Seven days.
It had been exactly seven days since Ren, Satoshi, and Kaori finalized their sweeping alliance across the northern borders.
In Konoha, the atmosphere inside the Hokage's office was suffocating. Hiruzen Sarutobi sat behind his massive oak desk, the deep lines etched into his face making him look a decade older than his actual years. He took a long, slow drag from his pipe. As he exhaled, a thick cloud of grey smoke drifted toward the ceiling, doing absolutely nothing to obscure the tension among the people gathered before him.
To his right stood the Elders, Homura and Koharu, their postures rigid and their expressions clinical.
Arrayed in a loose semicircle were the Legendary Sannin. Tsunade stood with her arms tightly crossed beneath her chest, her foot tapping a restless, irritated rhythm against the floorboards. Jiraiya leaned heavily against the wall, his jaw tight. His right hand occasionally drifted to touch the empty, pinned-up sleeve where his left arm used to be.
Orochimaru stood slightly apart from the rest, lingering near the shadowed bookcases. His pale hands were clasped loosely behind his back, his golden, serpentine eyes watching the room with a detached, almost predatory amusement.
"Let us review our position before the envoys arrive," Hiruzen said, his voice raspy and exhausted.
"The high-value assets are secure," Jiraiya reported, pushing off the wall. "The Eight-Tails, Four-Tails, and Five-Tails Jinchūriki, along with the Raikage's son, are detained. As agreed, we released the Third Raikage earlier."
"A necessary gesture," Homura said, adjusting his glasses. "Releasing the Kage initiates the peace summits. Keeping his son and his ultimate weapons ensures he will actually sit at the table."
"We hold all the cards," Tsunade said, shifting her weight. "Suna is broken. Iwa and Kumo are crippled and desperate to get their Jinchūriki back. The negotiations should be a straightforward discussion of war reparations. So why did you call an emergency council, Sensei?"
Hiruzen didn't answer immediately. He reached into the top drawer of his desk, his aged fingers pulling out an ornate scroll sealed with the vibrant red wax of the Fire Daimyo. He placed it carefully on the polished wood.
"We were ready for negotiations," Hiruzen sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "But yesterday evening, a messenger hawk arrived directly from the capital. The Daimyo has altered our strategic objectives."
Koharu stepped forward, her voice sharp and uncompromising. "The Daimyo has mandated the inclusion of a non-negotiable economic clause in the armistice. All four surrendering nations must legally bind themselves to purchase their food grain imports exclusively from the Land of Fire."
Tsunade stopped tapping her foot. She stared at the elders in confusion. "What's the need for that? Is there even a single nation capable of meeting the grain needs of all four Great Nations altogether? The four Great Nations do not have any option other than the Land of Fire to buy food from."
"They do have an option," Hiruzen said quietly.
"Ren Uchiha."
The name sucked the remaining oxygen out of the room. Tsunade's lips thinned into a hard line, while Jiraiya's posture went completely rigid. In the corner, Orochimaru's smile widened by a fraction of an inch.
"Before our intelligence network went dark," Hiruzen explained, leaning forward and steepling his fingers, "we received scattered reports from the Land of Rice Fields. Mostly civilian rumors, whispers from merchants and refugees. But the data was consistent. Ren Uchiha has engineered a new strain of agricultural seed."
Hiruzen looked at his students, his eyes grim. "It yields a full harvest in less than two weeks."
Jiraiya exhaled a sharp breath. "Two weeks? A crop cycle takes months."
"Unless Ren Uchiha has mastered Wood Release," Orochimaru said smoothly from the side. "Or... he has the cells of the First Hokage and has found a way to use them. And I can assure you, it's the latter."
Tsunade stood up furiously, slamming her hands on the desk. "How could he possibly get Grandpa's cells?!"
Homura narrowed his eyes. "Could it be Nawaki's cells? The ones Ren might have stolen while he treated him during the Second Shinobi War?"
"Incorrect," Orochimaru straight-up refuted the Elder.
With a flick of his wrist, Orochimaru summoned a small white snake. The snake unhinged its jaw and spewed out a sealed glass jar containing a cluster of pale, mutated white roots. He handed it to Tsunade.
"I obtained a sample of this root network with quite a bit of difficulty from the borders of the Rice Fields," Orochimaru explained. "It is the root system of the very plants Ren is producing. And it contains Lord First's genetic signature, not Nawaki's."
Tsunade's eyes blazed with anger as she squeezed the jar, ready to crush it.
