Shisui ordered a few ninjas to travel through the remote villages with a massive carriage stacked with currency. They didn't hand out the money directly; they simply let the locals see it.
The campaign they pushed focused entirely on one concept: recruitnt. Specifically, recruitnt for the Land of Waterfall, offering guaranteed housing, assigned jobs, and a fixed monthly salary.
More importantly, if they perford their duties well, they were promised a retirent pension in their old age, which could even be passed down to their children. That specific term—hereditary—was the absolute focal point of the pitch.
Since ancestral land could be inherited across generations, if these new jobs couldn't be handed down similarly, how could the common folk ever be convinced to abandon the fields their families had cultivated for centuries?
As for whether these policies might change down the road, that was a problem for the future. At the very least, everything looked perfect right now.
In addition to the visual display, Shisui deployed actual officials and ninjas from the Land of Waterfall to serve as real-world examples.
They traveled from village to village explaining that the nation provided free education for children, countless job openings, and vast expanses of wild terrain waiting to be reclaid.
They proved that a person could live a perfectly stable life even without owning a single plot of farmable land.
The peasants living in the isolated mountain regions of the Land of Grass had spent their entire lives scratching a living out of the dirt.
They had never seen an organized effort like this. They couldn't even conceive that this might be an elaborate trap; they genuinely believed every word of it.
After all, what did they possess that was worth stealing? Why would high-ranking officials and dozens of powerful ninjas put this much effort into deceiving simple peasants?
The explanations were simple, dropping like fresh seeds into parched soil. To these people, a guaranteed job was the greatest blessing they could ever receive.
They felt an imdiate surge of renewed energy, wishing they could imdiately start working for the Land of Waterfall, even if it ant putting in twelve-hour shifts every single day.
Those who bought into the promise packed up their households, clutched their ager bundles, and climbed aboard the departing transport carriages.
As the numbers of those leaving grew, the individuals who remained behind beca increasingly panicked.
The regional grain supplies had been stripped away, their lifelong neighbors were vanishing, and the villages were gradually sinking into a dead silence. Ultimately, the vast majority had no choice but to follow the flowing tide of people.
Naturally, there were always a few elderly individuals who resolutely chose to stay behind. They sat quietly on their wooden doorsteps, watching the departing caravans fade into the distance with cloudy, peaceful eyes.
These old-tirs possessed their own stubborn sort of wisdom. No matter how glittering the promises sounded, they chose to remain conservative. Given their advanced age, they had zero desire to abandon their ancestral soil just to gamble on an uncertain future.
Shisui respected their choices. He simply turned to his assistant ninja and spoke in a quiet tone: "The specific areas I've marked on this map will very quickly transform into active combat zones... As for the territories with highly fertile soil, make sure to partition them properly as soon as possible. They will be turned into comrcial commodities."
anwhile, in stark contrast to the chaotic upheaval gripping the Land of Grass, the Hidden Leaf Village was completely subrged in a heavy, suffocating silence.
The ancestral compound of the Hyuga clan was entirely draped in white funeral banners.
Inside the mourning hall, the two brothers, Hyuga Hiashi and Hyuga Hizashi, knelt stiffly before their father's casket. White cloths were tied tightly around their foreheads, and the tear tracks on their faces had not yet dried.
The surrounding clansn stood in absolute silence, though the eyes of many were still filled with a volatile mix of confusion and burning rage.
To them, this recent deploynt was supposed to be a mission where they simply picked up unearned credit.
Their Clan Head's journey to the Land of Grass hadn't even been intended as a genuine combat mission. Its core purpose was to help the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, balance out the growing influence of the Uchiha clan. Hyuga Tennin had volunteered to lead the vanguard simply to extend a diplomatic olive branch to the Hokage.
This had been the very first political maneuver the Clan Head had pushed through against massive internal opposition, aiming to bring the Hyuga back toward the village's center of power. If the operation succeeded, even if it didn't completely solve their isolation, it would have injected a shred of new vitality into Konoha's rigid political system.
Who could have anticipated that an attempt to curry favor would turn into a mass funeral?
Before the Hyuga clan's new open-door policy could even face resistance from their own conservative elders, it had been brutally smashed to pieces by an external force, driving the clan toward an even more isolated and regressive path.
