Chapter 111: I, Orochimaru, Acting Hokage

"Orochimaru, have you gone mad?"

Nara Shikaku widened his eyes, staring guardedly at the Konoha rogue ninja, and said in a deep voice: "Back then, you slaughtered fellow village ninjas and stole Shodai's cells to conduct inhumane human experiments. You are guilty of heinous crimes; what right do you have to speak of impeaching the Third Hokage?"

A ninja who defected from Konoha years ago, returning to impeach the Third Hokage?

It had a sense of dark humor to it.

Orochimaru, who was being accused, kept his smile, as if he had prepared for everything, and said unhurriedly: "Your Ino-Shika-Cho clan has always been a cohort shielding the Third Hokage!"

"I have made myself very clear: the ones who truly conducted human experiments and stole Shodai's cells were Shimura Danzo and the Third Hokage. I was deceived by them into acting as their scout, and when I learned the truth and wanted to expose them, I was framed by them in collusion and driven out of Konoha!"

"The one who truly gnaws at Konoha and destroys Konoha is not me, but the Shadow bathing in the sunlight!"

Nonsense, twisting black and white!

Hiruzen Sarutobi opened his mouth, his lips trembling; this kind of groundless accusation made his anger mixed with a trace of absurdity.

Danzou and Orochimaru had colluded to conduct human experiments, and he had only learned of it when it was exposed; the slander that he had stolen Shodai's cells was complete nonsense.

Just as he was organizing his words to refute, he suddenly realized...

Earlier, Sasuke Uchiha had caused a scene, and the Sharingan on Shimura Danzo's right arm and the face of Shodai had already been exposed to everyone.

It confirmed that Shimura Danzo had conducted human experiments and that Orochimaru had connections with him.

In this way, the fact that he had been soft-hearted back then and let Orochimaru go, without exposing or punishing Danzou, would appear in everyone's eyes as...

Orochimaru was forced out of the village by the joint efforts of the Third Hokage and Shimura Danzo!

Hiruzen Sarutobi stopped the words on the tip of his tongue.

He looked at Orochimaru with anger—his once most proud disciple. Others had always borne some infamy and blame for him; this was the first time he had experienced the frustration of being a scapegoat.

Looking at Orochimaru's unsatisfied expression, Hiruzen Sarutobi frowned deeply, feeling that he could not let the other party continue speaking.

He threw Shuriken and moved his fingers to perform hand seals; several Shuriken turned into shadows filling the sky.

Orochimaru-ryu Kawarimi no Jutsu.

Orochimaru was pierced like a sieve, only to crawl out unscathed, licking the mucus on his face, his smile undiminished.

His voice suddenly became sharp.

"Teacher Sarutobi, are you trying to kill me to silence me?"

"I want to impeach you for the sake of Konoha. You are riddled with crimes; besides human experiments, to consolidate your power, you sat by and watched as Danzou spread rumors that killed the Hokage candidate Hatake Sakumo!"

"During the Nine-Tails Rebellion, the Uchiha Clan wanted to rush to aid, but you instructed Danzou to intercept them, leading to the death of the Fourth Hokage Namikaze Minato!"

"As for the Fourth Hokage's orphan, Naruto Uzumaki, you let the rumors of the demon fox run wild, while you acted as a good old man, wanting to keep the jinchuriki in your own hands!"

"Cloud Ninja kidnapped the daughter of the Hyuga Clan Head in broad daylight in Konoha, yet you were weak and incompetent, actually letting the ninja who protected the village sacrifice himself to appease the Cloud Ninja, to the point where every ninja clan in Konoha feels insecure and is alienated from the village!"

"Teacher Sarutobi, you are too old. Your heart has become numb, your flesh has begun to rot, you steal Konoha's resources to line your own pockets, and you raise a private Sarutobi army. You have long since lost the qualification to sit in the position of Hokage!"

One by one, piece by piece, the impeachment, half-true and half-false, mixed with truth and lies, caused the atmosphere to fall into a long silence.

Naruto Uzumaki had originally been clenching his fists, wanting to attack this rogue ninja who had attacked the village, but he froze on the spot when he heard "Fourth Hokage's orphan."

"My father is the Fourth Hokage?"

"I am not... a demon fox!"

Naruto Uzumaki looked up in a daze, his eyes as pure as blue lakes revealing a trace of complex emotions as they fell upon Third Hokage.

