The God-Making Movement

After a long day of tossing and turning, Uchiha Kei finally had the time to eat his fill and get a good night's sleep.

He may have slept soundly tonight, but the entirety of Konoha was unable to close their eyes.

Once the Konoha ninja, who prided themselves on justice, lost that sense of righteousness, everything they had done in the past suddenly seemed so laughable.

Although Kei's words today were not an official statement, the seeds of doubt had been sown; it would no longer be so simple to maintain their firm convictions.

If the ninja of Konoha couldn't sleep well, the upper echelons of Konoha naturally couldn't find peace either.

At the entrance of the Root base, the leader of Root, Danzo, was wielding his brush with wild abandon, and a piece of calligraphy soon took shape on the paper.

[My heart and actions are as clear as a mirror; all that I do is for the sake of justice.]

Danzo seemed quite satisfied with his calligraphy. He gazed at the sentence and fell into deep thought—first with a sense of melancholy, then gradually becoming resolute, and finally, he let out a sigh.

"It is a pity that he is an Uchiha, yet it is fortunate that he is an Uchiha!"

Clearly, he was not at all worried about the wavering hearts of the people in Konoha. Why should he be? Ninja were nothing more than tools; why would they need so many thoughts? If they didn't listen, a single "Cursed Seal of Individual Curse Eradication" would make them all obedient and docile.

Sarutobi Hiruzen was simply naive; even in his old age, he still obsessed over having a good reputation. How could anyone who chose the path of a ninja ever expect a good reward?

Though I, Danzo, have been called the Darkness of Konoha throughout my life, I have given everything for this village, and my conscience is clear.

Even if I am never understood by Konoha, even if I am dismissed as a clown or a dweller in the sewers, living in the dark corners to do the things that cannot see the light, I feel it is all worthwhile.

I had thought my life would end this way, but I never expected that the Uchiha, whom I had spent half my life targeting for the sake of Konoha's future, would produce the one person who truly understood me.

It is a pity that the Uchiha will eventually be eradicated; this is the ambition of all the people of Konoha, and it will not be swayed by individual will.

No one wants to have an ancestor looming over them.

A Konoha without the Senju and the Uchiha is the only Konoha the people truly desire.

"When that day arrives, for the sake of these words, let me be the one to send you off, Kei-kun!"

With that, Danzo waved his hand, and the Root ninja controlled by his ninjutsu instantly appeared before him.

"Hang this calligraphy in the center of the Root entrance. Furthermore, file a request for funds with the Hokage; Root will redesign its uniforms. On the back of the standard Root tactical vest, stitch the word 'Justice'."

Danzo handed his cursive script to his subordinate, turned his back, and spoke in a firm tone.

"From this day forward, Root shall carry the burden of justice for Konoha from the shadows."

After saying this, Danzo felt a sense of clarity in his heart, clearly moved by his own display of self-importance.

It was also time to instill faith in his subordinates. He believed that this speech of his would surely touch them all.

Those ninja, who dared not lift their heads due to the ninjutsu controlling them, inexplicably felt the same aura from Lord Danzo that they had sensed while monitoring Uchiha Kei earlier that day.

It was so strange today; why were these big shots constantly spouting "justice" at every turn?

Ninja who had seen so much darkness could not possibly be swayed by a few empty words.

Just as someone who has seen a ghost could never easily believe in a scientific explanation.

However, since their very lives were controlled by others, they wouldn't dare voice their thoughts even if they had them.

Thus, a chorus of unified determination echoed through the Root base.

"Yes!"

At that moment, Danzo felt that everything in Root had been sublimated by his own hand.

Unlike the Root base, where Danzo played house and moved himself to tears, the lights in the Hokage building remained lit. Compared to Danzo, who could only do things that couldn't see the light of day, Sarutobi Hiruzen had experienced a day of extreme highs and lows.

He had thought that by developing the Telescope Technique, his control over Konoha would be even more comprehensive.

But today, Sarutobi realized the flaw of the Telescope Technique: it could only show images, not transmit sound.

In the past, whenever there was the slightest disturbance in Konoha, Sarutobi could rely on his experience to know exactly what had happened.

Although this did not include the compounds of the great ninja clans that possessed sealing techniques capable of blocking detection ninjutsu.

