Inside the ANBU Minister’s office, Hikaru stood quietly by the window, looking outside.

The sun had only just risen.

Konoha itself was beginning to stir with life.

But the village had not yet fully awakened, since the hour was still so early.

For Hikaru, it had been a long time since he had come to work this early.

Ever since becoming a captain—no, rather, since rising beyond the execution level and into the true management tier—he no longer needed to grind away like ordinary field operatives.

There was no reason for him to mistreat himself that way anymore.

But today was different.

Today required him to be here early, waiting, watching, and prepared.

He had to keep a close eye on what followed.

"I wonder how today will turn out."

He murmured softly, then let the thought go.

Once the results came in, everything would be clear.

Some time had already passed since Hikaru defeated Nagato.

And the aftermath of that battle—both in terms of influence and personal gains—had been enormous.

In truth, Hikaru had never intended to cause such a massive disturbance.

But he had gone a little too far that day.

And Nagato, quite frankly, had been a little too cooperative.

A Super Shinra Tensei colliding with Hikaru’s Tree World Descended under Jōgan Chakra Mode and Sage Mode—

That was effectively the clash of two techniques each capable of wiping out a great ninja village.

The tremors they caused were beyond imagination.

Even though those two techniques had not directly damaged any city or town, the aftershocks had still spread to a terrifying range.

From the point of their clash, the Capital of the Land of Fire and Konoha had both felt violent tremors.

Beyond that, the Land of Rivers, Sunagakure, and even the Land of Rain had all sensed the disturbance.

Even the border regions of the Land of Earth had not been spared.

The Land of Fire was not a country prone to earthquakes.

And even when earthquakes did happen, they would never reach that level.

More importantly, the sensing divisions of the various villages had all, at the exact same moment, detected chakra fluctuations so overwhelming they bordered on despair.

That alone was proof enough.

It had not been an earthquake.

It had been battle.

But what kind of people could fight and create that sort of upheaval?

No one knew.

And no one would be told.

Not even Hikaru, the man responsible, intended to reveal the truth.

So the villages had no choice but to investigate on their own.

As for Hikaru, he had also been forced to dispatch ANBU personnel to gather intelligence and assess the situation.

What he had not expected, however, was that those ANBU operatives would be far too competent.

He had only sent them there as a formality.

And yet those same ANBU managed to find traces of Orochimaru.

That place had already been utterly ruined by Hikaru and Nagato’s battle.

The fact that they could still pull clues from it was a testament to how well the ANBU had been trained.

"So this is what it feels like to trip over my own work?"

Looking over those reports, Hikaru could only shake his head helplessly.

Fortunately, they had not found any trace of him.

Otherwise, explaining the whole matter would have become a headache.

Hikaru acknowledged that his current strength was indeed formidable.

So formidable that even the Pain who would later invade Konoha likely would not be his match.

Go one level higher, and he could probably contend with Naruto in the first stage of Nine-Tails Chakra Mode.

Against Sasuke in Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan state, he might manage to fight him.

But actually defeating him?

That was wishful thinking.

Of course, Sasuke would not find it easy to kill him either.

The most likely outcome would be a stalemate, even if Hikaru ended up at a disadvantage.

By most standards, that level of strength was already overwhelming.

Yet compared to a monster like Uchiha Madara, it was still not enough.

Madara had not fought Naruto or Sasuke one at a time.

He had fought both of them together.

The most absurd part of all was that Sasuke, with the Eternal Mangekyō, had faced an eyeless Madara and still gotten skewered in a single strike.

That level of suppression was hard to imagine.

Add in the fact that Madara had later ripped the tailed beasts away and nearly killed Naruto as well—

If the Sage of Six Paths had not intervened, Madara would already have achieved the impossible and ended both saviors.

"So my current strength is still nowhere near enough if I compare myself to Madara. I need to keep my head down a little longer and continue developing."

Given that his strength was already considerable, Hikaru felt that keeping a lower profile was the wiser choice.

Of course, he also knew that by Konoha’s standards, his behavior was already extremely high-profile.

Even so, he had never intended to simply use power to crush everything in his path.

Brute force could indeed make people submit.

It could fill them with fear and force their obedience.

But that kind of obedience was always superficial.

Whether one wielded authority or raw strength, relying on the cruelest and most oppressive methods to suppress everyone was, in truth, the lowest and least effective approach of all.

Take Danzō, for instance.

Once he gained authority, the method he relied on most was brute force.

Against enemies or allies, it made no difference.

