Even now, when the Third Hokage's old friend Danzo had already ordered the Uchiha's elimination.
The Third Hokage was still looking for a proper way to resolve the conflict between the Uchiha and the village.
The Uchiha would rebel tomorrow. Was the Third Hokage really still pretending he knew nothing?
Either he was truly merciful, or he was a hypocrite.
He deliberately dragged the problem out, leaving Danzo, a senior official who wanted nothing more than to eliminate the Uchiha, to make the decision without authorization.
Once the Uchiha Clan Massacre was over, he would disband Danzo's Root and criticize his rash, unauthorized decision.
He could resolve the conflict between the Uchiha and the village while also putting Danzo in his place.
But whatever kind of man the Third Hokage was no longer mattered to Itachi.
He would only do what he believed was just.
He had been on the battlefield and witnessed real war. Itachi never wanted to see those hellish scenes a second time.
The Third Hokage would never be so easily controlled by the Uchiha people, and the Leaf Village was not so weak and helpless.
The moment something happened in the Leaf Village, Kumogakure, which was watching hungrily, would invade the Land of Fire.
That would spark the Fourth Shinobi World War.
Itachi did not want to see that happen.
To prevent the coming war, the Uchiha problem had to be resolved as soon as possible.
Every last Uchiha had to be eliminated.
By having Itachi act, Danzo wanted to present the Uchiha problem as an internal clan disaster, a spontaneous idea Itachi had come up with alone.
That would conceal many of the Leaf Village's fundamental problems.
It was like a piece of clothing: if it became dirty, that was the seller's fault, rather than