Hyuga Hiashi wasn't an ill-tempered man. He was usually mild-mannered in his dealings with others. Unfortunately, the person he was dealing with was from the Uchiha Clan—Uchiha Kazuto, of all people, that damn traitor and treacherous minister.
Clear the court of evil! Clear the court of evil!
Lord Hokage, you've lost your senses! How can you govern well with someone like Uchiha Kazuto at your side?
If it were anyone else, he could have spoken to them pleasantly and amiably.
"Clan Head Hiashi, you know about the Study Corps, right? As members of the village, how can you shinobi clans neglect to study the great Will of Fire and listen to the guidance of the great Hokage? Lord Hokage has already approved this. Now, I need you to assign one-fifth of the Hyuga Clan's idle personnel to attend the Study Corps."
Uchiha Kazuto glanced at the Hyuga Clan's gates, then looked at Hyuga Hiashi and spoke.
"What?!"
A look of surprise appeared on Hyuga Hiashi's face. The Study Corps? What Study Corps? That so-called Study Corps the Uchiha Clan had set up? They wanted the Hyuga Clan to study the Will of Fire under the Uchiha Clan's management? That sort of thing...
"What is it, Clan Head Hiashi? Are you going to defy Lord Hokage's orders?"
Uchiha Kazuto tilted his head slightly. The sound of weapons being drawn rang out behind him as the Military Police Force members unsheathed their weapons and stared impassively at Hyuga Hiashi.
"Understood. I'll go organize my people and have them join the Study Corps right away!"
Seeing this, Hyuga Hiashi's expression darkened. He agreed without hesitation, then turned and left.
Humiliation! What an utter humiliation!
Uchiha Kazuto!!!
Hyuga Hiashi clenched his fists. He never imagined that the Uchiha Clan would produce someone like Uchiha Kazuto, someone who had dragged the Uchiha Clan straight into Konoha's politics and even won the favor of that old bastard Hiruzen Sarutobi.
No Uchiha before him had ever managed that. Damn him!
The only thing that comforted him was that Uchiha Kazuto was still a member of the Uchiha Clan. There was no way he could become Hokage.
Judging by Uchiha Kazuto's current behavior, he seriously suspected that if Kazuto became Hokage, he, the Hyuga Clan's clan head, might end up kneeling before that beast.
That must never happen!
As the Hyuga Clan's clan head, he would rather die than kneel before the Uchiha Clan's clan head!
Uchiha Kazuto didn't care what Hyuga Hiashi thought. From the very beginning, he hadn't cared much about Hiashi's opinion. People like him were typical spineless cowards who only acted tough against their own. They came down hard on their clansmen, but groveled and apologized to outsiders.
If he had any backbone at all, he wouldn't have let his younger brother die when his own side was clearly in the right.
This wasn't even a matter of betraying the clan's interests. The man was simply an idiot.
His daughter had been kidnapped. After he killed the kidnappers, he should have been in the right. But instead, he just let his younger brother go out and die in his place, then shed a couple of crocodile tears. The man had to be out of his mind.
How could people like that, a clan like that, have any backbone?
Afterward, Uchiha Kazuto went to inform the other clans in Konoha, telling them to send people to train and study the great Will of Fire.
As members of the village, how could they not understand the Will of Fire?
In truth, although Hiruzen Sarutobi was Hokage, he didn't have the authority to issue orders to every clan in the village by force. Though these clans lived in Konoha, they still retained some autonomy within their own ranks.
Unfortunately, the Uchiha Clan was one of Konoha's major clans. With the Uchiha Clan pressuring them, they had no choice but to obey.
Before long, members of all the major clans had gathered in the Death Forest.
For the sake of his goal, Uchiha Kazuto used up some of his ocular power to activate part of this unit.
From civilian shinobi to shinobi clans—that was Uchiha Kazuto's plan. I don't care what you think. I know that from now on, I'll be in your hearts, and you'll acknowledge me.
Konoha didn't need people who hated him with all their hearts and had no sense of allegiance to him. A Hokage's position like that would be terribly unstable. One wrong move, and Uchiha Kazuto could be forced out. And beyond Konoha were the other great nations and their great shinobi villages.
Uchiha Kazuto didn't want Konoha to fall apart right after his coup, with everyone in the village running off.
Training, training!
Exercise! Exercise! Train them to the point of exhaustion!
Uchiha Kazuto didn't treat these shinobi like people at all. He treated them like beasts and worked them to the bone. They weren't allowed to use Chakra, either. If anyone was caught using Chakra, their training load would increase tenfold, even dozens of times over. If the training didn't kill them, they'd be worked to death.
Shinobi were tough, after all. They could take it.
As for whether this training method actually worked, Uchiha Kazuto didn't care. He only needed to put the shinobi through obedience training, wear down their spirits until they grew numb, and increase their loyalty.
Of course, he couldn't put it that way to anyone else. He could say that this training improved the shinobi's physical fitness and teamwork, and deepened their understanding of their comrades and the Will of Fire. Whatever sounded good—that was what he'd say.
As long as it seemed plausible, and he looked confident enough, people would probably believe him.
In truth, if he weren't worried about giving himself away, Uchiha Kazuto wouldn't bother with this kind of obedience training. He'd just set up a few giant hamster wheels, put a basin of water on each shinobi's head, and make them run around the wheels for a set number of laps.
Say, fifty thousand laps, or five hundred thousand. They'd only be allowed to eat after finishing the required laps without spilling any water from the basin on their heads. If they spilled any, they'd have to start over. They could eat only once they'd finished the laps without spilling a drop.
Whatever it took to torment them, he'd do it. Unfortunately, Uchiha Kazuto couldn't do that. People could tell the difference between training and pure torture. At least what he was doing now still looked like training.
"Heh. Good, good!"
In the distance, Hiruzen Sarutobi watched the shinobi from the clans running laps around Konoha, a smile spreading across his face.
Perhaps he could finally bring these clans fully into Konoha, just as the Senju Clan had been.
Back then, the Senju Clan had disbanded and joined the village under the leadership of his teacher. Hiruzen had thought they could set an example and inspire the other shinobi clans in the village to follow suit. But who could have known that his teacher would sacrifice himself to protect them, his guards? The plan had come to nothing.
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