This puppeteer is a bit... well...

Chapter 58 The Game Between the Parties

"Lord Tsuchikage, that's not right." The Third Raikage opened his eyes, his deep gaze fixed on the short old man opposite him, like a sharp knife. "Although the last operation was commanded by people from Kumogakure, each ninja village sent supervisors. The Allied Forces' operation requires the approval of each supervisor to proceed."

"But they're all dead," Onoki replied coldly.

"It's normal for people to die on the battlefield."

"Then why didn't the commander you sent die?"

"If he dies, none of the Allied forces will return."

"What about the more than a thousand people who returned, and what about the six hundred who were from your Cloud Village?"

"this……"

The Third Raikage was speechless.

He was certain that the person he sent to command the joint attack on Sunagakure did not, as Onoki claimed, treat the people of other villages as cannon fodder in order to preserve their own strength.

After all, nobody's a fool.

If he did that, it would be impossible for him to command the Allied forces.

But everyone has selfish desires.

After the attack plan failed, the commander felt that the cooperation was over.

Therefore, it was only natural for them to think about saving the lives of their own villagers during the retreat.

Everyone knows this perfectly well.

However, Onoki still insisted that the Cloud Village had ill intentions from the very beginning of the operation.

He wasn't doing this to seek justice for his fallen ninjas, nor could he possibly seek any justice. He was simply trying to gain an advantage in the upcoming attack on Konoha.

Konoha is not like Sunagakure; it is powerful and does not have the perfect opportunity to weaken its border defenses and internal security.

To defeat Konoha, they must unleash their true strength in a head-on confrontation. All four ninja villages will mobilize their full forces, totaling 30,000 ninja troops.

With this scale and quantity, it's impossible to launch everything at once.

This prevents the team from leveraging its numerical advantage.

In the process of troop deployment, there are also differences in the degree of danger in the arrangement of troops.

Onoki's idea was to gain an advantage in this regard and leave the safety arrangements to the Iwagakure ninja as much as possible.

All four people present were well aware of this.

Therefore, the Third Raikage must not back down on this issue.

If it's just that Onoki is trying to take advantage of the situation, then so be it.

After all, the Hidden Cloud Village did something unethical during the last retreat. If they want everyone to trust and cooperate again, they must show sincerity.

However, the key issue is that Kumogakure tricked three ninja villages last time. If they make concessions to Onoki, they will have to make concessions to Kusanagi and Amegakure as well.

In this way, the Cloud Village would have to take on most of the dangerous tasks in this joint operation, which would essentially be using the Cloud Village's ninjas as cannon fodder.

Of course, the Raikage could not agree to such a thing.

This meeting devolved into endless bickering and ended in discord.

Hanzo watched the three village leaders leave indignantly and couldn't help but sigh deeply.

He genuinely wanted to organize this attack on Konoha. For this, he didn't care if Amegakure had to make the greatest sacrifices.

Amegakure is caught in the middle of three major ninja villages, which is a very difficult situation. Whenever there is a war, it will inevitably become a battlefield between the three major ninja villages.

They did nothing wrong, yet they were forced to bear the losses brought about by the war and thus had no choice but to join in.

The only way to break this deadlock is to become another great ninja village.

The Land of Rain suffers from constant heavy rain, making it unsuitable for crop cultivation. As a result, the people's standard of living is limited, and the country is also plagued by constant warfare. Maintaining the current size of Amegakure is already the limit for this country.

Therefore, if they want to continue to grow stronger, they can only eliminate other ninja villages and seize their mission resources.

Kusagakure is actually a very good target.

However, the location of Kusagakure is strategically important, making it easy to defend and difficult to attack, even more so than Sunagakure.

Moreover, Kusagakure is very clever.

He took advantage of the ninjas' extraordinary and versatile abilities, which made them difficult to guard and imprison. He used the treacherous terrain, which was hard to enter from the outside and hard to leave from the inside, to establish the Blood Prison, which was specifically for receiving the most vicious and heinous criminals that other countries could not handle.

