Reborn into Naruto World with Tenseigan

Looking at the sixteen candidates who advanced to the third and final phase of the Joint Chūnin Promotion Exam, the representatives of all the villages were more or less satisfied. Well except for maybe some shinobi villages like Kusagakure & Takigakure. How could they be happy? Their ninjas did not perform well, and not even a single Genin managed to qualify for the third phase.

Of course, the people of the five great shinobi villages did not care, they were more or less satisfied. For them, these Genins are the representatives of the next generation, they are the pillars that will support their village in the coming era, some of them might go on to become Elders, while others may become Kages and leaders of their respective shinobi village.

In short, they are the future, that’s what everyone seems to believe.

Smiling ear-to-ear, Elder Hiruzen lightly spoke to Godaime Hokage, “‘Kuroto, these children must be very tired, it’s time for them to rest, recuperate, and prepare for the third phase, let them go.”

‘Kuroto,’ nodded, “Yes, I understand,” and signaled Itachi to complete the dispersal of all the candidates along with all the Jōnin instructors, instructors, and so on.

While that was being handled, Ebisu appeared at the Central Tower with a report file in his hand that he needed to hand over to the Hokage, but since ‘Kuroto’ seemed to be discussing something with the Captain of Konoha Military Police Force, he handed it over to Elder Hiruzen, saying, “Hiruzen-sama, this is the report of the damage and losses of the Forty-fourth Training Ground. Please have a look at it.”

Hearing Ebisu’s words, almost everyone still present in the hall turned their attention toward Hiruzen and him.

Upon receiving the report, Hiruzen briefly glanced over it as his expression froze, “This? How could the damage & losses be such high?”

Ebisu glanced at the representatives of various shinobi villages from the corner of his eyes with a dissatisfied expression, he coughed twice to attract their attention, then began explaining in a loud voice, “Based on our observation & analysis, the majority of Forty-fourth Training Ground has been destroyed, with more than eighty percent of the monitoring cameras have been destroyed, and there is also some damage to the protection barrier, not to mention the serious damage to the flora, fauna, and ecological cycle as well as the food chain.”

Hiruzen once again looked at the report. Looking at the visualized data to infer the party’s responsible for major destruction.

As Ebisu said, it’s not just the monitoring facilities that have been damaged, the forest itself has been seriously damaged which also includes the flora and fauna of the Forty-fourth Training Ground. Considering the scale of damage, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that the entire Ecosystem of not just Forty-fourth Training Ground, but surrounding training grounds and forest will also be affected.

The big problem here is not the loss of material and equipment, those things can be recovered with ease, all it would require is money and manpower, but that wouldn’t be the case for the ecosystem. No, the recovery of the ecosystem of the Forty-fourth Training Ground is not a problem that can be solved with money alone.

It’s not the era of Shodaime Hokage when just a single clap from the God of Shinobi can recover the entire forest in the blink of an eye, in this era, Konoha doesn’t have a user of Wood Release, so the trees will have to be individually planted and nurtured for the next few years, and let’s not talk about the Fauna, restoring fauna is a much bigger problem.

Figuring out the scale of damage and losses, Elder Hiruzen once again glanced at Ebisu, as if giving him a signal.

Ebisu instantly understood the meaning of Hiruzen, and continued in a loud voice, “According to our observation, the battle between Kumogakure’s Darui & Amegakure’s Raijin was the most catastrophic for the Forty-fourth Training Ground, additionally, Iwagakure’s Deidara’s unbridled use of explosions also caused a lot of damage to the Forest of Death.”

Ignoring the involvement of Amegakure, since no representative of that village was present, Elder Hiruzen glanced at the representatives of the other four great shinobi villages, especially at Yondaime Raikage and Kitsuchi of Iwagakure, saying, “Everyone, this time, the Chūnin Promotion Exam was jointly organized by the five great shinobi villages. Naturally, the damage and losses to Konoha should be jointly borne by everyone, not to mention the cause of such high damage is already quite obvious, so for the recovery and…”

Before Elder Hiruzen could finish his words, Kitsuchi of Iwagakure smiled helplessly and interrupted, apologizing, “Hiruzen-sama, we can only offer our apology, except for that, there’s nothing else we can do, Iwagakure is still recovering from Akatsuki’s previous attack, so we lack the resources to help out Konohagakure for the time being.”

After leaving such words, he did not wait for any reply and immediately left the Central Tower to check up on Kurotsuchi, Deidara, Suzumebachi, as well as other Iwagakure ninjas.

