Chapter 381 High-level meeting

The search for the Third Hokage lasted for several hours, but the Konoha ninjas still failed to find any trace of the Third Hokage.

Although they still insisted on looking for the Third Hokage, they already had the answer in their hearts.

A powerful ninja like the Third Hokage could not disappear for no reason at this time. It is very likely that he was plotted against by the enemy and sacrificed to protect the village.

Similar situations have not happened before.

The Fourth Hokage couple disappeared to protect Konoha and were eventually confirmed dead.

After a light sigh, the captain of the Anbu asked his men to continue looking for the Third Hokage while sending the information to the Hokage Building for the Konoha high-level officials to review.

The Konoha high-level officials at this time were in a state of panic.

Not only did they have to solve the mess after the attack by Orochimaru, but they also had to appease the politicians and wealthy businessmen who participated in the Chunin Exam. If they could not give an explanation to these people, the future of Konoha would become more difficult.

The task of dealing with these politicians and wealthy businessmen was naturally given to Utatane Koharu and Mitomon En.

Although the two were not very experienced, they were able to handle the matter well due to their seniority and age. They barely appeased the politicians and wealthy businessmen with a few words.

Jiraiya cleared out the Oto-nin and the rebel ninja hiding in Konoha, and presided over the Chunin Exam.

After such a big change, the Chunin Exam could not continue. Fortunately, the top eight had been selected in the previous competition, which showed the strength of the younger generation.

After receiving the information from the captain of the Anbu, Jiraiya sighed softly.

Although he was reluctant to admit it, Jiraiya understood that the probability of the third generation teacher being alive was very low. In order to kill the teacher, Orochimaru did not hesitate to arrange assassins to ambush the teacher in advance, and even used the Impure World Reincarnation Technique.

Having committed such a serious mistake, he could no longer convince himself to forgive Orochimaru.

After a while, when the village has a new acting Hokage, he will take the initiative to find Orochimaru and bring him to the old man's spirit to confess his crime.

At this time, an assistant Hokage found Jiraiya and reminded him to attend the high-level meeting.

Jiraiya frowned slightly, but nodded. He was not interested in the noisy high-level meeting, but he knew that he had to attend this high-level meeting.

After arriving at the meeting room, Jiraiya found that there were four people in total, including himself.

The other three were the two consultants and the leader of the Root Organization, Danzo, who was also the core layer of Konoha at present. The rest of the ninjas, even if they were elite jonin, were not qualified to attend this meeting.

The content of this temporary meeting was very simple, discussing who should be the acting Hokage and the candidate for the fifth generation.

Before Jiraiya could speak, the two consultants took the lead and said:

"Jiraiya, Sarutobi is missing now, and his position as the acting Hokage can only be taken up by you, and only you can shoulder this responsibility."

"..." Jiraiya was silent for a few seconds, and then nodded.

Shisui did not stop the advice of the two consultants and tacitly agreed to their decision.

After confirming the candidate for the acting Hokage in a few words, the few people started a new round of discussion, and the topic of this round of discussion was much freer.

After a moment of silence, Mitomon Yan slowly said:

"The emotions of the foreign guests have basically stabilized. They will not ask Konoha for additional compensation, but the commissions received from them in the future will definitely be much less."

Hearing this, Jiraiya and Utatane Koharu nodded gently.

The failure of the Chunin Exam and the disappearance of the Third Hokage had a huge impact on Konoha. Not only would employers doubt the ability of Konoha ninjas to do things, but even the daimyo would threaten Konoha ninjas to reduce military spending.

Shisui chuckled, and then said: "I have said that those outsiders are unreliable. If Konoha wants to become strong, it must replace those wealthy businessmen and nobles and have its own industry."

Faced with Shisui's ridicule, the two consultants were somewhat helpless.

The Root, which used to be the training class for the Anbu, needed funds from the Hokage Building to maintain itself. However, since the Third Hokage disbanded the Root last time, the Root has begun to find new ways and have a new source of funds.

Although it is nominally affiliated with the Anbu, it is actually semi-independent from the Konoha Ninja.

Ignoring Shisui's remarks, the two consultants took out the village's loss and casualty report and passed it to each other for review.

