The Bizarre Konoha Leadership

Aoba caught the other man's corpse, preventing the sound of it hitting the ground from alerting anyone.

Then he spoke to the woman on the ground.

"I'm sorry your daughter had to see this. Let me ask you one thing: do you want to leave this place?"

"A glimmer of light flashed through the little girl's eyes. But the woman on the ground held her tightly in her arms, her gaze filled with obvious wariness."

The mother and daughter before him were naturally survivors of the Uzumaki Clan: Karin Uzumaki and her mother.

In the original story, Karin's mother was already dead when Karin first appeared. But Aoba had arrived several years early, so her mother was still alive.

Still, after being whipped and torn apart for years by those mad-dog Grass Ninja, her body had been utterly drained and was on the verge of giving out.

Yet even so, even though Aoba had just killed the Grass Ninja who abused her, she still showed little trust in him.

Naturally, this was Konoha's fault again.

Honestly, Konoha had far too much to answer for. At the root of it, seventy to eighty percent of all the disasters in the Shinobi World were related to Konoha.

After all, Nagato, who would one day level Konoha, was also an Uzumaki orphan. He was even a disciple of Jiraiya, one of the Konoha Sannin.

Karin and her mother were also Uzumaki Clan orphans.

The Uzumaki Clan had once been one of the foremost great clans, standing shoulder to shoulder with the Uchiha and Senju.

Its members possessed all kinds of formidable ninja talents. For instance, the Uzumaki Clan's physiques were generally exceptionally powerful, even surpassing the Senju Clan overall.

That was right. Aside from Hashirama Senju's cheat-like Innate Sage Body, the Senju Clan as a whole simply could not compare to the Uzumaki Clan.

The clan's vitality was incredibly powerful. Special constitutions like Karin's and her mother's appeared quite often.

When they were injured, they could recover rapidly. If someone bit them, vast amounts of their vitality would flow out, quickly healing the other person's wounds.

This constitution was practically a weakened version of the Sage Body. And there were far more people with it than there were lone specimens like Hashirama Senju.

At the same time, this clan's chakra reserves were among the greatest in the Shinobi World. Someone like Naruto Uzumaki would barely need to worry about running out of chakra even without the Nine-Tails inside him.

Not to mention that their clan was proficient in Sealing Jutsu and had a chance of awakening Mind's Eye of the Kagura, an immensely powerful sensory ability no weaker than the Byakugan. It could even detect the malice of others.

Their overall traits could be called the greatest in the Shinobi World.

Yet such a powerful ninja clan had been wiped out overnight.

It was understandable that the Uzumaki Clan had inspired jealousy. Their innate advantages were simply too good.

In truth, the Uzumaki Clan had long anticipated that such a day might come.

They had maintained close ties with the Senju Clan and formed an alliance with Konoha. Hashirama Senju's wife had been a member of the Uzumaki Clan.

They had originally believed that befriending the strongest ninja village in the Shinobi World would be enough to ensure their clan's safety. But when the enemy attacked, Konoha merely stood by and watched...

In his previous life, Aoba had read many explanations regarding the Uzumaki Clan. A bunch of idiot netizens had analyzed the reasons for its destruction from every angle.

Some had even claimed that the Uzumaki Clan's system, which combined a ninja village with a clan, threatened the other ninja villages.

But what could he say? Aoba had only one response to every explanation: complete bullshit. Yes, complete bullshit.

Because when viewed from the perspective of the real world, there was only one answer: the original author was an idiot.

But within the Naruto World itself, one could only say that Konoha's leadership was made up of complete idiots.

As he had said before, every single person in Konoha's leadership, starting with the First Hokage, was a purebred idiot.

The First Hokage was a decent man, a good person, and an idealist. But he was not a good leader.

Honestly, if Madara Uchiha had become Hokage back then, this world would not have had so much bullshit later on.

Madara Uchiha had indeed been manipulated by Black Zetsu later. But that was only because he had been constrained by limited information.

In fact, if Madara had become Hokage from the start, he would definitely have continued the war. Then he and Hashirama would have joined forces to sweep through the entire Shinobi World and achieve complete unification. The so-called Susanoo Buddha, with the two of them destroying four nations, was absolutely no exaggeration. They truly had that kind of power.

Afterward, bloodline and secret technique clans like the Uzumaki, Kaguya, and Hozuki would all have been under his control. As long as those resources were effectively integrated, the entire Shinobi World would have taken off within a few generations.

But that did not happen. Out of righteousness and compassion, Hashirama Senju chose to stop the war. That was not inherently wrong. But his envisioned path toward eliminating war was utterly idiotic.

Ever since his death, war had never ceased.

And his successor, Tobirama Senju, was a true genius when it came to forbidden techniques and ninjutsu research. But as a leader, he was just as much of an idiot.

To say nothing else, how could the words, "The Uchiha are an evil clan," come from a Hokage's mouth? Even if that statement were true, a Hokage sure as hell could not say it publicly.

What the fuck did it matter whether the Uchiha were an evil clan or not? They were one of Konoha's most important fighting forces. In every battle, they charged at the front and bled for Konoha.

And just like that, one sentence from him severed Konoha's strongest clan from its mainstream. At the same time, those words completely influenced several of his idiot successors.

Now, this was where things became interesting. After the Second Hokage said those words, he had probably regretted them. Perhaps he truly thought that way in his heart, but he also knew he could not say it.

So he accepted Kagami Uchiha as his disciple, using that to ease relations with the Uchiha Clan.

That move was actually quite good. This way, someone from the Uchiha Clan also became part of the Hokage's lineage.

Later, Kagami Uchiha could have succeeded as the Uchiha Clan head. The clan would then naturally have returned to Konoha's core once again. It would have killed two birds with one stone.

Whichever of his disciples later succeeded as Hokage would have been fellow disciples with the Uchiha Clan head. They would all have been one family, and over time, the Uchiha would naturally have fully integrated.

Unfortunately, Kagami later died. The Second Hokage had no time to choose another Uchiha disciple before he died as well.

In truth, the death of the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju, had itself been extremely irrational. But Aoba could not say much about it, because Tobirama had been practicing the ideals he shared with his elder brother.

At that moment, he had embodied the true Will of Fire.

Given the situation at the time, he chose to sacrifice himself to preserve the younger generation. That was the true Will of Fire Konoha had upheld for so long.

Leaves high in the tree fell to the ground and burned, turning to ash that nourished the roots, allowing the tree to grow taller and stronger. This was the ideal he and his elder brother, Hashirama Senju, had proposed and personally practiced. Thus, although Aoba looked down on his leadership ability, he was still willing to call the two of them qualified Hokage.

But the Third Hokage...