Chương 52: The Nightmare Takes Over.

Kakashi recovered faster than Haruto, keeping his composure since similar things had already happened before in his life he quickly analysed the situation.

'There's no chaos in the village… and there's no mass of evil chakra roaring, so it's not the nine tails…'

"How?" Kakashi asked calmly. The ANBU operative shook his head.

"The guy that deserted his post to inform us about the issue is too shaken… all we've gotten out of him is that it's the guest Hokage-sama had stay in the village yesterday."

"The man named Jigen?" Kakashi asked and the ANBU nodded. Kakashi quickly stood up from the bed and quickly got dressed in his ANBU attire which was just hanging by the shelf before nodding at the ANBU operative, "Let's go." Throughout their entire talk Haruto had remained silent, not uttering a word, or more precisely not being able to utter a word because of what he'd just heard.

"What the heck…"

"They're going to fight an Otsutsuki now?" Haruto whispered in horror.

"Ain't that just a promised quick death?"

"What now?" Haruto asked no one in particular but Edward responded to his plight.

'We wait now Haruto… there's nothing else we can do… you're too weak to fight out there so you must restrain yourself.'

'But… but Kakashi… he's too weak to fight that thing too…' Edward didn't have a response for that and Haruto just sat there in his bed, numb as he stared blankly out the window at the calm and scenic view of the village outside. The view soon changed too. With more and more shinobi jumping around roof tops in a panic as they all spread out all over the village seemingly looking for something.

'Has Jigen left the village?' Haruto could only guess. He eventually fell asleep given his stressful day but when he woke up the next morning he found Kakashi beside him once again.

"Did you save Hokage-sama?" Haruto asked Kakashi as soon as he woke up. Kakashi who was simply staring blankly at the ceiling, not even reading his favourite book sighed, then blankly shook his head before speaking, "Unfortunately not… the Third Hokage was dead before I even got to him. Even the enemy escaped… so we've got nothing on our hands to avenge him. Search is on, but we doubt he's still in the village." Haruto trembled. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

'What's going to happen now?'

'Tsunade will return early?'

'But without Naruto's talk no jutsu curing her hemophobia and sparking the Will of Fire within her… will she?' That was when Kakashi said something that shocked Haruto to his core.

"Don't worry Haruto-kun… the village is in capable hands… Danzo-sama, the highest level advisor to the Third Hokage has taken the mantle for now. He will lead us out of this trouble… trust his experience and wisdom." No matter what Kakashi said, his tone seemed like he was having trouble believing what he was saying himself. Haruto froze.

'This!'

'This is the worst case scenario!'

'Danzo having free reign over the village!'

'What's going to become of this place now!?' Haruto stiffly nodded to Kakashi before falling back down into his bed, he then proceeded to lay there blankly, his mind suffering a drought from thoughts as he stared blankly at the ceiling.

"Lord Third is dead…" Minato said, slightly bewildered.

"And that scum Danzo has taken the reins…" Kushina whispered. Everyone inside the enigmatic room looked worried, especially Mito. After thinking for a little bit, Mito finally spoke, "I think the situation with the Uchiha clan in the village will only worsen now… Danzo was a staunch supporter of anti-uchiha rules and regulations in the village… there's no way he's going to let them live peacefully…" Tobirama grimaced.

Izuna sent a glare Tobirama's way but said nothing to him, for now, instead he looked back at Mito and asked her a question, "Is there a way we can get the boy to do something about it?"

"... I don't think so… Haruto-kun is too weak and too unimportant to be able to do anything… and we definitely can't do anything without first learning more about the situation." Mito said with sighs interrupting her dialogue.

"What about Kakashi? Can't we use him through the boy? He's a good kid… he has the sharingan too… so he definitely knows people from the Uchiha clan… can't we use him as a link to grow the boy's connections and then do something about all of this?" Izuna proposed. Minato shook his head, "The Uchiha never liked Kakashi having their sharingan… I doubt they'll appreciate anyone connected to him in any way… that would start with a negative impression if anything."

"At least that's an impression… we can think about righting it later, after all if things do take a disastrous turn, the Uchiha will definitely have to use any connection they have… and when that happens we can use the boy to settle the situation." That was when Tobirama interrupted.

"The situation isn't as simple as that… there's that masked Uchiha too, Obito… who seems to be hell bent on getting the Uchiha killed… he attacked Kakashi last time and we don't know what he will do again to blame the Uchiha… and if he starts working with Danzo… things will take a drastic turn." Izuna's eyes widened. He hadn't thought of that. In his desperation he forgot his enmity with Tobirama and questioned him immediately.

"Is there anything that we can do? Anything?" Tobirama looked at Izuna and frowned in distaste but then sighed after Hashirama put his hand on his shoulder.

".... it'll take some time for all this to pass… at least three years until something drastic happens. So we have until then to turn the situation around… we can use that time to strengthen Haruto himself and even give him a few ideas to work on improving the image of the Uchiha's in the village." Izuna sighed again, "Yes… there's time… for now…" Mito spoke up too at that point, "If we need to we can even gather the remnants of the Senju clan in the village through Haruto-kun and use them to help the Uchiha…"

Izuna's eyes widened as tears filled his eyes.

"You'd do that?" Hashirama smiled, "We did it once in the past and birthed the Village hidden in the Leaf… what's there in doing it once again to protect the Village we birthed together." Izuna nodded, "Un." And wiped his eyes painfully before looking at Hashirama and then at Tobirama before speaking, "Thank you." Tobirama only huffed in an arrogant tone before accepting the thanks.

Haruto looked at the village through the window and sighed.

'Am I just making things worse by actively interfering with the plot?'

'... no… this is the real world… I can't think of this place as having a fixed plot like it did in the manga or the anime… Jigen had nothing to do with me and yet he arrived in the village for some reason…'

'It's this world that's just messed up in some way…'

'Perhaps the Dark God sent me to this world to fix all this since there's no way I can stay hidden now… Obito's already after me… then there's also Jigen even though he's left the village for now…'

'And if they're involved or I get involved in all this… I'll eventually be targeted by Danzo…'

'For now Danzo's next target should be the Uchiha… so I can use that time to grow stronger… to save myself and if possible save others along the way so that I can change this messed up world with the rewards that the Dark God grants me.' Sigh…