Five Years in the Blink of an Eye!

Year 25 of Konoha.

Time raced by like a horse at full gallop; the years flowed away like blossoms on a stream.

The Assembly Hall on the upper floor of the Hokage Building.

The lights shone brightly, and the atmosphere was solemn.

Kagami Uchiha sat in the Hokage's seat, with Hiruzen Sarutobi beside him. Shimura Danzō, Utatane Koharu, Shikata Nara, and all three Elders were also present.

The seating arrangement reflected Konoha's balance of power.

Kagami Uchiha looked around. Everyone at the table wore a genuine smile.

Even Uchiha Setsuna, who rarely smiled, had a faint smile on his aging face.

The reason was simple: today, the funds allocated by the Daimyo had arrived in Konoha, and every department was submitting its budget request.

This year, the Daimyo had allocated a full three billion ryō.

The amount rose a little each year and was now thirty percent higher than it had been under Tobirama Senju.

The reason was simple enough. For the past five years, Kagami Uchiha had sent people to the Capital every year to visit the Daimyo, offer greetings, and affirm Konoha's loyalty, come rain or shine.

Over time, their relationship had grown close. The Daimyo had long since put aside his wariness of the Uchiha Clan and now saw Kagami Uchiha in an overwhelmingly favorable light.

He called him "my dear Kagami" at every opportunity. "If you need money, just ask. Your big brother doesn't have much else, but he does have a bit of wealth."

"First, we must thank the Daimyo for his generosity and unwavering support of Konoha." Kagami Uchiha smiled at the others.

The department heads turned toward him, their smiles sincere.

"Second, you've all done well these past few years."

Shimura Danzō's eyes flickered, and he spoke in a firm voice. "None of it would have been possible without Lord Hokage's support and trust!"

"Lord Hokage deserves much of the credit!"

With him leading the way, the others joined in the praise.

Everyone present was a senior village official, but Danzō had plainly been the first to strike up the chorus.

Kagami Uchiha smiled when he heard this.

He pointed at Danzō and chided him with a laugh. "You always find a new way to surprise me."

Beside him, Hiruzen Sarutobi felt a pang of unease and a faint sense of danger.

He thought to himself:

Since when did you get so good at flattery, Danzō? You never used to be like this...

"Our first item today is the allocation of village construction funds."

"Over the past five years, the Finance Department, under Shikada's direction, has firmly put two ironclad policies in place."

"Shikada, tell everyone about them." Kagami Uchiha lifted his teacup and took a small sip.

Shikata Nara nodded, took out a thick document, and began. "Following the Third Hokage's instructions, the Finance Department has compiled annual figures on the surviving families of fallen shinobi."

"As of now, there are over two thousand children of fallen shinobi across more than eight hundred households. Each household receives an annual survivor's allowance of five hundred thousand ryō until its first member becomes a Genin."

"That comes to roughly four hundred million ryō a year."

Shikata Nara glanced up at Kagami Uchiha. Seeing him nod, he continued. "The second policy is the shinobi stipend. The village currently has around ten thousand registered shinobi, and their stipends total eight hundred million ryō a year."

"In other words, those two policies alone will take a third of the funds the Daimyo allocated this year."

"Very good. Please sit down, Shikada." Kagami Uchiha nodded slowly, his expression solemn.

"Everyone, don't think of this money as a needless expense. The Will of Fire has never been an empty slogan. Time will prove its worth."

A moment later, applause swept through the meeting room like a tide.

"All right." The applause died down when Kagami Uchiha spoke.

"The shinobi who sacrificed and contributed so much for this village deserve it."

"Next item. Koharu, your Medical Department."

Utatane Koharu rose, having caught a small detail.

Whatever their relationship was in private, Danzō always addressed Kagami as "Third Hokage" or "Lord Hokage" in formal meetings.

He really is shrewd...

"Following Lord Hokage's instructions..." Utatane Koharu followed his example as she began her report.

In short, under Utatane Koharu's leadership, the Konoha Medical Department had undergone five years of unprecedented reform and growth.

The old, rudimentary medical system had been torn down and rebuilt. The village had established district medical stations, dedicated convalescent homes for the injured, and postoperative rehabilitation centers for shinobi, while completing a comprehensive support system for shinobi and their families.

The old chaos, when gravely wounded shinobi went untreated and disabled survivors of war had no one to care for them, had vanished entirely.

At the same time, the village's education system had been overhauled.

