71: Kazekage's Conspiracy

The war between Sandyin and Konoha has been going on for two years, but compared to Sandyin, Konoha's war-weariness is very strong.

　　Before the battle with Sandyin, Konoha had already fought against the rain ninjas in the Land of Rain. Many ninjas were already physically and mentally exhausted. In this case, Konoha had to be brought into the rhythm of war again by Sandyin, one can imagine how tired the people of Konoha have become.

　　Therefore, when the three generations of Kazekage submitted the reconciliation letter, according to Shiraishi's estimation, there is a high probability that Konoha will agree.

　　After all, this is also the main strategy that Konoha has always adopted.

　　Continuing to consume with Shayin will only benefit other Ninja village fishermen.

　　"Really, we've already reached this level. It's enough to defeat Sha Yin in one go. If you submit the reconciliation letter so painlessly, there will be a comeback in the future."

　　Ruri sat on a rock with a dissatisfied expression on her face.

　　It's only been over a month since she came out of the village, and she hasn't had enough fun fighting the Sand Ninjas. If the war ends at this time, the mission of Sakumo's team will end here.

　　"I can't say the same, because the ninjas in many villages in the camp have become war-weary, and Sandyin is almost the same. At this time, it will be good for both parties to end peacefully. As for the future... I'll talk about it later."

　　For the consideration of a Konoha ninja, Shiraishi believes that this is indeed the best solution.

　　"That's great, I thought I couldn't go back to the village to celebrate the New Year this year. After all, I'm still very much looking forward to this year's festival."

　　Ayane said with a smile on the side.

　　Shiraishi turned his head to the other side, as if he hadn't heard those words.

　　"That's right, the war is over soon, you can go back to the New Year's festival... Also, I want to go back and visit Kakashi."

　　Sakumo heard the three of them communicating there, and said with a smile.

　　"Kakashi?"

　　The three Shiraishi were attracted by the name.

　　"Ah, didn't I tell you?"

　　Sakumo blinked suspiciously.

　　"No, I haven't heard of this person at all. By the way... who is he?"

　　Shiraishi shook his head.

　　"He is my son, Kakashi Hatake. Although he is only two years old this year, I believe he will be an excellent ninja in the future."

　　Sakumo said.

　　"Son!?"

　　The three of Shiraishi were stunned and shouted loudly.

　　Surprise can no longer be used to describe this incident, they have never heard of the fact that Sakumo has a son.

　　"What, is there something wrong?"

　　Sakumo looked at the three strangely.

　　"No... I thought Sakumo-sensei, you are still single, but I didn't expect not only to be married, but also to have a son..."

　　Ayane quickly explained.

　　Shiraishi and Ruri also nodded, and in their eyes, Sakumo was indeed such an image.

　　"Sorry, I thought I had mentioned this already."

　　"It doesn't matter, I'm just a little surprised to hear it suddenly. After all, this is a personal matter. Before graduating from the ninja school, we didn't have contact with Sakumo-sensei. So, Sakumo-sensei's son is already two years old... Kakashi Hatake, what a great name."

　　Ayane smiled.

　　But in my heart I was thinking: What kind of name should I and Shiraishi-kun's child be named in the future?

　　"Speaking of which, I am a bit derelict in my duties as a father. When my child's birthday was in September, I couldn't go back to the village to celebrate his birthday. In a blink of an eye, it's already November."

　　"There is still a chance next year, and then Sakumo-sensei will treat us as a guest."

　　Shiraishi smiled.

　　The corner of Sakumo's mouth twitched, and when it came to treating guests, he seemed to suddenly recall some bad memories.

　　He didn't want to be on his son's birthday, he is on the verge of bankruptcy, which is a mix of joy and sorrow.

　　"Really? That's great, I'll be there on an empty stomach that day. Get ready, Sakumo-sensei."

　　Ayane smiled and confirmed the matter.

　　Sakumo sighed, his wallet didn't seem to be able to keep it, and then he looked at Ruri.

　　"Don't look at me like that. It's your son's birthday party. Wouldn't it be too rude to ask me to pay? After all, you are Lord White Fang."

