Kei toyed with the box in his hands. Inside was one of Shisui Uchiha’s eyes.
Danzō had not come to see him personally. Instead, Orochimaru had delivered the eye on Danzō’s behalf.
This was Shisui’s Mangekyō Sharingan.
If both of Kei’s own eyes weren’t so special, he would have seriously considered transplanting it into himself.
Kotoamatsukami.
According to the official description, the technique could "turn anyone the caster looked at into his puppet." It was hailed as the strongest genjutsu.
With an ability like this, gathering a group of shinobi together and hitting them all with Kotoamatsukami would be absolutely wonderful.
Although the technique required more than a decade to recover before it could be used again, there was still no denying how terrifying its ability to distort a person’s will was.
Fortunately, Danzō had acted early. Otherwise, Kei might have gotten the chance to witness a battle between an ideological imprint and Kotoamatsukami.
"Ah, that old bastard Danzō. He’s far too sinister in the way he handles things. Does he really think I’m the kind of person who cooks the hunting dogs after the rabbit is dead?"
Kei continued playing with Shisui’s eye while wondering who he should give it to as a reward.
Joseph or Johnny?
Either of them would be suitable.
The fact that Orochimaru had delivered the eye to him made it clear to Kei that he would not be seeing Danzō again.
It seemed that Orochimaru and Danzō had ultimately gotten together and secretly carried out some shady business behind Kei’s back.
Kei simply didn’t know what kind of business it was.
Forget it. There was no point pursuing the matter any further. From now on, everyone would be going their separate ways.
Just as Konoha had fallen apart after Hiruzen’s death, the alliance formed against the Third Hokage had originally been built upon dissatisfaction with his rule. Naturally, once Hiruzen had been eliminated, the alliance’s members would go their separate ways.
Kushina wanted to destroy the Land of Bears and rebuild the Land of Whirlpools. Minato had followed his wife and left Konoha as well, while the surviving Obito had gone with Minato.
Orochimaru had departed for the north and assisted the Land of Rice Fields in establishing Otogakure, the Hidden Sound Village.
Anko, however, had remained behind as the Land of Rice Fields’ official representative in Konoha. With an official position backing her, that girl had become even more brazen.
Even Konoha’s new heir apparent, Itachi Uchiha, was somewhat wary of her.
Danzō had also taken Root with him.
He had exchanged Shisui’s eyes, along with the eyes of more than two hundred people who had followed Shisui, for Kei’s support. He then invaded the Land of Waves.
It was a small country that served as a major hub for waterborne trade in the Land of Fire, and its commerce was highly developed.
Kei had not provided Danzō with any military support. He had merely given verbal support for Danzō’s actions on Konoha’s behalf.
Konoha was now essentially Kei’s blank check. Whenever he wanted to cash it, he could use it. As for whether that check would actually be honored, the person holding it would have to negotiate with Konoha himself.
And Danzō had actually dared to invade an entire country based solely on a verbal promise of support.
Only then did Kei truly understand what Danzō wanted.
The old man’s lifelong obsession was to become the one in charge.
It didn’t particularly matter which country he ruled. The Land of Fire would have been ideal, but if that wasn’t possible, somewhere else would do.
He wanted to become a Kage.
And he was willing to become the Kage of any country.
In the past, only the Five Great Nations had been Danzō’s targets, because only the leaders of their hidden villages were known as Kage.
Now, however, Danzō had also understood Kei’s intentions.
Kei wanted to overthrow the daimyō, not the military institutions operating under them.
Once that happened, no one could say how the world would be reshuffled.
Therefore, Danzō was perfectly willing to accept becoming the leader of a hidden village belonging to a smaller country.
Because of that, even if Kei offered Danzō excellent terms to stay, Danzō would never remain.
Besides, Kei had no intention of offering anything to keep Danzō around.
If it had been Orochimaru, perhaps that would have been a different story.
Danzō finally had a chance to become the leader of an entire village. He would never give that opportunity up himself.
Kei was not like Hiruzen. He wasn’t Danzō’s childhood friend, nor did he share decades of personal history with him or possess countless secrets that could be used to control him.
Danzō had no reason to stay behind and endure being ordered around by Kei.
So Danzō’s departure was beneficial to both sides.
As for the other elder, Homura Mitokado, his choice was even more interesting.
He was a relative of Mito Uzumaki, yet he had chosen to follow Kushina.
Moreover, he had become the faction leader of the Land of Whirlpools’ third major political force—the leader of the Konoha faction within the Land of Whirlpools.
He even intended to bring Konoha’s distinctive hidden-village system to the Land of Whirlpools.
Before the Land of Whirlpools had even been officially established, its Council of Elders system was already taking shape.
The funny part was that the confident Kushina hadn’t even finished restoring the Land of Whirlpools before she lost the first leadership struggle among the exile factions of Uzushiogakure.
She became the daimyō of the Land of Whirlpools and an elder of Uzushiogakure.
Mitokado Homura also became an elder of Uzushiogakure.
And Minato Namikaze became the Fourth Hokage.
The Fourth is still the Fourth, after all!
Kei estimated that a miniature version of Konoha was about to be established in Uzushiogakure.
