Manipulating Public Opinion!

Konoha!

It was bustling today.

Countless villagers hurried toward the same destination from all over.

"Have you heard? The Uchiha are about to be driven to their deaths by the village leadership!"

"Yeah. They won't even let them leave the village, and they're withholding their mission assignments. They're treating them like criminals!"

"And they still haven't paid the Uchiha the money from their relocation years ago. I heard plenty of them have starved to death!"

"Why is the village leadership doing this to the Uchiha? Aren't they one of Konoha's great clans?"

"I'm telling you this, but don't repeat it to anyone else. I heard it's because of the Second Hokage. He was determined to wipe out the Uchiha, so now they're being suppressed and targeted in every way!"

"What a tragic fate for a great clan!"

One rumor after another spread among the villagers.

But anyone paying close attention would notice that the "villagers" spreading these rumors soon disappeared into the crowd, only to rejoin the gathering a little later under new identities.

Public opinion!

White Dove was far more skilled at manipulating it than anyone else.

After all, in the era he'd come from, the internet had been flooded with all sorts of rumors and fake news. The battles there had been truly spectacular. He hadn't given the Shinobi World's little tricks a second thought.

If he hadn't stayed out of the entertainment industry before crossing over, his methods would have been even more outrageous.

But even without that experience, his methods were more than this underdeveloped media landscape in the Shinobi World could handle.

With the talking points White Dove had prepared in advance, the villagers had quickly come to sympathize with and understand the Uchiha's actions.

After all, the village leadership had suppressed the Uchiha so brutally. It was only understandable that they'd banded together to put some pressure on the leadership...

The Hokage Building.

"The evil Uchiha finally couldn't hold back and rebelled! Damn them!"

After hearing the report from the Anbu member before him, Danzo vented his anger loudly.

He'd called for action many times before, but the other three had all disagreed. Now the Uchiha had indeed rebelled.

Well, although he looked angry, Danzo was actually quite calm. In fact, he was a little pleased.

After all, he'd always had a strong desire for the Sharingan. And if the Uchiha rebelled, the Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, would be held responsible. If Hiruzen stepped down, then the next Hokage would be...

(Tsunade: That would be me!)

So it was hard to say that Danzo, who had relentlessly suppressed the Uchiha and taken such an extreme stance, hadn't deliberately driven them to revolt.

"That's enough, Danzo!" Sarutobi Hiruzen stopped his old friend from using this as an opportunity to make trouble, then explained, "They're only here to demand answers. This isn't a rebellion!"

If it were really a rebellion, would they be moving so slowly, with most of their numbers made up of ordinary clan members?

Those were precisely the reasons Sarutobi Hiruzen hadn't immediately ordered the ninja forces to assemble and crush them.

"Then should we go stop them?"

Utatane Koharu looked at Sarutobi Hiruzen. They couldn't really let that Uchiha group come all the way to the Hokage Building, could they?

"...No. We have to stop them at once. The longer this drags on, the more trouble it'll cause!"

Mitokado Homura reminded them.

More and more villagers were gathering. If they waited until the Uchiha reached the Hokage Building, the impact would be too great.

Suppressing the Uchiha was something they all agreed on, but it was something they could only do, not talk about.

The Uchiha were one of Konoha's great clans, after all. Turning against a clan within the village would cross the line for quite a few others.

"Fine. Let's go see what they're really after!"

Sarutobi Hiruzen stood up, put on his Hokage hat, and prepared to personally stop the Uchiha group.

As he rose, he shot Danzo a displeased look.

This whole mess had started because of him.

But Hiruzen wasn't displeased that Danzo had gone after Shisui. He was displeased that Danzo hadn't cleaned up properly, and that he'd kept the Mangekyo so tightly under wraps that Hiruzen couldn't get his hands on it.

No matter how much resentment Sarutobi Hiruzen felt, he could only suppress it for now. The priority was to deal with the Uchiha's backlash.

He'd originally thought it wouldn't amount to much. After all, they all knew Uchiha Fugaku's temperament.

