Leaf Village's Material Shortage

At some point, a new voice began to echo within the mind of Shimura Danzō.

The voice seemed to possess infinite power, growing louder and louder until it roared like a giant.

The voice said:

"They all want to see you lose, but you must win just to show them!"

"Even if all of Konoha, or even the entire ninja world denies you, you must never deny yourself!"

"You can lose to others, but you must never lose to yourself."

"Everyone is waiting for you to fall; that is exactly the reason why you must stand firm!"

The voice itself was powerful, but the weight of the words was even greater.

Shimura Danzō felt a shock that resonated from the depths of his soul.

He listened to these sentences over and over again, and all his self-doubt melted and evaporated like snow under a scorching sun, vanishing without a trace.

Shimura Danzō had never felt more resolute. He stood up solemnly, facing the direction in which Hiruzen Sarutobi had departed, and spoke to his own heart:

"I am not wrong!"

Yamanaka Chujiu had borrowed Professor Ai's words to cast a powerful buff on Danzō.

Shimura Danzō was known as the "Darkness of the Shinobi," a walker in the shadows of Konoha. When he heard these incredibly righteous and inspiring words, they naturally triggered a spiritual resonance, and he voluntarily engraved them into his heart.

This was the Thought Seal that Yamanaka Chujiu had cleverly designed specifically for Shimura Danzō.

Danzō was a bad seed; after committing countless evil deeds, he inevitably harbored self-doubt, which was why he constantly kept "I do this for Konoha" on his lips.

Encouraged by such positive energy, his mind became firm, making it almost impossible for him to be persuaded by Hiruzen Sarutobi again.

This excessive firmness turned Danzō into a hedgehog with raised quills, pricking his three old classmates who wanted to huddle together for warmth, forcing them to keep their distance.

Yet, the dire situation forced them to huddle together, only to be pricked again until they could no longer bear it.

This back-and-forth tug-of-war would consume a great deal of Shimura Danzō's energy, making his schedule tight and his work more difficult.

He would be so busy that he would spend all his time working, leaving him no leisure to commit evil.

Moreover, if this state of friction lasted long enough, the Konoha F4 would grow accustomed to the distance between them and get used to no longer being a tightly-knit group.

When the Konoha F4 were tightly united, they were the strongest political faction in Konoha, the Third Hokage's clique.

But when they could no longer huddle together, they were merely two aging Kage-level ninjas and two aging, cowardly Jonin.

By the time the war ended, Yamanaka Chujiu would surely have become stronger, while these four old things would have weakened drastically; perhaps the reversal of the balance of power would occur then.

When that time came, would Yamanaka Chujiu dare to hold public rallies?

Would he dare to give speeches in beer halls?

Heh!

But his greatest gain today was the control he had exerted over Shimura Danzō's mind.

From the very first time he targeted Shimura Danzō, out of caution toward a Kage-level ninja, Yamanaka Chujiu had been exceptionally careful, provoking Danzō's emotions by following the man's own internal logic.

After several attempts, he discovered that this method of stroking the fur in the right direction was effective, so today he boldly tried a new approach.

Yamanaka Chujiu, according to his own understanding, transcended Shimura Danzō's cognition and poured more powerful language into his mind.

Shimura Danzō actually accepted the external language, voluntarily interpreting it as his own cognitive leap, and transformed into exactly what Yamanaka Chujiu wanted him to be.

This was a crushing victory of intellect, a transcendence of human nature, a condescending gaze from above that brought Yamanaka Chujiu unprecedented satisfaction.

With his thoughts clear and his spirit refreshed, Yamanaka Chujiu departed.

But his good mood lasted only a short while, because he was connected to the Root ninjas who were following Hiruzen Sarutobi, Utatane Koharu, and Mitokado Homura.

Through the ears of these Root ninjas, Yamanaka Chujiu overheard the whispers of the three Konoha high-ups and obtained some incredible intelligence.

In short, there was a massive deficit in Konoha's warehouses.

Tens of thousands of kunai, over a hundred thousand shuriken, one hundred thousand explosive tags, and vast quantities of food, medicine, bandages, and other supplies listed in the ledgers simply did not exist in the actual warehouses.

Even the warehouses themselves did not exist!

Because the corrupt ninjas' methods were crude, the investigation quickly caught most of the vermin and recovered a fair amount of stolen funds.

The problem was that the war had already begun; money could no longer be immediately converted into weapons, food, medicine, and equipment, as many purchasing channels had been cut off by the war.

Even if the items could be bought, all prices were skyrocketing, and the recovered funds couldn't even buy half the quantity of the original supplies.

Hiruzen Sarutobi had racked his brains and managed to squeeze another war budget out of the Daimyo, but it was still far from enough to cover the shortfall.

He was truly pushed to the end of his rope, which was why he wanted to cut expenditures across all departments in Konoha to scrape together whatever funds he could.

As a result, he investigated Shimura Danzō's Root and found a massive amount of expenditures with no clear destination.

Root was, after all, just a training department under the Anbu, yet the audit revealed that the unaccounted-for funds alone exceeded the entire budget of the Anbu.

In normal times, money in Konoha flowed like a great river, and Hiruzen Sarutobi could naturally tolerate it; after all, it was Shimura Danzō's department, and he did so much dirty work that unclear accounts were entirely understandable.

But these were not normal times; the war had already begun, and Konoha was so short on money that they were jumping with anxiety. How could he tolerate this any longer?

Hiruzen Sarutobi dragged his two old classmates along and stormed straight into the Anbu, intending to force Shimura Danzō to cough up a portion of the funds.

The three of them charged into the Root with aggressive momentum, but not only did they fail to get a single cent back, Shimura Danzō mocked them all mercilessly instead.

Because of Shimura Danzō's unexpected outburst, the three of them didn't even have the chance to state the truth to his face, and could only pass on their real demands through the ears of the Root ninjas on their way back.

Consequently, this intelligence fell cheaply into the hands of Yamanaka Chujiu.

Yamanaka Chujiu did not hoard the information and turned around to tell Orochimaru immediately.

To his surprise, he discovered that Orochimaru was not the least bit shocked: "When the teacher clings to power and refuses to let go, I knew a day like this would come."

"Fortunately, their methods of embezzling funds were too amateurish; not only did they fail to cover the deficit in time, but they were also caught red-handed by Teacher Hiruzen."

"They deserve to die."

Orochimaru's meaning was clear: he was also one of those who embezzled public funds, but his technical skill was high—the money was in his pocket, yet the village lacked nothing, so it was impossible for anyone to discover him.

However, he wasn't saying all this to show off to his student, but rather to convey secret intelligence to him.

Yamanaka Chujiu couldn't help but grit his teeth; he hated riddle-makers who hid their meanings behind vague words, but since this was the teacher he had formally kowtowed to, he had to take it regardless of how annoying it was.

Thus, he asked: "Teacher Orochimaru, just tell me what you want me to do."

Orochimaru laughed with a raspy voice.

His smile was one of great satisfaction.