Chapter 65: Chujiu Absolutely Will Not Be a Good Person!

Questioning the Third Hokage—even if the thought had only just surfaced—was enough to send a cold sweat pouring down the backs of the Konoha Ninja.

That was Lord Third Hokage! Questioning him was practically treason!

But the thought kept popping up, kept popping up, impossible to suppress.

The Konoha Ninja all found it strange; normally they weren't like this. Could it be that in their hearts they were already so dissatisfied with Lord Third Hokage?

Of course there was dissatisfaction. The Third Hokage had done so many rotten things that anyone was bound to have encountered—or at least heard of—a few.

But Konohagakure was so vast, and there were so many Konoha Ninja, and the Sarutobi Clan hadn't yet swelled to the absurd extent it would reach twelve years later, so any single Konoha Ninja only knew a limited amount.

Although they all found it distasteful, they each considered it only a minor matter.

After all, Konohagakure was so prosperous, the number of Konoha Ninja was growing, and every war had ultimately been won.

This time the shock had truly been enormous. The Konoha Ninja had fought with their lives, paid with the lives of thousands of comrades, and only with great difficulty defeated the Cloud Hidden Army.

But the arrival of the Cloud Ninja meant the Third Hokage would inevitably wave it all away with a light "for the sake of peace," erasing everyone's effort and sacrifice.

Every Konoha Ninja felt uneasy in their heart, but it wasn't enough to shake the Third Hokage's prestige, and shouldn't have caused the current state of unrest.

And this abnormal situation was because Yamanaka Chujiu had returned.

Shisui Uchiha, carrying him on his back, caught up with the raiding force, detoured westward nearly three hundred kilometers, and returned to the new Konoha defensive line.

When still several kilometers from the defensive line, Yamanaka Chujiu sensed the emotional turbulence of the Konoha Ninja, and almost instinctively began to stir it up.

Truly, at the very beginning, he hadn't done it on purpose.

Over the past few days, Yamanaka Chujiu had almost without pause been sensing emotions, locating enemies, stirring up the enemy's emotional waves, and soothing his own side's emotions.

He had already formed the habit.

However, the initial stirring was habitual; the sustained stirring of emotions that followed was deliberate on Yamanaka Chujiu's part.

He realized that the current of thought questioning the Third Hokage appearing among the Konoha Ninja must have been secretly guided by Orochimaru.

Whether his teacher Orochimaru had done it for himself or for Chujiu, it perfectly served his purpose either way.

Since that was the case, Yamanaka Chujiu naturally had to secretly push this emotion to keep fermenting, using it to condense a seed of thought opposed to the Third Hokage.

Once that seed was planted, every bit of the Third Hokage's future nonsense would become nourishment for the seed to sprout and grow.

When that seed grew into a towering tree, it would be perfectly natural to take down the Third Hokage, and along the way use the crimes of the Third Hokage and Shimura Danzo as the pretext to completely overthrow Konohagakure's power structure.

The corner of Yamanaka Chujiu's mouth curved slightly upward; though it was only a faint smile, it revealed a touch of ferocity.

Exactly. Since he was pushing Orochimaru to become Hokage, he had to exploit Orochimaru's dislike of administrative duties to thoroughly reshape Konohagakure's system.

As for the purpose of going to such great lengths, it was naturally to drive the transformation of the ninja's role—from being purely killers and consumers into an all-around role that was simultaneously producer and researcher, completely occupying the key ecological niche in society.

He trusted that Orochimaru, the Ninja World's foremost scientist, would be very pleased to see such a change in the ninja.

Yamanaka Chujiu's second goal was to use Konoha as the foundation to completely unify the Ninja World's core region—that is, the Five Great Countries and all the small countries wedged between them.

Over ninety percent of the Ninja World's population was concentrated in this core region, and the cost of ruling it was relatively low, making it possible to establish a highly centralized super-state.

Only such a super-state could gather enough intellect and manpower to develop sufficiently powerful military force to oppose the future Otsutsuki Clan from beyond the heavens.

As for the Sage of Six Paths in the Pure Land, dead but still twitching…

Yamanaka Chujiu only wanted to say: the dead should just sleep quietly!

If a hero like the First Hokage wished to briefly awaken and take a look at the new world, he could offer his welcome.

But if the Sage of Six Paths still wanted to keep using his sons' souls as leverage to continue manipulating the fate and historical course of the Ninja World's humanity, that would be a fool's dream!

Thinking of this, Yamanaka Chujiu felt his spirit soaring, his heart brimming with drive.

Suddenly, he shuddered: since when did I become this upright?

Could I really be a good person?

Could it be that when my Thought Threads first wrapped themselves around Shisui Uchiha, it was because I really am a good person?

Bah!

You're the good person!

Your whole family are good people!

Yamanaka Chujiu, his face dark, forced himself to think: I have my own selfish motives too!

With a super-state as the foundation, only then could he expand the Rising Sun Organization across the entire Ninja World, promote his own faith through education, and thereby ascend to godhood through that faith!

In a world where might ultimately resided in the self, without an overwhelming violence at one's command, without the personal strength to single-handedly oppose the Otsutsuki Clan, there was no right to survive.

Therefore, it was for his own survival that he strove!

Yamanaka Chujiu convinced himself in this way.

He absolutely refused to be a good person; being a good person was far too difficult.

Of course the world liked to get close to good people, but the world also instinctively wanted to destroy good people.

A pure good person was like a blank sheet of paper—even if slandered and splashed with filth, everyone would fixate on that one stain and despise the innocent good person.

Good people absolutely never met a good end!

Hatake Sakumo was a good person, Shisui Uchiha was also a good person, and both of them died terrible deaths.

Yamanaka Chujiu absolutely would not be a good person, but he also didn't want to be a bad person!

A bad person like Shimura Danzo was like a stinking latrine—no one would ever like him no matter what.

Even if useful, he could only be used as a rag, specifically to handle the dirty and foul garbage, and in the end be disposed of as even filthier garbage.

Yamanaka Chujiu wanted himself to appear a mix of good and bad, complex in composition, but overall leaning toward the light.

After all, the world itself was a mottled gray.

Under the protection of the Konoha Ninja, the Kumogakure ninja arrived at Konohagakure in less than a day.

The arrival of Cloud Ninja in the middle of a war naturally drew every eye.

The ninja sent by Orochimaru seized the chance to spread the news of a critical victory on the northern front and of the Fourth Raikage of Kumogakure suing for peace.

In an instant, the entire Konohagakure was set ablaze.

The boulder weighing on the hearts of the ninja and villagers vanished without a trace, and all their worry turned to wild joy.

Countless villagers took to the streets of their own accord, gathering in the plaza before the Hokage Building, shouting slogans of victory.

Of course, there were also slogans like "Long live Lord Orochimaru!"

Sarutobi Hiruzen sat in his office, listening to the villagers' cheers and slogans, his expression shifting between a faint smile and something more complicated.

Shimura Danzo slipped quietly inside and said to his old classmate: "Worried that Orochimaru's prestige is rising too high and upsetting the village's balance?"

Sarutobi Hiruzen exhaled a thin stream of smoke: "Yes."