Naruto: Rebuilding the Hidden Sand

The Hidden Mist Village descended into chaos.

Exactly as Yuji had expected, the Third Mizukage's death by assassination deepened the suspicion between the major factions within the Hidden Mist Village.

Although the village had attempted to keep the news contained, word still leaked out. A Mizukage killed by someone from within his own village was genuinely embarrassing. It also naturally gave rise to a number of conspiracy theories circulating through the ninja world.

Within the Hidden Mist Village at this moment, several distinct factions had formed.

The first was Yagura's faction, which was pushing for a thorough reform of the village's leadership structure. The oppressive atmosphere that had characterized the Third Mizukage's rule had never fully gone away since he took power.

His heavy-handed governance had generated genuine resentment among many who had lived under it, and now with the seat vacant, Yagura's group saw the opportunity to fundamentally change the village's direction.

The second was what could be called the Chaos faction. These were figures who had grown up and thrived during the Third Mizukage's era, benefiting directly from the strongman approach he had maintained. With the Mizukage position now empty, this group had no desire to see the village transformed.

Their most prominent representatives came from among several members of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist who had survived the war, along with certain figures who had been personally loyal to the Third Mizukage.

The third was the neutral faction. Its most representative figures were the emerging talents led by Ao and Terumi Mei. But this group held the weakest political voice of the three and carried the least influence.

Beyond these three visible camps, the Hidden Mist Village also contained numerous older established powers. Most prominent among them was the Hozuki clan, whose lineage included the Second Mizukage himself. With the Third Mizukage now dead, the Hozuki clan believed the position should naturally return to someone from their bloodline rather than repeat what they saw as the error of the Third Mizukage's tenure.

The bloodline limit factions within the Hidden Mist Village had also not been weakened, and the ongoing conflicts between various clan lineages continued to destabilize the village's internal cohesion. None of these factors were easing the Hidden Mist Village's instability.

Through White Zetsu's surveillance, Yuji took all of this in clearly.

In the original story, Yagura had initially risen to the Mizukage position specifically to overturn the Third Mizukage's governing philosophy and remove the culture of bloodshed from the village's identity. It was simply unfortunate that shortly after taking power, Obito had placed him under genjutsu control, which had pushed the Hidden Mist Village into an even darker era than what had come before.

"Theoretically, the current internal struggle in the Hidden Mist Village is between the Hozuki clan trying to contest the Mizukage seat against Yagura.

At the same time, if Yagura wants to become the Fourth Mizukage, he needs to find a way to suppress the remnant loyalists from the Third Mizukage's era, particularly those connected to the Seven Swordsmen," Yuji said, summarizing what White Zetsu had reported.

The chaos in the Hidden Mist Village ultimately traced back to the First Mizukage Byakuren, who had been extraordinarily strict in his governance and absolutely uncompromising in his standards. His management of ninja and his village policies had been built entirely on high-pressure control. He had personally established the Hidden Mist Village's regulations, taking them to a degree of harshness that bordered on the pathological.

Under his system, killing a fellow ninja over something trivial was considered entirely normal.

Then the Second Mizukage Gengetsu had added his own mark on the village's culture, being an even more combat-obsessed figure whose influence had shaped an entire generation's thinking within the Hidden Mist Village in ways that could only be described as developing a collective psychological imbalance.

These accumulated legacies were why the Hidden Mist Village had such a distinct and clearly defined character in the present era.

"For our Sand Village right now, this is actually an opportunity," Black Zetsu said from the side. "Manipulate the Hidden Mist Village's chaos from behind the scenes, the same way Madara did. That way, as the Sand Village continues its military expansion, one of the Five Great Hidden Villages will pose no threat to us.

On the contrary, it could even serve as a support. Even if Konoha and the other two villages formed a united front against us, we would still have the capacity to hold our own."

"Support a puppet Mizukage's ascension?" Yuji said with a quiet smile.

Black Zetsu was not wrong in its analysis. This was genuinely an opportunity, and one that carried real benefits for the Sand Village.

But fully controlling a major hidden village from the shadows was simply not realistic given the current state of the ninja world. Even Madara with all his resources had not been able to achieve truly comprehensive control. For Yuji to attempt it would be even more ambitious.

