Naruto: Naruto Hosted by the System

However, the two Cloud Village Jonin not only failed to break Sasuke's Susanoo, but were also killed when they were grabbed by the giant skeletal hand because they were too close to Sasuke.

At this point, only Darui remained of the five Cloud Village Jonin who still had fighting power.

Darui knew that if things continued like this, not only would they not be able to test Naruto's strength, but they would also be wiped out by Sasuke Uchiha alone!

In this situation... we must attack where the enemy is bound to defend!

After making up his mind, Darui ran off, looking like he was abandoning his teammates and running away alone.

"Is the captain... going to abandon us?"

"No, he's sacrificing himself to buy us time to escape!"

The moment Naruto and his companions' carriage came into view, Darui unhesitatingly used all his chakra to unleash his strongest ninjutsu.

"Storm Escape o Encouragement Lock Key Elements!"

He clasped his hands together and fired multiple laser beams formed from water vapor, possessing both the destructive power of lightning and the control of water. In addition, it was a self-sacrificing attack, so the power was extremely great and there was absolutely no possibility of it missing.

Come on, Sasuke Uchiha, stop me! I'll give my life to save them!

Darui glanced at Sasuke out of the corner of his eye, only to see that the other man showed no intention of moving.

What's going on? Has he abandoned the people on this side of the carriage?

Just as Darui was wondering, a golden figure jumped out of the carriage.

"You chose the wrong opponent."

In Darui's eyes, a huge ball of light, spitting out flames, overlapped with the sun, making it look as if the sun was falling towards him.

Under the onslaught of the Fire Release: Giant Rasengan, Darui's Storm Release was easily annihilated, and he was engulfed by the fireball, leaving no trace of his body.

"Naruto, who gave you permission to interfere?" Sasuke said, somewhat displeased.

"It's all because you let him come over," Naruto replied casually.

Seeing that even their captain, Darui, had been killed, the remaining Cloud Village troops were plunged into despair and surrendered one after another.

"What do you mean? Are we going to kill them?" Sasuke asked.

"No need, I will arrange for the Anbu to escort them back to Konoha as a bargaining chip with Kumogakure."

Naruto waved to the shadows, and several ANBU members immediately appeared beside him and led the Cloud Village troops away.

Chapter 63 The Enraged Raikage

"what!"

Upon seeing the news, the Fourth Raikage, A, was so enraged that he smashed his office desk to pieces with a single punch.

"Damn Konoha, they've gone too far! We'll attack them tomorrow!"

Tsuchida and Karui watched as the Fourth Raikage vented his frustration by destroying the office equipment, knowing that he wouldn't listen to anything they said at this point.

Their own village sent people to test the newly appointed Hokage of Konoha, but the people they sent were captured and forced to exchange supplies for him.

Most importantly, Darui is also dead. He was originally groomed to be the Fifth Raikage. He was strong and possessed the bloodline limit Storm Release, making him a good successor.

But he was killed by Konoha.

Although the Cloud Village was at fault first, they valued loyalty and friendship more than anything else. The Fourth Raikage would find it difficult to remain calm in a short time after someone they cared about was killed.

Once the Fourth Raikage had calmed down, he immediately ordered a meeting of the Cloud Village's top brass.

"We can't let Konoha off the hook like this, or they'll only become more aggressive!"

"But we have no idea how much hidden strength Konoha has. Judging from the traces left at the scene, Naruto Uzumaki may have only made one move throughout the entire incident. The rest of the time, it was a Lightning Release ninja fighting, and there were traces of Lightning Blade."

“Raikiri? Kakashi Hatake? But how could he possibly defeat the five Jonin we sent by himself, especially with Darui among them?”

"I heard that Naruto Uzumaki used the Nine-Tails' chakra while he was still conscious during the Chunin Exams, which means he is already a perfect Jinchuriki."

"Are we just going to let this go? Now that Tsunade has left, and the Third Hokage and Orochimaru have both perished, Konoha only has two Kage-level fighters left, Naruto and Jiraiya. This is their weakest point!"

"We need to take this into consideration; we still don't know enough about Naruto Uzumaki."

"So, are we going to send more people to probe, only to have them captured again?"

The Fourth Raikage found their argument annoying and slammed his hand on the table, drawing everyone's attention.

"Stop arguing! I am the Raikage, and I will make the decision!"

The Fourth Raikage glanced around and, seeing that no one dared to interrupt, began to share his thoughts.

"Let's pretend to agree to Konoha's offer of an exchange, then ambush them!"

"This time, Yugito and I will personally take action, and we are sure to defeat the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki!"

The group looked at each other, somewhat hesitant.

“An ambush is possible, but would our combat strength be insufficient? Perhaps it would be necessary to send Lord Killer Bee as well,” a high-ranking official said.

But the Fourth Raikage flew into a rage upon hearing this.

"Are you looking down on me? Even the Nine-Tails itself is not something we in Kumogakure have never dealt with, let alone a thirteen or fourteen-year-old Jinchuriki!"

