The People's Will Is the Human Heart (5k)

The riot at the mahjong parlor that day seemed to have been only the beginning.

Ever since that day, more and more people had gathered throughout this desolate village, only to be promptly dispersed by the tightly surveilling Anbu and Uchiha Police Force.

Yet whether civilians or ordinary ninja born of civilians, they seemed no longer afraid of the once-formidable Anbu and others. Almost every day, the sounds of gatherings and clashes could be heard rising and falling throughout the village.

Bang—

Staring at the loss report on the desk, Sarutobi Hiruzen slammed his fist down hard.

The veins on the middle-aged man's forehead stood taut, his expression grim to the extreme.

"They're struggling at the front, and someone's feasting at the rear."

"You, my disciple, are actually coming to make trouble for your teacher?"

This granddaughter of Teacher Tobirama had been his most beloved disciple from childhood to adulthood, without question.

Yet in Sarutobi Hiruzen's heart, Tsunade now felt as though she had stabbed him in the back.

Yes.

To Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Disabled Ninja Association, Konoha Revival Society, Civilian Ninja Union, Civilian and Ninja Clan Friendship Association, and all the other groups that had suddenly sprung up from every obscure corner were all Tsunade rubbing salt in his wounds.

Since she did not possess a direct armed force like Root, she naturally had to obtain power through other means.

At least, that was how Sarutobi Hiruzen saw it.

But in Sarutobi Hiruzen's view, Tsunade should never, under any circumstances, have confronted him, the Hokage, head-on. Nor should she have damaged his authority as Hokage through all those messy rumors.

The Will of Fire had painstakingly built its theoretical foundation over more than a decade, yet with one stroke, she had made those theories fail and drawn so many people to follow behind her. Didn't that make him, the Hokage, look utterly incompetent?

No matter how excessive Shimura Danzō's actions had been, he had never encroached upon the Hokage's sphere of influence, had he?

As a seasoned politician, he had an exceptionally clear understanding of the rules of this game.

"Hmph."

Sitting beside him, Shimura Danzō watched his headache-ridden expression and sneered softly. "So now you've finally realized the threat that foolish woman poses?"

"I told you long ago that you would regret it, Hiruzen."

"Now look at this. Several ninja clans can barely keep their businesses running, and only then did they come to me."

"Tell me, why put yourselves through all this?"

Shimura Danzō's smile grew ever more smug.

Under his unscrupulous execution, Hiruko's strategy had achieved tremendous success.

In his view, both these ninja clans and the civilians were people who knew neither their place nor proper respect.

If strength was not displayed before them, there would always be some blind fools who suddenly jumped out to cause trouble at crucial moments.

As for Tsunade's little act of resistance, it was even more laughable.

What waves could a mere handful of civilian ninja possibly stir before true powerhouses?

Listening to his smug laughter, Sarutobi Hiruzen seemed to suddenly realize something. He abruptly raised his head and looked at him, saying coldly:

"Danzo, I advise you to put away those little schemes of yours."

"Do you think I care about the trivial matter of a few shops being smashed up?"

"Tch."

Shimura Danzō wore the posture of a victor now, letting out a disdainful laugh.

"Don't worry."

"Those mediocre fools at the chunin level won't cause any major problems, even on the battlefield."

The moment he heard that, Sarutobi Hiruzen knew Danzo had not noticed the true severity of the problem at all.

He turned his head and spoke to his old friend in a low voice. "Have you ever considered whose interests our so-called Hokage faction actually represents?"

"If Tsunade gains the support of those people, will we still be the Hokage faction?"

"Those civilian ninja?" Danzo instinctively felt that Hiruzen was trying to fool him again.

"Those civilian ninja."

Yet Sarutobi Hiruzen's voice was firmer than ever. "—So no matter what, you cannot lay a hand on those people."

Danzo immediately frowned.

From the standpoint of his own interests, he instinctively believed this was because Sarutobi Hiruzen's prestige had suffered a blow, and he wanted to forcibly suppress both sides and end this pointless struggle.

But he was about to win!

Several representatives from the ninja clans had already come to negotiate with him.

And this old bastard wanted to step in and play favorites now?

Besides, he truly felt that Sarutobi Hiruzen was making a mountain out of a molehill.

