Hokage: Ryo's Path Chapter 219

Every new Hokage brings change to the village, and Minato was no exception .  

He finally had full control of the Anbu . Now, the first thing for him to deal with was their reconstruction .  

The 3rd took with him around a quarter of their forces to be his personal team, including their leader .

These were his confidants, and naturally Ninjas that wouldn’t be put in leadership by Minato .

The original Anbu Leader was also someone from the 3rd’s entourage and one of the closest in Konoha to him . The Anbu are the closest faction in a village’s Ninjas to the Kage . Naturally, Minato had to pick one who’s very close to him .

Not finding someone suitable for the position right off the bat, he decided to train Kakashi to become the new Anbu Commander .  

Minato decided to do this for several reasons . First, Kakashi was his disciple, and had worked with him since age five . Thus, he could fully trust him .

Second, because of Kakashi’s talent and great training, he was already near Kage tier at the age of 14 . He had been more than capable of taking the position for a while now, at least strength wise .

Third, Kakashi had to go to the Anbu department anyway . After all, Fugaku had agreed to let Kakashi keep Obito’s Sharingan, but one of the conditions was to get him to disappear for a while .

Therefore, the 3rd did already decide get him to the Anbu preparation training . However, because his Sharingan wasn’t merging yet with his body, the decision was postponed .

Now with his Sharingan already integrated into his body, it was time for him to officially join their ranks .

As for the remaining quarter of Anbu that had to be filled, Minato focused on supplementing the Ranks with civilian and Ino-ShikCho Ninjas, along with a few Uchihas and Hyugas .

Minato could not trust the last two clans fully; they had initially chosen to support Minato’s election as the 4th Hokage just to offset the rapid growth of the Sarutobi clan .

Now with the 3rd retiring, they lost this motive, as the Sarutobi clan’s rise in power naturally slowed down .

With no such threat, Minato was reluctant to believe that he could trust the Uchiha and Hyuga clans to keep their full support .

The recruitment of the Anbu was naturally not a one-off event . After finishing this initial phase, Minato focused his energy on another matter .

This matter was the reduction of the three counselors’ authorities; to make them share them with the Ino-ShikCho, the Hyuga, and the Uchiha .

However, the matter went unexpectedly smoothly, and Danzo, Homura and Koharu did not make any resistance .  

At Root’s headquarter, the three gathered .  

“Why did the two of you look for me?” Koharo’s tone was extremely cold .

Since the two gave Kagami’s eyes to Orochimaru, Koharu began to deliberately keep some distance from Danzo and Homura .

It’s been a long time since the two met, and for a while, they did not discuss anything .

After some silence, Homura said helplessly: “Koharu, I have already explained that matter to you . Why don’t you…” 

“If you want to carry on with that nonsense, I’ll just excuse myself!” As she said that, Koharu turned around to leave .

Danzo stood up and stopped her: “Koharu, wait a minute! We really have something important to call you for today . ”

“What the hell is it? Hurry up!” Koharu turned and said impatiently .

“Here’s the deal! We want you to help us collect a few war orphans under the age of 10 . You can see how dire Root’s situation is right now . I need new blood to supplement my troops, and this had always been something you did . Believe me; I’ll make it up to you!” 

Koharu remained silent for a while, and then finally agreed to fulfill Danzo’s request . After so many years of being their comrade, she just couldn’t let him down .

With that settled, she eventually left the place . With that, Homura’s face changed and he said: “Danzo, is that Orochimaru really capable of making Wood Release using Ninjas?” 

“He should be able to pull it off; he and I made a deal . ” Danzo said faintly .

“I hope he can really do it! For this plan, we gave of a lot of our authorities to Minato, just to make him less vigilant . If this fails, the price would be too heavy . ”

“Homura, you can rest assured! Wood Release is the Will of Fire’s most powerful heritage . As long as we can reproduce Wood Release using Ninjas, we’ll be able to retrieve what we sacrificed tenfold!”

“I hope so!” Homura sighed and left as well .

A few days later, Danzo took over a dozen children to Orochimaru’s lab . They were all the orphans under 10 years of age that he could find .

“Orochimaru, I’ve got what you requested . You can start, right?” 

After Orochimaru checked the children, he nodded with satisfaction, and told Danzo that he’ll begin experimenting immediately .

With the latter gone, he immediately sent a Ninja to look for Ryo, who directly teleported to his lab upon receiving his letter .

Once in the Lab, Ryo frowned upon hearing the crying of all the children, and he felt very uncomfortable .

“Ryo kun, Danzo has only sent these few children this time . What shall we start with?” 

Ryo quickly answered: “Orochi san, we don’t have to get all of these children to participate in the experiments . I have a way to determine which among them may become Wood Release users, and which ones who simply could never pull it off . ” 

Orochimaru frowned, having some doubts about Ryo’s intentions: “Ryo kun, you’re not just trying to save these children, are you?”

Ryo did not think that Orochimaru would so easily guess his purpose . In fact, that was the main reason why Ryo wanted to participate in these experiments in the first place; to make them less horrible then what happened in the Manga .

Being one who learned modern medicine in his past life, he could not tolerate the mere idea of non-ethical human experimentation, let alone doing that on a group of children .

However, Ryo did not admit this, and instead explained very calmly: “Orochi san, you already know that I’ve acquired genes from Hashirama’s genome; you also know of my clan’s secret techniques . Using both factors, I can perceive the children’s vitality, and judge whether or not they could withstand the 1st’s cells . ”

Orochimaru listened to him silently . After some thought, he decided to temporarily agree with his suggestion .   

Ryo was finally relieved . What he had just said was actually half-true . He could indeed perceive the children’s vitality, but that was not enough for him to predict the results of the experiments .

His actual plan was to look into the children’s memories one by one, to try to find the Manga’s Yamato . This way, he could let Orochimaru fulfill his wish of witnessing Wood Release, while sparing the lives of all the children…

Chapter end