How Orochimaru chose to proceed was not something Hikaru cared much about.
What he wanted was only the result.
That said, he was still willing to offer a measured degree of help. He could lighten the pressure from the ANBU side, for instance, or intervene himself at the final moment if necessary.
Of course, he would only step in if Uchiha Fugaku truly possessed the Mangekyō Sharingan.
If Fugaku did not, then there was no real need.
And if Fugaku had no Mangekyō at all, yet Orochimaru and his people still failed to deal with him, then Hikaru would have to seriously reconsider whether Orochimaru was even worth working with at this stage.
The Orochimaru of the future would be a man who grasped the truth of many things.
But the Orochimaru of the present still fell short.
At least in Hikaru's eyes, his current value was not all that high.
So Hikaru stopped dwelling on Orochimaru and turned his attention fully to cultivating seeds.
It seemed his growing strength had affected even that.
His speed in handling mid-grade seeds had reached a level that surprised even him.
Back then, nurturing a mid-grade seed had taken at least half a year, sometimes longer. And if he recklessly tried to cultivate multiple lines at once, spending several years was perfectly normal.
But now, only a few days after planting them, he discovered that the maturity of his seeds had already reached twenty percent.
And that was without affecting his combat strength at all.
He had planted several at once, too.
"So growing stronger really does make even these seeds stop fighting me."
The thought amused him.
By his estimate, they would be fully mature in about a week.
Once that happened, he could use the fruits in a few small experiments and see whether his ideas held up in practice.
Stretching lazily, Hikaru let his gaze drift beyond the window.
The weather was fine. Konoha still wore its usual appearance of peace and quiet.
And yet beneath that harmony, a current dark enough to make one shudder was already moving.
Konoha.
The Uchiha.
ANBU.
Root.
Danzō, Orochimaru, and Hikaru himself.
All of them were about to be drawn into a silent vortex—one that would leave behind consequences far greater than its lack of noise suggested.
What Hikaru wanted to see now was simple:
Would Danzō end up profiting as the fisherman who waited behind the struggle—
or would Hikaru devour the whole board himself?
Under normal circumstances, Hikaru had every confidence in the latter.
A dog did not abandon its nature.
And Hikaru had no faith in Danzō truly changing in any meaningful way.
"So in the end, I may still take everything for myself."
A faint smile touched Hikaru's lips, and his fingers tapped lightly against the desk.
He was confident.
Danzō's weakness had always been obvious.
As long as he handled the next stage properly, the result would not slip away from him.
"Minister."
At that moment, Ayame and Saya entered the office together.
The instant he saw them, Hikaru immediately reined in his thoughts.
Until the matter had fully taken shape, he had no intention of letting any idle emotion show on his face.
Especially not when Uchiha Fugaku was involved.
After all, both Saya and Shisui stood close to him.
"Today's documents?" Hikaru tilted his head and asked casually. "That many? Has something troublesome happened?"
"There are rather a lot today," Saya said with a small smile as she laid a stack of files on the desk. "Quite a few matters need the Minister's decision."
"It concerns Kumogakure," Ayame added, her tone calm as ever. "That village has begun moving again."
"Kumogakure?"
Hikaru raised a brow slightly.
He had not expected this to involve the Hidden Cloud.
"What now? I thought the Fourth Raikage was still consolidating authority. Has he already finished?"
The Raikage of Kumogakure had always inherited the name "A," passed down from one generation to the next.
Whether there was some deeper meaning behind that, Hikaru neither knew nor cared.
What mattered was that Kumo and Konoha had never truly signed a lasting peace.
Between them there existed only a ceasefire—something that could be torn apart at any moment.
That was why Konoha had always kept a close watch on the village across the sea of tension beyond the Land of Hot Water.
And of the Five Great Villages, Kumogakure was perhaps the most violent, the most reckless, and the most eager for war.
Ever since the end of the Third Shinobi World War, the Fourth Raikage had been consolidating power. With bold, ruthless measures, he had cut away many of the old men in his village who still clung to authority.
As a result, his administrative structure had become startlingly young.
Hikaru remembered enough of the future to know the contrast well.
Konoha still had elders like Homura Mitokado and Koharu Utatane hanging on.
Iwagakure still revolved around Ōnoki, and Kirigakure around Genji-level elders and old systems.
