At the moment, in the course of intense negotiations, Shenesu managed to pull the Inuzuka clan, who were already very dissatisfied with Sarutobi's policies, to the side of the coalition, thanks to the personal sympathies of the new head and a number of financial frauds that took the dogmen out from under Sarutobi's influence.
The Uchiha also managed to achieve a friendly neutrality with the second Founder clan, promising the Uchiha to make the Konoha police force a clan-wide entity under their command, and to enlist the released shinobi into the village's main armed forces, which Hiruzen and the elders had previously prevented.
The Aburame, who almost always supported the Third Hokage, and the Hyuga, the village's largest clan, were still in question. Unfortunately, the latter were causing the most trouble - with their strong political influence and numbers, the clan of dojutsu wielders were completely on Hiruzen's side, keeping their elders on a short leash and how to change that, Shenesu didn't know.
Not yet. Even so, this alliance had a very good chance of changing the head of the village, and Sarutobi realized this and began to actively promote his student Orochimaru, who had a lot of support among the clanless jonins and even some of the clan jonins, although he had previously held back from such a move, preferring to see Jiraiya as his successor.
Quite an expected move on the part of the enemy and Shenesu had already prepared a couple of countermeasures to compensate for it.
What was puzzling and even dangerous for the head of Nara was Danzo's complete withdrawal from the underhanded struggle, who had previously always supported his comrade-in-arms despite his internal disagreements.
Such unusual inactivity made him tense and dig the ground in search of the reason - Shimura's fame is quite certain, albeit slightly inflated by rumors, but the one-eyed shinobi is capable of anything if he thinks it will benefit Konoha.
Of course, even within his organization there were strings to pull if necessary, but they were hardly ever used more than once, so Shenesu preferred to save his debtors for the really important occasions.
Besides, there were individuals in the allied clans who sympathized with the head of Anbu Ne, and tracking their activity and attempts to influence the politics of the native clans on certain issues could give a lot of information to a thinking shinobi.
The small clans could be disregarded, since they couldn't tip the scales to one side or the other, which was not the case with the jonin council, but here the Shenesu had everything in place, despite Sarutobi's constant attempts to strengthen his position at their expense.
Most of the clanless jonins were not rooted in Konohagakure and the dignity of the village even in the eyes of their rivals and enemies, not to mention their allies, but Hiruzen had screwed up in this regard, setting himself up in a way that even the First Hokage couldn't forgive.
The vast majority of the council agreed to replace the current leader with a more honorable leader, and the rest were willing to do the only practicing first-degree iryonin a favor.
The shinobi inhaled happily and let out a few rings of smoke.
Ryo had given Shenesu such a powerful political bargaining chip at just the right time, and the private clan hospital initiative was going to put Nara among the most powerful clans in Konoha, along with the Hyuga.
But Nara was already feeling the pressure that comes with such a status - in the shinobi community, influence must be backed up by strength, and in this regard, the shadow users were not doing well, preferring to move their brains rather than work their asses off in training, even though they had no S ranked fighters in their ranks in the past.
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