The Ninja Academy had expanded admissions for children from ordinary families, and teaching resources were distributed evenly. Countless children of humble birth finally had a chance to rise.

Shikata Nara kept a precise grip on the finances and managed the flow of money and supplies. The survivor's allowances and shinobi stipends, in particular, had both been fully implemented.

The intelligence department under Shimura Danzō no longer limited itself to keeping order within Konoha. Elite Anbu, covert agents, and informants had infiltrated the four great hidden villages of Stone, Sand, Mist, and Cloud under countless identities, as well as foreign capitals, warlord strongholds, and shinobi clan territories.

On the surface, they were diplomats and merchants, refugees on the move, or wandering mercenaries. In secret, they listened for military and political developments, recorded the hidden villages' armaments, sought out the inheritance of secret techniques, and tracked the movements of their leaders.

Border skirmishes, new secret techniques, the movements of rogue shinobi, changes in military strength... If anything stirred in the Shinobi World, Konoha was among the first to hear of it.

At Kagami Uchiha's direction, Hiruzen Sarutobi's Root also worked alongside Danzō's intelligence department. Root took responsibility for every operation that could not bear the light of day: spying, assassination, sowing discord, placing undercover agents, framing targets, and steering public opinion. It handled the dirty work and quietly cleared countless potential threats from Konoha's path.

The two top-tier covert networks had taken full shape, spreading throughout the Shinobi World and leaving scarcely a gap.

In just five years, Konoha's covert strength had far surpassed that of any previous era.

Beyond all this, Konoha's most vital and secret forbidden research had also borne fruit in those five years.

After five years of painstaking work, researchers had used Tobirama Senju's surviving research notes and the remaining samples of Hashirama's living cells to overcome the challenges of adapting and transplanting Hashirama Cells into the human body.

The first person to benefit was Shimura Danzō.

The arm he had lost in the conflict in the Land of Lightning five years earlier had regenerated through perfectly compatible Hashirama Cells.

Now Danzō was whole again. The immense vitality and regenerative ability of the Senju Clan had also quietly taken root within him. His physique, endurance, and Chakra reserves had increased severalfold.

His strength had successfully broken through to Kage Level as well.

He was the village's fourth Kage Level shinobi, after Mito Uzumaki, Kagami Uchiha, and Hiruzen Sarutobi.

But the true breakthrough belonged to Kagami Uchiha himself.

After countless safe trials, observations of living subjects, and data comparisons, Kagami had used his extraordinarily resilient body and exceptionally refined Chakra control to receive a perfect transplant of Hashirama Cells.

There had been no loss of control, no rejection, and no assimilation or backlash.

Kagami Uchiha's body had perfectly united the Uchiha's supreme ocular power with the Senju's boundless vitality.

Now Kagami Uchiha's eyes were whole and unharmed, his Mangekyō's ocular power was at its peak, and he possessed a body perfectly adapted to Hashirama Cells.

Beyond that, his right eye's unique Mangekyō ability, Ame-no-Minaka, had completed its transformation over those five years.

Unlike traditional Uchiha ocular techniques focused on attack, defense, or space, this one-of-a-kind Mangekyō Sharingan centered on tracing power to its source, purifying it, and evolving it.

Each use of an ordinary Mangekyō Sharingan drained its ocular power, damaged the eyes, and deepened its curse of darkness. Its wielder's vision could only decline, with no escape from eventual blindness.

But Ame-no-Minaka was entirely different.

Sustained by the vitality of Hashirama Cells over the years, and aided by the extraordinary nature of the technique itself, Kagami's eyes were purifying the ocular power of his Uchiha bloodline on their own.

Each time he used that power, it no longer drained and degraded his eyes. Instead, it honed and refined the Sharingan to its fullest potential.

Ame-no-Minaka stripped away the Mangekyō's inherent backlash, loss of vision, and hidden bloodline afflictions layer by layer, cleansing them completely.

Without transplanting anyone else's eyes, he had used his own ocular technique and Hashirama Senju's vitality to drive an ordinary Mangekyō ever closer to the form and essence of the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.

Only one final transformation remained before it became a true Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.

Now Kagami Uchiha could activate and sustain Perfect Susanoo for long periods on his own, without drawing on any outside power.

Across the entire Shinobi World, almost no one alive could face him head-on, apart from the reclusive, aging Madara Uchiha.

He had long since crossed the boundary of Kage Level and stood firmly among the shinobi of legend, beyond even the Kage.