So what if a few civilian ninja led a group of civilians in a riot?

Forget arresting them. Even if they slaughtered them all, who would know in this village with its sealed-off communications?

Every year, Root's laboratories gained so many extra orphans for selecting spies and personnel, and so many additional test subjects for experimenting with Ninjutsu. Hadn't they all been captured from the village and surrounding areas?

It was not as if Hiruzen did not know about these things.

The more he thought about it, the stronger Danzo's feeling that Hiruzen was deceiving him became.

"..."

"What if I say no?"

Sarutobi Hiruzen looked at him quietly and said icily, "Then don't blame me for taking action."

"Hiruzen." Danzo habitually tried to say something.

But Sarutobi Hiruzen cut him off at once. "Danzo, I am the Hokage!"

He had even answered before Danzo could.

"Hmph."

Without another word, Danzo slammed the door with a bang and left.

The more Hiruzen opposed him, the firmer his conviction became.

This time, no one would stop him from marching toward victory!

After leaving the room, Aburame Ryoma, who had listened to the entire exchange, asked one extra question:

"Lord Danzo, then what should we do if we encounter that group of rioters afterward...?"

Shimura Danzō waved a hand dismissively.

"As usual."

"Understood."

"..."

Inside the room, Sarutobi Hiruzen watched Danzo's retreating back. Thinking again of his own disciple digging to the root of the matter with such relentless determination, his heart grew heavier still.

In the end, he let out a long sigh.

"Notices have already been posted at the Hokage Building. The reason your shop was searched was obviously because of the 'investigation order' proposed by Lord Tsunade. If your family was investigated, then you must have been evading taxes!"

"Bullshit! They said during the speeches by the Disabled Ninja Association and Civilian Ninja Union that Lord Tsunade was clearly investigating those big shots—look, it's written plain as day in this issue of the Konoha Civilian Ninja Newspaper."

"How can you curse people? Could the notices from the Hokage Building and Uchiha Police Force possibly be fake? What is there to read in your little roadside rag?"

"A lie is still a lie."

Similar arguments could be heard in any restaurant along the street.

But perhaps because the skylight had been opened, all manner of ninja riots had raised the Uchiha Police Force's threshold. Arguments like these, which normally would have resulted in arrests, were no longer taken very seriously.

Konoha Prison was only so large. With so many people suddenly locked up lately, where would they find enough rice to feed them all?

Several Uchiha ninja on the rooftops had clearly heard it, yet they passed by as though nothing had happened.

"Konoha people are the most devoted to moderation. If you suggest opening a window, they will absolutely refuse. But if you suggest tearing off the roof, they will rush to mediate and compromise, agreeing to open the window."

Tsunade, transformed into another appearance, listened in secret to the noisy quarrel inside the restaurant and silently drank a cup of tea.

Sahara Mizu's words involuntarily echoed in her mind.

During this month of waiting for public opinion to take effect, she had initially been extremely anxious. She had even feared that the civilian ninja they had stirred up would be suppressed on a massive scale, causing many people to lose their lives.

After all, Konoha was a standard military organization. Making such radical statements in the village should, by rights, have resulted in execution by the Anbu.

Yet the outcome Tsunade had feared had not come to pass. Instead, things had gradually developed just as Sahara Mizu had foretold.

"Fight for rights, and rights endure; compromise for rights, and rights perish."

Over the past month, they had merely helped some impoverished ninja who had been disabled in the war, holding what Lord Mizu had called a "complaint meeting" among them.

For some reason, those people had suddenly seemed to become entirely different. They burst forth with a drive that even Tsunade herself could hardly imagine. Gone was the hardship-worn appearance they had shown when she first met them. They began traveling about and giving speeches like Sahara Mizu, calling upon people who shared their circumstances.

In only a short month, more than a dozen associations of all sizes had appeared in Konoha, along with several additional magazines and small newspapers.

"However, this alone is nowhere near enough."

"Just as Konoha was founded through years of bloody war between the Senju and Uchiha clans, Konoha's reform today must likewise begin with bloodshed and sacrifice."

Tsunade sipped her tea, recalling the expression Sahara Mizu had worn when he spoke those words—so resolute it had seemed almost cold.

