The sound at the door cut off his wandering thoughts. Before Hiruzen Sarutobi could speak, the person outside pushed the door open and walked in. There was no doubt that only one kind of person in all of Konoha would dare barge into Hokage Office like this.
"Danzo Shimura, Koharu?" Hiruzen Sarutobi looked up at the two of them and frowned slightly. "What is it?"
"What, can't we come see you if there's nothing wrong?" Koharu Utatane replied sharply as she sat down by the window. Her tone carried obvious displeasure.
Hiruzen Sarutobi neither agreed nor argued. He raised the pipe to his mouth, the tobacco glowing as he drew in, and thin wisps of pale Ao smoke drifted up and were carried out the window by the breeze. The room filled with a faint smell of smoke.
"Cough, cough. Hiruzen, haven't you been smoking too much lately?" Koharu Utatane waved her hand to disperse the smoke and reminded him, "I know you're under a lot of pressure, but you should still take care of your health."
"I've heard you've been staying here this whole time and haven't gone home at all," she continued. "You didn't even go back for that child's first birthday."
Hiruzen Sarutobi ignored her reminder and looked directly at Danzo Shimura standing before him. "Enough. Say it straight. What is it?"
If Koharu Utatane had come alone, it might have been out of concern. But Danzo Shimura never showed up without a reason, and he would not come here just to check on him. That much was obvious.
"Hiruzen, do you know that the Uchiha Clan has been holding clan meetings at the Naka Shrine more and more frequently lately?" Danzo Shimura asked bluntly.
At those words, Hiruzen Sarutobi frowned unconsciously. To be honest, he did not know much about what was happening inside the Uchiha Clan. Recent events outside the village had already consumed his attention, and he had inevitably neglected internal matters.
He did not show it on his face and replied calmly, "I know. So what are you trying to say?"
"From what I know through Root, dissatisfaction within the Uchiha Clan toward Konoha is growing stronger," Danzo Shimura said in a low voice. "The complaints are increasing by the day. Hiruzen, do you really not understand what this means?"
Hiruzen Sarutobi fell silent. Of course he understood what it meant.
Ever since the Nine-Tails incident, the rift between the Uchiha Clan and the village had only widened. On one hand, during that incident, the Konoha Leadership had ordered the police force to strengthen village security, which made the Uchiha Clan feel they were being suspected of releasing the Nine-Tails themselves.
On the other hand, after the incident, a meeting of the major clans of Konoha had been convened to reorganize the village layout, moving the police force to the edge of the village. There was also the unresolved conflict between ANBU and the police force, which had dragged on without solution. If not for the outbreak of war, the tension between the Uchiha Clan and the village would have been the problem troubling Hiruzen Sarutobi the most.
That issue had never been resolved, only temporarily set aside. Now, the problem of the Uchiha Clan was once again laid out in front of him.
"..."
Hiruzen Sarutobi smoked in silence, the pipe held steady as smoke rose and covered his deeply lined face. He sat without moving, letting the smoke linger before his eyes. After a long while, he finally looked up at Danzo Shimura.
"So, Danzo Shimura, what are you trying to say?" Hiruzen Sarutobi asked calmly. "Or rather, what do you want to do?"
Faced with the question, Danzo Shimura did not answer right away. He slowly walked to the window and looked out over the seemingly quiet and peaceful Konoha. His back remained turned as he spoke.
"Hiruzen, this is not about what I want to do," he said. "It is about what we must do."
"You should already know the news that Kusagakure was destroyed not long ago by a 'Vengeful Spirit'."
Hiruzen Sarutobi's fingers trembled slightly around the pipe, and ash fell down in small clumps. He narrowed his eyes and spoke in a low voice.
"Has the reliability of that information been confirmed?"
They had already received reports that Kusagakure was wiped out by an unknown existence. However, the details in those reports were vague and strange, filled with talk of Vengeful Spirit killing people and the dead seeking revenge. At the time, Hiruzen Sarutobi had not taken it too seriously.
"Yes. I already sent people to verify it," Danzo Shimura replied flatly. "Most of Kusagakure's core forces were completely destroyed overnight by some unknown power."
"There were very few survivors. Only a few dozen Kusagakure Ninja who were out on missions lived."
"Who did it?" Hiruzen Sarutobi asked, his voice rough. "Almost wiping out Kusagakure in a single night…"
Before he could finish, Danzo Shimura interrupted him.