Sunagakure, on the other hand, had become so rebuilt and so stripped down that Gaara's trusted circle would one day amount to little more than a handful.
But Kumogakure was different.
In Kumo, Hikaru scarcely recalled seeing any old men of consequence at all.
That village belonged to its prime.
And the Fourth Raikage's authority there was absolute.
With ANBU's intelligence reports in hand, Hikaru knew enough to guess what had happened:
The dissenters, the old factions, and the men who would not yield had likely all been swept away.
"That is most likely the case," Ayame replied. "ANBU does not have authorization for deep infiltration into every great village, but our external intelligence channels remain solid."
"According to reports from the field, Kumo has begun reorganizing and drilling its border shinobi again," Saya continued. "Iwagakure has already started reacting."
"Ōnoki has always kept one eye on Kumo."
Hikaru gave a quiet laugh, though his expression soon grew more serious.
"I understand. I'll review the reports properly. Kumogakure is not a village anyone can afford to take lightly."
He had not forgotten what Kumo would one day attempt against Konoha.
And he remembered equally well how badly Hiruzen would be made to bend in that affair.
Now that his own interests were tied to the village's stability, Hikaru could not allow Konoha to be humiliated so thoroughly.
But Hiruzen, on the other hand—
Hiruzen could lose as badly as fate pleased.
"Still, that matter is some distance away, and if it comes, it will have to be dealt with carefully."
With that thought, Hikaru lowered his gaze to the files.
There was no point thinking too far ahead when there was still work to be done before him.
And right now, his most immediate concern was still giving Orochimaru the right opening.
In truth, Hikaru had already thought of a way to do exactly that.
And strangely enough, he had to thank himself for it.
If not for the ANBU leave schedule he himself had approved, he might never have had such a convenient opportunity.
That was right.
His plan rested on ANBU's leave rotation.
Every ANBU operative had time away from active duty, but the scheduling was deliberately irregular.
That irregularity became even more pronounced when it came to squad leaders and ministers, whose periods of rest showed no obvious pattern at all.
The idea had not even been Hikaru's.
It had been devised jointly by Ayame and Saya.
Their reasoning was sound enough: if a hostile force managed to infiltrate ANBU without being discovered, then a regular leave schedule would make it too easy to predict when its strongest elements were absent.
The less predictable the rotation, the better.
And the only people who fully knew it were the ones responsible for drafting it—
and Hikaru himself.
What they surely could never have imagined was that this time, the one planning to use that gap was none other than the man who held the greatest practical authority in all of ANBU.
"Why do I suddenly feel like the Emperor plotting rebellion against his own empire?"
After finishing the Kumo reports, Hikaru's eyes drifted to the leave schedule, and he could not help mocking himself a little.
In the end, the easiest person to betray a system's interests was always someone at the top of it.
Danzō had sold out Konoha often enough.
Hiruzen's concessions after the Third Shinobi World War were hardly much better.
It truly was as the old saying went—when a ship begins to leak, it rarely starts from the bottom.
It starts from above.
"So in the end, I really have taken on a bit of Danzō's role."
He stretched and rose to his feet.
He had finished reading today's reports.
And with that, the outline of his next move had taken shape.
Kakashi's leave did not overlap with Pakura's.
But that made no difference.
Hikaru intended to pass the information to Orochimaru.
As for the rest, it would depend on what Orochimaru chose to do with it.
How he persuaded Danzō was none of Hikaru's concern.
What Hikaru wanted was only this:
That Orochimaru would strike at the appointed time.
"Still, once Orochimaru leaves the village, I'll need to prepare something on my side as well. It seems I must find someone suitable."
Once Orochimaru left Konoha, he would in essence slip beyond Hikaru's immediate reach.
Even if he remained within the Land of Fire because he still needed Hikaru's protection, he would no longer be inside the village. And that meant Hikaru could not watch him as closely as before.
So he needed someone at Orochimaru's side.
A spy.
An assistant.
Or, if nothing else, a reliable messenger.
Any one of those would do.
What mattered was that someone close to Hikaru remained beside Orochimaru, reminding him not to go too far.
The problem was that such a person would not be easy to find.
They needed to be loyal to Hikaru.
Willing to leave Konoha.