Ambush. Assassination. Slaughtering entire clans.

That path had only one ending.

When Danzō eventually died, the fact that Konoha did not beat drums, set off fireworks, and celebrate in the streets could already be considered a form of respect.

Hikaru did not fear Danzō.

In fact, he was perfectly happy to let the man continue down that road.

Because Hikaru knew very well that Danzō would inevitably be devoured by his own extremism and arrogance.

Before long, he would become despised and rejected by everyone.

And once he reached that point, both he and Hiruzen would suffer for it.

Danzō was hardly alone in that.

There were others cut from the same cloth.

Uchiha Madara.

Ōtsutsuki Kaguya.

Even Nagato, whom Hikaru had beaten not long ago.

All of them stood too high above everyone else.

All of them were cold, arrogant, and utterly dismissive of ordinary people.

And that kind of attitude inevitably provoked resistance.

There had once been a saying: where there is oppression, there will be resistance.

Especially because human beings were not mindless creatures.

Each person carried a unique spark.

A soul.

A will.

A sense of humanity.

These things were not measures of strength.

They were spiritual qualities.

And yet they could determine the fate of almost everything.

After all—

no one wanted to live forever beneath fear and shadow.

Right now, in Konoha and perhaps even across the entire ninja world, Hikaru could already be considered nearly unmatched—

unless an enemy came from the heavens.

Or from beneath the earth.

If he wished, he could absolutely use his power to crush every person who opposed him.

He could suppress them, erase them, even wipe out their entire bloodlines.

But if he did that, all he would gain was a puppet world.

A world without vitality.

Without spirit.

Without life.

And in the end, all it would do was bury seeds of hatred ever deeper—

or else reduce the world itself into a hollow shell, a place without soul.

Frankly, that would be no better than the traditional Ōtsutsuki approach of simply hanging everyone from a tree.

Hikaru did use his authority and strength to suppress certain people when necessary.

But those were exceptions.

Most of the time, he still chose to act within the rules.

And if one looked ahead, it was easy to see that his methods would only grow more refined in the future.

"So whether it’s because the enemies ahead are too powerful, or because I want firmer control over the village later on, I have to keep myself disciplined. Though even if I won’t end up hanging from a God Tree... I really do feel like I’m becoming more and more suited to hanging from a streetlamp."

Watching the growing number of people outside, Hikaru could not help musing inwardly.

Just then, saya and Ayame entered his office together.

"Minister, everything is ready."

"Good. Then let’s begin. Today’s matters will trouble the two of you quite a bit."

...

For the ANBU, today was indeed an unusually busy day.

Because today was the first day Hikaru’s newly established propaganda office would produce actual results.

At times like this, Hikaru had to admit that he was fortunate to live in a ninja world where communication and information exchange were both relatively convenient—and, more importantly, where supernatural abilities existed.

If this had been an ancient feudal kingdom, his little propaganda project likely would have failed before it ever began.

After all, if information could not travel efficiently, then the moment the message he wanted to send conflicted with local interests, it could easily be intercepted and buried by local nobles or officials.

Timely information and reliable communication had always been among the best weapons for dealing with enemies.

That truth had never changed.

If information became distorted, all manner of problems would follow.

Naturally, those same distortions would also create people who profited by selling information.

That phenomenon existed in the ninja world as well, though mostly in matters directly related to shinobi conflict.

For broader public matters, however, this world still possessed reasonably effective ways of exchanging information.

"And, of course, there’s one more key reason," Hikaru thought. "Konoha isn’t that large, and nearly all the people with real power are concentrated inside the village."

Using shinobi power to guarantee proper information delivery gave his newspapers an extraordinary layer of protection.

Without that, there would be no hope of distributing them at all.

Sometimes force was not used for attack.

Sometimes force was simply what allowed something to survive.

"All ANBU not currently on active missions have already gone out to help with distribution. So all that’s left now is to wait."

Hikaru watched saya and Ayame leave the office, then stretched slightly.

He briefly considered whether he ought to go out himself and take a look.

But after some thought, he decided it would be better to remain here and wait for the reports.

At times like these, maintaining composure suited him better.

...

"Have you heard? Konoha opened some kind of new shop. They’re selling something unusual. I think it’s called a newspaper."

"A newspaper? What’s that?"

"Apparently it’s something new. It’s got all sorts of interesting things written in it. Stuff from different places too."

"Really? But isn’t that just a book?"

"No, it’s different. They say the information inside is real and up to date."

