Konoha: Starting with Sage Mode

Seeing this, Koharu Utatane and Homura Mitokado sighed inwardly. They suddenly missed Danzo, and even a little bit missed Momoka, whom they had driven away together.

If Danzo or Momoka were here, the Third Hokage wouldn't be so brazenly abusing his power.

Meanwhile, deep within Konoha Prison, in the new Root leader's office, Danzo sipped hot tea while pretending to be nonchalant as he mentally conversed with his subordinates.

"How's the investigation going?"

"I'm sorry, our naval forces are too weak to find many clues, but our people have discovered that every time a merchant ship is involved in an accident, the Kirigakure spies in the Land of Waves are secretly in contact with some mysterious people."

"Hidden Mist, huh..."

Chapter 77: The Crisis at the Roots

Danzo quickly ended his internal meeting with his subordinates. On the surface, he appeared calm and collected, but inwardly, a huge turmoil was brewing within him.

According to the intelligence just reported by his subordinates, Gen is now being targeted, and all indications suggest that the mastermind is likely Kirigakure.

"If it's Kirigakure, then it will be difficult to continue recovering the wealth from the Land of Waves. At sea, it's still the domain of these guys who have lived overseas for a long time."

Danzo's mood gradually worsened.

Recently, Gen has been having a tough time because he's short of money.

A high-ranking nobleman from the Land of Fire, who had been secretly funding Root, was shot dead in his bedroom, and then a large amount of evidence of corruption and treason was exposed.

Gen's approach to this matter can only be described as very much in the style of Danzo.

After receiving news of the nobleman's murder, Danzo did not think of avenging the nobleman. Instead, he immediately severed ties with the nobleman and silenced everyone in Root who had been in contact with him, so as not to give the Third Hokage and the Daimyo any evidence to prove that he had colluded with the nobleman.

His ruthless actions naturally caused the other nobles of the Land of Fire who were secretly funding Root to feel a sense of shared fate and aroused their strong dissatisfaction.

As a result, these powerful nobles drastically reduced or even cut off their financial support to Root, and instead supported other powerful forces in Konoha.

Danzo initially didn't care much, believing that the Root members wouldn't waver in their belief in protecting Konoha for a mere sum of money, nor would they betray Root. However, he was proven wrong.

Without sufficient salary, the level of work benefits dropped significantly, and a large number of peripheral members who had not been marked with the curse defected. Even those who did not defect had their personal motivation greatly reduced.

Even the enthusiasm of many of the root's internal members was affected, and they began to resent him.

From that moment on, Danzo deeply felt the power of money for the first time and never dared to underestimate it again.

Having lost the support of the powerful nobles of the Land of Fire, Danzo had no choice but to intensify his plundering of the wealth of the merchants under his control and attempt to control more merchants to serve Root, thereby alleviating the pressure of losing the financial support of the powerful nobles of the Land of Fire.

However, before Root's new funding development plan could yield results, news came that the goods of several merchants from the Land of Waves under his control had been stolen by pirates, resulting in heavy losses. In addition, several large merchants from small countries who had close cooperation with Root were also killed by unknown forces.

Both of the two major arteries that provide the core funding have been severely damaged, and the core's funding chain has been cut in half. Naturally, the welfare level of the core members has dropped significantly.

This resulted in a chain reaction where more members of the root organization defected, their enthusiasm declined significantly, and ultimately the overall strength and execution of the root organization were severely damaged.

Clearly, the behemoth of Root in the darkness was not as obedient as Danzo had imagined; it wouldn't work without being fed enough money.

Even if the roots are bound by a lofty faith, in the end it is still a collection of interests.

Within the Root, there are countless speculators, and Danzo is not the only ambitious one.

Once a major internal crisis occurs, such as when there isn't enough bread to go around, it's almost inevitable that this starving behemoth will descend into chaos or even split apart.

Danzo, as the leader of Root, was well aware of the seriousness of the problems currently emerging within Root. He decisively dispatched his loyal and capable subordinates to suppress dissent, sent men to hunt down traitors and deter those within the organization from considering defection, and also accelerated the progress of the new funding development plan.