Operating from behind the curtain was easy enough. But if exposure ever occurred, the consequences would be severe.

Beyond that, Yuji had already sensed that Black Zetsu was playing its own game within this situation. Whatever Black Zetsu's specific purpose was, Yuji had no intention of being used as a tool in whatever scheme it was running.

"Let us observe the situation first before deciding anything," Yuji said, keeping his tone deliberately noncommittal.

The Hidden Mist Village's internal intelligence had already been leaked in ways that suggested deliberate maneuvering. The Third Mizukage's death and the manner of it had generated conspiracy theories and speculation with no clear foundation. The Hidden Mist Village would absolutely not want to be mocked by outsiders over this. The way information about the Third Mizukage's death was spreading strongly suggested someone was managing the narrative.

Yuji even suspected Black Zetsu had engineered the Third Mizukage's death directly.

If he were to move against the Hidden Mist Village at this moment and the outside world discovered that the Fourth Kazekage was the one pulling strings behind the scenes, the nature of that revelation would be categorically different from anything he had done so far.

Once that particular quagmire was climbed into, there would be no climbing back out.

The Hidden Mist Village would fight the Sand Village to the bitter end. And seizing the Land of Rain was an entirely different matter from reaching into the Hidden Mist Village. The Hidden Mist Village was one of the Five Great Hidden Villages. The other four great nations were already watching the Sand Village's military expansion with unease, but as long as it did not directly threaten their own security, and as the Land of Rain had no recognized political system to begin with, they had been willing to look the other way.

But moving against the Hidden Mist Village would signal to the entire ninja world that the Sand Village intended to strike at the other major hidden villages themselves. That interpretation would push the Sand Village onto the opposite side of the entire ninja world in an instant.

The other four great hidden villages would form a united front without hesitation and commit every resource available to dismantling the Sand Village's leadership. Beyond that, the Daimyo offices of the four great nations, when collectively pouring their resources into a coordinated assault on the Land of Wind, would represent a force that even Yuji could not dismiss.

At that point the Sand Village would effectively be at war with the entire world.

And it would not stop at external pressure. Even within the Sand Village itself, even within the village's senior leadership, there would certainly be people who would openly stand up and challenge the Kazekage's judgment. Internal dissent combined with external assault.

"Move against the Hidden Mist Village today, and Black Zetsu would probably leak exactly that the moment I did it," Yuji thought with cold amusement.

Reshaping the ninja world's structure had to be done one step at a time with absolute patience. Recklessness would cost everything.

The Sand Village had been able to seize the Land of Rain precisely because Yuji understood exactly where the other four great hidden villages' true red lines were drawn.

And Black Zetsu was transparently trying to goad him into overstepping those lines. It dressed the suggestion up as being in the Sand Village's interest, but the actual effect would be to harm him. Badly.

"No wonder even Madara could be played. This creature is genuinely insidious."

"For now, keeping it alive still serves a purpose. Every aspect of the White Zetsu network requires it to function. But once things have settled and stabilized, it will simply have to disappear."

The thought passed through Yuji's mind briefly.

He waved his sleeve and let Black Zetsu withdraw first.

Black Zetsu had no awareness that Yuji had already passed judgment on its eventual fate.

"Lord Kazekage. The Land of Fire's Daimyo's office has sent word. Konoha's Namikaze Minato will formally become the Fourth Hokage three days from now."

Several hours later, Yuji was still at his desk working when the door opened and Yura stepped in slowly to deliver the news.

"As expected. Of course it is him," Yuji said quietly.

Given Minato's performance throughout the Third Great Ninja War, his becoming the Fourth Hokage could not have been more natural.

Furthermore, the Land of Rain situation had left Danzo with essentially no political standing within Konoha's senior leadership recently. He had no grounds whatsoever to oppose Hiruzen's candidate selection for the Hokage position.

And Danzo had been scrambling across the ninja world recently, leveraging pharmaceutical cooperation relationships to build the narrative against the Sand Village. He simply did not have the energy left to interfere with this matter.

That said, Minato becoming the Fourth Hokage meant that Orochimaru's betrayal and flight from Konoha was probably not far off either.

"Have someone draft a letter to Konoha extending our congratulations to the newly appointed Hokage," Yuji instructed.

"Understood."

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