Judging from the data in the report, although Konoha's losses this time are serious, they are within an acceptable range.

Because the battlefield is located outside the city and in the Death Forest, the city of Konoha did not suffer much damage, and the ninjas participating in the operation did not suffer too many casualties.

Except for some unlucky people who were killed by unknown attacks, Konoha's biggest loss was the Third Hokage.

And losing this old and stubborn Hokage does not seem to be a bad thing for the village. Anyway, the Third Hokage will die sooner or later at this age.

Rather than dying in a hospital bed, it is better to die in the war to protect Konoha.

From this point of view, Orochimaru is not really here just to kill the Third Hokage and give his teacher a decent ending.

After getting rid of the absurd thoughts in their minds, several people began to discuss the reconstruction work.

Due to the existence of Wood Release Yamato, rebuilding the building is not a difficult task. It will only take a few weeks at most to restore Konoha to its original state.

After the discussion lasted for half an hour, the meeting finally came to the last topic, which was the selection of the Fifth Hokage.

Jiraiya, who temporarily took over the position of Hokage, is naturally the best candidate for the fifth generation. Whether it is contribution, qualifications or identity, Jiraiya perfectly meets the requirements of becoming a Hokage.

But Jiraiya explicitly refused to become the fifth generation, and took the initiative to propose the idea of ​​hunting down Orochimaru.

But apart from Jiraiya, there is no candidate suitable to become the Hokage in the village.

Seeing that the atmosphere was a bit awkward, Shisui imitated Danzo's tone and said, "Since the position of the fifth generation is undecided, why not let me become the fifth generation."

"Although I can't compare with the first and second generations, I am enough to stabilize the current situation."

As soon as these words came out, they were rejected by the two consultants. For the members of the Tobirama Guard, anyone can become a Hokage, except Danzo.

In other words, Shisui doesn't care about the position of Hokage, otherwise it would be too aggrieved to bring in Danzo's perspective.

After working hard for Konoha for so many years, he didn't even get a nomination for Hokage. He is a loser on the road to Hokage.

Logically speaking, Danzo, who was also a loser, should cooperate with Uchiha.

But Danzo had always targeted Uchiha, causing both sides to fall into the abyss and never be able to become Hokage. It must be said that it was also a bad fate.

More than ten seconds later, Jiraiya said: "Or, let's find Tsunade. I think Tsunade is more suitable to be Hokage than me."

The two consultants looked at each other and nodded. At present, they could only do what Jiraiya said.

…

When the Konoha high-level officials held an emergency meeting, the Konoha jonin class also gathered together.

The captain of the jonin class was Nara Shikaku, the patriarch of the Nara clan, and the rest were young and strong jonins. They were the jonin closest to the core of power except for the Konoha high-level officials.

At this time, they gathered together and looked at the captain Nara Shikaku.

In the absence of the Konoha high-level officials, Nara Shikaku was their backbone, and could tell them what happened in the village and what to do next.

Nara Shikaku was also unambiguous and spoke out his speculation.

He felt that this time, the rebel ninja Orochimaru and the rebel ninja Rasa attacked the Konoha Village. Orochimaru's main goal was to kill the Third Hokage and prove that his path was not wrong.

Rasa's goal was intriguing.

As a rebel Kazekage, Rasa had no reason to attack Konoha. If he wanted to regain the position of the Fourth Kazekage, he should take advantage of the opportunity of the Red Sand Scorpion's departure to attack the Sand Village.

But Rasa stayed with Orochimaru and attacked the Konoha Village together.

This was probably the plan of Rasa and the Red Sand Scorpion, the purpose of which was to weaken the strength of the Konoha Village and let the Konoha Village take the initiative to abolish the treaty signed with the Sand Village.

Considering Rasa's former identity as the Kazekage, this possibility is very high.

But it is not ruled out that Rasa did this deliberately to make Konoha and the Sand Village suspicious, so that when he returns to the Sand Village in the future, he can also lose the help of Konoha.

And more importantly, Nara Shikaku suspected that this matter was related to the masked man.

Although the masked man has not yet appeared in the Chunin Exam, considering that the masked man has secretly controlled the Fourth Mizukage for many years, the probability of secretly influencing the Chunin Exam is very high.