"I wouldn't crush that if I were you," Orochimaru warned softly. "It contains more than just the First Hokage's cells. He has stabilized them. It possesses a quality that can help you with Jiraiya's arm transplant—the project you have been quite busy failing at lately. It is far less reactive and much more adaptive than Nawaki's cell. I am truly astonished by how Ren achieved this. I am sure you will achieve the desired result with the help of this."
Orochimaru smirked. "It seems he has truly eclipsed you as the greatest medical ninja."
(PS: Ren's POV: Snake Diddy, you are giving me too much credit.)
Tsunade didn't say anything. Her knuckles were white, but she carefully kept the jar.
The biggest question remained. Jiraiya stepped forward, enraged. "You snake... can't you spill all the poison at once? How did they get Lord First's cells?" He formed a tight fist with his remaining hand.
Orochimaru's smile vanished. He looked slowly past Jiraiya, his golden eyes locking onto Hiruzen and the two Elders.
"Kaori Uchiha attacked Root," Orochimaru stated flatly.
With that single statement, it became glaringly clear that Danzo had been conducting illegal human experimentation using the First Hokage's remains. And given Orochimaru's piercing stare, the implication hung heavy in the air: the Elders and the Hokage might have known about it.
The Elders immediately bristled. "Preposterous!" Koharu snapped. Homura blatantly refused Orochimaru's allegations, claiming ignorance of Danzo's rogue operations.
Tsunade had heard enough. The hypocrisy sickened her. She slammed her fist onto the desk, fracturing the wood, and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her in a silent, blinding rage. Jiraiya cast a complicated look at his sensei and went after her.
The room went dead silent.
Hiruzen closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them, he looked at Orochimaru. "Do we know anything else about Ren and the Land of Rice Fields?"
"Root's external network has been busy, Sensei," Orochimaru purred. "We couldn't penetrate the Rice Fields directly, so we observed the periphery. Specifically, the Land of Hot Water and the Land of Frost. We intercepted communications from individuals very close to the Daimyos of those nations about Kaori Uchiha and Satoshi Uchiha's visit."
Hiruzen took a fresh folder, breaking the seal. "What did Satoshi and Kaori do?"
"They orchestrated a masterpiece of political extortion," Orochimaru said. "Satoshi and Kaori Uchiha did not approach the Daimyos first. They went directly to the ninja villages of those countries. We don't know what deal was made between them in the shadows, but she secured the absolute loyalty of their shinobi. Then, she took the leaders of those ninja villages and used them as her personal escort to walk right into the Daimyos' palaces."
Homura paled, his hands gripping the edge of the Hokage's desk. "She used a nation's own military to intimidate its leader into an alliance."
"It gets better," Orochimaru chuckled, a low, raspy sound. "She didn't just use threats. She offered the Daimyos the one thing they couldn't refuse: profit. She promised them access to the Rice Fields' grain at bottom-barrel prices, granting them the right to resell it to other nations and keep the margins."
"We cannot do anything to Ren Uchiha directly," Koharu deduced, her voice trembling slightly. "On paper, he now has the official support of three Daimyos. It is highly likely he has completely controlled the Daimyo of the Land of Rice Fields to establish his own sovereign Ninja Village."
Hiruzen thought for a long while, the smoke from his pipe curling in the dim light.
"We will make sure that all four nations sign the treaty," Hiruzen finally declared, his voice hard. "They will buy food grains only from the Land of Fire, even if we have to make massive concessions at the negotiation table. We cannot let Ren Uchiha develop his ninja village in the Land of Rice Fields. We have to cut their funds from all directions, anyhow possible."
He looked at the map on his wall. "Because we have just ended a massive war. We cannot simply attack the Land of Rice Fields. Even if we mobilized, we could not take down those three without suffering catastrophic casualties. This economic blockade is our biggest priority."
Homura adjusted his glasses, highlighting the political trap. "Furthermore, Ren Uchiha didn't attack the Land of Hot Water or the Land of Frost to forcefully capture them. He didn't openly conquer their Daimyos or their ninja villages. If he had done that, Konoha could have intervened on the premise that we received a commission to protect those countries, or to maintain international peace."
The Elder sighed in frustration. "But he formed a peaceful alliance. We cannot legally interfere between sovereign nations forming an alliance without looking like the aggressors."
Orochimaru let out a sarcastic chuckle at the sheer, blinding hypocrisy of the Konoha Elders complaining about legalities, but he didn't say anything.
"Orochimaru," Hiruzen commanded, his eyes shadowed beneath his hat. "You are to deploy your agents. Try to break their alliance from the inside."
Orochimaru offered a mock bow and left the room without a word.
Left alone with his advisors, Hiruzen stared at the door. If Danzo were still alive, Hiruzen thought bitterly, I wouldn't have had to say a word. He would have already begun the sabotage.