(Danzo POV)
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"Danzo-sama, here is the report for today."
Without a word, he placed the file on the table, and with a sharp wave of my left hand, I signaled for him to leave. He quickly departs, vanishing from my sight.
As soon as he's gone, my eyes drift downward, settling on my arm once more.
My crippled right arm...
A heavy sigh escapes my lips.
...It's been a month now, and still nothing…
No sensation, no movement… Just dead weight hanging at my side.
...
'Why did fortune turn its back on me like this?'
Another sigh, deeper this time, fills the quiet room.
There's no use in wallowing… I should focus on the task at hand, on the report.
With an awkward motion, I bring my left hand over to the file, still struggling to adapt to this new reality.
But before I can begin—
"Excuse me, Danzo-sama, ma—"
"Return to your post at once!" I snap, my voice cutting through the air as I slam the table with my left hand, the impact reverberating through the room. The force sends him scurrying back to his station, where he belongs.
'There are limits to insolence!'
My frustration flares as I start flipping through the pages with my left hand, the motion rough and impatient. But as I read, my anger slowly begins to dissipate.
First, the Uchiha Clan.
As my eyes scan the content, a small smirk tugs at the corner of my lips. My mood lifts slightly upon seeing how Kagami's dovish faction is gaining more traction within the clan, especially after the 'disappearance' of Uchiha Clan leader Fukashi's son's fiancée-to-be.
The youngest son of Setsuna, the later who is leader of the hawkish faction, is under fire, where after being suspected of being involved due to his suspicious behavior when questioned about her, Fukashi forcefully looked at his memories and discovered he burned the girl alive in a fit of rage after she rejected last of his forceful advances.
While her body was not found to prove his crime, it did not stop others within the clan
from isolating the hawkish faction.
As for whether the boy actually did it, I wouldn't put it past him—he is an Uchiha, after all. But regardless, this turn of events has only tightened our grip on the clan through Kagami. Even Fukashi, who was always frustratingly neutral to the point of forming a faction solely to uphold that neutrality, is starting to lean toward Kagami's side. There's even talk of selecting his son's new bride from among the daughters of the elders within the dovish faction.
'Give it a few more years, and they'll be Konoha's loyal dogs, just as Sensei always intended.'
Now, that will be a sight worth remembering…
Moving forward—after the awkward task of grabbing the page and dragging it to reveal the next one—I focused on the grim details of the ongoing war.
"Tsk, he's getting bolder," I muttered, my sneer deepening as I read how Hanzo of the Salamander had the nerve to cancel the peace treaty with Suna. He wasn't satisfied with the terms, as if he had the audacity to demand more in the first place.
He really thinks he can take down Shinki, the Kazekage. Shinki, who didn't even bother to fight alongside his clan, opting instead to concentrate his efforts on Iwagakure. He's fully engaged in a real battle with Mu, the Tsuchikage, and his forces, as it was the only fight worth his attention.
'Times when a nuisance mistakes himself for a threat,' I thought, a wry smile tugging at my lips.
Hanzo should count himself lucky that brat took out the One-Tail Jinchuriki along with the son, daughter-in-law, and brother of Lady Chiyo. If not for that, their village would be nothing but rubble, sinking deep into their own rivers by now.
Again, I grabbed the page and dragged it over, this time frowning as I glimpsed the latest intelligence.
"Still a stalemate…"
Hiruzen's plan to use his disciples' summoning beasts to brace against the impact of the Explosion Corps' attacks had somewhat mitigated the casualties among our troops, but it wasn't enough. A stalemate isn't the worst outcome—it buys us time to strategize, to plan our next move—but this impasse is far from what we need.
With Onoki's prolonged absence from the battlefield, who knows when he'll show up to strike? I highly doubt their summons are quick enough to escape being obliterated by Dust Release—assuming Onoki actually mastered it from Mu after the First Shinobi World War, if he met the affinity requirement to learn it.
Another pressing danger is Mu himself. After a year and a half long pressure he applied on Sunagakure, he might push them into signing a peace treaty, allowing himself to redirect his focus toward us.
That's something we can't allow to happen.
