Family meetings like the one held by the Ino–Shika–Chō alliance were taking place every night.
Everyone came away from their discussions with their own conclusions.
But so what?
No one had the power to change anything. The strength of the smaller clans was nowhere near that of the Sarutobi Clan.
Sarutobi had woven a vast net.
Everyone caught in that net had their own observations and information, but no matter what they saw, nothing could change the final outcome.
They were nothing more than prey that celebrated alongside the Sarutobi Clan during the day, then schemed against one another at night.
The festival continued.
The Tea Offering Ceremony, the Hand-Washing Well Opening, the Sacred Sword Viewing Ceremony, Iwami Kagura, and the Mikoshi Procession Departure Ceremony all proceeded one after another.
At the same time, the Sarutobi Clan steadily pushed forward its economic policies.
From economics to political correctness, they were weaving an enormous net around the Uchiha Clan.
They simply didn’t believe the Uchiha could make any waves once that net had closed around them.
Sarutobi was very confident.
But Naka Shrine remained completely silent.
The Uchiha paid no attention whatsoever to the Third Hokage’s actions.
Those who understood what was happening and those who didn’t understand it at all were equally unconcerned.
Human beings have their limits.
The more someone relies on schemes and calculations, the more likely they are to find themselves trapped in an unforeseen situation and see all their previous efforts go to waste.
No matter how much the Third Hokage stirred things up, time was ultimately on the Uchiha’s side.
It wasn’t that the Uchiha wanted the Third Hokage dead.
It was that the Four Great Nations could no longer tolerate Konoha’s lofty position.
Konoha no longer possessed the strength to justify its status as the foremost super-village.
Everyone was preparing to carve up this piece of fat.
That was the inevitable course of history.
Whether Uchiha Kei had ever arrived in this world or not, Konoha would have had to face a war eventually.
The Uchiha at Naka Shrine felt that worrying about the Third Hokage’s actions was far less worthwhile than worrying about why their Lord Kei, despite having undergone a perfectly successful operation, still refused to get out of bed.
Ah, well...
It didn’t really matter.
Lord Kei was still a child, after all. It was rare for him to indulge in a little childish stubbornness.
They might as well let him have his way.
Both sides had gradually stopped worrying.
But the world was strange like that.
Getting what you wished for wasn’t what life was about.
Mistakes, coincidences, and unexpected turns were.
At the border between the territories controlled by Naka Shrine and Konoha, a woman was working the fields with two slightly older children.
Five other young children were playing a game of shinobi with some Konoha children.
This was the reality of the Land of Fire.
The adults on both sides of Naka and Konoha wished they could grind each other to dust.
The common people at the bottom might also harbor hatred toward one another, but they did not resort to excessive acts of violence.
The children, who knew nothing of the adults’ grudges, were having a wonderful time playing together.
The reason was rather amusing.
The dream of Konoha’s children was to become Hokage.
So in their games of shinobi, their side naturally had to represent the Hokage’s faction.
I’m the Hokage, and you’re an elder.
As for the villains, naturally, they were the evil Uchiha.
The children from Naka Shrine, on the other hand, had precisely the opposite dream.
They dreamed of becoming Uchiha.
A few months ago, the game had been relatively evenly matched.
But as life for the children of Naka gradually improved, the game had become completely one-sided.
More than a dozen Konoha children dressed in ragged clothes clutched wooden shuriken.
The shuriken were crude, with rough, splintered edges. One glance was enough to tell that they had been made by hand.
"You evil Uchiha! Surrender yourselves at once!"
The shouts of more than a dozen five- and six-year-old children were surprisingly imposing.
If only they had wiped the snot from their noses, the scene would have been perfect.
The children surrounded by them were completely different.
Five children of roughly the same age stood there wearing crisp imitation Shinsengumi uniforms, looking energetic and spirited.
Each held a wooden chokutō, the blade wrapped in a thin layer of iron.
They were obviously expensive, high-quality products bought from a shop.
Their appearance formed a stark contrast with those who believed themselves destined to become future Hokage.
It was roughly the difference between a regular army and a band of bandits.
Even the Konoha villagers working in the fields nearby couldn’t help clicking their tongues in amazement when they saw the children’s clothes.
"Whose children are those? They’re wearing such good clothes just to fool around. Does their family have an adult who serves as a shinobi?"
"You don’t know? They’re the adopted children of Yakushi Nonō."
If Uchiha Kei’s arrival could not change the fate of the Third Shinobi World War, it had nevertheless unexpectedly changed Nono’s fate.
The director of the Konoha Orphanage had worked tirelessly to keep the orphanage running.
