Chapter 202 Jiraiya: You have changed, Orochimaru

The pitter-patter of rain streaked across the glass, leaving wet lines on the windows.

The strong wind rattled the tent, and its corners twitched from time to time, as if it was about to be lifted up and blown away into the swaying night of heavy rain.

In the tent used for discussions at Konoha's headquarters.

A chandelier, a table, and four cups.

Four people sat around the round table, sitting on the edge of the circular aperture of the chandelier. The light just illuminated their bodies, but made their faces obscured.

"...As I said before, I never agree with this action!"

Jiraiya, who has always been carefree, had a gloomy face, and his tone was filled with anger that could not be concealed: "Taking action against Hanzo now is undoubtedly a breach of trust. Where will the credibility of the village come from?!"

If Hanzo and the black cat hadn't suddenly attacked and severely damaged Sunagakure's troops, the Konoha troops led by Orochimaru, who were attacked from both sides and at the end of their battle, would have been defeated long ago.

Even now, the Amegakure troops led by Hanzo are still responsible for nearly half of Sunagakure's main offensive, allowing Orochimaru to receive follow-up assistance from Tsunade and Jiraiya.

Only then were they able to jointly launch a counterattack against Sunagakure, gradually suppressing Sunagakure's long-arrogant arrogance, and push Sunagakure back to the borders of the Kingdom of Wind.

What does it mean to attack Hanzo now?

Burning bridges? To kill the donkey? Seeing gain and forgetting one's righteousness?

"Jiraiya, do you really think Hanzo is kind and righteous to us?"

Danzo glanced at Jiraiya with his one eye, and said with a gloomy expression: "I can tell you that from the very beginning, his declaration of war against the Kingdom of Wind was in my plan and expectation."

Jiraiya didn't know that Hanzo suddenly declared war on Sunagakure and that Danzo and the roots were obstructing it.

When he heard this sentence, he was stunned for a moment, but he quickly realized what it meant, and his expression instantly became shocked and angry: "It was you who massacred those civilians of the Rain Country and then framed them. On Sunagakure's head?"

No wonder Hanzo suddenly attacked Sunagakure by such a coincidence when Konoha's defense line was about to collapse.

If the data Hanzo gave in his condemnation of Sunagakure Village were true enough, wouldn't it mean that Danzo directly killed nearly a thousand innocent civilians? !

"Yes, I did it."

Danzo selectively ignored the anomaly in that action, as if he had forgotten the fear in his heart at that time, and admitted it with his head held high, not ashamed but proud.

In his opinion, what Konoha should really be grateful for is not Hanzo and the Amegakure Village, but him, the hero who lured Hanzo into taking action and entering the game!

As for the nearly a thousand civilians of the Kingdom of Rain who died?

How can a war not kill people? Are there not many civilians killed in the war?

The Second Ninja World War lasted for three or four years. The number of civilians who died directly and indirectly as a result of the war was not just in the thousands but even hundreds of thousands?

Besides, they are not the civilians of the Fire Country. If they die, they will die. If you want to blame them, just blame them for being unlucky.

Because the rules of the game are set by the five major countries, as the makers of the rules, they can ignore the rules to a certain extent, and even break or modify the rules when necessary.

In the face of victory in the war and sufficient benefits, so-called principles and justice can be sacrificed, not to mention the lives of civilians in other small countries.

There is no need for any reason at all, it is just a question of whether you want it or not, and whether it is worth it.

In the ninja world, being weak is the original sin.

No matter which big country it is, it has always been this way, and it has been tried and true.

"Do you want to accuse me of killing innocent people indiscriminately and being cruel and cold-blooded?"

Seeing Jiraiya who was so angry that he stood up, Danzo was unmoved and even sneered and said: "Are you worthy? What qualifications do you have for retreating to the rear because of the affair between your children when Konoha is in danger?"

"you!"

"That's enough, Jiraiya!"

Several clear veins popped out of Jiraiya's forehead. He was about to say something but was interrupted by a cold voice.

"Elder Danzo is right."

Facing Jiraiya's gaze, Orochimaru looked calm and indifferent, and said bluntly: "Our cooperation with Hanzo is to get what we need."

"He did help us solve our urgent need, but without the supplies we provided, how could he survive until now with only the extremely limited supplies from the Kingdom of Rain?"

There is no doubt that the Kingdom of Rain basically relies on imported food and has no ability to be self-sufficient. It has insufficient reserves of materials and naturally has no sustained combat capability.

Therefore, Hanzo used the excuse of "cooperation" to extort a large amount of "aid materials" from them at very low prices during this period, including not only food, but also medicines and ninja tools.

Hearing Orochimaru's words, Jiraiya choked for a moment, suppressed his anger and said: "In that case, why can't we continue to cooperate with Hanzo? It is obviously better to reduce sacrifices and defeat Sunagakure Village with only a few supplies. Choose!”

"idiot."

Orochimaru spat out two words very calmly, and before Jiraiya continued to fuss and get angry, he continued: "Because those supplies were provided by His Highness the Daimyo, and this operation was the instruction given by His Highness the Daimyo."

"He said that what he gave to others could be taken by others, but what he did not want to give to others could not be reached for."

Jiraiya is just naive, not really stupid.

He could quickly understand the meaning of Orochimaru's words after just thinking about it for a moment.

