Sarutobi Hiruzen finally understood why Kaede Kitahara had awakened the Sharingan yet stayed so low-key, telling no one and behaving with almost abnormal restraint.
So this was the root of it.
If he himself had been hunted by a Root squad sent by the village's upper ranks, he would probably have become extremely cautious too. Not defecting immediately would already count as remarkable self-control.
What made it even worse was that Danzo had almost certainly used Anbu's name rather than Root's.
After all, ninety-nine percent of the people in the village had no idea Root even existed. Only a handful of top officials or members of certain ninja clans vaguely knew of it.
So whenever dirty work needed to be done, it was always convenient to use Anbu as the cover. On paper, it even made sense, since Root was technically an Anbu training branch.
That was how it started.
Later, Shimura Danzo went completely off the rails and turned Root into something even darker than Anbu, the so-called roots of Konoha.
After going through something like that, even someone born and raised in Konoha like Kaede would naturally harbor doubts. Even if he understood that it might not have been the Hokage's personal intent, suspicion was unavoidable.
In an instant, everything made sense.
The problem was never Kaede.
It was Shimura Danzo.
"You're getting more and more out of control. You don't even follow procedure anymore?" Sarutobi Hiruzen roared, fury blazing. "Hand over control of Root immediately. Go home and stay there for a few days. Until I give the order, you're not to step outside."
"You dare imprison me!"
Danzo was livid. In his own mind, everything he had done was for Konoha. He believed himself blameless.
That claim of "for Konoha" had hit Hiruzen's absolute limit.
Or rather, it had crossed the line of Hiruzen's core authority, something he could no longer tolerate.
All of this… just because he had been a step slower back then? In that brief moment, their teacher named Hiruzen the Third Hokage, and Danzo was doomed to live forever beneath his shadow?
"This isn't imprisonment," Hiruzen said coldly. "It's giving you time to calm down and think about what you've been doing. You've gone too far."
Though he no longer possessed the overwhelming presence of his prime, the moment his authority was directly challenged, Hiruzen reacted without hesitation.
"Danzo, remember this," he said, staring straight into Danzo's eyes. "I am the Hokage. And you are nothing."
"Fine. Just wait and see, Hiruzen. You'll regret this," Danzo spat, slamming the door as he stormed out.
Bang.
Watching Danzo leave, Hiruzen was already considering who to send to take over Root. He knew it would be difficult to fully seize control. Root members were Danzo's fanatics, brainwashed into nothing more than tools.
Still, suppressing Danzo for now would not be a problem.
In the end, Hiruzen was the Third Hokage who had ruled Konoha for decades. Danzo was not qualified to posture in front of him.
At the same time, Kaede Kitahara left the Hokage's office. Someone immediately handed him the Sword of the Thunder God, which had been prepared in advance.
After accepting it, Kaede left the Hokage Tower. Instead of going straight home, he found an empty spot and tried it out, imitating what he remembered from Rokusho Aoi. He poured chakra into the blade.
Boom!
In an instant, the Sword of the Thunder God erupted with terrifying brilliance. Lightning surged around Kaede, countless arcs writhing like electric serpents. It felt as if he had unleashed Chidori all at once.
No, it was even more excessive than that.
The light was so intense that Kaede himself looked like a small sun.
On a battlefield, this thing was basically a cheat. Even without being directly cut, anyone within the lightning's range would be paralyzed.
It truly lived up to being the Second Hokage's personal weapon. Calling it a divine blade was no exaggeration.
Kaede quickly reduced the chakra flow. Only when the chakra-formed light blade shrank to the size of an ordinary sword did he finally stop.
After a few more tests, he fully grasped how much chakra to input for different levels of power.
Satisfied, he returned home, reported his safety to his mother Fangko Kitahara, and enjoyed a lavish dinner.
Anyone who had been away from home for a long time knew this feeling. Right after coming back, you were treasured for a few days. Stay longer, and you became the nuisance again.
