What Would Happen First

"So."

Tsunade sat cross-legged on the tatami in the living room. With one hand, she poured tea for Sahara Mizu and Hatake Sakumo across the low wooden table, casually pushed the cups toward them, then looked up at the two of them.

"So there's no need for us to keep negotiating with them?"

It was not just Tsunade. Hatake Sakumo turned to look at the young man as well.

The tea leaves floated in the cup, rippling gently amid the rising steam.

Sahara Mizu picked up his teacup and smiled mildly.

"Exactly."

Bang!

Tsunade's fair, slender palm slammed onto the table with a heavy thud. The solid wooden tabletop caved in slightly as she glared fiercely at the young man before her.

"Lord Mizu, you should be able to guess how much resolve it took for me to do this, right?"

"Do you know what you're saying?"

"If no one can stop those vermin, do you know what they'll turn the village into?"

"Embezzlement, collusion with the enemy, military supplies, intelligence."

"This is wartime!"

Perhaps because she had been unable to vent all the rage in her stomach on Konoha's F3 before being forced to stop.

Now, Tsunade stared fixedly at Sahara Mizu's face. Her expression was taut, her voice rising ever higher as she gritted her teeth.

She was really furious now.

Yet Sahara Mizu acted as though he had not noticed her emotions at all and took a sip of tea.

"Lord Tsunade."

"You do not care that much about these matters, do you?"

"It is not as if this is their first day doing such things."

"No."

Sahara Mizu raised his head and met her eyes.

"More precisely, compared to avenging Dan Katō, these trivial matters are not that important to you, are they?"

As he said this, his expression remained indifferent and composed. He calmly dissected the reality of the situation, tearing away the lofty justifications on the surface and leaving Tsunade briefly unable to adapt.

"..."

"Yeah, so what!"

After a brief pause, she slammed the table again, throwing caution to the wind as she looked at him with reddened eyes.

"I want revenge against those rotten-hearted bastards. Got a problem with that?"

"No. Why would I?"

Seeing her so irritable, Sahara Mizu's smile only grew gentler.

He pointed at Hatake Sakumo beside him, then at himself.

"It is not only you, Lord Tsunade. Teacher Sakumo and I are here for selfish reasons as well—we both want to protect ourselves through this storm."

"For that reason, it will be easier to communicate only if we are honest with one another first, will it not?"

Tsunade froze at that and turned to Hatake Sakumo, who was drinking tea beside her.

"Just listen to him." Hatake Sakumo waved a hand at her. "Don't let his age fool you. This kid is full of bad ideas, and he's damn capable."

On the way here, he had already gotten a thorough taste of that through Sahara Mizu's seemingly casual remarks.

Sahara Mizu smiled somewhat bashfully.

"You flatter me, Teacher Sakumo."

Tsunade's eye twitched.

Who was flattering you?

Still, thinking of the strange things Sahara Mizu had shown her before, Tsunade could not help but feel a glimmer of hope.

"Then if we are not negotiating, what do we do next?"

"Do not tell me we can just storm into Root and the Hokage Building to inspect their accounts?"

Sahara Mizu set down his teacup and looked seriously at the two of them. "Of course something that absurd will not happen."

"To put it plainly, Lord Tsunade, your original goal of 'questioning them over corruption and forcing the Council of Elders to resign' was unrealistic from the start. How are you going to make the referee on the field give himself a red card and send himself off?"

Tsunade could not help but pause at that.

Hatake Sakumo looked thoughtful, his brows tightly furrowed.

Sahara Mizu continued, "It has been three days since you returned to the village and formally proposed the motion to 'question Konoha's Council of Elders over corruption and investigate them for collusion with the enemy' at the Jonin Council."

"At the same time, the rumor that 'Lord Tsunade demands an investigation into the corruption of all Konoha's higher-ups' has also been spreading through the village for three days. During this period, you were unable to make any counterattack. You did not even notice that public opinion had begun fermenting in the streets and alleys."

"As the head of the Senju Clan, one of the Village Founding Clans, and someone who bears the glory of two generations of Hokage, Lord Tsunade, this rumor sounds incomparably righteous merely because it includes your name. Not a single Konoha resident would object."

"Do you know what that means?"

Tsunade widened her eyes and snapped through clenched teeth, "I was clearly questioning the 'Council of Elders.' When did I ever investigate all the higher-ups—"

"I know. You know. But that does not matter."

Sahara Mizu interrupted her and continued, "What matters is that they have already prepared public opinion."

Tsunade's voice abruptly stopped. Her slender hand on the wooden table clenched tightly, the skin drawn white.

"Next, I will tell you what is about to happen in the village after they have made all the necessary preparations."

Sahara Mizu's voice was calm and detached, carrying a mechanical coldness. He raised one finger toward her. "First, they will use large amounts of 'anti-corruption' rhetoric to conceal what they are doing."

"Then, they will use this opportunity to select a suitable opening."

"They will first use some seemingly insignificant matter that could affect everyone as a pivot for public opinion, artificially exaggerate its harm, and pile on a host of baseless accusations."

He spoke as though he had witnessed such events countless times before, as if he had crossed through time and seen it with his own eyes. He had even chosen the process and the cast.

