Chapter 273: He’s anxious, he’s anxious

During the short few minutes' journey from Xuanwu's home to the conference hall, all he heard was negative information about Hatake Sakumo.

He had to admire Danzo's method of spreading the news. Now he had declared Hatake Sakumo to be a heinous criminal who had let down the country, Konoha, and the villagers.

So Xuanwu, who was sitting in his seat, was quite uneasy at this time: Why not just kill Danzo now, why keep him alive, to prevent him from causing harm to others.

There are three ways to kill Danzo.

The first one, doesn’t care about anything and just kills people suddenly.

In this case, Xuanwu had no choice but to defect. He didn't want to be a rebel ninja, so he gave up.

The second is to kill him without anyone noticing.

Danzo is very careful about his life. There are more than two teams of Root ninja protecting him 24 hours a day. It is not easy to take Danzo's life without alerting others. Xuanwu's current strength does not allow it, so he gives up for the time being.

The third was to make Danzo's crimes public and make Sarutobi Hiruzen completely lose patience with him.

Although Xuanwu currently has some evidence that Danzo betrayed the village, it is not enough to win with one blow, because Sarutobi Hiruzen has too high tolerance for Danzo.

In Xuanwu's opinion, the death of Mito Kado En was strange. Even he could see it. It was impossible for Sarutobi Hiruzen to not notice anything unusual, but Danzo was still safe and sound.

From this we can see how tolerant the Third Hokage was towards Danzo (Old Monkey: No one is using me!).

After thinking for a while, Xuanwu sighed inwardly: Oh, I'm so tired.

While Xuanwu's mind was full of random thoughts, the meeting had already begun. When he came to his senses, he saw Danzo holding a photo in one hand and a letter of accountability from the Sand Village in the other, speaking nonsense, while the Third Hokage sat in the middle with his eyes closed, silent.

The entire conference hall became a performance for Danzo alone. He talked for a long time, his throat almost smoking, and then he made the final conclusion, "So, my suggestion is to immediately remove Hatake Sakumo from all his positions and put him in prison to be judged by the masses."

As soon as these words were spoken, everyone in the room started whispering. No matter how one looked at it, this way of handling the matter was too much.

Akimichi Choza had always disliked Danzo, and now he disliked him even more. With a strong sense of justice, he wanted to stand up and say something when he saw that no one was speaking for Hatake Sakumo, but was forced to stay in his seat by Akimichi Genbu beside him.

He whispered, "Brother Xuanwu, don't stop me. This Shimura Danzo is going too far. It's just a failed mission. Is there any need to make such a big deal out of it? Who can guarantee that his mission success rate is 100%? He didn't even protect the Second Hokage at that time, and I didn't see him die to apologize!"

"You are just too young. It is not your turn to take the lead in this matter. Learn more from Lu Jiu."

Xuanwu said to Lu Jiu again: "Lu Jiu, keep an eye on him and don't let him act recklessly."

"Okay, Brother Xuanwu."

Xuanwu, who had just finished educating Qiu Daodingzuo, raised his hand, indicating that he had something to say.

The Third Hokage saw this and quickly said, "Xuanwu, what do you want to say?"

Hatake Sakumo failed the mission because he tried to save his teammates, and the Third Hokage must have been angry because of his emotional behavior. Originally, he just wanted to suppress Sakumo through Danzo to teach him a lesson, so he agreed to Danzo's request to convene a Jonin meeting.

In the end, it was unclear whether Danzo didn't understand what he meant, or did it on purpose. He used a piece of waste paper and a torn photo as a basis, and put one hat after another on him, making him very passive.

In the original time and space, Danzo successfully pulled down Hatake Sakumo from the position of Anbu chief by exaggerating the responsibility and spreading rumors. Moreover, due to the backstabbing of his companions and the excessive gossip, Sakumo was so depressed that he committed suicide.

But now it’s not that easy.

