Scapegoat King Danzo

Scapegoat King Danzo

After Hozuki Shingetsu had a few novelists polish the article and "verified" several heart-wrenching little stories, the whole thing spread across the Shinobi Continent at lightning speed.

Before the Land of Water shut itself off from the world, it had been the island closest to the mainland and the economic and trade hub of the entire eastern Shinobi World. Merchants and cargo ships had come and gone in an endless stream. Though trade had since plummeted because of the isolationist policy, those connections still remained for the time being. With the help of those merchants, the story slowly began to spread around the world.

First, it was important to understand that in this era, the people who controlled public opinion weren't the commoners, but the nobility. Only nobles and shinobi could read, and shinobi, being detached from everyday life, generally had no interest in manipulating public opinion. So, all you had to do was win over the nobles to control the world's narrative.

For nobles who were always fond of making a fuss over nothing and waxing lyrical about romance, this explosive news landing right in front of them added plenty of color to their otherwise dreary lives. What's more, it involved Konoha and the Land of Fire, the strongest pairing in the Shinobi World. With their appetite for gossip ablaze, they naturally tore into it without restraint.

Especially since the article's central theme could be summed up in one word: "peace."

Since the Shinobi World's history began, war and unrest had never ceased. In particular, after Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara joined forces to establish the "one nation, one village" system, peace hadn't followed. Instead, the First Shinobi World War, which broke out after their deaths, had only escalated the scale of warfare. For that reason, quite a few people were dissatisfied with Senju Hashirama.

Anyone with eyes could see that someone was targeting Konoha... but who cared?

In this situation, with someone sounding the charge, the idle noble lords were naturally happy to lend a little support.

After all, no one had ever been prosecuted for advocating peace. More importantly, all it took was a little talk to earn them prestige. Why not do it?

Besides... damn, this sort of lofty, politically correct rhetoric was exactly to the noble lords' taste.

Just imagine: while you were still bragging about how many beautiful maids your family had, what rank of clothes you wore, or what you ate, someone else opened their mouth and talked about peace and the fate of the Shinobi World.

What was that?

Ever heard of "scholars in conversation, no commoners among their guests"?

Bragging about material things all day showed no noble refinement. You couldn't even show off properly. You were an embarrassment to the nobility!

Strip them of their noble status at once!

In the end, once this trend took hold, anyone who didn't criticize Konoha was immediately branded a "warmonger" or "the mastermind behind unrest in the Shinobi World." Before long, the nobles were writing their own "editorials," drawing on the material Hozuki Shingetsu had fabricated.

As for Konoha's attitude...

In the eyes of the noble lords, shinobi were no different from commoners: they were all lowly people. One kind of lowly person provided them with food, while the other fought their wars. Beyond that, there was no difference.

There was even a courageous soul who rushed to the Tenshukaku of the Land of Fire's Daimyo, hoping to confirm whether His Excellency had been controlled by the Hokage...

Well, all you could say was that the mighty Land of Fire still had loyal subjects!

If even the nobles of the Land of Fire were acting this way, there was no need to mention the nobles of other countries.

So they didn't care at all about Konoha's or the Hokage's reputation. They seized on the Konoha Threat Theory and launched into passionate tirades.

As the saying went, "When the King of Chu admired slender waists, many in his court starved themselves." With the nobles setting an example, the commoners under them learned about the affair too and began discussing it.

They didn't know who the Hokage or Danzo were, or even which direction Konoha lay in, but that didn't stop them from weighing in.

Besides, it was human nature to enjoy seeing people better off than oneself run into trouble.

As the commoners saw it, once the Hokage and Danzo got into trouble, they wouldn't be able to plant crops with golden hoes anymore, right? That would be wonderful.

To make sure the message reached every corner of the Shinobi World from every angle in a short time, Hozuki Shingetsu also had plays and jokes written, then got troupes, storytellers, and poets to perform and recite them. The point was to make sure even those who couldn't read knew what was being said.

The approach was both highbrow and lowbrow, with no blind spots in the campaign.

Thanks to Hozuki Shingetsu's efforts, the commoners were reminded of how hard life had been during the First Shinobi World War over a decade earlier. Comparing that to the present, they began—without even realizing it—to connect their own wretched lives under the nobles' exploitation with Konoha.

The effect wasn't obvious yet, but there was plenty of time. Given enough time and persistence, it would eventually work.

This was a despicable tactic the Shinobi World had never seen before. With no experience dealing with it, Konoha naturally had no precautions in place. The spies Konoha had planted in various regions focused almost entirely on the military and shinobi intelligence of the other villages. Who would pay attention to trivial matters between nobles and commoners?

And even if they wanted to glean intelligence about an enemy force's supply movements from everyday minutiae, those spies would only investigate the daily lives of commoners in the major shinobi villages. Besides, as enemies... wasn't it normal for people to insult each other?

The intensity and frequency might have been a little unusual... but when it came to Lord Danzo, it actually seemed pretty normal after a bit of thought.

After all, no matter how outrageous something was, the moment Lord Danzo was involved, it somehow started to seem reasonable.

"Lord Danzo must have carried out another one of his plans. That's why so many people hate him!"

That was what the spies naturally concluded after hearing the villagers' insults directed at Konoha's leadership.

"Just as you'd expect from Konoha's 'Shinobi no Yami'! What a ruthless move. If this many people are cursing him, Lord Danzo must have caused the other villages some serious losses, right?"

By convention, no one would report this kind of thing to the village. After all, surely no intelligence officer was foolish enough to include a section in their report quoting the enemy's "rapper" offering heartfelt regards to their own leader's family?

So, a month later, when the Land of Fire's Daimyo sent an envoy to Konoha, who angrily told him about the matter in the Hokage's office and conveyed the Daimyo's orders,

Sarutobi Hiruzen's first thought wasn't that it was a plot by another country. Instead, it was... Had that brat Danzo gone and done something behind my back again?