But who could have expected Uchiha White Dove, a man who'd always kept a low profile, to suddenly step forward and create such a scene?

The four of them set off quickly with the Anbu, heading toward the Uchiha group.

They had to stop them as soon as possible.

The longer they waited, the more villagers would gather, and the bigger the commotion would become.

Ninjas were naturally far faster than ordinary people.

They could also ignore obstacles and travel in a straight line, so it took Sarutobi Hiruzen less than a minute to spot the group.

It hadn't looked like much when viewed through the crystal ball.

But only when he saw it with his own eyes could he feel the pressure the Uchiha group brought with them.

More than a thousand Uchiha had formed the group!

Over a third of them were ninjas. It was fair to say the clan had turned out in full force.

Even Uchiha Fugaku had quietly joined them.

He knew full well that if he didn't come along this time, his days as clan head would be over.

After all, Uchiha White Dove's goal was to demand an explanation from the leadership. If Shisui had been harmed by them, he'd make them "pay blood for blood." White Dove was firmly on the side of justice.

If he, the clan head, wouldn't support the Uchiha over something like this, how could he have the nerve to remain their leader?

So Uchiha Fugaku didn't want to come. He had no choice.

The dark look on his face made his feelings easy to read.

Uchiha Fugaku had always leaned toward talking things out with the leadership and reconciling with the village.

That was why he'd allowed Shisui to join the Anbu and even sent in his most cherished eldest son, to show his sincerity.

The village leadership's escalating pressure had shaken his resolve, but he still hadn't fully switched to the Hawk Faction. That left him deeply conflicted, especially when he saw how warmly his clan welcomed Uchiha White Dove at the head of the group.

Was I really wrong?

The thought quietly surfaced in his mind.

But before he could work it out, he saw the group come to a halt.

At the very front of the group.

White Dove raised his right hand, covered by an elbow-length glove, signaling for the group to stop.

Ninjas obeyed orders without question, and the ordinary clan members were highly disciplined too, so the entire group stopped quickly.

That was the difference between a shinobi clan and ordinary people.

Military-style training... you know how it goes.

So Konoha was less a village than a military stronghold.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Anbu members in masks and flak jackets took up positions on the high ground along both sides of the street, surrounding the group below from above.

The Uchiha ninjas looked tense, but after glancing at White Dove and seeing that he gave no signal, they remained with the group and waited in silence.

It was clear that White Dove's long-term efforts hadn't been in vain.

The key was that he now had another identity.

The Uchiha's strongest!

Until recently, that title had belonged to Uchiha Shisui. So even when Shisui stood with the village leadership and pulled off all sorts of questionable moves, the clan members had been dissatisfied but had still felt they had to forgive him.

The Dove Faction had only been able to hold its own against the Hawk Faction because of Shisui.

But now?

White Dove had burst onto the scene. After defeating Uchiha Fugaku in battle, he'd become the Uchiha's strongest fighter, even with Shisui out of the picture.

If Shisui had been there, White Dove's influence might have been greatly diminished, and the clan wouldn't have supported him so wholeheartedly.

But now that Shisui might have been harmed by the village leadership, White Dove was indisputably the Uchiha's "strongest." No wonder so many people supported him when he stepped forward today and rallied them.

His influence was at its peak!

White Dove's prestige now rivaled Uchiha Fugaku's.

The One Heart Chamber of Commerce had brought the clan plenty of benefits. On top of that, White Dove had defeated Uchiha Fugaku and stood up for his clan by confronting the village leadership head-on. It was only natural that the Uchiha, who had been bottling up their resentment for so long, supported him from the bottom of their hearts.

Even the Uchiha in the Dove Faction had joined the group, hadn't they?

But the Uchiha group's sudden halt made Konoha's F4 tense. They exchanged glances, then nodded in silent agreement.

A united Uchiha clan was the last thing they wanted.

Tap, tap!

Flanked by the Anbu and the heads of the various ninja clans, the four slowly approached the front of the Uchiha group.

On the broad street, the two groups faced off. A stretch of empty space more than ten meters wide separated them, making the divide between them stark.