After using Shadow Flash, it took several hours to return to the village.
By then, Konoha was already on high alert.
Orochimaru's defection had thrown the entire village into an uproar.
Even the lower-ranking ninjas and ordinary people knew about it.
The huge wave it caused was not limited to public opinion.
There was also an actual political vetting.
The ANBU under Hiruzen Sarutobi's command mobilized as a group.
The Uchiha Police Force cooperated with them.
Large numbers of ninjas were imprisoned one after another.
From the moment the first ninja was taken in until now, not a single person had been released.
Among these ninjas,
some were sent to the Torture Department after Hyuga Sho left.
They waited to be interrogated by Morino Ibiki and the others.
These people... were more or less Orochimaru's die-hard loyalists, the kind with stubborn bones.
Their threat level
was higher than the others'.
It was highly likely that they would later serve as Orochimaru's agents within the village, gathering intelligence for him.
Therefore...
a bloody purge was unavoidable.
Fortunately,
this would not shake the village's foundations.
That was because among Konoha's elite, the members of the Jonin Squad, there were very few Jonin who were Orochimaru's die-hard loyalists.
This point
could be seen clearly from Orochimaru's complete failure to be elected Fourth Hokage.
As long as the village's elite... the Jonin Squad, did not fall,
the brainwashing of Special Jonin, Chunin, and Genin would not affect the village's foundations.
At this moment,
the people imprisoned in the Torture Department were precisely those few Jonin in the Jonin Squad who had voted for Orochimaru during the Fourth Hokage election.
They were expelled from the Jonin Squad.
As the personnel posing the greatest threat, they were handed over to the Interrogation Department for separate questioning.