After hearing this, the Konoha Jonin present was very worried about the future of Konoha.

Although the crisis of Konoha's collapse has ended, a new crisis is brewing. Do they really have the ability to continue to protect Konoha?

In the crowd, Sarutobi Asuma was very anxious.

He is the son of the Third Hokage. He has been very rebellious since he was a child. He hates the unchanging second-generation life. After colliding with his father many times, he ran to the Daimyo Mansion and became a guardian ninja.

Now as he grows older, he gradually understands his father and has always wanted to reconcile.

But before he apologized, his father, the Third Hokage, had disappeared, and even his body was not found.

Might Guy looked at Kakashi on the side, his eyes full of doubts. He was naturally very sorry for the disappearance of the Third Hokage, but he still remembered what Kakashi had said before.

Kakashi asked him whether Konohagakure or Hokage was more important. From this point of view, Kakashi seemed to have known that something would happen to Hokage.

Although the senior ninja class had received information about Orochimaru's lurking, he still felt that Kakashi was weird.

Walking to Kakashi, Might Guy whispered, "Kakashi, do you know something? Is the third generation dead or alive?"

Kakashi glanced at Might Guy, and then said, "I don't know either. I hope he is fine."

In fact, Kakashi has been in a state of confusion. He always thought that after the third generation Hokage disappeared, Master Kushina would come forward to take charge of the situation, but he didn't expect that Master Kushina has not come forward until now.

This may be because of Obito or Bai Ye.

Might Guy glanced at Kakashi and didn't ask too much. He believed what Kakashi said and could see from his eyes that Kakashi was not lying.

Even if Kakashi concealed something, Kakashi would tell him when it was time to say it.

This is the bond between him and Kakashi, a promise of youth.

If Kakashi knew what Might Guy was thinking, he would probably smile bitterly, because he didn't know where Konoha's future would go.

…

In the training ground, Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura gathered together.

Sakura felt very scared just thinking back to the big scene that happened in the Chunin Exam. Are those fights between the jonin really within the scope of ninjas?

I am just a Genin, why do I encounter so many monsters every time?

If I encounter such monsters again in the process of performing tasks in the future, can I still live to complete the tasks?

Thinking of this, Sakura looked at Naruto and Sasuke, and her mood became more complicated.

Before graduation, Sakura knew that her strength was not as good as Naruto and Sasuke. She originally thought that it was because she did not accept the guidance of the Jonin.

But as time went by, she found that she, Naruto and Sasuke were getting stronger and stronger.

The opponents that she had to fight hard to deal with were not even a match for Naruto and Sasuke. What should she do to catch up with them and not become a burden?

Thinking of this, Sakura hid under the tree alone and began to shut herself up.

After Naruto and Sasuke looked at each other, Naruto took the lead and asked: "Sasuke, do you want to have a sparring match between us to see who has made greater progress in this period?"

Sasuke nodded and agreed to Naruto's proposal.

After the two sides signed the corresponding seal, they began to spar in the open space.

During the sparring, Naruto asked Sasuke: "Sasuke, where is the Third Hokage now? When do you plan to leave with Orochimaru?"

Sasuke showed a surprised look: "Naruto, how do you know that I have a connection with Orochimaru?"

Naruto said disapprovingly: "Your strength has increased so fast these days, it must be closely related to the curse seal left by Orochimaru. If nothing unexpected happens, you will definitely leave Konoha Village."

"You will pay any price to defeat Uchiha Itachi."

Hearing this, Sasuke shook his head slightly: "That will disappoint you. I really want to find Orochimaru, but It's not for revenge against Uchiha Itachi, but for other purposes..."

Naruto frowned, then said: "What purpose?"

Sasuke said: "In order to become Hokage, after defeating Uchiha Itachi, I will become your competitor, I also want to be Hokage."

Naruto was stunned at first, then smiled and said: "I won't give up the Hokage to you, but if you insist on following Orochimaru, you must be careful, Orochimaru is not a good person."

After a pause, Naruto continued: "By the way, Sasuke, when do you Uchiha plan to step forward? Stop covering it up?"