From the outside,
the orphanage seemed like an ordinary, even humble, place—a simple building under the sun of the Land of Fire. It was filled with the sound of children's laughter, a peaceful and carefree environment perfect for the growth of orphaned kids, where the kind staff filled the void left by their families in their small hearts. But deep inside, the orphanage was a military fortress for training the next generation of spies and ninjas loyal to Uchiha Mitsuro.
Five years ago, Mitsuro took control of this place and immediately began to implement fundamental changes.
He meticulously turned every corner of the orphanage into a training center. For Mitsuro, every child was a sapling that needed to be watered with his ideology.
His first step was to change the previous policy. Unlike the common tradition of sending talented children to Konoha and then cutting all ties with them, Mitsuro maintained his connection to them even after they were sent to school, and he officially provided them with financial support until they were fourteen.
He used emotional, financial, and spiritual support to forge each child into a force loyal to the orphanage's structure. He believed that he wasn't exploiting the children; on the contrary, he cared more about them than all the villages that only viewed children as chess pieces.
Mitsuro divided the children into two groups based on their abilities. The first group consisted of children with high chakra who showed the potential to become shinobi. These were Mitsuro's elites.
He taught them basic chakra training, stealth techniques, and the fundamentals of combat, but most importantly, he introduced them to his philosophy and ideology—a philosophy built on survival, strategy, and unconditional loyalty to him and his subordinate staff.
In the future, these children would be sent to ninja villages as Mitsuro's spies and infiltrators. On the surface, they were loyal ninjas of their own village, but deep down, they only served Mitsuro and his goals. This hidden army, raised from infancy, was Mitsuro's most important asset.
The second group were children who didn't have the ability to become shinobi.
Mitsuro never abandoned them. Instead, he utilized their talents in a different way. These children learned various subjects at the orphanage until they were fourteen, including mathematics, politics, astronomy, linguistics, and even history. They were trained to become spies without chakra, individuals who could infiltrate any part of the ninja world that ninjas couldn't enter, using different names and aliases.
They could infiltrate the courts of Daimyos or wealthy families as merchants, doctors, artists, or even servants, and collect valuable information for Mitsuro. Mitsuro used these children to fill his information gaps and meticulously spread them across the world.
To fund his expenses, Mitsuro had also carefully and meticulously established a network of ninja mercenaries. He had gathered a number of mercenary ninjas and, with their help, began creating independent networks that operated in smaller villages and towns.
These teams, which were previously small gangster gangs or forest bandits, had now become a mafia-like family whose job was to protect and carry out simple missions that villagers couldn't entrust to the respectable ninjas of the large villages. Then all their money and information would be funneled into a single location.
All the information and commission income reached Mitsuro and the orphanage through a complex underground network. This network had slowly expanded and become multi-layered over the past three years, to the point that no one, not even Danzo or the Third Hokage, had been able to discover it. Although each member of this network had no power on their own, together, they allowed Mitsuro to control and, if necessary, alter the flow of information in the ninja world.
With these actions, Mitsuro had practically built a hidden village in the shadow of Konoha and other major countries—an underground network as delicate as a spider's web that only Mitsuro and his companions could manage. Any management mistake could shatter the entire network, but he had complete confidence in himself and his subordinates.
…
Deep underground, beneath the orphanage, Mitsuro lay on a special bed in his well-equipped laboratory.
Mitsuro waited in silence. Kaori, with her now slightly longer red hair, carefully examined his eyes.
Kaori slowly checked Mitsuro's eyes. "Good. Your eyes show no signs of rejection." Her voice still had the same calmness, but after four years, the exhaustion and illness were gone from her body and eyes. She even looked younger than when she was in Kusagakure.
Mitsuro replied with a calm smirk, "Of course they don't. It's been four years. Your work was very clean back then!"
Kaori put her tools aside and said with a touch of annoyance, "Yeah, but I still haven't forgotten when you told me you ripped them out of their sockets like a savage and then wanted to put them back in! I really questioned your sanity at that moment."
Mitsuro got up from the bed and walked towards a large, dark mirror in a corner of the lab. "I had no choice back then. At that moment, it was the only way I could save myself." His eyes shone in the mirror. "Maybe in the future, I'll have to ask you to replace my eyes again…"
Upon hearing this, Kaori suddenly stopped what she was doing. She tidied up the lab equipment more quickly and said in a firm voice, "Don't even think about it! Eyes aren't clothes you can take off and put on a new pair whenever you want! You're already very lucky that your body didn't reject or destroy your eyes."