"The best opening would be a ninja clan that is neither too high nor too low among Konoha's upper ranks, has little backing, and possesses a middling population and economic scale."

"Looking across all of Konoha, the candidates are only a few clans like the Inuzuka, Aburame, and Kurama."

"In terms of size, the Inuzuka are most likely the best fit."

"Have you heard?"

"One of the Inuzuka Clan's Summoning Dogs suddenly lost control while delivering messages on the battlefield."

"No way. They are a clan of professional dog trainers. A Summoning Dog that can take commands and understand human speech costs several hundred thousand ryo."

"It's true! My third uncle's daughter-in-law's cousin's sister was fighting alongside a Summoning Dog when it suddenly bit her leg. That dog could not even tell friend from foe anymore."

"Hey! If the camp had not been behind them, she nearly would have died at the hands of Sand Village ninja."

"I heard that too, I heard that too!"

"The front-line veterinarians said pet food had been mixed with dead dog meat and brains. Every batch of Summoning Dogs that ate that food got sick."

"They look perfectly normal usually, but the moment they see blood, they go mad..."

"Really?"

One person told two, two told three, and three made a tiger.

Rumors that anyone could tell were nonsense at first rapidly became "truths" circulating only underground and among civilians once enough people repeated them.

At first, only ordinary people were spreading such claims, and the Inuzuka Clan paid them no attention.

But ordinary people lived around ninja, and through everyday conversation, these invisible rumors naturally entered the ninja community.

By then, there was no longer any trace to follow back to the source of the rumors.

And that was not all.

After receiving the Inuzuka Clan's report, the Uchiha Police Force launched a large-scale rumor lockdown and source investigation. Instead, this made those who had not paid much attention to the rumors begin feeling curious about these "truths."

In less than a week, more and more people began "independently deducing" the truth behind the rumor that "an Inuzuka Clan Summoning Dog had gone mad."

First, the Summoning Dog had eaten meat from diseased dogs. Then, the money for grain feed had been skimmed.

After that, someone said the Inuzuka Clan had always used inferior grain for feed. Someone else heard that, in order to save money on feed, the Inuzuka Clan had made under-the-table deals with Konoha Grain Company.

Then everyone began spreading that the Inuzuka Clan had exploited its members' connections to manipulate Konoha's food department. And it was not only the food that was problematic—the diseased dogs from before had supposedly died because of drug abuse.

Until, in the end, everyone knew that the Inuzuka Clan head held enormous power and had engaged in rampant corruption across Konoha's food and pharmaceutical sectors...

More and more "truths" kept emerging. An endless stream of "facts" was spread among the people, and those worried about disruptions to their lives began filing reports wave after wave.

All of this happened within a short span of time before many ninja clans could even notice.

"Haah."

Black Jade Maru, the slender hound lying by the shop entrance with its two forepaws stretched out, basked in the sun and let out a long yawn.

It looked at the empty street outside its shop, tilting its head in puzzlement.

Usually, not many people came wandering around here either, but the ninja dog food sold by its family was fairly popular. Every so often, two or three ninja dogs would drag their owners back to buy something new to try.

But for some reason, there had not been a single soul on the entire street these past two days. The shop was not making money, which meant it was not eating well.

Last night, it had not even gotten braised pork at home.

"So annoying."

Black Jade Maru lay on the ground and muttered softly.

As it was thinking, its ears suddenly perked up, catching the sound of footsteps in the distance.

Its sensitive nose took another careful sniff, and its eyes immediately lit up.

There had to be at least a dozen people.

That was a huge sale.

Thinking this, it immediately got to its feet and trotted out the door to try and attract customers.

"Customers! Customers!"

"The Black Bear Ninja Dog Food Store is twenty percent off today! White meat, red meat, Cloud Village beef—we have every flavor! Hurry and bring your dogs over to try some—"

Before it could finish its signature sales pitch, however, the entire squad of fully armed figures dressed like Anbu had already kicked open the door of the house at the very end of the street and shouted,

"Clan Head Inuzuka Gentai!"

"Wait! Who are you people?" The unfortunate clan head had clearly not yet grasped the situation. "I did not receive an investigation order from the Hokage's direct Anbu."

But the ninja dressed as Anbu at the front clearly had no intention of listening to him and instead shouted loudly,

"Under the temporary proposal for the Wartime Special Investigation Ordinance put forward by Lord Tsunade last week, and based on reports from numerous Konoha Ninja and residents, your ninja clan is suspected of large-scale food smuggling, illegal pharmaceutical smuggling, unfair competition, and violations involving Summoning Beasts!"

"Please come with us immediately!"

"Wait! I have bled for Konoha! I have rendered service to Konoha!"

"You... you bastards—!"

Black Jade Maru stood at the doorway, cleverly poking half its body out as it watched helplessly while the old clan head, who had been pretty nice to it, was dragged out through the door by a group of people dressed as Anbu.

It immediately tucked in its balls and tail.

Damn it. There probably would not be any meat for dinner tonight either.

This chapter is 3k words. I wrote a little extra and only just finished it.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, everyone!