We need to ensure that any treaty between them is delayed as much as possible, even if it means sacrificing all our Anbu in the espionage division. Sabotage and spreading misinformation are the least we can do to disrupt their potential alliances. Especially since Sunagakure, with 'a touch of insistence', requested that we host the first Joint Chunin Exam on our own soil—a move that makes anyone question their true intentions.
Grabbing the page to flip it once more, I caught sight of a sealing formula faintly inscribed on the paper. Without hesitation, I placed my palm flat against the surface, channeling my chakra into the paper as I muttered, 'Unseal.'
The white smoke that followed was a familiar sight, but what it revealed left me thoroughly annoyed. A small pile of complaint letters from the Shimura clan appeared before me, each one likely filled with grievances I had no interest in entertaining.
I sifted through the pile, my fingers brushing over the envelopes until I settled on one from a respected elder within my clan. Without much thought, I tore it open, pulling out the letter inside. With a quick motion, I straightened it with my left hand and began to read the elder's complaints.
...
A heavy sigh escaped my lips.
So, it seems that Akio had managed to offend not just this elder, but the entire council of elders, by daring to place restrictions on the amount of cash flow their families receives and this is not even the last offending action he committed.
He had taken the step of lowering the price of shinobi flak jackets, which our clan manufactures and sells in Konoha, by 30% and demanded an increase of their quality. As if that wasn't enough, he enforced the development and for production of Genin-equivalent flak jackets at a lower price, sacrificing some quality to match the reduced cost.
Akio also increased transparency on how the casinos, gambling dens, pawn shops, and loan shark offices co-owned by our clan and Hiruzen's operated, revealing the average
loss rate gambler experience from the former two and the interest rate the customers had to bear from the latter two.
To top it all off, he cut the price of energy from the Energy Department, which both our clans have a 90% stake in, by 10%
And as if that weren't enough to stir the pot, he had harshly punished the son of that elder for a 'minor indiscretion' he did at a bar today— where the consequence left the boy hospitalized with a recovery period of six months.
'So, I suppose the rest of these letters are more of the same…'
"Mizuchi Sebun," I called out, my voice carrying an edge of impatience.
From the shadows, Mizuchi Sebun emerged, bowing deeply as he came to stand beside me.
"Yes, my lord?"
"Take these letters from my clan and dispose of them," I instructed coldly. "Burn them thoroughly until only ashes remain."
Their complaints were of no concern to me. I had far more pressing matters to attend to—like overseeing the progress of the Wood Release experiment, managing the insemination project, and dealing with the children that brat kidnapped from Suna. Those orphans, scattered across various facilities, needed to be educated properly to ensure their loyalty to Konoha, especially after the Yamanaka clan had gone to great lengths to alter their memories to forget their lowly origin to embrace their honorable future.
Once Mizuchi Sebun had dutifully burned the letters and presented me with the ashes as proof, I dismissed him and turned my attention to more important things. I was about to head to the training room to practice hand seals using only my left hand, to see a hope of performing ninjutsu after losing my right arm, when something caught my eye—a single envelope still lying on the pile.
From a distance, the envelope appeared too plain to belong to any of the clan heads, let alone Hiruzen. But as I approached and got a closer look, I recognized the crest—a fusion of the Shimura and Nara clan symbols.
'What could that brat want now?'
Tearing the envelope, a letter and a photograph slipped out, falling onto the table in front of me.
'A picture… of a blonde child with blue eyes…?'
Frowning, I picked up the photograph, turning it over to read the writing on the back.
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Name:Minato Namikaze
Age: 5
Clan: Unknown
Identity of Biological Parents: Unknown
Status: An orphan from Konoha Orphanage, currently attending the first year of the Academy.
Location of His Apartment: East-south sector in the Civilian Area, Block E, Road Number 3, House Number 78, 2nd floor, Flat Number 203
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Author's Note:What do you think MC is scheming?
1.Giving Naruto's father a loving family he always deserve. :)
2. Adopting him to fulfill his dream of having a little brother. :)
3.Screwing the timelime because he felt bored and wanted a challenge. :)