The Hero-Making Campaign

After a whole day of being run ragged, Uchiha Kei finally had time to eat his fill and get a good night's sleep.

He slept soundly that night, but all of Konoha was wide awake.

Once Konoha's self-proclaimed righteous ninja lost their sense of righteousness, everything they'd believed in before seemed ridiculous.

Kei hadn't officially spoken for the village that day, but he'd planted a seed of doubt. Once it took root, believing in Konoha so firmly would no longer be easy.

If Konoha's ninja couldn't sleep, then the village's higher-ups certainly wouldn't be getting any rest either.

At Root Base's entrance, Shimura Danzō, Root's leader, was sweeping his brush across the paper. Moments later, an impressive piece of calligraphy stood before him.

[My heart and my actions are as clear as a mirror; all I do is righteous.]

Danzō seemed pleased with his calligraphy. He gazed at the words, lost in thought. First came a wistful sigh, then his expression slowly firmed, and at last he lamented,

"Too bad he's an Uchiha. Good thing he's an Uchiha!"

Clearly, he wasn't worried in the least about Konoha's wavering public sentiment. What was there to worry about? Ninja were nothing but tools. Why should they have so many thoughts of their own? If they wouldn't obey, just use the Cursed Tongue Eradication Seal on them. After that, they'd all fall in line.

Sarutobi Hiruzen was so naïve. Even at his age, he still wanted a good reputation. What kind of good ending could a ninja expect?

Though I, Danzō, have been called the Darkness of Konoha all my life, I've given everything for the village. My conscience is clear.

Even if Konoha never understood me, and only dismissed me as a clown, someone crawling through the sewers, living in the shadows and doing the village's dirty work, I had no problem with that.

I thought my life would go on like this until the end. I never expected that the person who understood me best would be an Uchiha—the very clan I'd spent half my life targeting for Konoha's future.

Too bad the Uchiha were destined to be wiped out. It was the ambition of everyone in Konoha, and no one's personal wishes could change that.

No one wanted an ancestor hanging around on their back.

Only a Konoha without the Senju and the Uchiha could truly belong to all the people of Konoha.

"When that day comes, in honor of those words, I'll personally see you off, Kei."

With that, Danzō waved his hand. The Root ninja under his control instantly appeared before him.

"Hang this calligraphy in the middle of Root's entrance. Also, apply to the Hokage for funds. Root needs new uniforms. Sew the word 'Righteousness' onto the back of our usual vests."

Danzō handed his subordinate the cursive calligraphy, then turned away and spoke with conviction.

"From this day forward, Root will shoulder righteousness in secret, for the sake of Konoha."

After saying this, Danzō felt a sudden clarity in his heart. Evidently, his own grandstanding had moved him.

It was time to instill some faith in his subordinates. Surely that speech had touched them too.

The ninja, controlled by a jutsu and too afraid to raise their heads, somehow sensed in Lord Danzō the same aura Uchiha Kei had given off while they'd been watching him earlier.

What a strange day. Why were all these big shots going on about righteousness?

Ninja who'd seen so much darkness could hardly be moved by a few words.

It was like asking someone who'd seen a ghost to believe a scientific explanation without question.

But their lives were in other people's hands. Even if they had something to say, they wouldn't dare speak up.

So Root echoed with a chorus of voices, united as one.

"Yes!"

At that moment, Danzō felt that everything in Root had been elevated in his hands.

Unlike Danzō's Root, where everyone was playing make-believe and patting themselves on the back, the lights in the Hokage Building were still on. Unlike Danzō, who could only handle things best left unseen, Sarutobi Hiruzen had been through quite a day.

He'd thought that developing the Telescope Technique would give him a more complete grasp of Konoha.

But today, Sarutobi had learned its drawback: it could only show him images, not let him hear what was being said.

In the past, whenever anything stirred in Konoha, Sarutobi could figure out what had happened through experience.

That didn't include the compounds of the great clans, which had Sealing Jutsu to block sensory techniques.

