The Plan Was Perfect, Danzo!

The morning sunlight was especially warm.

Uchiha Fugaku had just been summoned by the Third Hokage. At that moment, he walked out of the Hokage Building in high spirits.

During the meeting, the Third Hokage had praised the Uchiha Clan for its contributions to the pursuit of Danzo, hinting that he intended to put the clan to greater use.

Fugaku was wary of the Third Hokage's sudden show of goodwill, but he was even more pleased.

As the Uchiha Clan's head, he had to contend with the Hokage faction's suspicions from the outside while keeping the ambitions of the extremists in check from within. Caught in the middle, he was exhausted.

The Third Hokage's commendation gave Fugaku hope that the Uchiha might take another step toward the center of the village's power.

Danzo had rebelled, and the Third Hokage had lost his right-hand man. If he wanted to keep leading the village, he would inevitably need the support of a new force.

The Uchiha Clan, one of the village's great clans, had always been a powerful force outside the village's center of power.

If the two sides could work together, the Third Hokage could stabilize the situation and secure his hold on the present, while the Uchiha could hope to lay claim to the future.

It was a win-win partnership.

At least, that was how it looked to Fugaku.

In the Hokage Office, Danzo leaned back in his chair. Sunlight streamed in through the window and fell across him, lifting his spirits even further.

At the front of the desk, the Anbu squad captain, Shinnosuke Sarutobi, wore his Anbu mask as he reported to Danzo.

"Lord Hokage, I've had all the Root shinobi and documents transferred and placed under close guard."

Danzo straightened and put both hands on the desk. He tapped the desktop lightly with his right index finger, looking at Shinnosuke with a strange expression.

"Keep them under strict guard. No one is to go near them without my orders," Danzo instructed.

"Lord Hokage, should we have members of the Yamanaka Clan interrogate them?" Shinnosuke asked.

"No!" Danzo refused outright. He had other plans for Root.

After hesitating, Shinnosuke pressed on. "But Danzo's whereabouts are unknown. He has access to a great deal of the village's confidential information. If we don't capture him quickly and another village gets hold of it, the village could suffer serious losses."

"I have other arrangements for this. Have your men keep Root under guard. I'll interrogate them personally. I want to find out why Danzo would do something so... so despicable!"

Danzo put on a look of grief and anger and slammed his hand against the desk.

"Father, this isn't the time to let your emotions cloud your judgment." Shinnosuke mistakenly thought that Danzo's betrayal had shaken his "father," leaving him irrational.

"When we're working, address me by my title." Danzo's eyes narrowed.

"Yes!" Shinnosuke lowered his head.

"Good. You may go. The war is our priority now. Focus your attention on the fighting at the front. I'll personally investigate Root," Danzo said at last.

Shinnosuke looked at his "father" again. He couldn't shake the feeling that his father's words and attitude had changed recently.

"What is it? Do you have something else to say?" Danzo asked.

"No!"

After answering, Shinnosuke turned and left the office.

Once Shinnosuke was gone, Danzo leaned back in his chair again, rested his hands on the armrests, and tapped his fingers lightly as he sank into thought.

Under his leadership, the village had gotten back on track after dealing with the problem of Hiruzen Sarutobi.

Next, all he had to do was secure victory over Hidden Cloud. Then, riding the momentum of that triumph, he could get rid of the village's last lingering problem: the Uchiha Clan.

Danzo had already found an excuse to deal with the Uchiha. He would claim that the Uchiha had used their Sharingan Genjutsu to secretly control Root and Danzo, and had plotted the assassination attempt against him.

In other words, the Uchiha Clan had been the real mastermind behind the rebellion and the assassination of the Hokage. Hokage advisor Danzo had merely been a victim of their conspiracy.

Of course, that didn't mean Danzo planned to spare Hiruzen Sarutobi. His plan was to kill Hiruzen Sarutobi first, then reveal the Uchiha's conspiracy.

By then, he could use the opportunity to eliminate the Uchiha Clan and clear his own name, ensuring that he would be remembered on the Heroic Spirit Monument as a hero of Konoha.

This was the flawless, perfect plan Danzo had devised over the past few days—or so he believed.

Whenever Danzo imagined his plan succeeding and Konoha falling completely under his control, a smug smile crept across his face. Leaning back in his chair, he closed his eyes, the corners of his mouth rising higher and higher.

The Uchiha, Hiruzen—both were fools, no more than playthings in his hands.

Danzo's smile widened.

In a field outside a village in the Land of Rain,

Asuma was helping villagers harvest rice alongside several young shinobi from the Akatsuki.

When Asuma had first graduated from the Ninja Academy in Konoha and become a Genin, he had also taken on a few D-rank missions under the guidance of a jonin, helping villagers harvest their crops.

Back then, he had looked down on missions like those. He thought having a genius shinobi like himself do farm work was a waste of time, and he had worked with nothing but resentment.

Strangely enough, this time he felt no resentment at all. If anything, he felt full of energy.

Perhaps it was because the villagers, with their wrinkled faces, gaunt cheeks, and patched clothes, looked at him with embarrassed, pleading eyes.

Or perhaps it was because, during their break just moments ago, a little girl with straw-yellow hair and bare feet had carefully brought him a bowl of cool water. Her hands were covered in scars from a lifetime of labor.

"Here, big brother. Have some water."

The little girl's voice wasn't pleasant to the ear, and there was a hint of timidity in it. It kept echoing in Asuma's mind.

Ever since Asuma had followed the Akatsuki shinobi to the village, he had felt increasingly weighed down.

The poverty in this village was beyond anything he had imagined.

He had seen villages in the Land of Fire while carrying out missions, but even the poorest village he had visited there was far better off than this one.

At least people in that village could manage to eat their fill. They didn't drown their newborns because they couldn't afford to raise them.

Infanticide—parents killing their own newborn children. Asuma had first heard about such a tragedy after arriving in the village, from the shinobi traveling with him. It had happened right here.

And that wasn't what shocked Asuma most. Afterward, he heard something even harder to accept from his companions.

It was the swapping and eating of children.

During the fiercest fighting two years ago, the Land of Rain had become a battlefield for the great nations, and many villages had been caught in the crossfire.

To survive, people had been forced to abandon their fields and homes, fleeing to the few dozen towns in the Land of Rain.

The abandonment of so much farmland led to famine in the Land of Rain. Countless people starved to death for lack of food.

Driven by the will to survive and broken by hunger, people stopped being human and became beasts. They did whatever it took to stay alive.

Someone who had starved to death one moment could become someone else's food the next.

Families with children would trade them with one another, then cook and eat them.

After hearing about these horrors that had truly happened in the Land of Rain, Asuma fell silent. It felt as if a massive rock were pressing down on his heart, leaving him unable to breathe.

Konoha's shinobi had also fought in the Land of Rain. Asuma himself had clashed with Iwagakure shinobi on this very land.

He, too, was one of the culprits behind these tragedies.