After washing up, Kaede returned to his room. His shadow clone had already delivered the thirty million ryo taken from Gato. On top of that, the mission had been upgraded to S-rank, which meant a generous bonus was coming as well.
Kaede took out one million ryo and brought it downstairs, handing it to Fangko Kitahara as living expenses.
Seeing so much money, her first reaction was not joy, but worry.
"This mission paid this much. It must have been extremely dangerous," Fangko said anxiously.
A mother worried when her child traveled far. Kaede rarely talked about his missions for that very reason.
With his father's fate as a warning, Fangko worried every time he went out on a mission.
Still, once this path was chosen, there was no turning back. She worried, but she would never hold him back.
"It was nothing," Kaede said with a grin. "For me, it was easy."
This time, the gains were insane. Not just tens of millions of ryo, but more importantly, the Sword of the Thunder God.
That weapon alone was worth at least ten million ryo, if not more. In fact, it was priceless. Money could not buy it.
The mission being raised to S-rank really had not been difficult for him at all.
Fangko was not comforted by his words. Instead, she felt he was forcing a smile.
Their family was an ordinary civilian household with a ninja background. As a ninja's family member, she had heard plenty about mission ranks. Even for chunin, taking on A-rank missions meant risking their lives.
Such a massive reward could only come from an S-rank mission. During that month away, he must have gone through unimaginable danger.
In Fangko's eyes, her son was still just a child who had only recently been promoted to chunin.
She simply could not connect him with the image of an overwhelmingly powerful ninja.
Kaede had no idea how much his mother was thinking. After telling her not to skimp on expenses, he went straight back upstairs and resumed his routine.
First came chakra refinement, his daily training.
At the end of the day, ninja combat came down to chakra reserves.
A truly powerful ninja never lacked chakra. Especially later on, the prominent figures never seemed to have chakra shortage issues at all.
Kaede's chakra reserves were now ten times that of an average elite jonin. He had firmly stepped into kage level. He had almost fully developed the Uzumaki Clan's basic Sage Body.
As he aged, he would enter another rapid growth period lasting about ten years. Even if he trained steadily, he would eventually have at least twice the chakra of an ordinary kage level ninja.
That already sounded incredible. Even if he did nothing else, ten years later he would be a name that shook the shinobi world.
But ten years later?
By then, it would be far too late.
How long until the Fourth Great Ninja War?
At most four or five years.
There was no time to wait ten.
That meant within five years, kage level would be everywhere. Hardly worth mentioning.
Ten or twenty years later, even super kage level would be commonplace.
Time was tight.
He was under pressure.
The fastest path was still the diary system.
With that thought, he pulled out his notebook and began writing.
Meanwhile, in the Uchiha Clan compound, only the former clan head's residence remained lit. Everything else lay in darkness.
In the shadows, Uchiha Sasuke formed hand seals. Chidori crackled in his palm as he charged at a wooden training dummy.
Boom!
His arm plunged deep into the wood. In his eyes, it was no longer a dummy, but the figure he hated most.
"Huff… huff… huff…"
Sasuke panted heavily.
He could clearly feel how much stronger he was compared to before the Land of Waves mission.
During that mission, while waiting for the bridge to be completed, he had plenty of time. Hatake Kakashi and Kaede Kitahara had time as well, enough to guide his training extensively.
Whether it was Chidori or the use of the Sharingan, his progress had been nothing short of dramatic.
Hatake Kakashi was not a pure-blooded member of the Uchiha Clan, yet his mastery of the Sharingan surpassed that of most Uchiha.
After the clan's destruction, many Uchiha documents had fallen into the hands of Konoha's upper ranks. Among them were numerous notes on Sharingan usage.
Those were useless to most of the leadership. Without the Sharingan, what could they do with them?
In the end, the documents were shelved and forgotten.
Later, Hatake Kakashi managed to access many of them for reference. Combined with his own years of experience and experimentation, his understanding of the Sharingan surpassed that of the vast majority of Uchiha.
Teaching someone like Uchiha Sasuke, who had only just awakened his one-tomoe Sharingan, was more than easy enough.