A week passed in the blink of an eye. With the systematic assistance of the two hidden villages, every citizen capable of leaving the Land of Grass had successfully evacuated. Only those completely unwilling to abandon their roots remained.
The total population of the Land of Grass hovered around four hundred and forty thousand.
Due to the aggressive routing enforced by the two ninja forces, combined with Kakuzu's absolute obsession with precise figures, the migrant tally reached approximately three hundred and eighty thousand.
Subtracting those who had fled independently into other neighboring territories, a re twenty to thirty thousand citizens remained scattered across the local provinces.
The vast majority of this remnant consisted of the elderly, the sick, and the disabled—individuals who simply refused to pack their lives away.
Operating under the principle that everyone must choose their own path, Shisui didn't waste resources forcing them.
anwhile, the total civilian population within the Grass Village itself had shunk to just over two thousand. Most of these were elderly residents, active ninja dependents, and a handful of political opportunists.
The latter group held a firm belief: as long as the Seven-Tails remained anchored in the village, the administrative order wouldn't collapse.
Furthermore, since the surviving ninja force was entirely focused on intensive training, local administrative authority would naturally fall into the hands of capable civilians.
The newly instated leader, Negishi Kusanagi, had explicitly publicised that anyone who managed the daily public logistics adequately stood a genuine chance of becoming an official village administrator.
Consequently, a massive, grassroots reconstruction effort kicked off across the settlent.
Acting on the recomndations of the airborne Dragonfly Users, rooftops were systematically flattened and reinforced to serve as landing platforms.
The architectural style shifted heavily toward uniform do designs, and the public streets were laid out in a precise grid formation.
Beneath the surface, an integrated network of drainage systems and reinforced ergency shelters was rapidly completed with the assistance of Takigakure's Earth Style specialists.
Within a single week, the foundational layout of the new village took shape. Though its total surface area was modest, its structural layout was clean, heavily fortified, and exceptionally organized.
More critically, Takigakure's specialized barrier corps had successfully erected a comprehensive warning array around the periter. This marked the absolute first ti in the history of the Grass Village that it possessed a fully functioning defense barrier.
If nothing else, Takigakure was undeniably superior to other minor nations in this regard. Even a village as historically strong as Agakure had never established a permanent protective barrier.
This wasn't due to a lack of raw capital, but rather because they lacked a sufficient pool of shinobi trained in intricate sealing formulas—not to ntion their actual sealing heritage was incomplete.
The Grass Village had been even worse off. Despite their frequent participation in major global conflicts, their foundational heritage was completely inferior to Takigakure's.
As the village's reconstruction stabilized, the high-ranking Jonin of the Grass Village imdiately convened a closed-door strategy eting to map out their next diplomatic and military maneuvers.
This specific briefing featured almost total attendance from their leadership corps, primarily because the Grass Village simply didn't have many active Jonin left to begin with.
Inside the council chamber, the atmosphere buzzed with intense debates regarding their long-term path.
One Jonin stood up, suggesting firmly: "Leader, our top priority must be the imdiate establishnt of a formal ninja academy. We desperately require a steady influx of fresh recruits; otherwise, our current numbers will be completely whittled down by Konoha in a war of attrition."
As the official leader, Negishi Kusanagi sat at the head of the table, though his gaze constantly drifted toward Shisui, who sat directly to his left.
In truth, Kusanagi had long since accepted the military advisor as his absolute backbone. While he held the title of Leader, he functioned essentially as a puppet.
The vast majority of the ninjas in the room grasped this political reality perfectly, though a few remained oblivious.
"Your point is entirely valid," another veteran countered, gesturing out the window. "But where exactly do we harvest these students? The young adults of the Land of Grass have almost entirely migrated, and there are barely any children left in the local sectors."
Saying this, the speaker cast a pointed look toward Shisui, his tone carrying a distinct trace of underlying resentnt.
Shisui completely ignored the hostile glares. He spoke calmly: "We can recruit directly from the Land of Rain.
Agakure has just endured a massive war; their local rainfall is highly acidic, making agricultural cultivation exceptionally difficult. The baseline living conditions for their common folk are vastly more brutal than our migrants' setup.
We can systematically absorb those families, and their children will fill our academy rosters."
This statent caused a ripple of confusion, and soone voiced their doubt: "Would Hanzo of the Salamander ever agree to that? What about the Land of Rain's Daimyo?"
"They will agree," Shisui replied with absolute certainty. "We will officially cede our southern territories directly to the Land of Rain.
To a nation that endures perpetual downpours and ruined soil, that particular stretch of land is a pristine, sunlit paradise. It can be used directly for clean farming, or even to resettle their excess population."
