"Project Ash? Destroy Konoha?"
Watanabe Ichiro grew interested as he looked over the intelligence his subordinates had sent him.
The subordinates he had carefully selected through the system had certainly given him a pleasant surprise. He had never expected them to regain their superiors' trust so quickly, let alone uncover intelligence like this.
Nor had he expected the Land of Wind and Land of Earth to be so impatient. Watanabe Ichiro had thought they would behave themselves for a few years, slowly build up their strength, and only then start making trouble again.
Still, Black Zetsu's meddling probably had something to do with it.
Black Zetsu's marker in the system had been traveling back and forth between the Land of Wind and Land of Earth lately. Apparently, his hatred for Konoha ran deep enough to keep him dragging his drastically shrunken body around to stir up trouble.
And the Land of Wind and Land of Earth's ruthless ambitions undoubtedly owed something to his encouragement.
Watanabe Ichiro recalled how Black Zetsu had fallen apart after losing the Rinnegan and felt that this was only to be expected.
If he did nothing at all, Watanabe Ichiro would have found that strange instead.
Since he knew about it, he might as well ruin the plan while he was at it. He needed to cultivate the good habit of screwing over Black Zetsu for points.
But that meant he would need a disguise to give Konoha's current leadership a warning.
He had originally thought Konoha would remain peaceful for a few years, allowing his artificial human disguise to grow up undisturbed. From the looks of things, though, he still needed to keep a disguise that could gain access to Konoha's inner circle.
He wondered whether Hiruzen Sarutobi and the others had recognized this trap.