　　No, I don't care about my face. Hearing Ruri's ruthless refusal, Sakumo complained in his heart.

　　◎

　　Two days later, it was the day when Konoha and Sandyin formally concluded a reconciliation agreement and signed an armistice agreement.

　　The weather was clear and sunny.

　　Sakumo's team set off to return to Camp Konoha on the border of the Fire Nation.

　　The armistice was signed at nine in the morning.

　　It is four o'clock in the afternoon.

　　In other words, the armistice agreement with Sandyin has been signed, and the news should have been sent back to the camp already, and it will be sent back to the village as quickly as possible.

　　However, when they returned to the camp at 5:00 p.m., the four members of the Sakumo team felt something was wrong.

　　Too dull.

　　Rather sad.

　　The four looked at each other, not knowing what happened.

　　Although knowing the war is over, there will definitely be people who will grieve, but it will not be so dull.

　　In this dullness, there is also a rage and murderous aura that wants to devour everything.

　　"What's going on here?"

　　"I don't know, what happened?"

　　Shiraishi touched his chin and started to think.

　　Is there something wrong with the agreement?

　　Could it be that Sha Yin did not intend to fulfill the agreement?

　　Otherwise it can't explain it all.

　　"You are also a medical ninja, hurry up to the medical department, there is an urgent shortage of staff there!"

　　At this moment, a Konoha ninja ran over quickly and said to Shiraishi anxiously.

　　Shiraishi looked at Sakumo, Sakumo nodded, and Shiraishi followed the ninja to the camp where the medical team was located.

　　"You guys rest here, I'll go to Orochimaru to find out the situation."

　　Ruri and Ayane nodded and obeyed Sakumo's orders.

　　——The camp where the medical troops are located.

　　Tragic!

　　It can only be described in one word: tragic.

　　Dozens of Konoha ninjas fell into the tent, bloody and bloody, and the pain resulted in a ghost-like roar, which made Shiraishi almost lose his mind.

　　How did this happen?

　　These injuries should have been recently... no, they were caused today, right?

　　What happened?

　　Without asking, Shiraishi immediately followed behind a medical ninja who was skilled in medical ninjutsu. All of these dozens of ninjas needed emergency surgery.

　　Moreover, in the process of first aid, there must be some seriously injured people who cannot be taken care of, and die directly because they can't bear the pain.

　　Sobbing and wailing, all in one place.

　　Every medical ninja is so busy and sweaty that they don't have time for superfluous exchanges.

　　First aid ended after two hours.

　　It's not that the first aid was successful. It ended so early because many people died early before surgery.

　　Some were rescued by surgery and still died.

　　Only a dozen people pulled back from the gate of hell.

　　"We tried our best."

　　The attending medical ninja patted Shiraishi on the shoulder, as if worried about the psychological burden on a young medical ninja like him, so he comforted him.

　　"That, senior, what is going on? Why did it become like this?"

　　Shiraishi finally asked the question he wanted to ask the most.

　　The chief medical ninja knew that Shiraishi was a medical ninja following Sakumo, and it was only natural that he did not understand the situation here.

　　"We don't know the specifics. We just know that the mission that signed the armistice agreement with Shayin was attacked by unknown people on the way. When it was sent back, it was already like this."

　　The chief medical ninja said with a heavy expression on his face.

　　"What about the armistice agreement? Is it Sand Ninja's hand?"

　　"I don't know. But this time we lost a lot. I heard that even Kato Jonin also sacrificed."

　　"Jonin Kato?"

　　Shiraishi was taken aback, this surname, and it's still jonin, shouldn't it be...

　　"Sir Tsunade is very unstable now. Kato Jonin's sacrifice has hit her too hard."

　　The attending medical ninja sighed.

　　"Kato Jonin is so powerful, how can..."

　　Shiraishi couldn't understand.

　　Kato Jonin is Tsunade's current boyfriend Kato Dan. Although his prestige cannot be compared with Sakumo who has the name of White Fang, he is also one of the few elite jonin in Konoha. In a one-on-one situation, it may not be impossible to compete with a Sannin.

　　After all, the power of Spiritualization is terrifying.