As for the Land of Rain's Daimyo, Shisui highly suspected the man had either been placed under Hanzo's absolute physical containnt long ago, fled the country under an alias, or been quietly executed.
In short, the executive governance of the Land of Rain had already been consolidated entirely under Hanzo's thumb.
Intellectually speaking, that territory was the very first nation to achieve a total unification of military and political command, where every shred of national policy was dictated directly by the hidden village chief.
Hearing the proposal to trade away national territory, the remaining Jonin hesitated briefly.
It wasn't until Shisui bluntly reminded them to look at reality—pointing out that since their civilian population had essentially vanished, their force of just over a hundred ninjas was utterly incapable of policing such a massive country anyway—that the truth finally clicked.
Only then did they truly comprehend the sheer, calculating ruthlessness of their military advisor.
The man was a tactical demon; he had systematically dismantled the Land of Grass, fracturing its military, its citizenry, and its physical borders into three separate pieces. From this mont onward, the original Land of Grass existed purely in na only.
Their actual village location was being preserved strictly as a fortified buffer zone to absorb the incoming fires of war!
Yet, even as they realized the trap, the surviving ninjas harbored zero deep patriotism for the old nation. The only thing they genuinely cared about was this isolated, hidden village, alongside the absolute pride of their newfound independence.
Unsurprisingly, the diplomatic strategy passed without a single dissenting vote.
Shisui, operating under his identity as 'Military Advisor Shiraki,' was officially designated as the supre envoy to travel to the Land of Rain and secure a personal audience with the Demi-God of the shinobi world, Hanzo of the Salamander.
His primary objective was to leverage the territorial concession to forge a binding alliance, systematically guiding the Land of Rain's displaced civilians to resettle within the abandoned Grass provinces, where the natural environnt was vastly superior.
His secondary goal was to initiate a joint military academy network, pooling resources to aggressively cultivate a fresh generation of shinobi, thereby anchoring the three minor villages into a unified front capable of resisting the great nations and securing permanent independence.
As for exactly how he would convince a figure like Hanzo, Shisui had already mapped out a definitive psychological approach.
If the situation demanded it, he was fully prepared to offer the supre command of the entire three-village coalition directly to Hanzo.
On the night before his departure, Shisui t with the Seven-Tails within the village periter, choosing to leave Choi behind to anchor their local defenses.
The massive Tailed Beast flared its wings, sounding distinctly reluctant: "Why can't I accompany you? I heard the person you are going to see is incredibly powerful. Without my assistance, can you actually win if a fight breaks out?"
Shisui let out a soft laugh. "I am not traveling there to initiate a battle; I am going to negotiate a long-term partnership. If you appear at the border, it will simply trigger unnecessary diplomatic panic."
To the outside world, Shisui had consistently frad the Seven-Tails as a borrowed military asset belonging strictly to the Land of Waterfall.
If he dragged her across international borders, countless powerhouses would inevitably attempt to capture him just to wring out the secret of how to dosticate a Tailed Beast.
"Fine, I suppose," Choi murmured, her massive antennae twitching. "But before you leave, can I have another taste of that ancient energy stored within your personal space?"
Shisui lapsed into a brief silence.
Ultimately, the Seven-Tails got exactly what she wanted, consuming another two thousand years' worth of primordial energy. Completely satisfied, she returned directly to her designated sanctuary inside the village to curl up and drift into a deep slumber.
In addition to leaving Choi behind, Shisui ensured that Uzumaki Karin's mother remained stationed within the village, as she was currently the only active shinobi capable of utilizing the summoning contract to call forth the Seven-Tails in an ergency.
He also left a highly systematic physical conditioning protocol alongside a complete set of tailored dical solutions for Negishi Kusanagi.
As long as the leader adhered strictly to the training regin provided, Shisui was confident that by the ti he returned, Kusanagi would have thoroughly digested the combat experience from the grand battle, elevating his baseline strength close to the elite Jonin standard.
If Kusanagi managed to properly evolve his unique innate ninjutsu style, he would eventually possess enough tactical utility to stall certain Kage-level adversaries.
The night passed without further incident. The next morning, well before the first rays of dawn broke over the horizon, Shisui quietly slipped away from the settlent.
Mounting a giant dragonfly whose physical dinsions had expanded significantly due to ongoing energy exposure, he launched himself into the sky, charting a direct course toward the Land of Rain.
As they flew, the green tint within his hair grew visibly deeper, and a faint, natural current of wind began to trail his movents, responding smoothly to his presence without requiring a single hand sign.
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