Two days passed in the blink of an eye—
and in those two days, Konoha changed.
Not its buildings.
Not its walls.
But its mind.
The clans who attended Akira's conference returned home differently than they arrived.
They opened vaults long sealed, broke seals on scrolls untouched for generations,
and examined every line of their history that Akira had hinted toward.
What they found shook them.
At the same time, the Konoha Administration Bureau began auditing decades of finances.
Their shock was even greater.
Funds missing.
Budgets manipulated.
Receipts rewritten.
Items worth 1,000 ryō recorded as 100,000.
Other assets worth fortunes sold for scraps only to reappear under four clan names.
Properties, shops, and houses originally assigned to orphans, widows,
and families who had sacrificed sons in war—
silently taken
transferred
absorbed into those same four clans.
When ANBU and the Uchiha Police raided those clans,
resistance erupted—
but under the presence of Kage-level pressure,
doors eventually opened.
Shock followed.
Everyone knew those clans grew rapidly under the Third Hokage—
but no one imagined this scale of corruption.
The reports were published publicly.
And Konoha… erupted.
Posters of Sarutobi Hiruzen burned in the streets.
Shoes, sandals, and curses were hurled at his statues.
His name was torn from textbooks.
Even the stone face on the Hokage Monument—
cracked and smashed by unknown shinobi.
It was as if the village was purging his memory.
Then another blow landed.
The document containing the Wood Release human experiment records was released.
The names of missing children—
orphans, civilians, failed academy students—
were printed line by line.
That was the final spark.
Even other villages froze in horror.
• The Cloud experimented with chakra canons capable (theoretically) of destroying the moon—deadly, but technological.
• The Sand devoted research to puppetry—cold, but not monstrous.
• The Stone pushed kekkei genkai boundaries—dangerous, but calculated.
• The Mist had no time to research—they were too busy drowning in the Blood Mist era.
But none of them had experimented on children
and civilians
at Konoha's scale.
This was no research.
This was butchery in the name of progress.
Yet despite the revelations, one set of crimes remained sealed—
those of the Second Hokage.
So while Tobirama's reputation dipped,
it never collapsed.
His achievements shielded him:
Ninja Academy, ANBU structure, village administration,
and his death protecting comrades.
But everything Sarutobi Hiruzen tried to build—
the heroic myth,
the noble legacy,
the illusion of a flawless leadership—
was gone.
For the first time,
Konoha was forced to look into a mirror
and see what it truly was.
---
The Konoha Auditorium filled again—
but today it was not heavy with fear or doubt.
It was alive:
Hope.
Nervousness.
Anticipation.
Alert vigilance.
When Akira stepped onto the stage,
he felt the change in the air and smiled.
In two days,
he had exposed every truth buried in Konoha's archives—
every hidden experiment,
every theft,
every betrayal committed by Konoha's leadership.
Memorial statues of Sakumo Hatake had been rebuilt,
apologies delivered publicly,
flowers laid at his monument.
Forgotten heroes were honored again,
their names restored instead of erased.
The four major clans had their illicit wealth seized—
land, businesses, treasury stockpiles,
everything they had siphoned from the village.
Taxes, reparations, and sanctions were imposed on them
for years to come.
Across Konoha and far beyond it,
public opinion had shifted:
The cry for change
was no longer a whisper—
it was a roar.
People came today not out of fear,
but out of expectation:
That Akira would reshape the village,
reshape the Land of Fire,
reshape the shinobi world—
and end wars forever.
They hoped for protection against the coming Ōtsutsuki return.
Many had found ancient notes and fragments of history
confirming everything Akira warned them about.
So they waited.
Akira let the silence breathe,
then spoke:
"All of you gathered here seek the same future.
You wish to join the Imperial Council of Shinobi.
You want this era of war to end,
and the threat of the Ōtsutsuki clan erased."
His voice deepened.
"So the question is—
how do we change the world?
From nations divided…
to one world united?"
Faces leaned forward.
"How do we handle shinobi?
Who governs civilians?
Who oversees clans when villages are dissolved?"
He paused—
because those were indeed the questions on every mind.
"I have spent much time thinking about this.
So let us begin where we all belong —
with shinobi."
The hall quieted.
"The old ranking system—Genin, Chunin, Jonin, Kage—
no longer reflects reality.
Power has outgrown terminology."
Murmurs spread.
Akira lifted his hand.
"From now on, shinobi will be categorized into tiers —
from SSS down to E."
A shockwave of whispers.
He continued:
• E-tier = Genin level
• D-tier = Chunin level
• C-tier = Special Jonin
• B-tier = Jonin
• A-tier = Elite Jonin
• S-tier = Kage-level — able to fight a Kage evenly
And then he spoke the one that mattered most:
"SS-tier — beings beyond Kage level,
though still below full Ōtsutsuki might."
Gasps.
"Only two men in our known history reached this:
Senju Hashirama
and Uchiha Madara."
The hall grew still.
" SSS-tier—
exists the Six Paths level—
those who can face Ōtsutsuki as equals."
Akira placed a hand on his chest.
"I stand here among that category."
Silence.
Not fear—
acknowledgment.
