Chapter 246: A New Era
While Konoha was celebrating Namikaze Minato's ascension to the position of Fourth Hokage, Yuji was personally receiving several children who had been brought to the Sand Village from outside.
Kimimaro from the Land of Water. The four future Hidden Sound members. And Jugo.
Kimimaro had been located and retrieved directly. The others, including Kidomaru's group and Jugo, had been found through White Zetsu after Yuji had identified their approximate locations and gathered what background information was available.
It had taken some time.
Among these children, beyond Kimimaro, the one Yuji paid the most attention to was naturally Jugo, who had been born with an innate constitution that continuously absorbed natural energy. Even as an infant, whenever Jugo's emotions shifted, the natural energy within him would show signs of losing control and threatening to erupt.
Fortunately, at his current young age, the natural energy absorption and the resulting instability were still relatively limited in scope. But as he grew older, without some form of external regulation, he would become a serious ongoing problem.
Worth noting was that Kimimaro was slightly older than the others and was already a little over one year old. Jugo had been born the previous year. Kidomaru's group were all newborns.
With this, the Sand Village's talent acquisition plan, following closely on the heels of the economic plan, could be considered comprehensively verified and complete.
Honoka, the Uzumaki clan descendant living on Spirit Island in the Land of Sea, had not been brought back. By the time Yuji later had White Zetsu check on the situation there, the research base on Spirit Island had already been destroyed by a summoning beast running out of control. This was ultimately something that could not have been prevented.
There had simply been too many pressing matters demanding his attention at once, and the exact timing of the disaster on Spirit Island had been impossible to predict. The Sand Village already had Mei from the Uzumaki bloodline. That was sufficient.
Some things were simply a matter of fate. There had been no connection between Honoka and the Sand Village.
Mei had now been given a formal ninja registration number and had officially become a Sand Village member. Her assigned position was in the village's sealing research division.
Yuji's requirements of her were straightforward: work to spread the Uzumaki clan's Sealing Jutsu knowledge throughout the Sand Village, combine it with the ninja temple's existing sealing lineage that the village already possessed, and research or develop new techniques from that foundation.
This would meaningfully strengthen the Sand Village's overall sealing capabilities and raise the relevant skills of the personnel involved.
During his time in the village over this period, whenever Yuji had free moments he went to the ninja temple division to conduct research and training in Sealing Jutsu alongside Bunpuku, continuing to advance the village's development in this military area. The village's main focus was still directed toward the Land of Rain situation, but with Rasa and Sasori both stationed there, the matters that actually required Yuji's direct attention were relatively few.
On the village side itself, there were still many projects that needed his focus.
The first was the cultivation and development of these story-significant characters who were now growing up within the Sand Village.
The second was the artificial gene-modifying medicine research.
And the third was the question of who would become the next Ichibi Jinchuriki.
Bunpuku's condition had been declining steadily. The old monk himself had mentioned that he felt he would not last much longer and hoped Yuji would move on this matter sooner rather than later. Once the Tailed Beast was extracted from his body, Bunpuku would inevitably die.
He himself had looked at the situation with complete acceptance and equanimity.
Not everyone was a suitable candidate to become a Jinchuriki. Within the village at present, only three people met the necessary conditions. The first was Yuji himself. The second was Karura. The third was Mei, as a member of the Uzumaki clan.
The senior leadership's preference was for Mei to become the Ichibi Jinchuriki. She was already a Sand Village member, and with Karura's support, she had integrated into the village's community. From her taking on the Jinchuriki role, there was no doubt it was the most appropriate arrangement. The risk of the Tailed Beast going out of control would be minimal.
But after thinking it through briefly, Yuji had still not agreed to this.
His plan was to first seal the Ichibi, then wait for Karura to give birth, and then seal it within Gaara just as had happened in the original story.
Without the Tailed Beast's power, Gaara's potential as a ninja would be dramatically reduced. But this was something that needed to be discussed with Rasa and Karura first. Yuji had not yet informed either of them.
He also did not know what their reaction would be.
The Sand Village today was not facing the desperate circumstances of the original story. It no longer needed to resort to extreme measures to bolster its military strength by any means necessary. Under these different conditions, whether Rasa would still be willing to sacrifice his own child for the village's sake was genuinely uncertain.
Furthermore, after mastering the Yin Seal technique, Yuji had resolved his chakra shortage weakness to a meaningful degree. His need for the Tailed Beast's chakra was not as pressing as it might have been otherwise, and he did not particularly want to become a Jinchuriki himself.
So the question of who would become the Sand Village's second Jinchuriki still needed further consideration. If Rasa and Karura were unwilling to sacrifice Gaara for this purpose, Yuji was prepared to simply wait. The village's current military situation did not urgently require a Tailed Beast's combat power.
"Yagura Karatachi has become the Fourth Mizukage."
Just over a month later, the Sand Village received this news.
After a period of internal turmoil, the Hidden Mist Village's situation had finally begun to clarify. Following closely on the heels of Minato becoming the Fourth Hokage, Yagura had moved quickly to secure the position and emerged victorious from the contest for the Mizukage seat.
The outside world had little understanding of exactly what had transpired within the Hidden Mist Village during this period. Every other village was focused entirely on its own reconstruction and recovery and had essentially no interest in monitoring what was happening inside the Hidden Mist Village.
But Yuji had a very clear picture of the internal events.
Yagura had proven himself thoroughly capable of handling this kind of situation. Facing the Chaos faction led by members of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, as well as several established clans that had been contesting the Mizukage seat against him, Yagura had made significant concessions to the Hozuki clan, granting them considerable authority and standing within the village structure. This had pulled a key faction to his side and allowed him to defuse potential conflicts with several clans at the fastest possible pace.
Then he had turned the full weight of his attention toward eliminating those within the Hidden Mist Village who refused to support his leadership.
In a short span of time, he had purged the opposition with ruthless efficiency.
During this period, the Hidden Mist Village's losses had been significant. Among the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, both Juzo Biwa and Raiga Kurosuki had defected and become rogue ninja. Fuguki Suikazan had died in the internal faction fighting. His body had also been quietly collected by White Zetsu and brought back.
"A new era has arrived," Yuji said quietly, glancing at Baki standing beside him.
Without Madara, Obito, and Black Zetsu's interference, how the Hidden Mist Village developed going forward would depend entirely on what Yagura chose to do with it.
With Akatsuki no longer on a path toward becoming the organization it had been in the original story, Biwa Juzo and Hoshigaki Kisame would likely never become Akatsuki members. White Zetsu was still maintaining surveillance over Akatsuki's activities within the Land of Rain, and the situation there was evolving in ways that diverged significantly from the original story's trajectory.
Looking across the entire ninja world at this moment, every village except the Sand Village and the Hidden Stone Village now had a Fourth generation leader in place. In the original story, both of these newly appointed Kage had faced turbulent fates and neither had lived particularly long. But with Yuji's presence in this world, the butterfly effect had already spread and expanded in ways that made the future trajectory genuinely impossible to predict with confidence.
Even Yuji himself could not say with certainty what lay ahead.
The only advantage he still held was his knowledge of the original story's characters and their natures, and the window of time this era offered. His task was to use that window to firmly cement the Sand Village's position and dominance in the ninja world before the story's original framework became too unrecognizable to rely on.