　　And it also has a wide range of perception capabilities. If you want to break through and find weak points to escape, it is still very easy.

　　"In order to cover the evacuation of his companions, he chose to fight against the enemy alone. When the support came, he was already...on the verge of death! Tsunade-sama tried his best, but he couldn't save Kato Jonin's life."

　　"Is that so?"

　　Shiraishi sighed.

　　Although he did not know each other with Kato Dan, this selfless act to save his comrade, no matter from which point of view, will make people truly admire his spirit.

　　In this age, when life is not something to be happy about, death is not something to be sad about.

　　This is the current theorem of the ninja world.

　　He knew Tsunade was in pain, but he couldn't experience that pain himself.

　　The joys and sorrows of human beings are not common.

　　Because he was unfamiliar with Kato, his sighs were just for Tsunade's sake.

　　The death of his younger brother Nawaki, the sacrifice of her boyfriend Kato Dan... Since then, I have been unable to recover...

　　No, no matter what, it's the three ninjas, shouldn't that be the case?

　　Shiraishi thought so, but he wasn't too confident about it.

　　Humans are emotionally fragile creatures.

　　Seeing that there was nothing to do in the medical team, Shiraishi left and went to meet Sakumo and the others at their residence.

　　The three of Sakumo were already waiting there and talking about something.

　　"Sakumo-sensei, I'm back. What's going on? I heard that an unknown person attacked and went to the ninja mission that signed an armistice with Sand Ninja."

　　"That's true. Not only that, Orochimaru was also seriously injured. If it wasn't for Kato jonin resolutely choosing to stay behind, it is very likely that everyone who went to sign the armistice agreement would be wiped out by the enemy's encirclement."

　　Sakumo briefly explained what he learned from Orochimaru.

　　"It's really outrageous, no matter what, you must maintain the highest vigilance."

　　Ruri had an angry look on her face.

　　After all, this kind of thing has lessons from the past. During the first Ninja World War, when the second generation of Hokage and cloud village's second-generation Raikage signed an armistice agreement, they encountered cloud village's radical leader gold and silver brothers, leading a large number of cloud village's Jōnin to attack.

　　The second generation Raikage was killed on the spot by the Golden Horn and Silver Horn brothers at the scene of the signing of the armistice.

　　This is all because of too much trust in the enemy.

　　With the lessons learned from the second-generation Hokage, you should be more cautious when signing an armistice agreement.

　　Who knew that Orochimaru, the commander, was seriously injured, and only half of the hundreds of Konoha ninjas came back.

　　The biggest sacrifice was Kato Dan, in order to let Orochimaru lead the Konoha troops to evacuate, after staying alone, he fought to the death.

　　"Now is not the time to blame anyone, has the identity of the enemy been found out?"

　　Shiraishi looked at Sakumo.

　　Sakumo sighed, shook his head and said: "No. Their ninjutsu style is very complicated. It is said that one of them is very terrifying, and he seems to be immortal. He can be resurrected after being killed once,and because he has this ability, many of our companions were careless, and he killed several Jonin at once."

　　"Who is he?"

　　"I do not know."

　　The three of Shiraishi frowned slightly.

　　Such a powerful character also has the ability to be like an immortal body, and it is impossible to be unknown in the ninja world.

　　How can you not know?

　　"Maybe it's a black market bounty hunter."

　　Sakumo was not quite sure who the ninja who led the attack on the Konoha mission was, but only guessed that the other party might be a ninja running the black market.

　　It was a real dark world where the strong eat the weak, and there were many powerful but not very famous ninjas in it.

　　The ninja who attacked the Konoha mission this time fits the image of this black market high-strength ninja.

　　"Underground black market? It would be very difficult to investigate that way. Could it be hired by Sand Shinobi?"

　　Shiraishi had also heard of such a dark world.

　　Existing in the dark side of the ninja world, the bounty hunters running rampant in the black market are either defected ninjas or samurai. Although there is a lot of garbage, there are also really powerful existences.

　　The underground black market is complex, and every country has a stronghold of this organization, which is deeply rooted in the ninja world.

