Aoki pretended to be surprised like the other villagers, looked around in panic and then whispered carefully: “Uncle, you can’t say such words lightly… and not out loud!”
The old man however did back down. He had his opinion, and it was rather solid. He was in his 70’s, and didn’t have much to fear. Seeing Aoki’s timid look only made him angrier!
He snorted, and then ignored everyone and went on his own way.
After returning home, he asked many villagers to get civilians to meet, and then, with many people around, his made his opinion public!
His words made sense, and most villagers ended up agreeing with his point of view.
Later, many others began coming up with other theories of their own. Their lives had been affected so much by these events, and they secretly hoped that the Uchiha would return.
The old man did not say anything, and let them speak their minds.
In the afternoon, the villagers sent another group of representatives to Sakumo’s office.
When Sakumo received the notice from downstairs, he guessed the villagers’ intensions.
He smiled, and then told the Anbu on his side: “Go to the Uchiha’s district, and bring Fugaku dono back with you. Remember to tell him what I told you on the way, and when you get here, don’t rush into the office; wait for my signal!”
“Yes, Hokage sama!” The Anbu nodded and then left the office from the window right before the villagers entered.
“Hello Hokage sama!”
“Hello! What’s the matter?” Sakumo acted oblivious.
The people who arrived looked at each other, and the one in the lead summoned his courage and said: “Hokage sama, we want you to get the Uchiha back to their position of maintaining order in the village. You already know how things are in the village; our lives are no longer the same!”
Sakumo’s face changed when he heard these words, and none of the villagers dared to interrupt his “thinking”.
After a long silence, Sakumo heard movement outside, and his eyes went bright. He sighed and said: “Well, the Uchiha are in a bad situation right now, with less than 30% of them remaining. I cannot force them to do anything… cough…”
This was the signal, and when Fugaku heard the coughing he entered through the door with great grief on his face.
“Hokage sama, you have to act for my clan!” Fugaku’s sudden entrance shocked the villagers, and Sakumo acted stunned as well. He sneak peeked at the faces of everyone around, and seeing that their faces were all frozen, he hid a smile and continued his act: “Over 70% of my clan is dead, and we cannot even conduct a proper burial to them! Danzo still has their eyes! Please Hoka…”
“Enough, Fugaku dono! Don’t say that now!” Sakumo, who was “shocked”, suddenly screamed furiously like a sleeping cat that had its tail stepped on, jumping up from his chair to stop Fugaku upon hearing Danzo’s name.
The villagers were also awakened by these words, their face showing a new type of shock. Sakumo looked at their face and said: “Everyone, I am sorry, but I have a little thing to deal with here. Please excuse us, and I promise to work on your request.”
The villagers sighed upon hearing these words, and immediately left the office.
As soon as they stepped foot outside, they began to whisper and discuss what they had heard: “What did the Hokage react so much to Danzo’s name?”
After they talked for so long, the middle-aged man leading them said: “You still don’t understand? It’s clear from his reaction that what Fugaku had said is true! The one to lead the Uchiha’s massacre a few days ago must be someone higher than Fugaku in status, and he needed the Hokage to help him deal with him. Poor Fugaku dono must’ve been in so much grief that he didn’t even notice our presence when entering the Hokage’s office, and he said the truth in front of us! The Hokage probably doesn’t want such news to be spread, for they could compromise the stability of the village!”
The people of the village were foolish, but they were not stupid. They could read between the lines, and this middle aged man, along with the elder civilian, both reached the conclusions that Sakumo and Fugaku wanted them to reach.
“I never expected Danzo sama to actually do such a horrible thing. The Uchiha, no matter what, are still part of the village!”
“Yes, and look at Fugaku dono! I made me feel like scum for my celebration the other day!”
Humans are good in essence, and unless they are too tainted with hatred, they always have sympathy for the weak. The Uchiha had just experience a horrible tragedy. These people could feel happy about that when they had their distance, but when witnessing the grief of the usually high and might patriarch, they couldn’t keep the same feelings.
That, paired with what they had to suffer in the past few days, made all those present agree that they were in the wrong without hesitation. The man leading them sighed and said: “Good, but now let’s stop talking here! Go around immediately and tell the others what we’ve heard. The old man was right; we’ve been accomplices of Danzo, even if we didn’t know that. We have to make up for that.”
Everyone nodded, and rushed to tell the people in Konoha.
……….
In Root’s headquarters, Danzo was getting ready to transplant the Sharingans into his eye. For him, every eye was an extra-life.
To make sure that such an important operation goes smoothly, Danzo especially hired the head of the orphanage, Nono Yakushi, to perform the transplantation.
She was part of Root, and she could only agree to perform this operation.
Danzo’s white arm had become much more “peaceful” recently with all the Sharingans implanted in it, and Danzo’s Chakra and vitality increased a lot.
Therefore, despite him being close to the 3rd’s age, he was starting to look much younger than him, not even having a single white hair.
Today, with the transplant of ten eyes in his arm, he felt that he was getting closer and closer to integrating Hashirama’s cells perfectly in his body, and being able to harness the power of the 1st Hokage.
He was feeling an unprecedented level of power, and with this feeling, his old ambitions to become a Hokage were also recovered.
Little did he know that as his ambitions grew, he image as a villain was also growing in Konoha…