Before long, conversations like these began to spread across Konoha’s streets.

No one knew exactly where the talk had started, or even how it had spread so quickly.

But one thing was undeniable—

It caught the villagers’ attention almost immediately.

Literacy in Konoha had always been high.

That was why books filled with curious tales and strange stories had always sold fairly well within the village.

But books recorded the past.

As for anything timely, people had always relied on word of mouth or whatever the village officially announced.

They had never truly possessed a way to seek out fresh information themselves.

And now, something new had suddenly appeared—

something that seemed capable of exactly that, while also promising all kinds of fascinating content.

How could the people of Konoha not be intrigued?

Kawakō was one such villager.

When he was five, he had once taken the entrance assessment for the Academy.

Sadly, he had failed.

He simply had not been suited to becoming a ninja.

Still, he was an optimist by nature.

Even if he could not become a shinobi, he could still live a decent life in Konoha.

In fact, perhaps not becoming a ninja had been a blessing.

After all, Konoha had spent years at war.

And just when the war finally ended, the Nine-Tails incident had struck.

That alone was enough to make anyone feel exhausted.

Yet even that was not what frustrated him most.

What troubled him more was this:

As a civilian, he had always taken pride in the fact that Namikaze Minato—a civilian-born shinobi—had become the Fourth Hokage.

But after the Nine-Tails incident, the Fourth had been forced into recovery.

And as a result, Konoha had once more fallen back under the control of the Third Hokage.

Kawakō did not dislike the Third.

But he liked the Fourth far more.

And now there was not the slightest information about how the Fourth Hokage was doing.

Not a word.

Not a whisper.

That silence left him deeply uneasy.

"I wonder if this newspaper will mention the Fourth Hokage..."

With that thought, Kawakō decided he might as well buy one.

Of course, if it was too expensive, he would have no choice but to forget it.

He was not a shinobi.

He did not have that kind of money.

"Why is it so cheap?"

What shocked him was that the newspaper was not expensive at all.

True, it was nowhere near as thick as even the thinnest book.

But just from a glance, it already seemed packed with material.

The low price made him a little suspicious at first.

What if it was all filled with nonsense?

But once he actually began reading, he found himself immediately absorbed.

The very first piece had already drawn him in.

Because through ANBU authorization, it had actually declassified some of the details surrounding Orochimaru.

Orochimaru was one of the Legendary Sannin.

Even if he was now branded a missing-nin, there had always been countless mysteries around his case.

In other words, almost no one truly knew what had happened behind the scenes.

Those matters had always felt impossibly remote to ordinary villagers like him.

And yet now—

This newspaper had laid them out in print.

The shock of it thrilled him.

And at the same time, it awakened an intense curiosity.

"They can really write this kind of thing? Forget it—better read it now. Who knows if they’ll print it again later?"

With that, Kawakō immersed himself completely.

And he was not the only one.

All across the village, countless others who had picked up a newspaper were being drawn into its pages.

They devoured its contents.

And the information on those pages only pulled them in deeper.

...

"So that’s what happened with Lord Orochimaru..."

Inside a dango shop, Guy, Aoba, Anko, and Kurenai sat around a table, all of them intently reading the newspaper spread out before them.

There was no denying it—they had been captivated.

Especially Anko.

As Orochimaru’s former student, she cared about this matter far more than anyone else there.

In truth, she had never wanted to believe her teacher could really have done such things.

Even after the reports that Orochimaru had attacked Uchiha Fugaku, she had still preferred to believe there had to be more to the story.

But now, with ANBU-declassified internal information laid out so thoroughly, even she had begun to realize that perhaps it was all true after all.

She had never trusted the ANBU before.

But ever since Kakashi’s identity as a captain had been exposed—

and especially once it became increasingly likely that the ANBU Minister was none other than their old classmate Senju Hikaru—

their view of the ANBU had slowly begun to change.

And the materials presented this time were astonishingly thorough.

They even hinted, subtly but clearly, that Orochimaru could not possibly have achieved everything he did alone.

That implied someone was behind him.

Someone powerful.

Someone still at large.

The ANBU, the article said, were continuing their investigation—but the culprit’s status made things difficult.

Of course, the notion that Orochimaru had merely been manipulated would only appeal to those who still wanted to believe in him.

As for others, who knew what they would think?

Still, one thing was certain.

A declassification piece on Orochimaru—written in a tone that seemed objective and balanced—had immediately earned the newspaper the goodwill of a great many shinobi.