And, ideally, someone intelligent enough to become genuinely useful to Orochimaru.
Those requirements ruled out almost everyone.
Almost.
But not quite.
There was still one person Hikaru remembered clearly—
someone clever, extraordinarily adaptable, and fated in the future to become a hidden mastermind in his own right.
More importantly, this person was bound by a connection strong enough that Hikaru could trust the result.
Kabuto Yakushi.
Hikaru had wanted to get his hands on Kabuto for a long time.
He had no wish to let talent like that slip away.
At first, he lacked the authority to do anything about it.
And once he became head of ANBU, he had been buried beneath an endless mountain of work.
So much so that he had nearly forgotten the boy was still living in the orphanage.
Now that he remembered, there was no reason to let him slip away any longer.
Strictly speaking, Kabuto should be eight or nine by now.
If Hikaru had not altered the course of events, then before long the boy and Nono Yakushi would have been dragged into Root's shadow. Danzō, Orochimaru, and Aburame Ryōma would have pressed them into a tragedy from which neither truly escaped.
But now Ryōma was dead.
Danzō had been stripped of office.
And Orochimaru stood at the edge of becoming a missing-nin.
In that sense, Hikaru had already played the role of a hidden benefactor.
Even if no one would ever know it.
Still, what was done was done.
And Hikaru was not the sort to forget when he had unknowingly changed someone's fate.
Since he had remembered, then naturally he expected something in return.
If Kabuto could be spared all of that needless suffering, and instead be sent directly to Orochimaru while feeding information back to Hikaru, then that could serve as repayment enough.
"I truly am a good man."
Standing not far from the Konoha orphanage, Hikaru silently praised himself before finally walking forward.
A group of children were playing outside the entrance.
The moment they saw him approach, they all stopped.
What surprised Hikaru was the emotion he read in their eyes.
Wariness.
Sharp, immediate, unmistakable wariness.
The years of conflict had clearly taught them too much.
No doubt the orphanage had often been disturbed by visitors from Konoha or from powerful clans—people who came searching for promising children to be taken away and turned into tools.
It was little wonder, then, that the children looked at any unfamiliar adult with unease.
The companions who had once gone with such people had never come back.
With that realization, Hikaru tried offering them the same gentle smile that had served him so often elsewhere.
The result was immediate.
And disastrous.
Their eyes only grew more guarded.
More frightened.
Hikaru's face stiffened slightly.
This was the first time that smile had utterly failed him.
Why did it work on everyone else, but not on children?
"Are children simply more sensitive than adults?"
After thinking it through, that was the only conclusion he could reach.
Children were often sharper in ways adults were not.
They did not stop to consider identity or rank.
If they did not know someone, they trusted their instincts.
And perhaps the killing intent buried in Hikaru, along with the habits he had developed over years in ANBU, was simply something they could not accept.
"Good afternoon, sir."
At that moment, a yellow-haired woman in glasses hurried out.
She immediately swept a glance over the children before stepping forward and bowing politely.
"Forgive me for not coming sooner. May I ask what brings you here?"
Hikaru looked at her calmly.
He already knew exactly who she was.
And he found her movement rather interesting.
She had placed herself—almost instinctively—between him and the children.
Not openly, not enough to provoke, but just enough to pull his attention onto herself instead of them.
A simple, sincere, and intelligent way to protect them.
And the distance she had kept was also carefully judged.
Enough to deal with an ordinary shinobi, should it come to that.
Not that she was ordinary.
The chakra within her was far from trivial.
"Forgive the disturbance, Nono Yakushi. I am Senju Hikaru."
He smiled, as always, with unforced warmth.
"It is a pleasure."
That only made the woman more uneasy.
The instant he spoke his name, the unease in her expression deepened at once.
She knew who he was.
Whether because of the name Senju or the weight his name now carried in Konoha, she clearly recognized him.
"So it is the head of ANBU..."
Nono gave a bitter smile, then bowed again.
"I am Nono Yakushi. My respects, Minister."
"Oh? You know me?"
Hikaru found that slightly interesting.
Most people outside the upper ranks did not react to him that quickly.
"I do," Nono replied with a strained smile. "I was once a member of Root."
She did not try to hide it.
There was no point.
Hikaru had come here and called her by name the moment he arrived. That already meant he had looked into her.