Recently, Danzo has been focusing almost entirely on dealing with internal problems within Root, leaving him with no time or energy for conspiracies or schemes to frame others.

After all, Root is the foundation of his survival in Konoha. If he loses control of Root, he will be close to death.

Despite his busy schedule, Danzo did not relax his surveillance of the Uchiha clan and Kirito.

The Uchiha clan was fine, acting as usual without any unusual behavior. However, Kirito's side lost most of its surveillance capabilities at the hospital due to the loss of Yamanaka Kumo, a key spy placed there. As a result, they could no longer closely monitor Kirito's every move as before.

This dire situation worsened after Yamanaka Kumo's defection.

"Has Yamanaka Yun sensed something? Why would he betray me at this time?"

Danzo cursed inwardly.

In his script, the main executor of the assassination of Kirito was Yamanaka Kumo. However, this lead actor suddenly betrayed him, causing the subsequent plan to assassinate Kirito to die before it even began.

Moreover, Yamanaka's betrayal further weakened his surveillance capabilities within the hospital.

Not all members within Root are loyal to him alone; he only controls a core group of members and then uses these core members to command their subordinates.

The Root forces within the hospital were basically developed by Yamanaka Kumo himself. Naturally, the Root members within the hospital only obey Yamanaka Kumo's orders, and Danzo himself didn't even know who these people were.

If he wants to continue to have surveillance power within the hospital, the only way out might be for the root members developed by Yamanaka Kumo to come to him on their own initiative.

However, the hidden forces in the hospital have not been transferred out. Especially after Hinatayama, Kirito's taijutsu teacher, became the captain of the hospital's security team, the internal investigation into the mole has not weakened. Now, anyone who dares to contact him is courting death.

Clouds in the mountains.

Danzo truly never expected this person to betray him, especially not at such a time.

He was certain that Shan Zhongyun had discovered something, but who had given him the clue?

Danzo's first suspect was Kirito, because Kirito was the biggest beneficiary of the whole affair.

However, he quickly rejected this idea.

Because he was all too aware that Kirito's current power, while impressive in his own right, lacked any intelligence support to help him and could not possibly uncover any top-secret information about Yamanaka Kumo.

They relied on the intelligence capabilities of the Senju clan.

Do not make jokes.

It wasn't that Danzo looked down on the Senju clan; it was simply that the Senju clan lacked suitable talent and advantages in intelligence gathering. Most members of the clan were straightforward, simple-minded, and not skilled in Yin Release ninjutsu, making them unsuitable for intelligence work.

Moreover, the matter that made Yamanaka Un choose to betray him without hesitation was a top secret.

He was very careful back then, and he is the only person who still knows about this. In order to completely control Shan Zhongyun, an important pawn, he had already personally eliminated all other people who knew about it.

Therefore, it is absolutely impossible for Kirito to know that he was the one who orchestrated the death of Yamanaka Kumo's fiancée.

Danzo had this confidence.

"If it's not this kid, then who could it be? It seems that after I stepped down, all sorts of monsters and demons thought I had lost power and could not make a comeback, so they couldn't help but take action against me."

Danzo pondered to himself and finally focused his attention on the inside of the Root.

If it wasn't Kirito, then it could only have been done by one of their own.

Only our own people could possibly know about that.

As for the purpose, it was obviously because someone harbored unwarranted ambitions, believing that he was unworthy to continue as the leader of the Roots and wanted to replace him.

"Who could it be? It seems I need to find an opportunity to go out and check on my 'loyal' subordinates, to see if the curse marks on them are still there."

Danzo calmly took a sip of hot tea, his mind a jumble of thoughts.

Finally, his gaze fell upon a newly arrived intelligence report, secretly sent by his old classmate, Koharu Utatane. The report contained the Third Hokage's final decision regarding the surrender of Amegakure.

"Foolish Hiruzen, you'll regret this."

After reading the intelligence, Danzo finally smiled.

Chapter 78: Changes Brought About by Superior Strength

In February of Konoha Year 33, Amegakure officially surrendered to Konoha, but the additional conditions attached to the surrender immediately caused a huge uproar.

