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Land of Fire.
Border.
In a room of an inn in a certain small town, Danzo was sitting cross-legged on a cushion, with an unfolded map of the Land of Fire in front of him.
Recently, he had engaged in several skirmishes with Hidden Mist Village ninjas, fiercely countering the Hidden Mist Village ninjas who came to probe Hidden Leaf, showing no mercy and killing them all.
"At this rate, war will break out sooner or later. Hiruzen, your attitude is still too soft... At this time, taking the initiative is the most appropriate decision."
Danzo muttered slowly while looking at the map.
Hiruzen's actions seemed too conservative to him, merely retaliating against probes from other villages. However, in the current situation, it would be better to actively provoke a war and defeat one ninja village first.
With Hidden Leaf's current strength, concentrating forces to defeat one ninja village would definitely not be difficult, but if they were attacked by a coalition of various ninja villages, they would fall into a protracted war, which would be very troublesome.
In Danzo's view, Hiruzen was simply afraid of bearing the blame for initiating a war, but this was a necessary path to unify the ninja world, and sacrifices had to be made.
Whoosh!
Just as Danzo was carefully studying the map and considering how to deal with the Hidden Mist Village ninjas next, a Root ninja silently appeared in the room.
Danzo didn't look at him, still gazing at the map, and said indifferently:
"How is the situation in the village?"
Although he was at the border of the Land of Fire, he still left a portion of Root ninjas in Hidden Leaf Village to monitor the village's situation and report to him periodically.
The Root ninja said in an emotionless voice,
"Hokage-sama's attitude has not changed significantly. He still wants you, Danzo-sama, to maintain the current situation... Orochimaru has returned to Hidden Leaf, bringing back information about Hidden Sand Village, but the specific information is unknown..."
The Root ninja stated the recent intelligence, from most important to least important.
Danzo listened with a calm expression.
After nearly half an hour of narration, the Root ninja continued:
"...Kakashi's elder brother, Shin Hatake, killed an elite Hidden Mist Village scout and is suspected to possess talent and strength exceeding Kakashi's."
"Hmm?"
Danzo paused, a hint of surprise flashing in his eyes.
It wasn't that this matter was particularly important; compared to the previous information, this intelligence was almost insignificant. The problem was that all the other previous intelligence was within his expectations, but this one was completely unexpected—something he had never anticipated.
"Is the news true?"
"True."
The Root ninja responded in a deep voice.
Danzo narrowed his eyes slightly, thoughtfully saying,
"Does the White Fang's eldest son also possess such high talent, and has he been hiding it all this time...?"
The death of Shin and Kakashi's father, Sakumo Hatake, was indeed directly related to him, but his original intention was not for Sakumo to die.
Sakumo abandoning a mission for his comrades was just an accident, but the villagers' attitude was indeed manipulated by him, including the comrade Sakumo saved, whom he guided to abandon his guilt and also accuse Sakumo.
The purpose of doing this was to suppress Sakumo's prestige.
Because at that time, Sakumo was almost certainly Hiruzen's chosen successor for the Fourth Hokage, and he could not sit idly by and watch Sakumo succeed as the Fourth Hokage.
Unexpectedly, Sakumo fell into self-doubt because of this incident and eventually committed suicide... This was not his original intention. After all, no matter how much Sakumo disagreed with him, he was still a powerful fighting force for Hidden Leaf.
If he were to become the Fourth Hokage, Sakumo could be a very useful tool.
After a moment of thought—
Danzo said to the Root ninja,
"...Continue reporting."
Although Shin's matter made him think of some issues, he was currently at the border of the Land of Fire, dealing with Hidden Mist Village, and had no time to manage such things. He would have to wait until he returned to the village.
The Root ninja nodded and continued to report.
---
Hidden Leaf's Back Mountain.
Two months had passed since the killing of the elite Hidden Mist Village scout.
During these two months, Shin continued to attend school normally, but due to his previous instant defeat of Homuro Hyuga, all the students looked at him with a new sense of awe. As for the girls like Kurenai, they became even more infatuated with him.
Even Homuro Hyuga could be easily defeated, so Shin's strength was probably already at the Chunin level, and even if not as good as Kakashi, it wouldn't be far off—completely unlike the rumors!
This admiration led these precocious girls to start doing some 'excessive' things, which made Shin feel a bit helpless and often amused, especially because of their young age.
Two months' time.
His training results were also remarkably significant.
Because he possessed the ability of time acceleration, his actual age had just passed nine, but his physical age was gradually approaching eleven.
Both his taijutsu and chakra had steadily improved, from just meeting the elite Chunin standard to being outstanding even among elite Chunin.
In addition, although he hadn't been able to train the Hatake style kenjutsu to the second stage, he had already been able to open the first two gates of the Eight Gates Released Formation!
Although the first two gates of the Eight Gates did not provide explosive improvements, they were still tangible increases in strength for Shin.
Hah! Hah!!!
In a clearing in the forest, Shin was constantly training.
"The Third Gate is still a bit off..."
After a few heavy breaths, Shin stopped his training, sensing that the seal on the Third Gate in his body had not yet loosened enough to be easily broken, and muttered to himself.
For the Eight Gates, the Third Gate is a qualitative leap.
The first gate's function is to fully exert physical strength, providing a decent but not massive improvement. The second gate's effect is even related to recovery, squeezing body energy to quickly resist physical fatigue.
Only at the Third Gate does it truly become an explosive release.
"If I can open the Third Gate, in the state of the Third Gate, combined with Hatake style kenjutsu and the Chakra Blade White Fang, even without using time acceleration, I should possess the strength of a Special Jonin."
Shin muttered to himself.
After training in the Eight Gates, his strength was difficult to measure with simple rank standards, because under his speed, any enemy who couldn't react would find it hard to last more than one or two moves against him.
Only the Uchiha clan with their Sharingan and the Hyuga clan with their Byakugan could barely manage to resist, but even then, it was only the ability to resist—because seeing clearly didn't mean they could keep up!
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