"I just hope Kak— I mean... I hope the ANBU can put out an even more detailed report later."

Guy scratched his chin and gave his conclusion a little awkwardly.

He had almost said Kakashi’s name again.

That revelation had shaken him badly, and he still had not entirely adjusted to it.

"All right, let’s not dwell on that," Aoba said quickly, perhaps not wanting the atmosphere to turn too strange. "Let’s see what else is in here. I’m getting more and more curious about this newspaper."

"Exactly," Kurenai agreed. "There has to be more than just this, right?"

At this point, she had become thoroughly absorbed as well.

The content was explosive in all the right ways.

Kurenai was not exactly a gossip-loving person, but even she had found herself stirred by what she’d read.

She genuinely wanted to know what else the paper contained.

What other fascinating things it had to offer.

Once everyone agreed, Aoba flipped the paper over.

Soon, their eyes landed on a feature that was neither particularly large nor especially small.

Rather than a standard report, it was more like a personal account—

a first-person narrative from an ANBU shinobi describing one of the strangest missions he had ever carried out.

The article spoke of the brutal and exhausting training within the ANBU.

Though it did not dwell in detail on every exercise, it made one thing abundantly clear:

the process was grueling.

And even after surviving it, one still did not become a true ANBU operative immediately.

First came routine patrols.

Then came lower-risk field assignments.

Only after those preliminaries were completed could one finally take on higher-level missions.

Within the article, the unnamed ANBU described receiving a mission that had deeply shaken him.

He had been ordered to eliminate an ordinary civilian household in a town within the Land of Fire.

The order left him utterly bewildered.

Why would a shinobi need to kill civilians?

Why wipe them out regardless of age or gender?

Yet he did not question the order.

He did not resist.

Instead, he carried out the mission under crushing emotional pain.

He wrote that he would never forget the look on those people’s faces that night.

But later, once he learned more, he finally understood.

That family had passed an enormous amount of information to Sunagakure.

Not military intelligence, perhaps—

but city layouts.

Population distribution.

Strategic details of real importance.

And beyond that, the man of the household had owned a factory that had quietly sheltered numerous Suna shinobi.

At first glance, someone like that seemed far less dangerous than a missing-nin.

But the damage such a person could cause was no less frightening.

And that was why the ANBU had decided to eliminate him completely and leave no survivors.

It had been a brutal measure, yes—

but also a warning.

A message meant to deter others.

A message that protected the Land of Fire and Konoha alike by choking off future infiltration before it could spread.

Taken as a whole, the story was not especially novel.

One could even say it was an old kind of tale.

Yet somehow, coming from the perspective of the ANBU, it felt different.

And the inner growth laid bare in the article made it even more striking.

At the end, it concluded with one final line:

At first, I didn’t understand why I had to do this.

Later, I understood.

We are the emissaries of darkness.

We are the ones who stand within the dark to protect Konoha.

The Minister once said this:

We are all heroes.

We walk in the night and serve the light.

The moment Guy and the others finished reading those words, silence fell over the table.

Something indescribable had stirred inside them.

A faint yearning.

That single line had struck them much harder than expected.

And it was not just them.

All across Konoha, countless shinobi who read that section found certain thoughts beginning to form within them.

Those thoughts were still vague.

Still immature.

But it did not matter.

A seed had already been planted.

And after finishing that article, even more people found themselves eager to keep reading.

...

"How interesting."

Within the Hyūga compound, Hyūga Hiashi sat at home reading the newspaper, his expression grave and thoughtful.

He had, of course, already seen the piece on Orochimaru.

It was fascinating.

Entertaining, even.

But as the head of a great clan, he already knew much of what it described.

He could tell that the article was highly accurate.

And precisely because of that, he found it troubling.

Material like that should have remained classified.

After all, some of what it contained could very easily point toward the man currently seated in the Hokage’s office.

No matter how one looked at it, that was dangerous.

Handled poorly, it could provoke a serious backlash.

As a clan head, Hiashi viewed matters very differently from ordinary villagers.

And through that one article alone, he could already see how tense Konoha’s upper echelon had become.

He had always known that such conflict existed.

But seeing it laid bare in this form still surprised him.

At present, his own clan remained neutral, which meant they had so far avoided any direct trouble.

But neutrality could not be maintained forever without risk.

No one could say for certain what the future would bring.

Especially since the red-eyed clan next door had apparently already made its choice—and were visibly beginning to change.

That very same newspaper even included a report on the recent transformation within the Military Police Force.