But even the supposedly limitless methods of ninja were nothing special in front of Sarutobi, the Professor of Ninjutsu.

Whatever schemes a few clever ninja came up with were old news to him. There was nothing fresh about them.

But today, Sarutobi was stumped.

To the clans, today's welcoming ceremony had been nothing more than a petty attempt to disgust the Uchiha. Even the Hokage Advisors who'd proposed it, Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu, had done so for that reason.

But Sarutobi, who'd allowed it to happen, had seen things differently.

Political struggles were never just petty squabbles driven by impulse.

So what if they'd disgusted the Uchiha? They'd been doing that for years. Had it done anything to break up the clan?

No. In fact, the pressure from outside had only brought the Uchiha closer together.

The Uchiha of today might seem weaker than the previous generation.

The previous generation, with Uchiha Kyō and a host of elite ninja, had been powerful enough to make even the Second Hokage feel pressured. But the Uchiha back then hadn't been united. The slightest provocation could plunge them into infighting and leave them badly weakened.

Now the balance of power between the Uchiha and Konoha had shifted. The Uchiha had once put pressure on Konoha, but now Konoha could pressure them at will. Yet within the clan, they were more united than ever.

At a time like this, childish tactics like that were pointless.

If an enemy couldn't be defeated from the outside, then breaking them apart from within was the way to go.

Unfortunately, his two useless allies didn't understand that. And the political dogma left behind by the Second Hokage had them constantly doing things that undermined him.

If they didn't each have dirt on the other, I'd have killed the two of them long ago.

Still, he'd managed to put up with them all these years. At least the two of them were fools, and all the clever people involved in that incident were dead.

He was still the one in charge of their little clique, and he could still control Konoha's future.

The reason he'd let them stage such a spectacle to disgust the Uchiha today was simply that he was making the most of the situation.

Sarutobi had long since accepted the fact that Konoha was no longer the invincible village it had once been.

But most of the villagers refused to accept it.

That was what had led to the current unrest in Konoha.

Hatake Sakumo's death had been the last straw. Konoha desperately needed a major victory to steady people's hearts.

But the other ninja villages weren't playing along.

That was what frustrated Sarutobi.

After establishing the Ninja Academy and training so many ninja from civilian families, Sarutobi had thought the leaders of the other ninja villages would all understand the unspoken rules of the game. He'd send in his forces in overwhelming numbers, and they'd cooperate by retreating. Once he'd settled things at home, they could launch a surprise attack.

They could put on a back-and-forth show for everyone, then go together to the Daimyo and squeeze more money out of him.

Everyone would win, and they'd all be one big happy family. How harmonious!

But Konoha had spent so many years throwing its weight around that, once its weakness became apparent, the war was no longer something the people at the top could control.

In the past, Konoha's clan-born ninja could take on three ninja from another village at once. Now, those enemies had discovered that Konoha's Jonin, Chunin, and Genin were a bunch of weaklings.

They'd better grab a few Forehead Protectors as trophies. They could brag about it back in their villages.

"What? You three fought one Konoha ninja and nearly got taken down one by one? I took on three Konoha ninja and killed one myself. How awesome am I?"

So it was no surprise that the front lines had collapsed.

Fortunately, they had Minato Namikaze, their trump card.

Minato was an interesting ninja. Against opponents stronger than him, he struggled even to hold them off for a while. But against weaker opponents, he could cut down as many as came his way.

He'd stabilized the front lines all by himself, and that was how the legend was born.

Perhaps he'd been destined to draw everyone's attention. After one battle, the only opponent he encountered was the other side's future successor. Everyone knew exactly why they were there.

They held back, exchanged pleasantries, complimented each other, and built up their images. That was the mission accomplished.

And so this hero-making campaign ended without a hitch.

I'm exhausted today, so there'll only be one update. It hasn't been edited yet, and I definitely won't be updating tomorrow. You might as well wait until then to read it—I'm worried it's full of typos.