The Kirigakure envoys' return after their departure inevitably stirred some rumors within Konoha. However, the Third Hokage demonstrated the firm control befitting someone who truly held power. With a bit of guidance and restraint, he quickly quelled the gossip surrounding the Kirigakure envoys.
Before long, the people of Konoha had turned their attention to the tragedy at Kogaku Temple on Imoni Mountain.
Although Kogaku Temple was also one of the shinobi forces within the Land of Fire, its organizational structure was completely different from Konoha's. It maintained a shinobi organization while also being one of the foremost great temples in the Land of Fire, second only to places like the Fire Temple, which carried official state backing.
Moreover, Imoni Mountain itself was a well-known scenic landmark of the Land of Fire.
Now that the gate of Kogaku Temple had been utterly wrecked, with a large stretch of the surrounding wall knocked down as well, and more importantly, over a dozen monks had been killed, including a high-ranking monk, this was not something even Konoha could suppress. Naturally, the news spread far and wide.
Even the Third Hokage, to be honest, had only stepped in to manage the rumors about the Kiri envoys because Anjō Oniyuzu had personally come to lodge a protest. As for the matter of Kogaku Temple on Imoni Mountain, he neither had the time nor the need to interfere.
In fact, it was better that something like this drew most of the villagers' attention.
He already felt as though his head were splitting in two, busy to the point of being overwhelmed.
Because of the Kogaku Temple incident, the Fire Daimyō had also been alarmed. He sent people to Konoha to inquire about the matter and handed down a major task: capture the perpetrator who committed the massacre at Kogaku Temple, and do it as quickly as possible. This left the Third Hokage with a bitter taste in his mouth.
He was no fool.
After serving as Hokage for decades, his political instincts had long been honed to perfection.
How could he not understand that the daimyō was already doubting whether he was too old to continue fulfilling the duties of Hokage? On the surface, it was a demand to swiftly apprehend the culprit, but in truth, it was a hint that Konoha was nearing the time to replace him with a younger, more vigorous Hokage.
Granted, from the First Hokage to the Second, and then to him as the Third, the succession of Hokage had essentially been decided internally. The daimyō had rarely interfered, acting more like a human seal of approval. Once Konoha selected a new Hokage, the daimyō would simply issue an official letter of appointment.
But that did not mean Konoha could truly ignore the daimyo's opinions altogether.
Of course, as the founders of Konoha, the First and Second Hokage had no need to pay much heed to the daimyō's attitude. Even if the daimyō objected, what could he do? Issue an order to forcibly strip them of the Hokage title?
The Third Hokage had also inherited the position according to the Second Hokage's will, and he was not someone who could be easily shaken.
Yet, times had changed.
Many things were no longer the same.
During the eras of the First and Second Hokage, the balance among the Five Great Nations was far from stable. Otherwise, how could the First Shinobi World War have erupted immediately after the First Hokage's death? Back then, the daimyo of the Five Great Nations were all founding rulers, relying on their shinobi villages to stabilize or improve their nations' situations. Naturally, they refrained from meddling in the internal affairs of their villages or having amateurs direct professionals.
But as shinobi wars broke out again and again,
the Five Great Nations were not destroyed by these conflicts. On the contrary, the structure only grew more solid. With each war, the Five Great Nations and their villages remained strong, while the other countries and villages steadily declined.
Anyone could see that, barring some massive upheaval, this balance could persist for a very long time.
At this point,
the Kage of the shinobi villages were changing as frequently as lantern slides.
Kumogakure, Sunagakure, and Kirigakure had all passed on to their Fourth generation.
The daimyo of the Five Great Nations also experienced successions, but unlike the harsh competition within shinobi villages, which ensured that those who rose to become Kage were all capable figures, the newly enthroned daimyō were a mixed lot.
For example, the new daimyō of the Land of Wind was clearly not the sharpest tool in the shed. Recently, he had used Sunagakure's poor performance in the Third Shinobi World War as an excuse to cut its funding, while transferring many missions originally meant for Sunagakure to Konoha.
Frankly speaking, if the Third Hokage were not already advanced in years, with his physical condition beginning to decline,
he could not help but imagine that given another ten or twenty years, he might be able to wipe out Sunagakure in one decisive stroke at minimal cost.
Of course, that was nothing more than idle thought.
He no longer had the chance to accomplish such grand undertakings. What he was considering now was when to pass the Hokage's seat to Minato.
Yes, he had fully made up his mind to hand the position of Hokage to Minato, his grand-disciple, rather than to his most beloved disciple, Orochimaru.
After returning to Konoha from Kogaku Temple,
he immediately stripped Danzō of his authority over Root and dispatched trusted ANBU to investigate both Danzō and Orochimaru. This time, no matter how loudly his old companion protested in front of him, he did not relent. He was determined to see the investigation through to the end.
He now genuinely suspected that the one who had killed his son was not an Uchiha at all, but a monstrosity secretly created by Danzō and Orochimaru, combining the powers of the Uchiha and the Senju.
It was one thing not to investigate, but once he did, the findings were shocking.
Danzō and Orochimaru were indeed continuing the experiment he had explicitly ordered halted: the "Recreation of the Wood Release Bloodline." Worse still, their research into the Uchiha clan's Sharingan went far beyond that. In Root's base, several Uchiha who had gone missing on the battlefield were found imprisoned, along with a considerable number of Sharingan.
The latter was actually not the most pressing issue.
As long as it was properly concealed and kept from the Uchiha clan, it could be overlooked. After all, he and Danzō's teacher, the Second Hokage, had also collected quite a few Sharingan during his lifetime, which were later taken by Danzō. That earlier collection was small in number, and the large quantity found now was clearly amassed by Danzō himself.
In the Third Hokage's view, that alone was not the real problem.
The truly serious matter was that Danzō and Orochimaru had continued the forbidden Wood Release experiment he had personally shut down, and the children used as test subjects were all among those previously reported missing from the village.
If not for the chain of incidents triggered by the Mist envoys' visit,
then now,
the disappearance of these children would have been Konoha's biggest headline.
Even though the matter of the missing children was temporarily overshadowed by recent events, as long as those children were not recovered, it would inevitably resurface. Their parents came to the Hokage Tower almost every day to ask after them.
Previously, the Third Hokage had planned to thoroughly investigate the matter once he had dealt with the issues at hand.
But now, with the missing children found in one of Root's bases, he felt no joy at all.
Only utter exhaustion, in both body and spirit.