But the Third Hokage’s economic policies had opened an unfortunate door in Konoha.
Everything was to prioritize economic growth.
Everything had to make way for the economy.
With enormous amounts of money being poured into economic development, the Sarutobi Clan had begun carving up the cheese Konoha had accumulated over the years.
Under a system where economic growth was treated as an achievement above all else, the worship of money was born.
And under Sarutobi’s indulgence, the Sarutobi clansmen who controlled the economy had actually developed a strange culture:
Bribery was acceptable, as long as it wasn’t called embezzlement.
They would shift funds controlled by one another around as needed.
You lend me some of the funds under your control so I can boost the economic figures.
Then I’ll move some of my money over to you.
Back and forth it went.
Who could possibly keep their hands completely clean?
Why bother distinguishing so strictly between public money and private money?
The result was inevitable.
Money flowed wherever money could be made.
But public welfare projects that didn’t generate profits yet desperately needed funding were completely cut off from financial support.
Following the original course of history, Yakushi Nonō, who desperately needed money at this point, would naturally have sought help from Danzō.
He would then have provided her with the financial support necessary to keep the orphanage alive.
But in return, she would have lost her memories, left Konoha, and become one of Danzō’s undercover agents, waiting for the day she was awakened.
But the Danzō of this world had already been beaten so thoroughly that all his ambitions had been crushed.
Now, he merely wanted to be a lazy troublemaker, constantly stirring up conflict between the Third Hokage and Uchiha Kei simply to satisfy his own twisted amusement.
Naturally, he had no interest in worrying about the survival of the orphanage.
And so, the villagers of Konoha rarely saw the director of their orphanage outside the village.
"Ah, isn’t that the director of the village orphanage? Why did she go over to Naka?"
"I don’t know. But I heard she embezzled funds from the Konoha Orphanage and was driven out of the village. She couldn’t survive, so she went and started living among those hateful Uchiha."
That was the story circulating throughout Konoha.
But the truth was very different.
Unable to keep several hundred orphans fed, Nono had been questioned from top to bottom by the orphanage’s staff and children about where Konoha’s funding had gone.
The "wandering shrine maiden", who had always kept the Konoha Orphanage running primarily through her own efforts and only secondarily through official funding, had no way to explain exactly where the money had come from.
And so, the children she had painstakingly raised drove her out of the orphanage, believing her to be a corrupt official.
They elected a new director.
Of the several hundred children, only seven were willing to believe that their director was not that kind of person.
Unable to survive in Konoha, Nono eventually ended up in Naka.
She registered her household there and became a resident under Naka’s jurisdiction.
But the villagers didn’t know any of this.
All they knew was that she had embezzled money.
And they were perfectly willing to believe that she was a corrupt official.
After all, isn’t there a certain kind of happiness in seeing someone who once stood high above you fall into the mud?
"Ah, how could this have happened? She used to be such a good person. How could she have committed embezzlement? She’s ruined her entire future."
The woman sighed regretfully.
After all, being the director of an orphanage sounded like a respectable position.
And if that was the case, there must have been plenty of opportunities to line one’s pockets.
The other women picked up the conversation.
"Exactly. With prices skyrocketing like this, it’s already difficult enough to survive in Konoha. Yet those red-eyed people in Naka are spending money recklessly. They’re handing out money and even providing temporary work for their own people. And the wages are incredibly high!
"That woman naturally had no choice but to make a living among those red eyes."
"Exactly, exactly. My family secretly went over there to work for a while too. We made a fortune. Unfortunately, they’ve implemented some sort of household registration policy now. They don’t hire outsiders anymore."
"Hmph. It’s only temporary generosity. Sooner or later they’ll run out of money. When that happens, they’ll be the ones who suffer."
The woman viciously yanked a weed from the field, as though ripping it out by the roots would somehow uproot the red-eyed Uchiha of Naka as well.
"But if Nono embezzled public funds, why hasn’t anyone investigated her? How did she manage to sneak into the Uchiha community?"
"Haha, think about what she used to do for a living. Naturally, her skills at pleasing men were enough to help her escape. I heard one of the red-eyed Uchiha from Naka took a liking to her. Apparently, she’s going to marry him in a few days and take her sons with her."
"Oh? Someone actually wants that harlot?"
"You’re jealous, aren’t you? Who can blame them? She’s pretty."
The women in the fields continued joking among themselves.
They didn’t take their own words particularly seriously.
Whether they were true or false didn’t matter.
But just as they continued playing, they suddenly heard a cry.
"Ah!"
One of the Konoha children was knocked to the ground.
The five little children with red eyes howled like wolves as they rushed forward and beat him!
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