And on another level, reporting on changes to the Police Force was essentially the same as reporting on the Uchiha clan itself.

Hiashi had seen with his own eyes how isolated the Uchiha had become.

The other clans did not dare aid them.

The villagers openly disliked them.

The clan had, in effect, drifted farther and farther away from Konoha.

Under such conditions, any future catastrophe involving them would hardly have been surprising.

And yet now, through this piece alone, some of that image had already begun to shift.

If the Uchiha continued changing on their own, then perhaps—

just perhaps—

their future really could become something brighter.

"And it’s not just internal struggles. There’s plenty of information about the outside world as well."

Hiashi read on in silence.

The internal content was already compelling.

But the external information left just as deep an impression on him.

The paper even included mention of certain suspicious developments in other villages.

The coverage was brief, and the details were not especially confidential.

But the fact that such movements could be tracked so consistently already revealed what sort of behemoth stood behind this so-called newspaper.

"So much intelligence, delivered so quickly... without the ANBU behind it, no one would believe such a thing."

Hiashi sighed softly.

Any mention of "special contributions from the ANBU" in the paper meant little to him.

In his eyes, this paper simply was the ANBU’s creation.

And recalling the recent exchanges of blame between the Hokage’s side and the ANBU, he grew more certain than ever.

"Konoha is going to become much more interesting from here on. The only question is... where should the Hyūga stand?"

...

"That brat—what exactly does he think the ANBU are?!"

Inside the Hokage’s office, Hiruzen slammed his hand down on the desk, anger blazing in his eyes as he stared at the newspaper in front of him.

As Hokage, he could tell that Hikaru had not revealed any true state secrets.

But at the same time, he could also tell just how dangerous this so-called newspaper was.

The opening article was about Orochimaru.

Its tone, admittedly, was relatively objective.

But the infuriating part was the subtle insinuation that someone in a high position might be involved.

That put Hiruzen in an extremely awkward position.

After all, he had been the one to let Orochimaru go.

And now Hikaru had gone and published something like this—

was that not a direct accusation?

Beyond that, the boy had praised the ANBU to the skies.

That self-narrative from the ANBU operative was little more than a glowing piece of propaganda for the organization.

And then there were those scattered reports from other villages—

conflicts breaking out, casualty counts, ninja forces gathering.

Paired with the paper’s broader tone, the result was clear:

It encouraged readers to believe that all those dangers had been held outside Konoha—outside the Land of Fire—by the ANBU alone.

That thanks to them, the people could live in peace.

Hiruzen felt a headache coming on just from reading it.

And yet he could not deny that, in some cases, bringing certain information into the open was indeed more effective than burying it.

Telling ordinary civilians some of these things could satisfy their curiosity.

And it also created the impression of transparency and clean hands.

Publishing selected developments from other villages sent a message as well:

Konoha was watching.

Everything they did was being seen.

And if they meant to cause trouble, they would be wise to think carefully first.

Most alarming of all, Hiruzen could already see how powerful this newspaper could become in controlling public opinion.

He could well imagine how much support the ANBU had already gained from it.

Right now, Hikaru was merely building momentum.

He was only using it to promote the ANBU.

But what about later?

What if he turned this same machinery against Hiruzen himself?

Would he be able to withstand it?

"No. We need a countermeasure."

Hiruzen took a heavy pull from his pipe, and soon the room began filling with smoke.

He had briefly considered banning the paper outright and establishing his own version instead.

But the idea was dismissed almost the moment it formed.

Because the instant he did something like that, no matter what explanation he gave, it would amount to admitting that there really was some connection between him and Orochimaru.

That he had shut the paper down because he feared what the ANBU might reveal next.

So he could not ban it.

The only thing he could do was create something similar himself.

Only that way could he slowly claw public discourse back under his own control.

"Fortunately... there’s still Root."

Hiruzen let out a long sigh.

He had restored Danzō to his old position as Root Minister, and Danzō had already begun getting Root operational again.

That, at least, was good news.

With Root, he once again had an intelligence source.

And with that, there was still room for him to respond.

"Still... why hasn’t Danzō come by? Something this serious has happened."

Hiruzen frowned inwardly.

He truly did want to know what Danzō was doing.

This newspaper business was no small matter.

What Hiruzen could not possibly have imagined was that, at this very moment, Danzō was deep within a forest in Konoha.

And standing before him was a man wearing dark glasses.

If Hiruzen had been there, he would have recognized him at once.

That man was Aburame Shibi.

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