Everyone present knew that the Fourth Raikage was angry on the surface because he felt looked down upon, but in reality, he didn't want Killer Bee to leave Kumogakure and encounter danger.

But then, a figure wearing sunglasses appeared behind the Fourth Raikage.

"Yo, yo, this great one is going to participate in the mission too, and even the big brother can't stop me, yo, yo!"

The Fourth Raikage turned around, saw Killer Bee, and immediately slammed his hand down on Killer Bee's head.

"You bastard, who gave you permission to sneak out? Didn't I tell you you weren't allowed to leave Yunlei Gorge?!"

"Big brother needs my help, and I can't just stand by and do nothing!"

At this point, other high-ranking members of the Cloud Village also came up to dissuade them.

"Either bring Killer Bee, or don't ambush them at all, so you don't end up dragging the Two-Tails Jinchuriki and the Raikage into it."

"Killer Bee and Yugito are both perfect Jinchūriki, and their fighting strength cannot be ignored."

"The Abby duo can only unleash their full potential when they work together."

After being persuaded by everyone, including Killer Bee, the Fourth Raikage had no choice but to agree to the plan.

"But at that time, only I will be able to face Konoha directly, while you and Yugito can just release the Tailed Beast Ball from a distance."

"That's decided!"

……

Meanwhile, Naruto and his group had already arrived at Sunagakure.

Upon seeing Naruto, the person who came to greet him quickly bowed and said, "Hokage-sama, this way please."

Although the initial plan was for Sunagakure to exchange supplies for prisoners, Sunagakure indicated that they were short of supplies, so Naruto proposed to come to Sunagakure in person to discuss the specifics.

As the victorious party, Konoha did not make things difficult for Sunagakure and their prisoners, so Naruto's arrival in Sunagakure was more like a sightseeing trip.

He curiously observed the appearance of Sunagakure, trying to discern any differences between it and Konoha.

Then he came to a conclusion—Sunagakure was indeed very poor.

Sasuke blurted out, "Do the villagers of Sunagakure really have enough to eat?"

Kankuro and Temari remained silent. As the children of the Third Kazekage, they were not worried about material things, but they were also aware of how poor the geographical environment of Sunagakure was. That was why they had their eyes on Konoha, even though it seemed that the result would make Sunagakure even poorer.

But since it was their hometown, they couldn't possibly agree with Sasuke.

No, one person actually did that—

“Because Sunagakure is too foolish, this village even needs the Kazekage to mine gold to supplement its finances,” Gaara said coldly.

Kankuro couldn't help but click his tongue: Sure enough, because of what happened when he was a child, Gaara doesn't feel any sense of belonging to Sunagakure. He's even helping outsiders to criticize Sunagakure now.

Temari, however, had a different idea. As the older sister, she understood Gaara better than Kankuro, and knew that Gaara actually cared about Sunagakure.

Naruto looked at Gaara curiously upon hearing this: "So, if you became the Kazekage, what would you do?"

"I will distribute the ninjutsu I learned in Konoha to the ninjas so they can learn them, and then let them farm, improve the geographical environment of Sunagakure, and make full use of Sunagakure's geographical advantages," Gaara blurted out, clearly these words had been lingering in his mind for a long time.

Kankuro facepalmed: Isn't this a complete rip-off of Konoha? You've been here for a few months and you've completely become one of them?

Naruto nodded approvingly and said, "It's a good thing that you're willing to put in the effort to change things."

But he then pointed out the shortcomings: "But this would severely weaken Sunagakure's military strength. At the same time, Sunagakure is adjacent to Konoha and Iwagakure, making it vulnerable to being attacked while it is weak—of course, Konoha would not do that."

Gaara seemed thoughtful upon hearing this.

Indeed, Konoha was able to implement this policy because of Naruto's invincible strength, and even so, it was still tested by Kumogakure.

If it were Sunagakure, they would probably suffer a great loss in the first wave of probing, which would then trigger an attack from other countries.

“However, I still intend to promote these ninjutsu within Sunagakure, to ordinary people. Even if only one in a hundred learns them, it will still be of some help to Sunagakure,” Gaara continued.

"Not bad either."

As the two talked, they arrived at their destination.

"Let's part ways here. Sasuke, you all go and rest first. I'm going to talk to the higher-ups at Sunagakure."

Chapter 64 Naruto's Purpose

"Are we... really not going to send someone to ambush Naruto?"

"Bury what? Does Sunagakure even have enough manpower left?"

"We must not show weakness during the negotiations. At worst, we can give up the One-Tailed Jinchuriki. Anyway, all he does in the village is cause trouble."

"What nonsense are you talking about? How can we just throw away weapons of war like tailed beasts!"

……

Before the negotiations even officially began, the high-ranking officials of Sunagakure were already arguing incessantly.

However, these issues could not be resolved, for no other reason than that Sunagakure was too weak and poor. Now that the operation had failed and the Kazekage had been lost, Sunagakure was almost unworthy of the title of one of the Five Great Nations.

"You guys are having a really lively conversation, how about I join in?"

A smiling figure pushed open the conference room door, silencing the crowd inside.