"It was a 'Vengeful Spirit'," he said.
At those words, shock appeared on the faces of Hiruzen Sarutobi and Koharu Utatane. The latter blurted out, "Is it some Ninja with the code name 'Vengeful Spirit'?"
"No," Danzo Shimura said after letting out a breath. "It is a 'Vengeful Spirit'. Literally a 'Vengeful Spirit'."
"According to the survivors from Kusagakure, that thing has no physical body. You cannot see its face, and you cannot stop it. Wherever it goes, it pulls out the soul, and people die on the spot."
"I did not believe it either," he continued, "so I had Root bring back several corpses. After multiple examinations and dissections, I can be certain there were no injuries at all."
"No external wounds, no internal damage, no poison," he said. "They truly just died suddenly."
Danzo Shimura turned his head toward the two of them and went on. "I sent the bodies to Yamanaka Clan. They said the cause of death was that all mental energy had been drained."
"Mental energy is the soul."
A deep chill rose in the hearts of Hiruzen Sarutobi and Koharu Utatane. In the Ninja World, there were indeed some Ninjutsu that involved the soul, such as the secret techniques of Yamanaka Clan or the S-rank Forbidden Technique known as 'Linghua Technique'. Even so, those techniques worked through possession and control before damaging the body.
To directly drain all mental energy without any medium was something they had never heard of.
"No wonder the outside world calls it a 'Vengeful Spirit'," Koharu Utatane murmured. "That really is something only a legendary 'Vengeful Spirit' could do."
"Hiruzen."
As Hiruzen Sarutobi frowned, Danzo Shimura suddenly spoke again. "Do you know who that 'Vengeful Spirit' was?"
Hiruzen Sarutobi froze for a moment, then quickly understood. If it was a 'Vengeful Spirit', it had to be someone who died filled with resentment.
"It was a member of the Uzumaki Clan," Danzo Shimura said coldly. "Because of her 'physical healing' ability, Kusagakure hid her away and used her by biting her flesh to treat injuries."
"I guess that because of her hatred, she used some kind of Forbidden Technique, paid with her own life, and after death wiped out Grass Hidden."
With the terrifying foundation the Uzumaki Clan had built over nearly a thousand years, they could even summon the 'god of death' with the Reaper Seal. Turning into a 'Vengeful Spirit' after death was not impossible.
"The Uzumaki Clan…" Hiruzen Sarutobi said hoarsely. "How could this happen?"
"That is the reality!" Danzo Shimura snapped, his tone turning sharp. "Hiruzen, the fate of Kusagakure is right there in front of us."
"A ninja village with military strength like that can be destroyed from the inside in just one night. All it takes is one resentful 'Vengeful Spirit' with a Forbidden Technique!"
He stepped forward, leaning in slightly. His single eye gleamed dangerously as his voice dropped low, each word striking hard.
"Hiruzen, tell me. Inside our Konoha, right under our noses, is there such a group or not?"
"They have built up decades of resentment and dissatisfaction."
"They possess evil power enough to overturn the village."
"They are becoming more unstable, like a powder keg."
"They are the Uchiha Clan!"
Danzo Shimura's voice was sharp and cold with every word. He stared straight at Hiruzen Sarutobi and pointed out the window at the peaceful looking Konoha.
"If their hatred fully erupts, if someone discovers the true power of those eyes, if they turn it against the village," he sneered. "Do you think Konoha would fare any better than Kusagakure?"
"..."
The office fell into a deathly silence. Only the faint crackle of tobacco burning in Hiruzen Sarutobi's pipe could be heard, along with the occasional bird call from outside that now sounded harsh.
Koharu Utatane's face looked terrible as well. She glanced at Hiruzen Sarutobi, her lips moving, but no words came out.
What Danzo Shimura said was extreme, but the tragedy of Kusagakure stood as a vivid example. It pushed people to think in the worst possible direction. In this regard, Danzo Shimura was truly skilled.
Hiruzen Sarutobi slowly closed his eyes, the pipe in his hand feeling unbearably heavy. The problem of the Uchiha clung to him like a festering wound. Under the shadow of war, it had only grown more painful.
Now Danzo Shimura had cut it open and laid the bloody reality before him.
After a long stretch of silence, Hiruzen Sarutobi finally spoke.
"The Uchiha Clan are the Konoha's Uchiha Clan. Konoha needs the strength of the Uchiha."