Because the biggest factor is that Sarutobi Haruko is still alive, which means that Sakumo's connection with the Sarutobi clan is still very close.

Not only that, after Sakumo had a talk with Genbu half a year ago, he no longer quarreled with Sarutobi Hiruzen every day or openly disobeyed his orders. Although he would show rejection and confusion on some tasks, every time after Sarutobi Hiruzen's sermon on the Will of Fire, Sakumo would pretend to be enlightened and then do his best to complete the task.

This was very useful to Sarutobi Hiruzen, and made him even more curious about the specific content of the conversation between Xuanwu and Sakumo that night.

To sum up, Sarutobi Hiruzen is reluctant to replace Hatake Sakumo. After all, the sword of Konoha White Fang is still very useful. His top priority now is to resolve the issue of the Daimyo's palace, and he has dispatched several air flying teams for this purpose.

The other is to find the masked man. He not only asked the four families and the Root to investigate, but also sent out the Anbu, and the captain of this mission was Hatake Sakumo.

Therefore, the Third Hokage tacitly allowed Danzo to criticize Sakumo for his own good. After Danzo finished criticizing him, he pretended to be a good person to comfort him and then gave him the task. The last order he gave him was that if things couldn't be done, he could come back on his own and he didn't have to worry about his teammates.

However, he did not check it out at that time, which gave Danzo an opportunity to take advantage of it. In particular, the letter of accountability from the Sand Village and the attached photos were used by Danzo as a token of authority to deal a heavy blow to Hatake Sakumo.

Now public opinion has completely turned to the side that is unfavorable to Hatake Sakumo, but he is too careful about his reputation to want to openly stand against the people.

At this point, if no one stands up to speak for Hatake Sakumo, he can only let Hatake Sakumo be judged by the people.

At this moment, Xuanwu raised his hand, which made Sarutobi Hiruzen very happy.

After getting permission, Xuanwu stood up and asked, "Master Danzo, I want to ask you, in addition to this photo, does the Sakumo team have any other evidence?"

Danzo said two words very reluctantly.

"No."

"Danzo-sama, I've also read the mission report. All members of Sakumo's team returned safely and were not captured alive by the Sand Ninja. The Third Kazekage's charge is totally untenable based on just a photo of Hatake Sakumo's profile and Sakumo's signature ninjutsu. Who can say that the people who sneaked into the Sand Village didn't dress up deliberately to frame someone?"

Danzo was speechless for a moment: This Akimichi Genbu, why does he always come out to ruin my plans!

Before Nabekage could organize his words to refute him, Xuanwu continued, "Also, Danzo-sama said that the failure of this mission might lead to a war between the Wind Country and the Fire Country, and might even trigger the Third Ninja World War, right?

What I want to say is, don’t say that what you said is too exaggerated, even if it is true, so what, would Konoha be afraid of a mere defeated general?

During World War II, the coalition forces of Wind, Earth, and Rain were all defeated by us, let alone a small Sand Village!"

Danzo shouted, "Akimichi Genbu, you are too arrogant! You don't even take the Sand Village, one of the five great ninja villages, seriously. So you don't take Konoha and the Hokage seriously either!"

Wow, this little hat is put on him. If you don’t know, you would think Xuanwu has become a rebel ninja.

"Danzo-sama, are you used to accusing others and slandering them? If I contradict you because I speak up for Sakumo, then you don't take Konoha seriously. Then you spared no effort to persecute Konoha's World War II heroes. Are you a spy sent by the enemy country?"

"You fart!"

"He's anxious. Look everyone, he's anxious. He's anxious. If he has nothing to hide, why would he be anxious? I strongly suggest that Danzo Shimura be investigated to see if he was instructed by the Third Kazekage to put Konoha White Fang, who made great contributions during World War II, in jail and put him on trial in public!

Of course, in order to prove my innocence, I will also accept your scrutiny, Master Danzo, what do you think of my suggestion?"