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-Umar Jawed
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-Ken Kaza
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"Tobirama Senju was quite successful in teaching his disciples," Kaito remarked with a deep implication. "All six of them perfectly inherited his will, including our Uchiha clan's own Uchiha Kagami."
"Oh?" Izuna was somewhat surprised. "He even took a disciple from the Uchiha clan?"
"I guess it was his way of subtly dividing the Uchiha clan," Kaito speculated. "Although Uchiha Kagami died early, he was praised by the Third Hokage as an Uchiha who was not constrained by narrow clan ideologies and perfectly inherited the Will of Fire, influencing several generations within our clan."
"Narrow-minded, huh?" Izuna scoffed. "Such high-sounding rhetoric, but this narrative has always set the Leaf and the Uchiha against each other from the start."
"It's because the Uchiha were too prominent, especially after the Senju clan faded away," Kaito nodded. "I can understand, though. If every ninja in the village prioritized their clan over the village, the Hokage would find himself without allies."
He continued, "In fact, isn't that the case with every clan in the village? Not everyone can achieve what Hashirama Senju did. Considering the Third Hokage's long reign and his efforts to promote non-clan ninja, the Sarutobi clan quietly grew quite a bit in the shadows."
"The so-called Will of Fire is just political manipulation, a tactic to encourage others to sacrifice without fear," Izuna said with some disdain. "It's astonishing that people actually buy into it."
Kaito laughed helplessly: "Ah, I've long lamented that most of our clan aren't very shrewd. While they're all smart when it comes to learning jutsu, they tend to be quite single-minded in other aspects."
Izuna agreed, recalling his frustrations while helping to manage the clan and dealing with its less insightful members.
Thankfully, the Senju clan, their equals in strength, were similarly straightforward, making both clans evenly matched in their long history of conflict.
But it was his premature death that left Hashirama Senju without a rival in his scheming and left his brother blindly chasing ideals.
Thus, the ultimate downfall of the Uchiha clan could be traced back to his early demise.
And all of it was Hashirama Senju's fault!
"Now, the only major clan left in the Leaf is the Hyuga," Kaito continued the conversation.
"Just a bunch of old-fashioned people," Izuna had no good impression of the Hyuga either.
"Speaking of which, from the information I gathered while searching for documents, after the Uchiha clan was forced to relocate by the village, the Hyuga clan also made some moves for a while," Kaito mentioned. "They were put in their place by the Third Hokage using the Cloud Village as a warning. After witnessing the Uchiha clan's fate, they became extremely low-key."
"Oh? Tell me more," Izuna was intrigued.
...
The two men gossiped endlessly, while Chiri remained mostly silent, smiling.
However, after chatting with Izuna for a while, Kaito suddenly remembered he still needed to gather materials for jutsu.
"Chiri-sama," he inquired, "do you know where the paper for making sealing scrolls comes from?"
"Eh?" Chiri shook her head. "I don't know. In the Leaf, you can only buy finished sealing scrolls. As for the actual production method, I've never looked into it."
"Do I have to steal paper?" Kaito seemed troubled. "Or should I buy a bunch of scrolls and then take them apart?"
"Hmph." Izuna looked at him with disdain.
Kaito immediately put on a pleasing smile and approached Izuna, "Izuna must know something, right?"
"Keep your distance," Izuna pushed Kaito away but still explained, "The materials for sealing scrolls vary. Ordinary paper is made from a special type of tree, but it can only carry a limited amount of chakra flow and is easily damaged, which is what you're using now."
"Oh? Are there other materials?" Kaito asked curiously.
"Others include animal skins, and it must be from animals that possess chakra. Especially those that can be trained as ninja animals, those are the best quality," Izuna smirked maliciously. "Of course, the top-notch material is from humans, especially ninja."
"Er..." Kaito's smile froze a bit, and he chuckled nervously, "Ha...ha... We don't need materials that good, as long as it can carry chakra flow. The key is still the incantations."
Using animal skins as materials is fine.
Although these important items were in highly guarded locations protected by barriers, especially Danzo Shimura's territory, which was secured by multiple barriers, it posed no difficulty for the paper men since they didn't emit any chakra fluctuations.
As long as the paper men temporarily hid on the bodies of the guarding ninja, they could easily infiltrate.
The guarding ninja, aside from occasionally entering to check, spent most of their time outside the door, greatly facilitating Kaito's actions.
Of course, during this time, Kaito also successfully snuck into the village several times, attaching a talisman to his face to change his appearance and openly enjoying many foods he remembered.
Three days later, all the information from the documents and books had been collected by Kaito.
"What's left now is to deal with that old man, Danzo Shimura," Kaito said with a cold laugh. "I'll make him understand that other people's things are not so easily taken."