The fate of Konoha’s other elder was much more difficult.
Koharu Utatane continued dreaming of Konoha and remained behind, becoming the representative of the small number of civilian shinobi still left in the village.
Unfortunately, Konoha’s elders were no longer particularly important.
The Hyūga, Kurama, Ino-Shika-Chō, and Aburame clans had all produced elders of their own, while the smaller clans had also produced numerous representatives for Konoha’s Senate.
The Jōnin Council, the Shinobi Clan Senate, and the Council of Elders formed Konoha’s new system of separation of powers.
Before the new Konoha had even recovered from the devastation and begun rebuilding, its political system had already been established.
The war had given Konoha a new beginning.
The people of the new Konoha called it "rebirth through fire."
But Kei knew that Konoha’s situation wasn’t nearly that miserable.
All he had done was perform a minor operation to cut away some of Konoha’s excess weight.
Although the Sarutobi Clan, once Konoha’s most powerful clan, had been almost completely wiped out, causing Konoha to lose nearly ten thousand shinobi, and the civilian shinobi that had been produced as cannon fodder over the course of several decades had also either fled or died, costing Konoha nearly another ten thousand shinobi...
The Konoha that remained was now composed almost entirely of shinobi clans.
They had rebuilt Konoha anew, much like the Konoha founded by the First Hokage.
It was once again the result of the shinobi clans banding together for mutual protection.
On the surface, Konoha seemed to have fallen into ruin, as if it had been thrown all the way back to the beginning.
It seemed as though every bit of suffering had been brought about by Uchiha Kei.
But when the numbers were calculated carefully, the departure of Orochimaru and the others had caused far greater damage than Kei’s destruction of Konoha.
All Kei had really done was wipe out most of the Sarutobi Clan.
Yet the Sarutobi Clan itself had long been the kind of clan that contributed neither labor nor resources to Konoha.
They were parasites feeding off Konoha.
Without them, Konoha actually became much more efficient.
The other shinobi clans also gained more resources to distribute among themselves.
Civilian shinobi might have been numerous, but cannon fodder was still cannon fodder. In reality, the amount of combat power they contributed was limited.
Their abilities weren’t particularly impressive, yet they were constantly demanding equal rights.
If equality were really that easy to achieve, then what would be the point of having chakra?
Then something happened that made the new Konoha understand even more clearly just how harmful the Sarutobi Clan had been.
When the new Konoha sent a delegation to the daimyō, nervously holding up two fingers as they asked for military funding, the people of Konoha were deeply shaken.
Their attitude toward asking for money was so cautious that it was as though they were afraid of frightening the daimyō and causing him to refuse.
Who could have expected that the instability in the Land of Fire had already frightened the daimyō half to death?
To suppress the unrest, the daimyō was willing to agree to almost anything.
"What? You want another two trillion in military funding? Fine! Greedy Konoha shinobi, as long as you restore peace to the Land of Fire, I’ll add another two trillion every year! Now hurry up and drive those faithless bastards out of the Land of Fire! Go!"
The frantic daimyō smashed money onto the inexperienced Konoha shinobi as though they had never seen it before.
The daimyō understood how things worked!
This entire incident had originally begun because an alliance of daimyō had joined forces against one reckless individual from Konoha who had acted without authorization and harmed the interests of every daimyō.
The alliance had even been formed at the suggestion of Konoha’s previous leader.
Who could have imagined that the villages belonging to the other daimyō would arrive in the Land of Fire like bandits who had never seen money before?
The moment they saw the prosperity of the Land of Fire, greed blinded them.
They abandoned their original objective and instead turned their attention toward the daimyō of the Land of Fire.
Ah...
An alliance without shared interests really was fragile.
Back when everyone had casually joined forces to wipe out the Land of Whirlpools, how united had they been?
Why was everything different now that it was their own interests at stake?
Perhaps the Land of Whirlpools had simply been too poor, while the Land of Fire was too rich.
Whatever.
With enough money, things became much easier.
The daimyō of the Land of Fire had no choice but to pay to make the trouble disappear.
In order to drive away the enemies, and in order to convince Konoha’s newly appointed leadership to let bygones be bygones, the daimyō was willing to make another concession.
Besides, Konoha’s shinobi really weren’t asking for much.
They were far more merciful than that monkey named Sarutobi.
When Shikaku Nara heard the figure, he exchanged a glance with the others.
As the representative of the Ino-Shika-Chō alliance, he immediately responded with a cheerful,
"Yes!"
He accepted the deal and withdrew with the military funding for the second half of the year.
Nara Shikaku returned to Konoha with nearly five trillion in military funds.
When he presented the money before the heads of the various shinobi clans and the Jōnin Council, with the Fourth Hokage, Uchiha Fugaku, presiding over the gathering, the skies above Konoha seemed to clear at once.
That figure finally allowed Konoha to emerge from the shadow cast by the Third Hokage’s death.
Five trillion!
With that kind of money, the Uchiha Kei didn’t even need to step in personally.
The shinobi clans themselves had enough reason to kill Hiruzen several times over.
Some shinobi even began whispering among themselves.
"Damn. If we’d known this would happen, we should’ve wiped out the entire Sarutobi family ages ago!"
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