Hiruzen Sarutobi lowered his head in shame and said in a low voice: "This matter... I should have told you sooner, little Naruto."

"Did you all know long ago?"

Facing Naruto's confusion, Hiruzen Sarutobi could only respond with silence.

It was not just Konoha; the other Four Great Ninja Villages used this method to treat jinchuriki, but saying these things now had lost its meaning.

Naruto Uzumaki did not speak again; clutching the remaining Resurrection Coin in his hand, he ran toward his small apartment building without looking back.

Hiruzen Sarutobi's face was ugly as he retorted: "These are all groundless rumors. Rogue ninja Orochimaru, are you actually going to use such reasons to slander the Hokage?"

No matter what, these were not things that could deliver a final verdict. Although they could shake the authority of the Hokage, wanting to...

Clang.

Two large snakes with brown spots were coiled around two cold corpses, heads hanging down, the Sound Ninja Village forehead protectors constantly hitting the ground.

"Slander? These two ninja corpses have Mokuton saibou, which is why they were able to let the two Edo Tensei Hokage withstand the siege of the Sankage. Teacher Sarutobi, do you need me to find the Anbu to conduct an examination?"

Orochimaru stuck out his tongue and smiled wantonly; all plans were completely fulfilled at this moment.

"No need. I did not see through your schemes and tricks. Whatever is said now is too late... what exactly do you want!"

Hiruzen Sarutobi finally understood what the bad feeling the Sound Ninja corpses brought him was.

He had been calculated by Orochimaru from beginning to end, and the goal was to completely drive him into the dust.

But what was the purpose of doing this?

"Teacher Sarutobi, do not say such meaningless things anymore. I have already reported to the Daimyo to remove you from your position as Third Hokage, to be detained and then investigated in detail, to ferret out the evidence of your crimes against Konoha one by one."

"During this period... I will serve as Acting Hokage!"

Orochimaru said the content he had planned long ago without hesitation, his eyes staring vigilantly at Hiruzen Sarutobi.

He was afraid that after hearing he was to be detained, this former teacher of his would be driven to desperation and attack directly with his terrifying strength.

"Is that so?"

Hiruzen Sarutobi was surprisingly calm.

For Orochimaru to dare to say such things, he had likely already colluded with the Daimyo of the Land of Fire.

In the past, when Konoha had not been attacked, these little tricks naturally would not have come to the table, but now, with a riddled Konoha, Konoha ninjas dead or injured in the majority, plus Orochimaru's layered layout, he, this Hokage, had unexpectedly stood in opposition to the majority of people at some point.

The defeat was set.

Hiruzen Sarutobi sighed; there was still hope for a comeback if he was detained. As someone who had been a Konoha ninja his whole life, he simply did not want to resist. Was the once-glorious Third Hokage to become a rogue ninja?

Wouldn't that become a huge joke?

"Orochimaru, if I discover that you have committed acts that harm Konoha, even if I must fall into the Abyss, I will kill you with my own hands!"

Sarutobi Hiruzen took a deep look at Orochimaru, then was shackled by the Land of Fire Daimyo's troops following behind Orochimaru.

Click.

This sound.

Completely brought an end to this Konoha Collapse Plan.

The war continued, and with nearly ten thousand Konoha ninja lost at frontier outposts, they were still unable to stop the loss of the Land of Fire's territory.

Half a month later, Acting Hokage Orochimaru summoned the various Ninja Clans to make decisions, changing the position of Hokage to State Preceptor, with the Land of Fire Daimyo Yan Zhaoxiong personally taking charge of the Ninja Village, renaming the village the capital of the Land of Fire, Konoha City, becoming the first military Empire in the ninja world where the Daimyo held real power.

The Hyuga Clan, a powerful and long-standing noble family of Konoha that had always been stable, split apart; Neji and the members of the Branch House who broke the Caged Bird became the new nobility of the Empire, while a portion of the Hyuga clansmen led by Hyuga Hiashi left the Konoha Empire and were issued a wanted warrant by the State Lord Yan Zhaoxiong.

At the same time, the Ino-Shika-Cho joined forces with a group of commoner ninja to break into the prison and rescue the former Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen, who had been tortured to the brink of death and had both legs severed; after repelling the pursuers, they founded New Konoha in the Land of Hot Water and declared permanent hostility toward the Land of Fire.

The once strongest village in the ninja world had completely fallen apart at this moment!

(End of this chapter)