The Third Hokage returned to Konoha looking exceptionally peaceful.
As the Third Hokage's Summoning Beast and an eyewitness to last night's events, Enma's testimony carried considerable weight. At last, the whole sequence of events began to come together:
Taking advantage of the tense situation in Konoha over the past few days, Shimura Danzō, who had long coveted control of Konoha's government, first brought the rogue ninja Orochimaru into the village. He then incited unrest among the Uchiha before taking advantage of the chaos to bring Orochimaru before the Third Hokage.
Orochimaru used forced summoning to take the Third Hokage away from Konoha. After that came Shimura Danzō's attempt to slander Yuhara and seize Konoha's highest authority.
In the end, Danzō's plan had succeeded only halfway. The victor of the battle far from Konoha was Orochimaru. The Third Hokage had no way to return to Konoha as its leader. Unfortunately, Danzō did not become Hokage either, because a kind-hearted ninja stopped him and conveniently finished him off.
As for why Danzō had done such a thing, most people no longer found it difficult to understand once they looked back on it.
On one hand, the village environment had been far too lenient toward him. Danzō held a high position, possessed overwhelming force, and acted with extreme independence and determination. Openly or covertly, no one knew how many of the Hokage's orders he had disobeyed or how many things forbidden by Konoha he had secretly done.
On the other hand, Danzō had grown increasingly dissatisfied with the changes within the village. He was unhappy with the Hokage's indecisiveness regarding the Uchiha, and even more dissatisfied with the Hokage's tolerance toward certain other people.
Danzō's ambition had continued to grow, while his patience had reached its limit. At some point, he had seemingly