Unsurprisingly, Danzo was also in the Hokage's office at the time, waiting to hear the report from the ANBU assigned to watch Chiba Shun.
Hiruzen Sarutobi did not hide anything from him.
Although he had been annoyed by Danzo's earlier little tricks in the shadows, he could also treat that kind of scheming as a form of amusement. Day after day, he sat buried under mountains of paperwork. Even a Hokage needed something entertaining now and then.
A quiet contest of wits with Danzo was, in its own way, a welcome distraction.
In any case, Danzo had failed to get what he wanted.
"Lord Hokage, that Chiba Shun did nothing all day except eat enormous amounts of food while being accompanied by Namikaze Minato," the ANBU reported.
"The things he chose were all foods that restore the stamina and chakra consumed by ninjas. After eating, he immediately went through high-intensity physical training."
"I suspect he intends to use his stay in our village to improve his physical condition. His physique is obviously poor. He likely hasn't had enough nutritional support in the past, and his chakra reserves are relatively low."
"If we picked any random chunin from Konoha, that person would probably be stronger than him."
Hiruzen Sarutobi was a little surprised.
Earlier, when Minato had delivered his own report, he had not considered that possibility at all. He raised a hand, dismissing the ANBU, then turned to Danzo.
"Danzo, what do you think?"
Danzo frowned. He, too, found it strange.
After a moment, he said, "As the leader of the Ninja Academy exchange group, he doesn't even go to the academy himself. He sends those ignorant little brats in his place and wanders around on his own. He clearly has some other purpose."
"Hiruzen, hand him over to Root. Give me one day, and I can make him tell us the true purpose of Kumogakure's visit."
Naturally, Hiruzen Sarutobi had no intention of agreeing to such an absurd request.
He could not even be bothered to answer it directly. After a brief silence, he only said, "Let's observe him for a few more days first."
***
For the next several days, Chiba Shun repeated the exact same routine.
Every day, he had Namikaze Minato treat him to extravagant meals. Every day, he trained until his body shook. And every day, while the two of them were together, he chatted with Minato about all kinds of strange, irrelevant, and seemingly harmless things.
For example, just after a meal that day, while they were walking toward the training ground, Chiba Shun suddenly asked, "Minato, what do you think of the ninja village system?"
Minato answered without hesitation. "The ninja village system created by the First Hokage was an excellent thing. It ended the chaos of the Warring States era."
Chiba Shun glanced at him sideways. "But the ninja village system has only existed for a few decades, and there have already been two great Shinobi World Wars."
"How many ninjas died in those wars? How many innocent civilians were caught up in them?"
He spoke casually, but his words were sharp.
"Now the major villages, including our Kumogakure, are all copying Konoha's Ninja Academy system. In the future, the number of ninjas will keep increasing."
"And if the number of ninjas increases, the scale of war will only grow with it. The next great war will probably kill even more people."
He looked ahead and asked in a low voice, "So is the ninja village system really such a good thing?"
Minato did not waver.
"That's because there still isn't enough trust between ninjas," he said earnestly. "And because people are using chakra the wrong way. Chakra allows hearts to connect. I believe that one day-"
Before he could finish, Chiba Shun suddenly pointed ahead.
"Minato, look at that guy!"
Not far in front of them, a figure in bright green was running upside down.
Minato recognized him immediately. Everyone in Konoha knew who that was.
He had just opened his mouth to explain, only to watch Chiba Shun abruptly imitate the man and start running upside down too.
Minato's lips parted. In the end, though, he said nothing.
***
From that day on, Chiba Shun trained alongside Might Duy.
Just like Duy, he ignored the stunned looks from every passerby in Konoha. If Duy ran, Chiba ran. If Duy dropped down for push-ups, Chiba followed him to the ground. If Duy began shouting those burning, embarrassing slogans with all the sincerity in the world, Chiba shouted them too.
At first, both Minato Namikaze and the ANBU who were monitoring him were nervous about the contact.
But after watching for a while, they gradually got used to it.
Chiba Shun never actually spoke to Might Duy. He simply copied him.
Duy trained, and Chiba trained with him.
Duy sweated, and Chiba bled right beside him.
It was ridiculous. It was shameless. It looked like an outright humiliation ritual.
And yet, Chiba Shun did it every single day without the slightest trace of embarrassment.
Half a month passed in exactly that fashion.
By the time Hiruzen Sarutobi finally summoned him, Konoha had already learned more than enough about the twenty-four children who had arrived with him.
The report from the Ninja Academy was almost laughable.
Those children knew practically nothing. Their talent was terrible. Most of them were the sort who, if they had been born in Konoha, might never even have qualified to enter the Ninja Academy in the first place.
Konoha had too many far more promising children.
To make sure they couldn't steal anything of value, the village even sent a child from the Nara clan to lead them around. With only a few casual words and a little manipulation, he had the whole group dancing in circles.
The children from Kumogakure never noticed a thing.
There was only one problem.
No matter how cleverly the Nara child talked, there was one habit he could not talk them out of.
Every time it was time to eat, those children ate like starving wolves.
They ate as if they intended to devour Konoha's stores bare.
And when they were done, they went straight into training until their chakra and stamina were completely drained.
***
As he followed a group of ANBU toward the Hokage Building, Chiba Shun let out a long breath.
This half-month-long stay really had improved his physical condition.
Most of all, training with Might Duy had refined his body as a whole. Duy's methods looked absurd, even humiliating, but they truly brought every part of the body along together. There was almost no wasted motion, no imbalance, no neglect.
That comprehensive improvement had rapidly boosted Chiba Shun's chakra reserves as well.
The increase was much faster than anything he had managed alone.
By his own estimate, he could now perform roughly one hundred C-rank Earth Flow Walls.