Even with Elder Hiruzen’s calmness and shrewdness, he didn’t expect the representative of Iwagakure to play such a card and directly leave the Central Tower. Helpless, Hiruzen turned his attention toward Yondaime Raikage, and said, “The battle between Darui of Kumogakure and Raijin of Amegakure was the cause of most of the damage, the main responsibility lies with these two villages, for Amegakure’s part, Konoha will have a talk with the government of the Land of Rain, but for Kumogakure’s part…”

Once again, before Hiruzen could complete his words, he was interrupted. Raikage snorted and spread his hands, “Kumogakure has borne severe losses in the past few years. The loss of both Jinchuriki as well as several Jōnins at the hands of Akatsuki, not to mention the previous rampage of Shimura Danzō, the traitorous acting Hokage of Konohagakure in Kumogakure, the loss of material and personal was heavy. To this day, we are still recovering from those losses, where do we have funds for aiding Konoha in the recovery of a training field?”

Leaving such words, Raikage did not wait any longer and he too left the Central Tower, wanting to see Darui, Shee, Atsui as well as other Kumogakure Genins and hear the details and observation of Amegakure’s Raijin from Darui’s point of view.

When Raikage mentioned Shimura Danzō, the traitorous acting Hokage of Konohagakure, Hiruzen couldn’t bring himself to speak any further and helplessly watched as Ay left the Central Tower.

Helplessly, Hiruzen looked at the representative of Kirigakure, Terumi Mei.

In response to Hiruzen’s gaze, Terumi Mei shook her head, saying, “In the first place, our ninjas did not cause that much damage, and let’s not forget the tragedy that Kirigakure has suffered from in the past few years because of that masked Uchiha. Death of Sandaime Mizukage, the era of the Bloody Mist, Yondaime-sama’s case, then the Civil War that almost occurred… And just when we started recuperating, Shimura Danzō appeared in Kirigakure with similar intention… While resisting the previous acting Hokage, we even lost one of our most important military base… Sigh, the problem that Kirigakure has been facing is on a much higher scale than just the destruction of a training field, I am sure you can understand the plight of Kirigakure.”

Elder Hiruzen barely managed to squeeze out a few words, and nodded, “Yes, it’s tough for Kirigakure.”

“Yes, it’s very tough,” nodded Mei with wet eyes and bowed to Hiruzen, “Well then, please excuse me…” and left while shaking her head with a sigh, “When will these troubles end?”

In the blink of an eye, the representatives of Iwagakure, Kumogakure, and Kirigakure had all slipped away. The only one left was the representative of Sunagakure.

The representative of Sunagakure took the initiative to come over and requested to see the report, “May I?”

Hiruzen passed it over to Chiyo. The elder of Suna carefully read the report, then sighed and said, “Truly, these ninjas of Konoha, Kumo, Iwa, and Ame seem to be very strong, sigh, when will Suna reach that stage, it’s really embarrassing for us that there is no mention of Suna in this report at all, it’s almost as if our ninjas did not cause any damage to the forest! I guess it will still take a lot of time for our ninjas to become as capable as ninjas of Kumo and Iwa.” And returned the report back to Hiruzen, saying, “It will be tough for Konoha,” and then left with Maki and Baki.

Following the departure of the representatives of the great shinobi villages, the representatives of smaller villages also quickly left in fear that Konoha would ask them for compensation, as a result, only personnel of Konoha were left looking at each other.

Finally, Elder Koharu snorted, “This shameless bunch of hypocrites!”

Elder Hiruzen was helpless, “It appears that the restoration of the Forty-fourth Training Ground is all on us.”

“It will be tough, we don’t have that kind of fund on us at the moment,” said Elder Koharu.

While it is true that the lack of funds has never been a major problem for Konoha since the Land of Fire is rich and fertile land and because of Konoha’s own reputation, but over the past decade, Konoha has also been suffering through one disaster after another.

Sighing helplessly, Elder Hiruzen glanced at the Godaime Hokage, and said, “Kuroto-kun, the Forest of Death is an important resource for the village, its restoration is very important.”

“Indeed,” nodded ‘Kuroto’ agreeing with Hiruzen’s words. Outsiders may not understand the importance of Forty-fourth Training Ground, but as long as you are a resident of Konoha, you’d understand its importance for the village, so he too agrees with Hiruzen’s thoughts of its restoration.

Hiruzen continued, “I will leave the barrier up to you.” Then paused for a moment, and added, “But the restoration of flora and fauna is also very important, but we lack funds for its immediate restoration, I am afraid we will have to make some sacrifices.”

“Sacrifices?” asked ‘Kuroto’ doubtfully.

Elder Hiruzen nodded, and explained, “I propose that starting today, all the senior leaders, including the Hokage, the Elders, and other personnel of prominent posts sacrifice a percentage of their salaries for the restoration of the Forty-fourth Training Ground, well, what do you think?”

For someone who can sacrifice everything for the sake of the village, sacrificing just a small part of his salary is naturally not a problem. He believed that even if Kuroto was here in his place, he would have agreed without hesitation, so ‘Kuroto’ naturally agreed, “I have no problem.”