- I have noticed, Hawk," the elderly shinobi nodded, "and it is troubling.
His gut was telling him that Hyuga's support could no longer be counted on, and most of the main branch was gone, if not all of them. In the end, Hiruzen knew that all patience came to an end, and given the slightest chance of success, the trained killers would not play mercy and would gladly stab those who treated them as slaves, kin or not.
With all the problems suddenly piling up, Danzo's betrayal, the panicking elders, Hiruzen felt old and very tired, and uniting the entire village under the firm hand of a leader, was now farther away than ever. Rather, one could speak of uniting against.
The only comforting news in the last few days was that Orochimaru could now be influenced by no one but him and had a chance to retain some levers of power when the sannin was elected as the fourth Hokage.
***
Rumors about the new head of the White Eyes began to circulate among the shinobi within a couple of hours after the erection and removal of their clan protection, quickly reaching all the interested parties, allowing me to breathe a sigh of relief that the risk was worth it and no extremely angry shinobi from the main branch of the Hyuga would come to my head.
I don't know if it was all of them or just the lousy part, but Hiruzen wouldn't be able to pull the elders' strings anymore. And with the loss of the support of Konoha's largest noble clan, the Aburame had taken a wait-and-see attitude - it wouldn't take long for the old monkey to take his post, no matter how he wriggled his way out of it. And with that, I had an urgent matter to attend to.
Having quickly scribbled a short message and rolled up the sheet, I put it in a specially designed cylinder and went to look for one furry lazy ass.
The little panther was found in the living room on the couch, sprawled out on top of me with her bellybutton at full grown length and sleeping sweetly.
- Hey, lazy, stop sleeping, - lightly poked her finger in the round side, - there is business.
- Nyau, I'm sleeping, don't disturb me," she mumbled quietly, turning away from me and not even deigning to open her eyes.
- You're asleep all the time if you're not eating or playing with Katsumi," I hummed, keeping up with the kitty.
Only this time, they didn't even dignify me with a response, only a noticeably louder snore. Well, I'll have to resort to the forbidden technique, since someone decided to ignore me.
- Oh, fishy!
- Mine!!! Where is it?! - Nyarla, who had been pretending to be asleep a second ago, suddenly jumped up from her lying position and, being on her feet, started looking around.
- In the river, I guess," I rubbed my chin thoughtfully, barely holding back a smile.
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