Mitsuro looked at her calmly. "These are my original eyes. Why would my body reject eyes that are its own?"
Kaori sighed and continued with exasperation, "It doesn't matter. Eyes have a very sensitive tissue. Taking them out of the socket with bare hands could cause permanent blindness or even destroy them. The nerves inside the eye socket don't heal easily after being severed. The next time, they might even be destroyed, even under ideal operating room conditions and with the best equipment!"
Mitsuro asked curiously, "What if I find a way to increase my body's healing ability?"
Kaori shook her head. "Even if you had an Uzumaki body, it would still be useless! Because in that case, your body would heal itself, but the eye you took out of the socket would be permanently damaged. Your body might not even accept the other eye. This is an unchangeable law."
Mitsuro smirked to himself, thinking, If you knew how many people have thrown this law away in the most ridiculous way possible and treat eyes like batteries, your face would be a sight to see.
Mitsuro fell into thought. "Can you make a drug that messes with chakra?"
"Messes with chakra? It's difficult, but it's possible. Why?"
"What about for a specific area? Like the eyes? To make them lose their power?"
"Are you still thinking about changing your eyes? Do you have a death wish?"
"No, I'm working on an idea."
Kaori said, "We'll have to work on it, but I think it's possible to disable the eye's chakra with eye drops, but there are side effects. The eye might not be able to see for a while."
"Good. Make it for me."
"Whose eye do you want to disable?"
"I'm working on a plan..."
Mitsuro changed the subject and asked, "By the way, how's Karin? I haven't seen her around! Did something happen?"
Kaori, who was busy tidying up the lab equipment, replied calmly, "She's fine. She's practicing in the yard." She carefully put the tools back in their place and continued, "When are you coming back? You know the kids miss you a lot when you're gone."
Mitsuro looked at Kaori calmly. "I won't stay long. I think in a few days, I'll have to move with Senta toward the Land of Waves."
Kaori sighed. "The Land of Waves? so You have a long journey ahead."
"Yes" Mitsuro went to his desk and pulled an old map from under some documents. "But I have to go. You know our limitations have increased; we need money…"
Kaori looked at Mitsuro and understood what he meant. "So going to the Land of Waves can improve our financial situation?"
Mitsuro shook his head. "Temporarily. No matter how much money I bring back with me, it won't be enough. You know our current situation is like a leaking pot! We inject money, but we don't have immediate profit. On the other hand, we can't give all the kids high-level training. Especially those with kekkei genkai. Kids like Karin and the Uchiha children have high potential, but we can't teach them all the necessary skills. At the same time, sending them to the academies of Konoha or other villages is a big risk."
Kaori said with concern, "I also want them to learn the necessary skills. I don't want my fate to be repeated for my daughter." "But we don't have anyone who can teach them anything."
Mitsuro tapped the table with his finger and said, "Exactly! That's why I've come to the conclusion that we need to take a big step."
Kaori asked with curiosity, "What step?"
"We can't continue like this forever. We need to have a patron at the Daimyo level, like the others. Or at least a steady source of income besides all the work we've been doing until now." Mitsuro stated this with conviction. "We need to have a village of our own."
Kaori was stunned for a moment, then said excitedly, "A village? But that's impossible! Where are you going to build a village?"
Mitsuro smirked. "There are two ways. Either we start from scratch and build a village, or we take a small ninja village for ourselves."
Kaori asked with wide eyes, "You want to conquer a village? Is something like that even possible?"
Mitsuro said with confidence, "Nothing is impossible. A smart person once said if you steal an apple, you're a thief; if you steal a kingdom, you become a hero! You know how I see that sentence? It means everything is stealable, even a village!"
He then took a deep breath and shared his thoughts with Kaori. "I've already planned it. A weak ninja village can easily fall to us. As soon as we reach the Land of Waves, a few of the mercenary teams will attack one of the ninja villages. We just need to take control of the leaders; the subordinates will easily accept the regime change. After that, you and the kids will go and settle there."
He gave a mysterious smile. "Who knows, maybe we can send a team from our own students for this year's Konoha Chunin Exams!"
Kaori asked in surprise, "That fast? So you're officially in the final stages of your plan!"
"This is a plan I've been working on for several years. By the way, tell me, you like rivers and waterfalls, don't you?"
"Wait! Don't tell me you want..."
"Exactly! Takigakure will soon be ours!"