Inside the Root base in Konoha Village.
Danzo, the Darkness of Konoha, received some new intelligence from Orochimaru.
"Sand Village has special bloodlines that are perfectly compatible with first hokage cells?"
"Capturing them could improve our chances of safely awakening Wood Release?"
Danzo frowned deeply. His secret collaboration with Orochimaru was meant to provoke a war between Sand Village and Konoha Village, giving Orochimaru an opportunity to kill Hiruzen Sarutobi.
Then he would have a chance to become the Fifth Hokage and fulfill his dream.
How had the plan changed so drastically?
If I make a move against Sand Village, will it affect the Konoha Crush Plan?
On one side was the hope of safely awakening Wood Release; on the other was the Konoha Crush Plan to kill Hiruzen Sarutobi...
Of course, he also suspected that Orochimaru, that sinister snake, was scheming against him.
Still, he did not believe Orochimaru would simply betray their partnership.
He immediately dispatched Root ninja to investigate the intelligence.
If an opportunity arose, they could naturally capture those people with special bloodlines while they were at it.
After all, under their Konoha Crush Plan, Root would never show itself to protect Hiruzen Sarutobi, the so-called Third Hokage.
He had even quietly done plenty to poison Kakashi Hatake's opinion of him.
When the time came, not only would Kakashi stop Might Guy, but even the ANBU might refuse to protect Hiruzen Sarutobi.
He would let Hiruzen Sarutobi and Orochimaru, master and student, put on a fine show of killing each other.
Everyone in Konoha feared and hated Danzo, but the ninja clans were no less disgusted by the power-hungry Hiruzen Sarutobi.
Especially the clans that had bet heavily on the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, before his sudden death during the Nine-Tails' Rampage.
One by one, they