It was as though he had personally witnessed similar history somewhere before. From the moment he spoke those words, he had anticipated the scene unfolding now.

"Lord Tsunade, what we are doing is evil. We are villains to the victims as well. Only for those who come after us can there barely be a passable outcome."

"We are merely lice clinging to this elephant, rushing out of this cage alongside them for the sake of survival."

"Through only the pain caused by sucking blood, we give them a tiny bit of momentum to charge forward."

"Precisely because of this, if you have the chance to lead them onward in the future, please proceed cautiously and with a heart full of guilt."

The words spoken beneath that youthful face seemed tempered by countless hardships, carrying an absurd sense of dissonance.

Yet when every word he had spoken became reality, no one could laugh anymore.

Whoosh—!

Just as Tsunade was thinking this, bursts of deafening shouts and speeches suddenly erupted from a Root stronghold disguised as a library not far from this secluded restaurant.

Before long, they turned into the wails of civilian ninja under Root's attacks.

Hearing the sounds, Tsunade slowly closed her eyes. Yet the fist resting on the tabletop involuntarily clenched, turning white.

At that moment, this softhearted woman unexpectedly shrank back a little.

If avenging Dan Katō and making vermin like Shimura Danzō pay the price required more people to die, could she truly remain steadfast in her determination for revenge?

Yet with matters having developed this far, everything was already beyond her control.

On the cliff across from this street, Sahara Mizu opened his brilliant sapphire eyes, which seemed to contain glittering stars, and silently looked toward the corpses scattered before that Root stronghold.

It could not be helped. Due to the reality that the period for propaganda and mobilization had been far too short, every resolute person among the few people he had organized was extremely important. He truly could not allow them to be wasted.

Thus, this batch of people had all been borrowed Suicide Squad members transferred from Karatachi Yagura.

But it did not matter.

After these people died, no one would care whether they had once been civilians or spies.

Everyone in Konoha only needed to know that an organization called Root had slaughtered seventeen people without regard for right or wrong merely because civilians had given speeches inside a library.

That was enough.

A black pot had to be firmly slapped onto the head that deserved it.

And so, while Shimura Danzō and Sarutobi Hiruzen were still utterly bewildered.

After a full month and a half of brewing, with countless clashes and speeches raising everyone's threshold.

A massive gathering that swept across all of Konoha, unprecedented in scale and numbering ten thousand people, finally unfolded at noon the next day before the main entrance of the Hokage Building.

Before the speech began, everyone stood quietly waiting before the Hokage Building, packing the intersection so tightly that not even water could pass through.

Before the Hokage Building's doors, the Anbu, facing such a situation for the first time, stood guard as though confronting a great enemy. Cold sweat poured down their faces as they watched the gathered crowd.

If something truly happened here, were they supposed to act or not?

Lord Third Hokage had not given any orders...

Meanwhile, Sarutobi Hiruzen stood in the Hokage's Office on the fourth floor, looking through the floor-to-ceiling window at the endless crowd gathered at the intersection. He was not even holding the pipe that never left his side, his expression dark to the extreme.

The worst outcome he had envisioned had appeared.

At the same time.

Tsunade, Sahara Mizu, and Hatake Sakumo stood behind the temporary speaking platform.

Taking advantage of this brief time, they lowered their heads and whispered to one another.

"Lord Tsunade, have you memorized your speech?"

"It was barely anything. I memorized it after reading it a few times. But will what you wrote actually work?"

"You only need to speak. Once you do, we'll win."

"What about these people? Were they all brought here by you?"

"No. They follow whoever wins."

"Then why did you make me—"

The scattered murmurs did not carry into the even more chaotic crowd before them.

Even when Tsunade, Sahara Mizu, and Hatake Sakumo stepped onto the temporary platform, the crowd below did not fall silent.

Most of them were not so passionate. They had merely heard that someone had been killed for giving a speech and followed on impulse. Some simply saw the size of the crowd, figured the law could not punish everyone, and came along to see what excitement there was.

Yet for some reason.

When their eyes met the strikingly young boy's sapphire gaze on the platform, and they saw his lips seemingly murmur something, an intense, inexplicable sorrow and grief suddenly welled up in their hearts, as though they had been "infected" by his emotions.