But the so-called "infinite possibilities" of ninja methods were nothing more than child's play to Sarutobi, a Professor of Ninjutsu.

The petty schemes and tricks played by a few clever ninja were merely things Sarutobi had played with years ago; there was no novelty in them at all.

Yet today, Sarutobi was completely blind.

To the various ninja clans, today's welcome ceremony was nothing more than a small, petty act to disgust the Uchiha. Even the Hokage's advisors, Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu, had proposed it with that very purpose in mind.

However, Sarutobi, who had tacitly allowed such things to happen, saw it as far less simple.

Political struggle was never just a petty squabble driven by impulse.

So what if the Uchiha were disgusted? It had been so many years; how many times had the Uchiha been disgusted? But had it done anything to help Konoha dismantle them?

No. On the contrary, the external pressure had only made the Uchiha more united.

Although the Uchiha of the present seemed weaker than the previous generation.

In the previous generation, the Uchiha, possessing Uchiha Kyo and a large number of elites, were powerful—so powerful that even the Second Hokage felt the pressure. But at that time, the Uchiha could not be called united; one could easily stir up trouble and plunge them into civil war, leaving them severely crippled.

Now, the subordinate relationship between the Uchiha and Konoha had finally shifted from the Uchiha pressuring Konoha to Konoha being able to pressure the Uchiha at will, yet the Uchiha themselves had become united as never before.

At this point, using such childish tactics had become meaningless.

If an enemy cannot be destroyed from the outside, then internal disintegration is the only hard truth.

Unfortunately, his two pig-teammate cohorts didn't quite grasp this principle, and coupled with the political correctness left behind by the Second Hokage, those two idiots were always doing things that held him back.

If it weren't for the fact that they all held dirt on each other, he would have killed them both long ago.

However, it was fortunate that they had made it through all these years, and it was lucky that the two were fools, while the smart ones from that incident back then were all dead and buried.

He remained in the dominant position of their small clique, still able to control the future direction of Konoha.

The reason Sarutobi tolerated them putting on such a grand show today just to disgust the Uchiha Clan was simply because he was guiding the situation to his advantage.

Sarutobi had long ago recognized the fact that Konoha was no longer the invincible Konoha it once was.

But the majority of the village did not acknowledge this reality.

This had resulted in the current restlessness within Konoha.

The death of Hatake Sakumo was like the straw that broke the camel's back. Konoha was in desperate need of a major victory to stabilize public sentiment.

However, the other ninja villages were not cooperating.

This was what made Sarutobi feel vexed.

He had originally established the Ninja Academy and cultivated numerous civilian ninjas, thinking that the various village leaders would play a tacit game: he would press forward with a numerical advantage, they would cooperate by staging a retreat, and once he had pacified his internal affairs, they would launch a surprise attack.

Everyone would perform this back-and-forth act, and in the end, they would all go to the Daimyo to extort military funding.

How wonderful it would be if everyone were happy and they were all one big, harmonious family.

Yet, Konoha had been accustomed to bullying others for so many years; once the other villages discovered Konoha's weakness, the war was no longer something the higher-ups could control.

In the past, a single ninja from a Konoha clan could take on three from other villages, but now, once they realized, "Hey, look, here's a bunch of trash Konoha jonin, chunin, and genin."

They would rush to harvest a few headbands as trophies, just so they could brag when they returned to their villages.

"What? You three fought one Konoha ninja and almost got wiped out? Look at me, I fought three Konoha ninjas and even solo-killed one. Look how awesome I am."

Thus, the collapse of the front lines was to be expected.

Fortunately, there was Minato Namikaze, that cheat code.

Minato was a very interesting existence as a ninja; he struggled to even delay those stronger than him, but no matter how many were weaker than him, he would reap them all.

He stabilized the situation on the front lines single-handedly, which in turn created a myth.

Perhaps he was born to be in the spotlight; throughout the entire campaign, the only opponent he encountered was someone who was also a future successor, and everyone knew exactly why they were there.

They fought to a draw, exchanged pleasantries, flattered one another, and built up their own images, and with that, the mission was accomplished.

This god-making movement finally concluded without any mishaps.

I'm too tired today, so just one chapter, and I haven't even edited it yet. I definitely won't be online tomorrow. You might as well wait until tomorrow to read it; I'm afraid it's full of typos.