Over the entire last year, his reserves had only grown from enough chakra for thirty C-rank techniques to enough for seventy. But in only half a month in Konoha, he had added another thirty on top of that.
Thanks, Might Duy, he thought sincerely.
Of course, that progress had come at a price.
Chiba Shun could clearly feel that his body had reached its limit. He had even suffered some minor injuries from pushing too hard. In the short term, he could not continue that same level of brutal training. He would need proper rest.
That was why, earlier that day, he had deliberately brought up Danzo while talking to Minato Namikaze.
The two of them had not said much about the man. Still, Chiba Shun was certain the information would reach Hiruzen Sarutobi immediately.
And sure enough, that very night, he was summoned.
***
Hiruzen Sarutobi was alone in the office.
Danzo was nowhere to be seen. Whether Hiruzen had dismissed him or simply chosen not to involve him, Chiba Shun could not tell.
"You're Chiba Shun, correct?" Hiruzen asked in his usual calm, kindly tone. "You've been in Konoha for half a month now. What are your thoughts on our Konoha Ninja Academy?"
Chiba Shun sneered inwardly.
Did this old fox really think he would believe that question was sincere? There was no way Hiruzen Sarutobi didn't know where he had been every day. He knew perfectly well that Chiba Shun had never once gone to the Konoha Ninja Academy, and that he had barely even seen the twenty-four children staying there.
Even so, he asked the question as though he knew nothing.
What hypocrisy.
On the surface, however, Chiba Shun immediately put on an envious expression.
"Hokage-sama, Konoha's Ninja Academy is truly excellent," he said. "It's complete in every aspect. There is still a great deal that our Kumogakure can learn from it."
Hiruzen smiled, then shifted the conversation to more pleasant things, asking after Chiba Shun and the children's daily lives in Konoha.
The two of them chatted casually for a while.
Only after enough meaningless politeness had been exchanged did Chiba Shun finally steer the conversation toward the real reason he had come.
"Lord Hokage, in truth, our Raikage sent me to Konoha this time in hopes of deepening cooperation between our two villages through an exchange between the Ninja Academies."
"During the era of the Second Raikage and the Second Hokage, our villages were allies. Later, an accident took place, and both second-generation leaders died. After that, the alliance broke apart."
"Our Raikage wishes to restore that alliance with Konoha."
Hiruzen Sarutobi was not surprised.
He had already guessed as much. What he did not know was whether Kumogakure had some deeper trap hidden behind that proposal, or what exactly the Third Raikage hoped to gain from it.
So he answered in the politest possible terms.
"I understand the Raikage's intention. Konoha also wishes to rebuild the alliance between our villages."
That much was true.
After all, Hiruzen had no desire to see Konoha isolated again. Uzushiogakure was already gone. He needed allies among the remaining great villages.
Still, after a short pause, he asked, "But does the Raikage have any concerns?"
Chiba Shun was not surprised by the question.
The Third Raikage had already exchanged letters with Hiruzen recently. In those letters, he had very subtly hinted that he wished to form an alliance but was facing internal resistance.
So Chiba Shun took out the secret letter the Third Raikage had entrusted to him and presented it.
An ANBU instantly appeared, took the letter, inspected it for danger, and only then passed it to Hiruzen Sarutobi.
After Hiruzen finished reading, Chiba Shun lowered his voice.
"Hokage-sama, our Cloud Village is not as united as Konoha."
"The promotion of the Will of Lightning has only just begun. Inside the village, there are still many forces left over from the First Raikage's era and the Second Raikage's era."
"Because Lord Raikage is powerful, those people do not dare oppose him openly. But in secret, they constantly cause trouble for him."
"They use the death of the Second Raikage as an excuse to keep resisting an alliance with Konoha."
"They even opposed the founding of the Ninja Academy, because they wanted to continue controlling the training of ninjas themselves."
He lifted his eyes and looked straight at Hiruzen.
"Lord Raikage hopes Konoha can help him save the village from those stubborn old die-hards."
Hiruzen Sarutobi narrowed his eyes and stared at Chiba Shun for a long time.
He was weighing the words in the boy's mouth against the contents of the Third Raikage's letter, measuring how much might be true and how much might be performance.
In the end, he chose to believe most of it.
Because in his own eyes, Konoha looked very much like what Chiba Shun had just described.
On the surface, Konoha was powerful and unified. In reality, it was riddled with internal struggles. There was the conflict between the forces left from the Second Hokage's era and the camp led by the Third Hokage. That struggle was nearing its end now, only because Hiruzen had capable allies like Danzo and had also won the Second Shinobi World War. The old forces were being crushed.
But the Third Raikage had no assistant as ruthless and effective as Danzo. Worse, Kumogakure had been on the losing side of the war. It was only natural that he would still be constrained by the village elders.
And that was only one of Konoha's problems.
There was also the conflict between Hiruzen and Danzo.
There were the endless tensions between the great clans and the lesser clans. There was the fearsome Uchiha clan, whose power cowed enemy nations and gave even the Hokage a headache. There was also the conflict between all the ninja clans together and the commoner ninjas. Hiruzen Sarutobi had always supported common-born ninja, which meant his relationship with the clans was always a mix of cooperation and confrontation.
If Konoha, under his leadership, still contained so many hidden fractures, then how could that brute of a Third Raikage possibly have done a better job than he had?
In Hiruzen's view, it was only natural that Kumogakure should be in even greater chaos than Konoha.
Which was exactly why Chiba Shun's words sounded believable.
And seeing the long silence stretch on behind the Hokage's desk, Chiba Shun knew his bait had landed.
Whether it would be enough to drag Danzo into the open was another matter entirely. But the first step, at least, had finally been taken.