The air inside the Hokage's office smelled of tobacco and tension. Hiruzen Sarutobi sat heavily behind his desk, flanked by Homura and Koharu, whose expressions were carved with anxiety.
The map pinned to the wall had the Alliance countries marked in red, and it had become a waking nightmare for the Land of Fire. The Alliance's influence was no longer just expanding; it had woven a net around them. By controlling the buffer nations—Rain, Grass, Rivers, and Waterfalls—Ren Uchiha's coalition now held dominion over the primary land routes facilitating trade between the Five Great Nations.
It was an economic stranglehold. The Land of Fire could not simply ban the goods flowing out of the Land of Rain without crippling their own merchants, because the Alliance controlled the very roads those merchants needed to travel between the Great Nations. If Konoha pushed too hard, the Alliance could instantly retaliate by imposing tariffs or shutting down the borders entirely.
The core of the issue, Hiruzen and the Fire Daimyo had realized, lay in the Land of Rain—the manufacturing hub of the Alliance. The agricultural power belonged to the Land of Rice Fields, but none of the Great Nations could buy raw food grain from anywhere other than the Land of Fire due to the signed treaties. To bypass this, the Land of Rice Fields sent its produce to the Land of Rain, where those raw goods were processed into high-margin products. Sitting directly between three Great Nations, the Land of Rain was a prime location for cross-border trade, making it the lifeline of the Alliance.
Desperate to break this coalition and protect their profits, the Fire Daimyo had attempted a diplomatic maneuver. He had sent a formal invitation to the Daimyo of the Land of Rain, offering to replace the Rice Fields' agricultural output with the Land of Fire's own, provided Rain abandoned the Alliance.
The response had been a flat refusal to even meet.
"It is Ren Uchiha!" Koharu snapped, her voice shrill with paranoia as she paced tightly across the room. "I am sure of it. He has compromised the Daimyos. There is no other logical reason a minor lord would outright refuse a private audience with the Fire Daimyo! He is using genjutsu, or something else, to control them!"
She slammed her hands on Hiruzen's desk. "Hiruzen, we cannot let this sword hang over our heads forever!"
Hiruzen didn't argue, nor did he agree. He simply pulled his pipe from his mouth, his eyes shadowed beneath the brim of his hat, and signaled to an Anbu operative waiting silently in the corner.
"Summon Orochimaru," Hiruzen commanded quietly.
Deep underground, far beneath the sunlit streets of Konoha, the air was freezing and smelled of copper.
Orochimaru stood at the edge of a massive, intricate sealing array painted across the stone floor. In the center of the kanji, a tightly bound prisoner lay trembling, his mouth gagged.
Orochimaru's pale hands blurred through a sequence of hand seals.
"Edo Tensei."
He slammed his palms onto the floor. Black script erupted from the central formula, crawling up the screaming prisoner's legs. The sacrifice's muffled cries reached a pitch of agony as the summoning took hold.
Suddenly, a storm of ash and dirt erupted from the ground, swirling violently around the struggling man. The debris clung to him, molding itself into a completely new shape. The ash compacted, sculpting the bandages and the single eye of the late Darkness of Konoha—Danzō Shimura.
The resurrected Danzō opened his eye. He blinked, then opened his mouth to speak.
Before a single word could leave Danzō's throat, the ash lost its cohesion. The resurrected form crumbled instantly into a pile of grey dust, leaving behind only the lifeless corpse of the sacrifice.
"Ooh... it succeeded," Orochimaru hissed softly, his tongue darting out to moisten his lips. "It won't take much longer now."
As Orochimaru analyzed the remnants of the jutsu, a Root operative dropped silently from the ceiling, kneeling respectfully behind him.
"Orochimaru-sama," the operative murmured. "The Third Hokage has summoned you to his office. It is urgent."
A short time later, the doors to the Hokage's office clicked shut, leaving Hiruzen, the two Elders, and Orochimaru alone in the tense silence.
Elder Koharu wasted no time.
"Orochimaru!" she barked, her voice echoing sharply. "What exactly have you been doing lately? Why is Root not functioning properly under your command?"
Orochimaru tilted his head, his face wearing a mask of polite confusion. He slowly licked his lips. "I am afraid you will have to be more specific, Elder Koharu. What exactly is Root failing to do?"
"Do not play coy with me!" Koharu snapped, pointing a trembling finger at him.
"If you are referring to infiltrating the Land of Rice Fields," Orochimaru interrupted smoothly, his golden eyes narrowing into slits, "I have already informed the council that penetrating their borders is next to impossible. I have already provided the Hokage with whatever intelligence we could gather."
Koharu's face flushed, deep lines carving into her forehead. Everyone in the room knew infiltrating the Rice Fields was suicide. They had all sent their best men, and they had all lost them.
But Orochimaru knew perfectly well that wasn't what Koharu was actually angry about. She was angry because Root was doing nothing against the threat of the Alliance.
