places of this sector of the village. He didn't pry into what these guys were watching over, as he felt that he would be dragged into a lot of serious trouble, if he got involved.

Just as he was about to retract his soul force, he found two ninjas trailing him. It was clear that they were elite nin as he wouldn't have detected them without his soul force.

He led these two nin to an eerily unpeopled street where he had met Danzo for the first time. Just as he felt that the place was okay, he turned back to see the two nin manifesting from the darkness of the night.

Rayzen didn't feel like wasting time on seeing who would speak first, as he spoke out:

" Did Danzo send you? I told him to not bother me! "

The two nin, wearing the standard attire of root that was covered by a dark cloak, seemed to be triggered as they threw chakra infused shuriken at him at high speeds. The high speed and low visibility due to being night time ensured that an ordinary Genin won't even see a thing. But for Rayzen it was not a problem, he didn't even need to activate his Sharingan. His sharp senses were enough to dodge it.

Usually someone who detected it would dodge. But to express his stance, he went against his own intuition and blocked the shurikens with his kunai using his right hand alone.

Although he blocked all of them, the impact force and the sharp strikes due to chakra being infused into the shuriken, nicked his kunai badly and broke it with the last strike, so much so that it was unusable for battle again.

" That's Lord Danzo to you! " One of them wearing a menacing looking boar mask spoke in an arrogant mocking tone. While the other one wearing a docile cat mask stayed silent.

The reason why he said like that even though Rayzen blocked all his strikes was that, the last shuriken had broken his kunai and went straight for his heart with the leftover force. While Rayzen tried to catch it with his other hand. The boar masked guy expected Rayzen to dodge, but seeing that he didn't, he was sure that Rayzen was injured.

As a person wearing mask, Rayzen could feel that sneer under the boar mask of the Root nin was replaced with shock, as Rayzen took out the last Shuriken from between the index and middle finger of his left hand.

He had caught it in time and there was not a scratch on his hand. Rayzen threw that shuriken at the centre of the boar masked Anbu in a curve, forcing him to dodge. He didn't have the slightest intention to prolong this as he had faced too many schemes today. So he said :

" Make this fast! Or I am leaving! "

The boar masked Root nin was angry from Rayzen's attitude. Nonetheless, he conveyed the message Lord Danzo had entrusted him with:

" Lord Danzo has a question for you! Who would you save to ensure the safety of the village? You who is sure that you could protect the village, make sure it surpass the peak of its power and be the only existing force, and hence achieve the dream of a peaceful world. Or the people who are protecting it for the short term, but is now standing in your way to achieve peace! "

Rayzen felt a sense of foreboding!

The cat masked nin disappeared, while the boar masked nin took out his tip-less tantō and prepared for battle as he said: " Didn't you want to leave? Now show your answer! Your answer will determine whether you can leave or not! "