Any attempt at pretense now would only make things worse.
So it was better to be open.
Better for her.
Better for the orphanage.
"Frank. I like that."
Hikaru nodded lightly, then asked the question even though he already knew the answer.
"Then I assume you know why I came."
"I do..."
Nono let out a slow breath.
Her fists tightened within her sleeves.
"You have come to recruit new children for ANBU... or to recruit me."
"And what do you think of that?"
Hikaru watched her with interest.
Then, as his gaze shifted, he saw a silver-haired boy in glasses standing slightly behind the others—a child who resembled Nono enough in bearing to stand out at once.
Kabuto.
"My lord... they are still children."
Nono's voice trembled, but her resolve did not.
She did not say the rest aloud.
She did not need to.
These children needed her.
They should not be dragged into the darkness of ANBU.
Nor should they have their humanity ground away for the convenience of others.
Hikaru tilted his head slightly.
This woman truly cared for this orphanage.
Not in some shallow, convenient way, but in earnest.
Whether the children were taken by a clan and turned into retainers, or by ANBU and turned into proper black-ops shinobi, the result was the same in her eyes.
And if she herself were taken away, then the orphanage would lose its last true protection.
After all, "the Walking medical-ninja" was not a title without weight. So long as she remained here, certain people still had to think twice.
But before Hikaru, that reputation meant very little.
Which was why she could only stand there in caution and humility.
"I understand."
Hikaru looked at her for a long time before finally nodding.
"I am sorry. The truth is harsh, but there is no avoiding it."
He paused.
Then he stepped slowly past her and looked over the children—small faces full of fear and unease.
Only then did he speak again, his voice low.
"They are pitiable children. They have no parents to rely on. This place is their home."
"But do not forget—this place also belongs to Konoha. And they belong to Konoha too."
"Someone among them must eventually serve the village. That is what ensures this orphanage continues to receive support and supplies."
"In the end, all they are doing is making a choice."
As soon as the words left his mouth, Hikaru himself fell briefly silent.
He suddenly felt, with uncomfortable clarity, that perhaps he had become exactly the sort of man who deserved a noose and a high lamp post.
Everything he said was true.
But saying such truths aloud so directly was still a cruel thing.
Especially because he knew that the old Hikaru might never have spoken like this.
Not before Minato was sent to Mount Myōboku.
Not before he held Hiruzen's fatal weakness in his hands.
Not before his strength had risen, and not before he had laid waste to enemies in both Sunagakure and Kirigakure.
Power and authority had changed him.
Even if he had not noticed the change happening.
Once, he might have softened such truths.
Now, he no longer felt the need.
And perhaps that was not entirely bad.
At the very least, he no longer needed to lower his head and live by the moods of others.
No one could now use rank or power to make him bow against his will.
And besides, what he had said was not wrong.
Neither the village nor the elders who governed it would feed the orphanage forever out of kindness.
Something had to be given in return.
That was the order of things.
The truth was that Konoha could absolutely afford to support the orphanage without burden.
But the village needed children without roots.
Children who could be shaped and sent to do more dangerous work.
And those children had no real right to choose.
They could obey—
or be swallowed.
"I understand..."
Nono's body trembled faintly.
After a while, she forced herself calm.
"I will go with you. Please, do not trouble the children."
"No."
Hikaru shook his head.
He laid a hand on her shoulder, his tone as calm and warm as before.
"You've misunderstood. You stay."
"The children need you."
"I only need one."
He looked at Kabuto.
"The task I have for him will be dangerous. But if he is clever enough, he will survive it."
"And if you remain here, you can continue taking care of the other children. In return, ANBU can offer this place protection."
He paused, then smiled faintly.
"But in return, you will help ANBU as well."
"This world is not peaceful. Everyone pays a price. If that is true, then why not choose a way that benefits both sides?"
"What do you think, medical-ninja?"
In the end, Hikaru had softened.
That was why he proposed a different arrangement.
ANBU would provide money and support so that the orphanage could live more comfortably.
In return, Nono Yakushi would help ANBU in a quieter, more subtle way. She would shape the children's view of the village and of ANBU itself, help build loyalty, and quietly guide the more suitable ones toward that path.
The world was full of orphans.
In truth, they were one of the largest populations of all.
The shinobi world had never known peace.
