The scene on the Sky Screen shifted again, plunging straight into the shadowy power games unfolding in Konoha.
Following the plan Naruto and Sai had laid out in advance, the moderate and neutral members of the Sarutobi Clan were assigned missions, some openly, others through subtle maneuvering.
The outcome was inevitable. Without exception, they were intercepted and killed by the Veil Organization.
Naruto had even carefully arranged several layers of misdirection, making the attacks look like ambushes by foreign shinobi or violence by rogue ninja.
He had wanted to muddy the waters.
But events took a turn that went far beyond his expectations.
Sarutobi clansmen sent out on missions suffered one casualty after another, inflicting considerable losses on the clan.
Normally, a major clan losing so many people in succession would have erupted in fury, launched a thorough investigation, and hunted down the killers.
Yet within the Sarutobi Clan, no one cared from beginning to end, and no one was willing to dig into the truth.
The radicals sat above it all, watching with cold indifference.
The dead were all moderates and neutrals who kept to themselves and wanted nothing more than peaceful lives.
To the ambitious faction, those people stood in the way of their rise and should have disappeared long ago.
Their clansmen had died horribly? They could not have cared less.
Having fewer people to share influence within the clan was, to them, a tremendous blessing.
In the Hokage Office, Naruto read the incoming intelligence and could not help feeling speechless.
"I put all that effort into setting things up, and in the end, none of it was even needed."
People from the same clan watched their own kin bleed and die without the slightest concern. Some even secretly rejoiced.
Naruto shook his head lightly, his voice