　　"It's just a possibility, but we have no evidence to prove it. But before we came back, the three generations of Kazekage sent messengers over to condemn us for not making the appointment on time. Are we planning to continue this war?"

　　This incident made many Konoha ninjas angry.

　　In the eyes of many Konoha ninjas, it was the sand ninjas who ambushed their mission this time.

　　If it wasn't for Orochimaru to stop him, it is estimated that the sand ninja would have been torn to pieces by many Konoha ninjas.

　　After listening to Shiraishi and the three, they were a little dull, and they could understand the anger of those Konoha ninjas.

　　Judging from the current situation, it is very likely that Sand Yin is going back on his word and intends to catch Konoha by surprise.

　　However, these are all conjectures, and there is no solid evidence to prove that this is what the sand ninjas did.

　　It's so frustrating.

　　"What did the village say?"

　　"The village has just received this news, because the stakes are very important, and the high-level side will definitely argue endlessly. It is estimated that it will take three or four days to come down with the exact order."

　　This is the most important time.

　　Now it's a fight or a draw, it just depends on the decisions of the top executives.

　　Shiraishi has no opinion on this. He is not interested in war at all, and how the top management of Konoha controls this situation has nothing to do with him.

　　◎

　　"Peace talk?"

　　Three days later, the order of the high-level meeting came down.

　　Negotiate with Sandyin.

　　This made many ninjas in Konoha camp frown.

　　But the high-level officials gave an explanation-the ambush of the Konoha mission resulted in the failure to sign the truce between Konoha and Sandyin, all of which was hidden stone's conspiracy.

　　The unidentified ninja who ambushed the Konoha mission was hired from the black market by Iwagakure.

　　At this time, Konoha and Sandyin continue to wage war, and they will only fall into Iwagakure's well-designed trap together with Sandyin.

　　Therefore, it is necessary to sign an armistice agreement with Sandyin to guard against Iwagakure Village.

　　"What's going on, Orochimaru?"

　　Jiraiya does not understand.

　　Orochimaru took out another piece of information and said, "This is an important piece of information collected by Anbu. Two days ago, there was a skirmish between Sandyin and Iwagakure in the Land of Bears."

　　"Shayin and Iwagakure...they?"

　　Jiraiya also looked at Orochimaru inexplicably.

　　Orochimaru replied: "After Shayin's supplies were destroyed by Sakumo, Shayin cooperated with Iwagakure, hoping that Iwagakure would help them with some supplies. Iwagakure also agreed to Shayin's request, but transferred the supplies two days ago. At that time, Iwagakure delivered only one-twentieth of the promised supplies to Sha Yin. The two sides clashed."

　　Jiraiya still frowned, always feeling that something was wrong.

　　"Whether it is Iwagakure's earth shadow planning this, or sandyin's wind shadow planning this, or whether the two of them have united to calculate Konoha, this matter is not important anymore."

　　"How could it be unimportant, that guy sacrificed himself to—"

　　"Don't yell here, too many people died in the war, Kato is a real ninja, that's all."

　　Orochimaru didn't want to hear Jiraiya yelling in front of him, he was very upset now.

　　"Continuing the peace talks with Sandyin is the unanimous decision of the senior management. After all, if we continue to fight, we won't face the Sandyin family, but also Iwagakure."

　　"It's not worth fighting with Sandy and Iwagakure at the same time for the sake of a Kato," still couldn't come out of his mouth.

　　But Orochimaru believes that is the truth.

　　The mastermind behind the previous ambush mission was probably Sandyin.

　　But Orochimaru is not very clear, why did he come to ambush Konoha once before the end of the war, and even drew Tsuchikage to perform this scene, so that Konoha did not dare to move at will.

　　"What the hell is that Kazekage thinking about?"

　　◎

　　"It's like doing some kind of warm-up exercise before the fight to slowly heat up the atmosphere."

　　"Warm up?"

　　There were only two people in the tent, and Ayane looked at Shiraishi with a puzzled expression, wondering why he would say such a thing.

　　"The one who ambushed the Konoha mission before was undoubtedly the Kazekage. Even if he didn't hire him himself, this strategy must have come from him."