If Danzō were still alive, the Hokage wouldn't have had to call a meeting. Danzō would have already dispatched assassins to quietly eliminate the Daimyos of the minor nations participating in the Alliance. He would have orchestrated coups, replaced the leaders with Konoha sympathizers, and shattered Ren Uchiha's coalition without ever needing the Hokage to vocalize the dirty order.
Hiruzen and the Elders missed their good gay best friend, the man who handled the village's filth in the shadows so they could keep their hands clean in the light.
But Danzō was dead, and Orochimaru was not Danzō. Orochimaru was a serpent who refused to do the village's dirty work unless it directly benefited his own research, and he certainly wasn't going to stick his neck out without explicit orders.
Hiruzen watched the silent standoff between his student and his advisor. He knew Orochimaru was likely pursuing his own twisted agendas in the dark, but for Hiruzen, the matter of the Alliance held far more importance.
"Enough," Hiruzen said, his heavy voice cutting through the bickering. "Orochimaru, Root's purpose is to infiltrate other nations and collect the intelligence necessary to protect this village. The Alliance is a serious concern for Konoha. If you cannot ensure the proper functioning of Root, then we will find someone better suited to lead it."
Orochimaru smiled, applying a fresh sheen of moisture to his lips with his tongue.
It was a clear threat from his teacher: I made you the head of Root, and as Hokage, I can take that position back just as easily.
"Sensei," Orochimaru said smoothly, "we already have a spy planted in the Hidden Rain."
Homura Mitokado barked from the side, "Then why haven't you reported it to us until now?!"
Orochimaru ignored Homura completely. He reached into his sleeve, pulled out a scroll, and handed it to Hiruzen.
"On the surface, nothing has changed in the Land of Rain," Orochimaru continued. "Hanzō is still the leader of Amegakure, and every policy requires his official approval. Yet, everything has changed. Hanzō rarely speaks to anyone anymore, and no one is permitted to enter his office except for two people: a blue-haired kunoichi named Konan, and Ren Uchiha."
Orochimaru's eyes gleamed. "What makes this Konan particularly interesting is that nobody had ever heard of her until eight months ago. Now, she holds authority second only to Hanzō himself, and she is frequently seen accompanying Ren Uchiha. That is everything the spy was able to send back."
After hearing the report, Koharu leaned forward. "Hiruzen, it is certain now. Hanzō is being controlled! And if Ren Uchiha can control a man like Hanzō, it wouldn't be difficult for him to control the minor Daimyos too."
"Why have you all assumed that the Daimyos of the allied nations are being coerced or controlled by Ren Uchiha?" Orochimaru asked softly.
"That is the only logical conclusion," Hiruzen replied, his brow furrowed. "Not a single minor Daimyo—not even Hanzō himself—is foolish enough to openly oppose the Five Great Nations willingly. Your own investigation into Hanzō's behavior supports this."
"True," Orochimaru nodded, a thin smile curving his lips. "Unless, of course, they have been given something that grants them the confidence to oppose us."
Orochimaru reached into his robes, pulled out a second scroll, and placed it squarely on Hiruzen's desk.
The Land of Lightning — Kumogakure
"Are you certain about what you are saying?!"
The Third Raikage's voice reverberated off the walls of his office, rattling the windows high up in the rocky mountain.
Everyone in the room, including the hot-headed Raikage himself, stared at the kneeling intelligence officer with expressions that clearly said, This can't be true.
"Our investigation over the past several months points to this conclusion, Raikage-sama," the jōnin reported, keeping his head bowed. "Ren Uchiha has discovered a method to grant ordinary civilians access to chakra. He is manufacturing shinobi."
Beside the desk, A, the Raikage's son, stepped forward. "How reliable is this intelligence?"
"We cannot verify the exact mechanics, A-sama, as infiltrating the Land of Rice Fields remains difficult," the jōnin continued. "However, the Land of Hot Water is open to foreign merchants and their escorts. Our spies kept hearing the same rumours from the locals: that ordinary farmers in the Land of Rice Fields were becoming shinobi almost overnight."
The Third Raikage leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. "Rumours are just wind. Give me facts."
"We followed the rumours to the border patrols," the jōnin continued. "That is where we found evidence. We observed dozens of Alliance patrolmen between the ages of thirty-five and forty. Their chakra levels were comparable to those of average trained shinobi of the same age, yet their posture and combat instincts were completely amateurish. They moved like men who had only learned to mould chakra a few months ago."
Silence fell over the Raikage's office. Their chakra levels and combat skills seemed to point to different conclusions. If Ren Uchiha really had a technique that could turn civilians into shinobi, then even if they were below average, he could make up for their lack of individual strength with sheer numbers.
Slowly, a grin spread across the Third Raikage's face. He slammed a massive fist onto his desk.
"If this is true, then Kumogakure must obtain this technique, no matter what it takes."