"Thus, the first rule of the Imperial Council:
A Council Leader must be SSS-tier or higher.
Even if the seat remains empty for decades—
no one weaker shall ever hold it."
He allowed everyone to breathe.
Relief spread—
because for the first time,
power had standards.
Whispers rippled:
Jiraiya was still called a Jonin.
Jinchūriki had no category at all.
Power never matched title.
Now, at last,
it did.
---
Akira stepped to the center of the stage.
His voice was calm—almost conversational.
"Every ninja here has, at least once,
been assigned a mission to exterminate bandits."
Heads nodded everywhere.
"I have too.
I saw their camps, their filth, their cruelty."
Then his tone shifted:
"But I asked myself a question none of you ever did—
why do bandits exist?
Why not wipe them all out at once
so they never rise again?"
Silence.
Akira continued:
"After researching deeply…
I discovered the truth."
He let the tension stretch.
"Bandits exist because shinobi need them.
Because escort missions and exterminations
are among the most profitable jobs."
Gasps.
"If bandits were eliminated,
an entire segment of the shinobi economy disappears.
Villages allow chaos to exist
so they can profit by 'controlling' it."
Faces darkened.
Akira's voice lowered.
"Some bandits deserved their fate—
murderers, rapists, raiders."
A beat.
"But many became bandits because of hunger,
dispossession,
or the very wars shinobi fought."
He looked around.
"The system killed them.
Not justice."
A heavy silence fell.
Then Akira raised the true terrifying question:
"So when peace comes…
what will shinobi do?"
The auditorium froze.
"There should be no villages attacking caravans.
No bandits plaguing roads.
No wars."
His gaze sharpened.
"So why would anyone become a ninja in peace?
Who will they fight?"
No one had ever thought this far.
Akira waited.
The crowd shifted uneasily.
For the first time,
shinobi imagined a world where their blades
had no purpose.
A clan with a business might survive,
some leaders thought.
But what about shinobi born as civilians?
What about those who only know how to kill, protect, or destroy?
A truth dawned—
Many shinobi
did not know how to build anything.
Only how to break.
Akira gestured to the audience.
"Look around you."
Everyone did.
"Most shinobi cannot farm.
Cannot trade.
Cannot craft.
They only know how to shed blood."
A harsh, sobering truth.
Many felt as if the floor beneath them disappeared.
Akira's words echoed:
"And so, under the old system…
peace was feared more than war.
Because peace meant starvation."
He let the horror sit with them.
Their world had been built
to depend on bloodshed.
And now—
Akira intended to break that cycle.
---
Akira continued, voice firm but almost gentle.
"For a long time, I asked myself this—
if shinobi only know how to destroy,
then why not teach them to create?"
He let his gaze sweep across the hall.
"Creation is ten times more valuable than destruction.
Destruction ends life—
creation sustains it."
Then he spoke of an example:
"I remembered someone…
the sole natural survivor of Wood Release experimentation—
Yamato of the Senju clan."
Murmurs filled the hall.
Akira smiled faintly.
"I once spoke with him.
I watched him shape wood into walls, beams, whole rooms.
In minutes."
His voice deepened.
"What takes civilians months—
a competent shinobi can accomplish with a single jutsu."
He raised a rhetorical question:
"If one Jonin can build houses, bridges and other structures in a single jutsu,
why can't entire divisions of shinobi do the same?"
Silence. Eyes widened.
Akira continued:
"And Yamato is only one example.
Other shinobi might not be as skilled as him,
but they could still build faster than any craftsman."
Then he shifted the scope to something greater:
"Then another thought struck me—
why do shinobi not change climates?"
Gasps rippled.
"The Wind Region has almost no rain.
Why?"
He answered himself:
"Because mountain ranges block the rain clouds.
Simple geography—
but devastating to civilization."
People leaned forward.
"If I can carve mountains, pierce meteors…
if I can punch holes in the moon—
then why can't ninjutsu shatter the barrier
that prevents life from thriving?"
His voice turned visionary:
"If rain could pass,
the Wind Nation could become fertile.
Their desert could bloom."
He swept his arm outward.
"And the Rain Nation?
It floods every year."
He spoke like solving a puzzle:
"So imagine this—
water-nature and earth-nature ninjas
forming canals and rivers
redirecting excess water to the Wind Nation."
People blinked in disbelief.
"One nation relieved of flood.
Another delivered from drought."
Then he pushed further:
"Why can Wind-style shinobi
not create a large-scale wind array
pushing clouds toward the places that need rain—
letting the Rain Nation bask in sunlight again?"
This time, the expectation in the hall was palpable.
Akira's voice softened:
"We shinobi were never meant
to be weapons of war or tools of destruction."
He raised his hand.
"We were meant to be architects of peace.
Protectors of life."
He paused for breath.
"A shinobi's profession should be revered—
not feared—
because our power should heal life,
not steal it."
Faces across the hall softened.
"If orphans, widows, civilians, and the unseen
suffer while shinobi play soldier—
then our existence has failed."
Then he declared:
"From this day forward,
shinobi must become builders—
engineers of nations, shapers of climate,
and guardians of happiness."
---