　　"Is there any basis?"

　　"The warm-up exercise I said is the basis. Before this war is over, annihilating some of Konoha's elite ninjas is equivalent to weakening Konoha's strength."

　　"But... if the high-level side decides to continue the war, wouldn't it backfire?"

　　Ayane asked back.

　　"So Iwagakure was dragged in. This is the situation in the eyes of Konoha executives - Sandyin's original intention at the beginning was to continue fighting Konoha, because they received Iwagakure's supplies and could continue to fight. But After annihilating the Konoha mission, Iwagakure suddenly drastically reduced the original materials, resulting in Sandyin's inability to continue fighting. As a result, in the eyes of Konoha's executives, Sandyin was tricked by Iwagakure. If Konoha continues to fight Sandyin, he will fall into Iwagakure's trap."

　　"The high-level people will not be fooled by such a simple strategy."

　　"It doesn't matter if you are fooled or not, the important thing is whether you have the ability to fight with the two villages of Sandyin and Iwagakure at the same time. The point is that here, the top officials of Konoha have no plans to prepare for war with the two Ninja villages at the same time. This is a naked conspiracy. "

　　Although Konoha has this ability, in that case, the sacrifice will be even greater.

　　Shiraishi does not think that the top management of Konoha has such determination, and will sacrifice Konoha's development in the next ten years to break out a war with Sandyin and Iwagakure.

　　Obviously, the two villages have been colluding with each other.

　　Or, Iwagakure was also used by that Kazekage.

　　Iwagakure did not cooperate with Sha Yin in acting, but Sha Yin was acting unilaterally for everyone to see, fooling other people's attention and shifting the focus of the problem.

　　"A warm-up exercise? That's an apt description."

　　If Shiraishi said so, Ayane thinks the word warm-up is very appropriate.

　　Destroying the Konoha Mission and letting Iwagakure cooperate with the acting is a warm-up exercise that can make the next attack on the Land of Fire more ferocious.

　　That is to say, in the years after this war, Sandyin will definitely make a comeback again, and under the leadership of the three generations of Kazekage, the offensive will be even more ferocious than this time.

　　Thinking that a long time ago, Shiraishi said that after the end of the second ninja war, the third ninja war wouldn't be too long, or it would revolve around the country of fire where Konoha was located, and she couldn't help but admire him.

　　At that time, it was indeed the best opportunity to leave Konoha.

　　◎

　　Sand Hidden Camp.

　　"Is this your future development plan, Master Kazekage? It's really amazing! No one must have thought of what Master Kazekage's true intentions are."

　　Surrounded by Sandyin's cronies, Jonin, after reading the entire process of the plan, they all showed respect for the three generations of Kazekage.

　　Iwagakure, Konoha, the two villages are being played around by their respected Master Kazekage.

　　Konoha is even more tragic. So many people have died, and he has to continue to sign a truce with them.

　　It is true that Iwagakure intends to use Sandyin to continue the war with Konoha.

　　The reduction of the materials originally promised to Sha Yin was also a real occurrence, not a falsification.

　　However, this point was also used by the three generations of Kazekage.

　　Iwagakure secretly rejoiced, and the conflict between Sandyin and Konoha deepened.

　　On Konoha's side, it was thought that Sandyin and Iwagakure had already colluded together. This was a trap for Konoha and could not be moved at will. We must continue to sign a truce with Sandyin to prevent Sandyin and Iwagakurefrom jointly attacking the Fire Nation.

　　"In the next few years, we will make good use of the rich resources we have obtained from the land of fire this time, cultivate more excellent ninjas for the village, and prepare for the next war in a few years. Also in order to build our own prosperous era in Sandyin, please stay fighting with me."

　　The third Kazekage stood up from his seat, his tone full of confidence and a sense of encouragement to his subordinates.

　　"Yes! Swear to the death!"

　　The Shinobi Sands also stood up one after another from their seats and looked at Sandai Kazekage with fanatical eyes.

　　It seems that after a few years, under the leadership of Kazekage, they will once again open the gap in the country of fire and plunder more and better resources.

　　The era of Shayin's real rise will soon come.