By any means necessary

It was worth mentioning that Kakuzu had now surpassed his teacher. He proposed turning some of the death assembly line work into D-rank missions specifically for those genin who had boundless energy and nowhere to burn it off.

Naturally, Xuanye refused such an outrageous proposal.

Those kids still had dreams and ambitions. How could he let them lose those dreams and turn into aimless slackers so young?

In short, everyone in the surrounding countries saw everything happening in the Land of Fire as nothing short of a military buildup.

Within a few years, Konoha would be able to field an army of over a hundred thousand chakra users.

Ōnoki and A watched it all with mounting anxiety. They wanted to copy Konoha's operating model, but when they tried to discuss their plans with their daimyo, they were promptly thrown out.

They wanted their countries to spend more than half their revenues supporting their shinobi villages?

Were they drunk or something?

As for the threat posed by Konoha, the daimyo considered it irrelevant. If they had time for that, why weren't they tracking down that king-slaying traitor and cutting him into a thousand pieces?

Only the Land of Lightning's daimyo could see some inkling of what was happening. But he could not betray his own class by asking the nobles who supported him to pour vast sums of money into Kumogakure.

Merely proposing such a thing could jeopardize his position as daimyo.

He had already had to fight just to get Darui pardoned and sent back to Kumogakure.

The entire Ninja World was now a powder keg. All it would take was a single spark to ignite an unprecedented Fourth Shinobi World War.

But until then, neither Ōnoki nor A dared to be the first to start hostilities.

Uchiha Genya had