A Konoha shinobi picked up one of the leaflets.
It was a stiff card, about the size of a palm.
On one side was an illustration of a beautiful kunoichi.
On the other side were lines of bold, eye-catching text.
Hiruzen Sarutobi is utterly heartless and intends to exterminate the Uchiha…!
The Hokage's seat should have belonged to Uchiha Kagami…!
The Hyuga will become the next Uchiha…!
…
Rasa had not limited the cards to content about Uchiha Kagami alone.
He had deliberately mixed in many other provocative claims.
That made it all seem more natural—and gave people more to gossip about.
Yet every line still circled back to the Uchiha.
Which meant that as long as people talked, the Uchiha could not be avoided.
And once the Uchiha came up, Uchiha Kagami would inevitably be mentioned too.
As for the image of the beautiful kunoichi on the other side, that served as bait as well.
If there had only been text, very few people would have bothered to pick the cards up.
But with a striking kunoichi on one side, the number of people curious enough to look increased sharply.
The Konoha shinobi's expression changed violently the moment he read the words.
"Who threw this down?"
He immediately looked to the sky, hoping to spot whoever had dropped the cards.
But there was nothing to be seen.
Not to mention that Rasa had already moved above Iwagakure's army—at that height, even if he had stayed put, Konoha's shinobi would never have been able to see him.
"I can't find whoever did it!"
"Damn it!"
Another Konoha shinobi realized the problem instantly.
"Hurry and gather all these cards. Destroy them. We can't let too many people see them."
Were the contents true?
Hard to say.
Would many Konoha shinobi believe them?
Probably not.
But once enough people saw them, it would undoubtedly cause trouble.
Yet just as that thought formed—
More cards began falling.
The number Rasa had dropped was not small.
It had reached a full hundred thousand.
The handful that fell first had only been the beginning.
Now came the true spectacle.
Dense. Endless. Filling the sky.
One Konoha shinobi's eyes widened and his jaw fell slack.
"What is this?"
Another had only just finished picking up the cards around him, only for still more to rain down.
"There are too many! Too many!"
"We can't collect them all! It's impossible!"
No matter how convinced they were that these cards would cause problems, once they saw the sheer quantity, they could only despair and abandon any thought of retrieving every last one.
Discussion erupted from every direction.
"What a beautiful kunoichi. I wonder which village she's from."
"Uchiha… is this an Iwagakure tactic? Did Iwa drop these?"
"Very likely. Iwagakure is our biggest enemy right now, and they have techniques that can reach high altitude. It must have been them."
"They're trying to sow discord in Konoha?"
"What a joke. As if we'd fall for that."
But not every Konoha shinobi thought that way.
When it came to the Uchiha issue, the overwhelming majority in Konoha stood with the village.
After all, the village remained, and the Uchiha did not.
But even so, they could not help asking themselves—
How had the Uchiha reached that point in the first place?
At first, it had only been rumors about Uchiha Kagami.
Then some Uchiha had gone on strike and voiced their dissatisfaction.
After that, it had escalated into rebellion.
The matter of Uchiha Dou had been suppressed, so few knew about it.
But many knew about Uchiha Gen.
A man like Uchiha Gen—whether his actions had been genuine or performative—still should not have been killed.
The Hyuga in particular were especially sensitive.
After all, the cards had mentioned them by name.
"What is Iwagakure trying to do? Put the Hyuga on the fire?"
"Even if we don't believe this, will the village assume that we do? Will they become wary of us because of it?"
"Perhaps we should be careful."
A small number of Hyuga shinobi even began seriously considering whether the Hyuga might someday walk the same road the Uchiha had.
Compared to ordinary ninja, the Hyuga knew more.
"Uchiha Dou questioned Hokage-sama, and then he died."
"Uchiha Gen longed for the village's forgiveness, and he died too."
"The Uchiha still in the village have been trapped inside their district, like prisoners."
"Uchiha Shisui has been symbolically entrusted with importance… but only symbolically."
There were simply too many propaganda cards.
So many that almost every Konoha shinobi on the front had picked one up and seen it.
After all, Konoha had only a little over ten thousand shinobi on that battlefield.
Some tore the cards apart on the spot.
Others, unwilling to destroy the image of the beautiful kunoichi, kept them.
For a time, it seemed as if all of Konoha's frontline forces were discussing the matter.
Before long, the news reached Konoha itself.
Inside the Hokage Tower, Hiruzen Sarutobi read the intelligence report, his face dark.
Standing opposite him was Homura Mitokado.
"Shameless!"
"Utterly shameless!"
Homura barked in anger, "Hiruzen, Iwagakure actually used such a disgusting method—dropping massive quantities of slanderous, divisive cards from the sky, and even putting such indecent kunoichi images on them."
"This is low to the extreme."
"In the entire history of the shinobi world, no one has ever used a method this despicable."
"We must retaliate!"
Hiruzen looked up at him.
"And how exactly do you intend to retaliate?"
Homura said nothing.
Hiruzen lowered his gaze to the card in his hand. He first read through the side with the text, then turned it over to the side with the kunoichi image and, without changing expression, set it down.
He then gave an order to one of the ANBU.
"Pass down my command. Gather every one of these cards from the battlefield and destroy them all."
"Anyone caught hiding one will be treated as a criminal."
The ANBU shinobi nodded sharply.
"Yes, Hokage-sama."
Then Hiruzen summoned another shinobi.
"Go to the Hyuga clan and invite their clan head here. Tell him I have something to discuss with him."
"Yes, Hokage-sama."
As for the Uchiha-related content on the cards, Hiruzen chose not to deal with it directly.
There was little point.
The Uchiha clan had already fled. The few dozen Uchiha still left in the village were no longer capable of causing serious trouble.
And since they had not chosen to leave before, they were even less likely to do so now.
What Hiruzen cared about… was the Hyuga.
His plan was to stabilize the village first.
Only afterward would he deal with whoever had dropped the cards.
Meanwhile, the atmosphere in Iwagakure's camp was the complete opposite of Konoha's.
"Using a method like this to shake Konoha's morale?"
"It's so simple. So crude."
"But it works."
"Which genius from our village came up with this? They're a damn prodigy."
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