Throughout the funeral service, Uchiha Fugaku remained entirely tight-lipped. Only an extrely select few individuals knew that he had successfully awakened the Mangekyo Sharingan—and even with that legendary power, he had still failed to turn the tide of the battle.
Midway through the ceremony, the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, arrived to pay his formal respects.
On that day, he wore ordinary civilian attire instead of his official robes, making him look like a frail, heavily stooped old man—a truly tragic and pitiable sight.
He walked up to the altar, bowed deeply three tis, and gently placed a white flower upon the casket.
In that exact mont, dozens of pairs of Byakugan locked onto him. The gazes radiating from the crowd carried a distinct trace of pure hatred. It wasn't just directed at him either; Uchiha Fugaku, standing nearby, was subjected to the sa icy glare from the gathered Hyuga.
Although the tactical disaster wasn't directly their fault, both n knew with absolute certainty that they had beco targets of deep resentnt for the entire Hyuga clan.
Sarutobi Hiruzen kept his head lowered, accepting the unspoken bla without a word of protest. His expressions of grief weren't performative; they carried a genuine, crushing weight.
Once the formal mourning rituals concluded, Hyuga Hiashi stepped forward to officially succeed his father as Clan Head right before the altar.
Standing tall in front of his father's casket, his sharp gaze swept across the gathered clansn.
"As of today, I, Hyuga Hiashi, will inherit my father's iron will and assu the mantle of Clan Head. Moving forward, my path is singular, and my resolve will dictate the resolve of this entire clan. Furthermore, I declare an absolute blood feud against the Grass Village.
No matter how the political landscape shifts in the future, the Grass Village will remain our sworn enemy. There will be no negotiations, and there will be no compromises, until one side is completely wiped out. And above all else, I will reclaim my father's stolen eyes!"
"Vengeance! Vengeance! Vengeance!"
Every single mber of the Hyuga clan raised their arms and roared in unison. Standing right in the center of the deafening shouts, Sarutobi Hiruzen found himself trapped in an incredibly awkward position.
No matter how one rationalized the disaster, he bore an undeniable share of the responsibility for creating this situation.
Following the formal burial of Hyuga Tennin, both the funeral and the succession ceremony drew to a close.
Before departing the compound, Hiruzen managed to pull Hiashi into a quiet side parlor. He sighed heavily, speaking with deep regret: "Alas, in the end, it is I who has profoundly failed the Hyuga clan. Whatever resources or demands you require, the village will do its absolute best to fulfill them."
The newly instated Clan Head, Hyuga Hiashi, was currently in the pri of his youth—exactly sixteen years old, an age driven entirely by raw impulse.
He raised his chin, his stark white eyes staring directly into Hiruzen's face as he asked bluntly: "Fulfill anything? Then can a mber of the Hyuga clan beco the Hokage?"
The air in the room instantly froze. The awkwardness on Sarutobi Hiruzen's face was impossible to mask. He opened his mouth to formulate a response, but found himself montarily at a complete loss for words.
Ultimately, he could only offer a generic explanation: "Who assus the mantle of Hokage is not sothing decided by , nor is it a decision left to the great noble clans.
To beco the Hokage, a ninja must first earn the unconditional acknowledgent of the common people, the acknowledgent of every single citizen in Konoha, and on a grander scale, the recognition of the entire Land of Fire."
"Heh! It was rely a joke." Hiashi let out a bitter laugh, using the cynical sound to mask the deep mockery swirling in his eyes.
He continued plainly: "I have no such ambitions... My only desire is to fundantally restructure my clan.
Both the Main House and the Branch House have grown entirely too arrogant. The future will inevitably belong to the era of civilian ninjas, while the traditional noble clans will eventually be suppressed into the background, far away from the public eye."
"You shouldn't look at it so pessimistically. Konoha belongs to every single one of us."
Sarutobi Hiruzen offered a vague, non-committal response, looking at the teenager with a patronizing gaze that suggested the young man was simply too immature to comprehend the broader picture.
"It was the great noble clans that originally built the foundations of Konoha. While we heavily prioritize the training of civilian talent, we always rember the First Hokage's foundational dream—which was simply to ensure everyone could live a better life. As the saying goes, wherever leaves flutter, fire's flas will always take root..."
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