Agreement and Questioning

Therefore, on this point,

Uchiha Fugaku would not raise any objections either.

Moreover, as he reviewed the deployment list provided by the Third, from the number of jōnin to the number of genin, everything was standard issue. Hardly any key personnel had been moved. In other words, this personnel arrangement was an order that conformed to "common sense"!

Though the inclusion of ten jōnin made Fugaku frown slightly.

After considering certain factors, however, Fugaku did not object further. Instead, he made certain demands regarding the genin. Nearly all the Uchiha Clan's genin were young, and a considerable number of them had not awakened their Sharingan yet. Even within the Uchiha Clan, a certain proportion of ninja failed to awaken it.

Fugaku was naturally willing to let these young people, like Shōji, head to the front lines to gain experience.

But their numbers had to remain within certain limits.

If there were too many,

it would easily damage the Uchiha Clan's foundation.

Sarutobi Hiruzen seemed to have anticipated this already.

After pondering briefly, he agreed to compromise on this point. The major Ninja Clans had joined Konohagakure, willing to support Konoha and contribute their strength to it. Konoha, in turn, had an obligation to protect the basic interests of those clans. This had been an unspoken rule established when the major Ninja Clans joined Konoha forty-nine years ago.

Even though the Uchiha Clan of this period had entered the high-alert blacklist of Sarutobi Hiruzen and the others, certain basic rules still could not be ignored.

At this point in time, among Konoha High Command, only Shimura Danzō was somewhat "deranged." Sarutobi Hiruzen, Mitokado Homura, and Utatane Koharu were still willing—or rather, wanted—to resolve the Uchiha Clan issue within the rules. They would absolutely not resort to unconventional measures lightly.

In the Original Work, Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu only resolved to destroy the Uchiha Clan at the very end.

Sarutobi Hiruzen still clung to a final shred of hope, wanting to see whether the matter could be handled in a more stable way. As had been said, it was not that Sarutobi Hiruzen was kind-hearted. He simply did not wish to see Konoha lose such a powerful Kekkei Genkai.

That was also the normal mindset of a ninja village leader.

There was a reason the Uchiha Clan could be called the strongest clan in the current shinobi world.

This was the greatest reason Sarutobi Hiruzen had always been unwilling to ruthlessly execute the Uchiha Clan.

What truly prompted Sarutobi Hiruzen to later choose—or rather, tacitly approve of—Shimura Danzō, Mitokado Homura, and the others inciting Uchiha Itachi to wipe out the Uchiha Clan was the death of Shisui Uchiha. It made Sarutobi Hiruzen believe that the path to a peaceful resolution had all but vanished.

In all the actions that followed, symbolic significance always outweighed practical significance.

Overall, regarding the Uchiha Clan's destruction in the Original Work, setting aside their own reasons and considering only the four members of Konoha High Command, Shimura Danzō bore at least half the blame. Sarutobi Hiruzen, Mitokado Homura, and Utatane Koharu then shared the remaining half.

The root causes involved every possible aspect and were far too complex.

Put more directly, it was Shimura Danzō's idiotic decision to ambush Shisui that drove the situation into its most disastrous stage.

In this life, only half a year had passed since the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox's Attack. The timeline was still in the first half of Konoha Year 49. Shisui Uchiha was still alive, and there was still room for some reconciliation between the Uchiha Clan and the village. Naturally, Sarutobi Hiruzen would not lightly take the initiative to destroy this layer of rules.

The two sides reached an agreement more proactively.

After Fugaku left, Sarutobi Hiruzen continued meeting the people in power of the other Ninja Clans with mild satisfaction. In less than a day, Sarutobi Hiruzen had gathered the strength of all Konohagakure.

The initial force that could be dispatched consisted of more than a thousand Konoha Ninja, including eighty jōnin. Since this was not the direct outbreak of a major war, but rather the gradual deployment of these forces into Konoha's various large and small strongholds in the northeastern region of the Land of Fire near the Land of Hot Springs, there was no need to appoint a dedicated commander. They merely needed to assign several leaders to bring these Konoha Ninja into those strongholds.

Strengthening their routine defensive forces would be enough.

During peacetime, the major nations would also dispatch or rotate the garrison forces at their border strongholds according to established schedules and circumstances. From the end of the Third Shinobi World War until the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox's Attack broke out last October, this had been the pattern as well. It was only during the continuous border frictions and probing over the past three or four months that Kumogakure seemed to have discovered Konohagakure's weakness and took the lead in strengthening its border forces.

That was why Konoha had to respond with corresponding countermeasures.

Otherwise, if the border strongholds were uprooted one by one by the Kumo Ninja, or if they even pushed directly into the heartland of the Land of Fire, it would be a situation Konoha could never accept.

Because that would even make the other major nations of the shinobi world mistakenly believe that Konoha had grown so weak that it could no longer sustain even its border defenses.

Therefore,

regarding this personnel transfer and force deployment,

from top to bottom, not a single Ninja Clan in Konohagakure found anything strange about it.

There was only one person who, the moment he saw the personnel roster, rushed to the Hokage's Office at once and confronted Sarutobi Hiruzen with a chilling presence, demanding an explanation.

"Hiruzen! Why are you allowing the Uchiha Clan to go to the front lines? You should know what kind of period this is. Every single member of the Uchiha Clan is highly suspect. Do you think the village does not have enough problems already!? Have you forgotten our teacher's teachings?"

Also a direct disciple of the Second Hokage, and Konoha's current de facto second-in-command, the Shadow of Konoha who commanded hundreds of elite ninja in Root—Shimura Danzō stood before Sarutobi Hiruzen with his cane and demanded aggressively.

Faced with his close friend's questioning,

Sarutobi Hiruzen remained unhurried. He took a deep pull from his pipe, slowly exhaled a cloud of white smoke, then said, "Danzō, there is no need to be so anxious. Of course I understand the current situation, but precisely because of that, we need to use conventional methods to assess the Uchiha Clan. Naturally, I have not forgotten our teacher's teachings. But you must remember as well, Danzō, just how significant the Uchiha Clan is. We cannot truly deal with them as casually as you suggest. This personnel deployment is one such measure!"

"But you are playing with fire! Hiruzen, what if the entire Uchiha Clan gets dragged into this!? What will you do then!?"

Danzō stared at Sarutobi Hiruzen with an exceedingly gloomy expression, his voice icy as he spoke.