Internationally, needless to say, the leaders of various ninja villages immediately realized Konoha's current weakness and sent their ninjas to infiltrate the Land of Fire in order to further investigate Konoha's true strength.

Meanwhile, the two major ninja villages, Iwagakure and Kumogakure, directly dispatched a large number of ninjas to the border of the Land of Fire to put pressure on Konoha, preventing Konoha from diverting too many troops to support the battlefield of the Land of Wind, and then stood by and reaped the benefits.

Inside Konoha, the villagers' initial joy at the victory vanished almost instantly, and they even felt ashamed. No one proudly told outsiders about Konoha's victory over Amegakure anymore.

A large number of militant ninjas and villagers gathered in front of the Hokage Building to protest, demanding that the Third Hokage reject Amegakure's surrender and restart the war in the Land of Rain.

Faced with the strong protests from the militant ninjas, the Third Hokage and his two advisors were at their wits' end. They quickly contacted the heads of the various ninja clans in the village and representatives of the civilian ninjas, asking them to help persuade these radical militant ninjas and villagers.

The clan leaders of each ninja clan were all shrewd and had a broad perspective. Although they disliked the Third Hokage and the two Hokage advisors' attempt to shift blame, they still reluctantly agreed.

They all knew perfectly well that if they didn't agree this time, the Third Hokage and the others would definitely make things difficult for their clan's ninjas in the upcoming war between Konoha and Sunagakure.

With the support of the various ninja clans, the Third Hokage was finally able to suppress the discontent of the militant faction in the village.

The war between Konoha and Amegakure has officially ended.

However, the turmoil caused by the Third Hokage's appeasement policy continued to ferment in Konoha Village, and the voices of dissatisfaction with the Third Hokage not only did not decrease, but increased.

A week after the end of the war in the Land of Rain, around noon, Kirito and Nawaki were having lunch together in the living room at Nawaki's house.

"I really don't know what the Third Hokage was thinking, agreeing to Amegakure's outrageous surrender request. If I were the Hokage, I definitely wouldn't accept such a surrender..."

At the dinner table, Nawaki kept rambling on about his views on the Third Hokage's acceptance of Amegakure's surrender, his face full of indignation, showing his strong dissatisfaction with the Third Hokage.

Kirito listened patiently to Nawaki's words without offering his own opinion.

But he was also disappointed with the appeasement policy implemented by the three generations.

In his view, peace is won through fighting, and peace achieved through compromise is unsustainable and will only earn the contempt of others.

He believed that if Amegakure continued fighting, it would only hasten its defeat, and Konoha could hold out until Amegakure could no longer sustain itself.

Sometimes, war is all about that last bit of willpower; whoever loses their willpower first loses.

Undoubtedly, the Third Hokage lost heart before Hanzo, which resulted in Konoha winning but the benefits not being enough to cover the losses, and also revealing its weakness to other countries.

That was a terrible move.

Of course, he was never able to sit in the Hokage's seat in person, so he couldn't fully understand the pressure the Third Hokage was under, and he wasn't qualified to point fingers at the Third Hokage.

Just express your dissatisfaction slightly.

However, judging from the transformation of Nawaki, who was originally a simple guy who loved the Third Hokage very much, into someone who is now utterly disappointed in him, the Third Hokage's decision has greatly damaged his prestige in Konoha, and the young ninjas' impression of him has changed.

Ninjas admire the strong, especially young ninjas who are full of energy and passion. However, a strong person who is weak in the face of external threats is not worthy of their admiration and following.

"If the young ninjas are disappointed with the Third Hokage, they will inevitably choose a powerful figure to pledge allegiance to and follow. In the original story, Danzo's Root grew rapidly in this way, didn't it? Third Hokage, did you see the hidden dangers in this?"

Kirito ate his food, thinking to himself.

"Hey, Kirito, are you even listening to me?"

Suddenly, Rope Tree's dissatisfied voice brought him back to his senses.

"Oh, I'm listening. Please continue, I'm listening."

Kirito replied dismissively.