"It had to be Orochimaru. These guys who married into the clan are so petty!" Akaseki immediately decided who was making trouble for White Fang.
Then Akaseki promptly asked, "How did you hear about this?"
"Captain Orochimaru sent Uchiha Jie here with a scroll. I heard it from him," Ranwu explained.
"A Jie? I'll go see him right now." Akaseki hurried off to find him.
Ranwu had had the same idea, which was why she had come to Akaseki.
"Akaseki!" A Jie greeted him at once when he saw him.
"A Jie, are you heading back to the village afterward... ahem, are you going to see Orochimaru afterward? I have something to tell you!" Seeing Ranwu follow him over, Akaseki immediately changed his wording.
Who could be so inhumane as to incite people to condemn Hatake Sakumo...
How could Akaseki not know?
"I'm heading back to the village first. Orochimaru has other missions for me... What is it? Do you have any instructions, Akaseki?" A Jie nodded.
Clearly, Orochimaru had been quite personable and gotten along well with them.
Besides...
Orochimaru had specifically sent Uchiha Jie to Rōran with the scroll before having him return to the village... Akaseki felt there was a hint in that arrangement!
Akaseki figured Orochimaru wanted him to say something fair and stop the Uchiha Clan from continuing this nonsense.
The Uchiha Clan had made such a fuss this time partly because White Fang really had affected negotiations with Sunagakure, disrupting the strategic policy of turning Sunagakure into an outsourcing operation. The Uchiha Clan stood to benefit most from that strategy, which explained their agitation. But there was also likely an element of deliberately suppressing Hatake Sakumo.
After all, as far as everyone else was concerned, the likeliest candidates for Fourth Hokage were Uchiha