Perhaps the great villages could convince themselves they lived in something close to it.
But for the smaller countries, the smaller settlements, and the places with no village at all, life was a suffocating thing.
So Hikaru had settled on what he considered a reasonable arrangement:
The orphanage would continue taking in children.
Their early shaping—giving them a sense of belonging to Konoha and screening out the possibility of spies—would be entrusted to Nono.
After all, as a former Root operative, there were few people better suited to that sort of work.
If the children grew up with that bond already in place, then many of them would enter ANBU willingly.
That would give ANBU a steady line of recruits—loyal, rootless, and already prepared.
And in return, with ANBU standing behind the orphanage, the clans would be far less likely to interfere with it.
ANBU's name alone was enough to keep many hands away.
Naturally, if some of the children lacked the talent or temperament for ANBU and instead sought an ordinary life, Hikaru had no intention of stopping them.
There would not be that many truly qualified for ANBU anyway.
"Think it over carefully. At least from now on, you would only need to face us—not the pressure of all Konoha."
After saying that, Hikaru's gaze settled fully on Kabuto.
"I am taking this child with me."
"I believe he can accomplish what I require."
"As for you, I will give you one month to consider my proposal. Do not take longer."
Then, after a brief pause, he added one final line.
"And one more thing—entering ANBU is not always a misfortune. Because..."
A phrase rose suddenly in his mind, one he found unexpectedly fitting.
"We walk in darkness and serve the light. Nothing is true; everything is permitted."
In the forest behind the Uchiha compound, Orochimaru and the Root operatives under him lay hidden in silence.
To move against Uchiha Fugaku, they had prepared for far too much already.
His habits.
His movements.
The best place to strike.
How to silence him quickly and completely.
How to avoid ANBU surveillance.
Every piece had to be accounted for.
If a single link in the chain failed, the consequences would be beyond imagining.
Orochimaru lay at the foremost point, his eyes fixed on the lake in the distance.
Choosing today had been something of a gamble.
Several days earlier, Hikaru had sent word to him by way of a tiny lizard:
Kakashi, the man currently watching them, would go off duty in a few days.
That brief period was the only relatively safe window Orochimaru would have in the entire month.
Even if other ANBU were still watching, no one else had Kakashi's Sharingan.
No one else was likely to keep track of him so closely.
The time was tight.
Painfully tight.
Worse still, there was no certainty Fugaku would even come during that span.
This place was one of the spots where Fugaku sometimes accompanied his son and instructed young Itachi in ninjutsu.
Even in Orochimaru's view, it was not an ideal battlefield.
It was too close to the Uchiha compound.
If anything went wrong, reinforcements would arrive immediately.
But there was no helping it.
Hikaru had only given him three days.
If he could not act within that time, the watch of ANBU would tighten around him once again.
"Why hasn't he come yet?"
Orochimaru muttered the question to himself.
Waiting was a miserable thing.
No matter how deep his patience ran, after crouching here for two days with nothing to show for it, even he was growing irritable.
He had already looked into Itachi's performance at the Academy. The child had outgrown what the school could really teach him.
That was why Fugaku had taken to instructing him himself whenever he found the time.
Even with the clan in turmoil, Fugaku still cared deeply for his own family.
"Did I waste the chance after all?"
Another hour passed.
The midday sun now hung high and brilliant above them.
But no amount of sunlight could ease the irritation building inside Orochimaru.
Being manipulated to this degree—forced into motion while knowing perfectly well that someone else had dictated the frame—was a deeply unpleasant feeling.
If he had been given a choice, he would never have accepted it.
But certain matters lay beyond one's preference.
And some dangers could not simply be brushed aside.
Then, suddenly, Orochimaru's eyes sharpened.
Someone was coming.
He turned his attention toward the source of the movement.
A group of black-clad, masked figures appeared, moving with disciplined precision.
When he saw them, a cruel smile finally touched Orochimaru's lips.
They were not ANBU.
They were retainers.
Men who belonged solely to Uchiha Fugaku and would gladly give their lives to protect him.
Their appearance meant only one thing.
Uchiha Fugaku was coming.
"The materials are here... and the target is nearly in place..."
In Orochimaru's yellow, serpentine eyes, greed and excitement glimmered at once.
"Then now... it is time to act."
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