Gradually, the people below slowly fell silent.

Under the solemn response of the crowd, even Tsunade, who had been deeply worried, could not help but calm herself.

The atmosphere was stirred by the collective reaction.

Guided by that atmosphere, Tsunade, already softhearted and emotional by nature, looked over the crowd and almost naturally shouted the speech she had long memorized perfectly:

"The conflict between the Council of Elders and me at the Jonin Council has likely already been learned by all of you through the newspapers."

"We have always known that Lord Third Generation Sarutobi Hiruzen, as Hokage, had his authority hollowed out by the Council of Elders, who were fellow disciples of the Second Hokage, due to his trust in them."

"Yet I still never anticipated that something like this would happen."

"Only this morning did I learn that civilian ninja had given speeches at the library yesterday. The moment I opened my eyes, I received terrible news that Root had actually unleashed large-scale Ninjutsu, leaving dozens dead and wounded, with Ida-kun of the Disabled Ninja Association among the victims."

"But I found myself deeply doubtful of these reports."

"I have never feared to judge the Council of Elders by the worst possible malice, yet I still had not expected—nor could I believe—that they would be so vile and brutal."

"Yet today, it has been proven true. The witness is his own corpse. And another corpse belongs to Tajima-kun."

"..."

Amid this painful and sorrowful speech, and the negligible hypnotic effect brought by Kyoka Suigetsu, the crowd standing at the intersection listened quietly to Lord Tsunade's speech, looking up at her.

In truth, Konoha was only so big, with a total population of barely over two hundred thousand.

For more than a month, all kinds of associations had been active everywhere. How could longtime Konoha residents, with their extensive networks of connections, not know what had happened in the village over the past month?

The war still raged at the front, yet news of corruption among the higher-ups had erupted in the rear, only to be called a misunderstanding, a rumor.

All kinds of chaotic information had mixed together into an incomprehensible mess.

In the end, everything drove them to come and hear how Tsunade, as the head of the Senju Clan and one of Konoha's higher-ups, would explain herself before the public.

Thus, by choosing to stand before everyone head-on, Tsunade had unknowingly seized the right to explain.

Everyone who had no choice but to listen fell silent.

And it was far from only them who had chosen to listen.

Sarutobi Hiruzen in the Hokage Building was listening. The Anbu guarding the entrance against a riot were listening. The many ninja standing atop the rooftops were listening. The ninja clan heads mingling among the crowd were listening as well.

Even Shimura Danzō, rumored to be the culprit behind it all, was listening too.

It was just that his expression was far less composed.

Shimura Danzō stood on a distant rooftop, staring blankly at the scene at the street corner. Confusion kept surfacing in his one eye, while an inexplicable chill ran through his entire body.

He was utterly terrified.

Cold sweat continuously seeped out, nearly soaking his entire back.

What is she trying to do?

What exactly is Tsunade trying to do?!

Orochimaru, standing on the other side, merely frowned slightly as he listened with great interest to his former classmate's speech. Recalling the signs from the past month, he seemed to suddenly understand something.

However, he understood Tsunade all too well.

Orochimaru knew very clearly that woman did not possess such insight, innovation, or skill.

Naturally, his snake eyes-like gaze shifted toward the young man standing beside Tsunade.

As for the speech itself, there was actually little to say.

Even Orochimaru, who did not understand the human heart, could see it.

From the moment Tsunade had created "the need to gather these people here," she had already won. Nothing could stop this anymore.

"The hearts of the people are the human heart... is that it?" Orochimaru murmured as he watched the scene before him.

"What an extraordinary fellow."

He was not the only one who understood this.

His teacher, Lord Sarutobi Hiruzen, who prided himself on mastering political maneuvering, naturally understood it as well.

At that moment, Sarutobi Hiruzen stood high above, listening in silence.

He listened as the voices below shifted from grief to excitement, then rose into impassioned fervor.

"Rattle, rattle—"

At last, the dense crowd gradually cast off its mournful atmosphere, erupting into deafening cheers and applause.

At that moment, he suddenly understood.

As the Third Hokage, he had completely lost a portion of the people's hearts.

(Fifth Hokage · Tsunade ↑)

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