In this way, not only would ninja villages around the world not attack him, but they would also have to pay him a sum of money every year.

If Amegakure wants to attack Kusagakure, it must first consider whether it can break through the treacherous terrain, and secondly, it must consider the attitudes of various countries.

Once the Grass Village is destroyed, who will provide the Blood Prison?

Therefore, this path is also not feasible.

As for another ninja village nearby, Takigakure... it wasn't that Hanzo didn't want to fight, but rather that he genuinely didn't know where their village was.

This leaves only Iwagakure, Konoha, and Sunagakure on the map that can be attacked.

However, there was none of these three ninja villages that he could defeat alone.

During the Second Shinobi World War, his attempt to mediate the war between Iwa, Suna, and Konoha in the Land of Rain failed.

At the beginning of the Third Shinobi World War, he launched an invasion of Konoha, but was driven back and ultimately failed. In the end, he also gave Konoha the legendary Sannin.

Although he didn't care about it, he had to admit that Amegakure had failed.

That's why he cherishes this opportunity so much.

If Amegakure can eliminate one of the three great ninja villages with the help of the Allied Forces, it will have the opportunity to grow stronger and become one of the new five great ninja villages.

This way, we will no longer have to live the kind of life where we suffer losses from war even if we do nothing.

"Lord Hanzo, Danzo wishes to see you."

Hanzo frowned as he looked at the Rain Village ninja who came into the room to report.

Danzo had actually arrived in Amegakure several days earlier, but he had not yet met with him.

As an envoy of Konoha, his purpose in arriving at this special time is obvious.

Hanzo couldn't possibly give up this opportunity, so he never saw him.

However, considering that the operational meetings over the past few days had made no progress, Hanzo began to doubt the success of this operation.

Without a doubt, the combined strength of the four great ninja villages far surpasses that of Konoha.

But an allied force is an allied force; it cannot be controlled as easily as a single power.

Moreover, the villages are currently divided on their own and could very well become obstacles for each other on the battlefield.

(It wouldn't hurt to meet him and see what he has to say; maybe we can find another way out.)

Hanzo's mind raced, and he said to his subordinates, "Please invite him to my private bedroom. Also, keep this a secret and don't let anyone from other ninja villages see him."

"Yes."

……

In the dimly lit room, Danzo knelt with his eyes closed, resting.

One of his men stood close behind him, while another peered through the paper door to check what was happening outside.

"Lord Danzo, we've been here for so many days, and Hanzo hasn't received us. Could it be that he...?"

He didn't say the rest, but he knew that Lord Danzo understood what he was asking.

Danzo opened his eyes a crack, revealing a sharp, cold glint, which then vanished immediately, as if it were an illusion.

He said calmly, "He will see me. Judging by the time, it should be in the next few days."

"Lord Danzo, Hanzo's personal guards are here," a subordinate who had been peering through the door suddenly said, turning around.

"Here we are!" Danzo smiled and instructed, "Proceed according to plan. Make sure that Onoki knows that Hanzo met with me, and that only Iwagakure knows."

"Yes."

Some people say that many things appear out of nowhere.

Let me explain here. The main character has been signing in for nearly ten years. Even if it's just points and experience points normally, signing in for a month, three months, half a year, ten months, a year, and many holidays, and signing in consecutively during holidays, he must have accumulated at least forty or fifty good items!

Even if they're not as good as the grand prize (in fact, the grand prize is just awarded based on how useful it is to the protagonist, and doesn't represent the intrinsic value of the item), they can't all be trash!

The book begins with the protagonist being fifteen years old. I can't possibly introduce everything about the protagonist at the beginning; if I did, I would be discouraged from reading it from the start.

Finally, I really want to update more frequently!

But I'm only on my second recommendation list now, and I've already written 120,000 words. If I keep updating like this, it'll be out of print very soon.

Some readers felt that updating only once in the morning and once in the evening was not satisfactory, so starting tomorrow, two chapters will be combined into one chapter and released together.

Anyway, once it's featured, I don't care about the extra exposure time for updates.

(End of this chapter)