Consolidation of Power

Kurogiri's decision to bring Orochimaru onto his team was one of the best moves he made. The information Orochimaru provided, in conjunction with Kurogiri's High Spec ability, gave him better insight into the world of ninjas.

Kurogiri understood that the ninja world was a world where power equaled authority and those with the strongest power had the right to dictate this world. With this knowledge, he decided to consolidate his power in the Land of Grass and turn it into the Land of Shigaraki with himself as the leader.

Kurogiri learned that the ninja villages answered to the Daimyo of each land, who were essentially ruling families, but surprisingly, they had no true power, only money. He realized that the best way to control the land was to also get the Daimyo under his control through persuasive manipulation.

Kurogiri controlled a squad of Grass ninja and sent them towards the capital of the Land of Grass with a set of bees from Queen bee and a clone. His next move was to strengthen the ninja under his control and turn the former small village into one that could rival any of the great five.

Using his connections to Queen Bee and the ninja, Kurogiri used All For One to give every ninja a single quirk. Creating quirks for over two hundred ninjas cost a huge amount of chakra, but with the steady supply of it, Kurogiri had more than enough to give them the quirk of physical enhancement.

Orochimaru had interacted with Rin and learned about her abilities granted to her by Kurogiri, informing Kurogiri that this improvement was comparable to legendary sage mode. Orochimaru then explained the concept of sage mode, and Kurogiri learned about the three holy lands filled with natural energy and different sentient creatures that governed them.

Each land had a sage mode, but the basis of sage mode was to use natural energy to strengthen the body. Orochimaru went on to say that the physical enhancement ability was almost identical but specialized, and that physical enhancement was also using natural energy through the quirk.

The main difference was that his enhancement only increases abilities by five while sage mode increase abilities by ten times. However, the major difference is that the physical enhancement quirk was an instant increase while sage mode takes time to enter and only the truly gifted could do it instantly.

Realizing that giving the ninja under him the physical enhancement quirk would increase their power well beyond the average ninja from any village, Kurogiri made this decision. According to what Orochimaru said and Kurogiri's own knowledge of the village archives, not many ninjas, if any, had sage mode.\

As a reward for Orochimaru's help in upgrading the ninja, Kurogiri granted him the physical enhancement quirk. However, during the process of giving all the quirks, Kurogiri also used persuasive manipulation to further ingrain obedience and loyalty into all of them, including those he controlled through Queen Bee.

After finishing the upgrades to the ninja, Kurogiri decided to shift his focus to creating quirks for himself. He planned to go through the process that Tomura Shigaraki went through to bond with All For One and push his body and spirit through an evolution.

Kurogiri knew that he needed to strengthen himself on a spiritual level if he was going to absorb the tail beast. He planned to create physical and mental quirks for his body and chakra limit, fusing them with quirk synthesis then using the a self created adaptation-evolution quirk.

Kurogiri made Orochimaru's body look like his own and strengthened his body and loyalty so that he could manage the village while Kurogiri went into seclusion to begin his evolution. Kurogiri calculated that since Tomura Shigaraki's evolution into a transcendent being in My Hero Academia took four months, Kurogiri's evolution would take two to four years due to his unique body.

During this time, Orochimaru would be in charge of the village in his stead. Kurogiri had already informed Orochimaru of his plan to use him as a double and even gave him the option of claiming that he stole his body. Kurogiri wanted to lead the world into a false sense of victory so that when his evolution was completed, he could blindside them.

While Kurogiri's plan was about to begin, Orochimaru was ecstatic to hear about it but didn't care much about the world and was more focused on the prospect of Kurogiri's evolution because he wanted it too. Orochimaru was already happy with his body and the amazing quirks or abilities that Kurogiri had given him, such as regeneration that fixed anything in seconds, the abundant life force, and the physical enhancement or Shigaraki Sage mode as he called it. Orochimaru had originally planned to get on Kurogiri's good side to obtain his body, but he now found himself increasingly loyal to him and hoped to do good to receive more benefits.

As the plan began, Kurogiri had Rin bring Karin over and gave her the same quirks as her mother, doubling down on obedience and loyalty in both her and her mother. He then ordered his Gigantomachia to protect the village and listen to Orochimaru, introducing them beforehand. Kurogiri used Earthflow to lower his throne into the ground and sealed the top behind him, leaving only small air holes so he could focus on absorbing chakra and creating quirks.

Meanwhile, the rest of the ninja world received conflicting news. Many spies who had escaped the Land of Grass had returned home with news of the village. The majority of the world was shocked to learn that the Grass ninja were still around and that it seemed as if the creature was working with or for the village.

The few sensors with them confirmed that all the ninja's chakra was tainted by another, which was the same across each but did not seem to be genjutsu. The leaders of Waterfall ninja decided to close the borders with the Land of Grass and strengthen their alliance with Konoha. Hanzo the salamander in the Land of Rain also closed their borders, not willing to make a move against an unknown enemy.

The third Tsuchikage was upset because he could deduce from this news that Roshi wouldn't bother since the creature would only be his if he killed everyone. Knowing that Roshi would take his time regardless, he put the matter off for now and waited for a better opportunity.

The news of the Grass ninja being alive had a different effect in Konoha. Danzo was upset, figuring his team would have to give up and come back, but the Third Hokage was somewhat happy to hear about the Grass ninja still being alive. 

He took it as a sign that Kurogiri wasn't able to reproduce very quickly or control the ninja well. The Third figured they could work with the Waterfall and free the Grass ninja to take down the creature quickly until a toad appeared.

The appearance of the toad made the Third conclude that his student, Jiraiya, had sent some important messages, possibly concerning his traitorous student Orochimaru. After taking the scroll from the toad and reading that Orochimaru was heading towards the Land of Grass, the Third was unnerved. He believed that out of everyone in the world, Orochimaru knew the creature best.

He didn't want to imagine the damage that could occur to the world if Orochimaru was able to control the creature. The Third wrote a response for the toad to be sent back to Jiraiya to come back so they could plan. Then, the Third Hokage looked at a report from the border guard with the Land of Hot Water about a cloud team with their Jinchuriki trying to pass through towards the Land of Grass.

The Third Hokage's response was to let the team go without sending any ninja to interfere because they could use this team to gauge the Grass village. Meanwhile, the same Cloud team had crossed over the border to the Land of Fire. At first, they were on edge, knowing that they were not allies, and they could be attacked by Konoha ninja.

But they noticed that the Konoha ninja only watched but didn't interfere. At first, they thought they were afraid, but they soon realized that Konoha was allowing free passage to the Land of Grass. Instead of feeling good about this, the team became suspicious and realized that something must have changed in the Land of Grass.

Deciding to continue onward, the team still made their way through the Land of Fire towards the Grass Village. The group knew how much the Raikage wanted this creature and decided to take it from the Grass Village, whether they were using it or being used by it. The team was full of confidence due to the Jinchuriki because it was the second strongest of all tail beasts, and their Jinchuriki could use all its power. Believing that the mission would be a success, they continued, but only time could tell if it would go that way or not.