Meanwhile, in distant Rōran.
"Well, well, well. If Danzō keeps this up, he might actually be able to force Hiruzen Sarutobi out of office. But considering Hiruzen Sarutobi's decades in the Hokage seat and his grip on Konoha, he would definitely admit fault and keep clinging to the position of Hokage..."
"So, if I want Konoha to descend into chaos, I'll need to give Shimura Danzō a few more chips. The power of a single Nine-Tails Jinchūriki is still a little too little!"
"After all..." Uchiha Tenshu said with a disdainful look and eyes full of contempt, "judging by the mentality of those people in Konoha who are so steeped in servility, Hiruzen Sarutobi is their great Third! Even if he used his power for personal gain, even if he developed his own clan, secretly embezzled some of Konoha's funds, or caused Konoha Shinobi Village to suffer a tiny little loss, he was still the great Hokage!"
"So what would they do? Why, of course they'd forgive him."
Uchiha Tenshu had no doubt about that.
The most typical examples were Tsunade and Jiraiya, the two greatest hypocrites among the Hokage.
After becoming Hokage, Tsunade had actually told Pain that "we great nations were hurt in war too," angering the Pain who had been about to leave so much that he ended up carrying rice in Konoha. Her double standards were obvious for all to see—she was a true inheritor of Konoha's hypocrisy.
Jiraiya, on the other hand, was outright scum with rotten morals. He used gathering material as an excuse to peep on others, turned a blind eye to Konoha's long list of mistakes, and stayed away from Konoha for years to escape its darkness. Yet whenever someone resisted Konoha's atrocities, he would immediately kill them in the name of