Your Highness, the Daimyo, does not want Hanzo and the Country of Rain, represented by Amegakure Village, to win this war, even if they join forces with Sunagakure Village, which was still hostile to each other before.

Two big countries fight to the death, no matter which side wins, the small country has no right to intervene.

"Moreover, Hanzo's appetite is getting bigger and bigger, and the price is getting more and more fierce."

Orochimaru sighed and said helplessly: "Facing Hanzo's offensive, the Sand Village was only panicked for a while at the beginning, but now it has gradually recovered its state and started to play steadily and steadily, and the decline has been eliminated."

The reason why Konoha can provide resource assistance to Rain Village so readily is that it hopes to unite with Rain Village to quickly end the victory of the Rain Country battlefield, and then rush to deal with the Sand Village troops in the River Country to completely establish the victory.

But the Third Kazekage is indeed a smart man.

You know, after two years of squeezing, many supplies of the Rain Country have been eaten by Sand Village, and with the supplies provided by the Daimyo of the Wind Country, the Sand Village is also qualified to fight a protracted war.

It seems that the Rain Village troops led by Hanzo are unstoppable and are about to drive the Sand Village troops back home, but in fact, there is no way to deal with the Sand Village now.

Apart from other things, the terrain of Wind Country is full of yellow sand. Anyone who goes there will not be able to adapt to the local climate, and anyone who sees it will have to think twice, not to mention the Rain Ninja who is good at using water escape and relies on water sources.

The delaying strategy of timely change directly cut off the possibility of a quick victory. The stalemate at the border between Wind and Rain Country is obviously to delay time.

After all, Konoha cannot always support Hanzo and Rain Village. Even if they can provide the maximum discount, Rain Village can no longer provide enough funds to buy supplies. It can't just give them away for free.

It's okay for a short time, but not for a long time.

The third generation of Kazekage clearly saw this.

Sand Village is now shrinking into its turtle shell and looks unhurried. Even Chiyo's son and daughter-in-law, the puppet master couple, have recently led people to attack supply points more and more frequently.

It is obvious that they want to further consume Konoha's reserve supplies, increase Konoha's material burden, and accelerate the breakdown of the alliance between Konoha and Rain Village.

"How could this happen?"

Jiraiya figured this out, stood there blankly, and sat down dejectedly after a moment, whispering: "Is there no better solution?"

Seeing that the war has developed to the final stage, it will end as long as the Sand Village is completely defeated, but now the situation has to be changed back to the original state.

"Jiraiya, we are not asking for your opinion, we are just informing you now!"

Danzo rebuked coldly and unceremoniously: "The third generation has restored the name, and Orochimaru, as the commander-in-chief and deputy commander, and I also agree with this action. You have no right to refute here!"

After that, he no longer looked at Jiraiya who was lost in thought, but looked at Tsunade who was silent from beginning to end.

Covetousness and fear flashed across his one eye, and he asked, "Orochimaru and I are not suitable to meet Hanzo. Tsunade, as the person who will face Hanzo in this operation, do you have anything to say?"

Tsunade's face was calm, and there was no fluctuation on her face, only boundless calmness, and her tone was equally indifferent: "I have no objection to this operation, but I want to know what I should do."

Her reaction was too calm, completely unlike the impulsive and irritable Tsunade before, which made Danzo a little uneasy.

He who controls the root naturally knows what has happened in the village during this period.

Including the death of Uzumaki Mito, Tsunade became the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki.

Undoubtedly, for him, these are two good news.

First of all, the death of Uzumaki Mito means that there is one less person who can restrict him, and only Sarutobi, the Hokage, is left. The "experiments" that he once wanted to conduct but was worried about being discovered can all be planned.

For example, if Uzumaki Mito was still there, he would never dare to touch the wood escape experiment on "Hashirama Cells".

But now, he is sure to get Sarutobi to agree to this plan, and even recruit those Senju clan members who have abandoned their surnames and integrated into Konoha, and let them voluntarily participate in human experiments with the promise of "restoring the glory of Wood Release".

Secondly, if he wants to become Hokage, the biggest obstacle is Tsunade-sama, who is even more threatening than Orochimaru.

But Jinchūriki is a "weapon" and a "tool". Unless there is no other choice, it is impossible to become a "kage". This is enough to destroy Tsunade's possibility of becoming a "kage".

It's a pity that this also means that the Nine-Tails cannot be controlled by him.

However, these two things will actually make Tsunade change so much?

I don't know whether this change is good or bad...

"You just need to go to Hanzo under the pretext of escorting aid supplies."

Danzo kept thinking in his heart, but he still explained calmly on the surface: "The people I planted inside the Hidden Rain Village will take action directly when Hanzo is relaxed."

"It would be great if we can kill him, but if it is just a serious injury, you have to take action."

"The Hidden Rain Village is not a concern. Hanzo is the strong one. As long as Hanzo is solved, the leaderless Hidden Rain Village will immediately collapse."

"The troops led by Jiraiya will ambush the Hidden Rain Village on the route that the Hidden Rain Village must take to escape. It will be easy to kill the remnants of the Hidden Rain Village after encircling them from front and back."

This is the main reason why Jiraiya can know the inside story of this operation. If Jiraiya did not need to lead the team to penetrate the rear of the Hidden Rain Village, he would not have told this naive guy about this operation.

"...I see." Tsunade pondered for a moment, then nodded, "I thought you would forget about the 'Dawn', but now it seems that you don't need me to remind you."

"Humph, of course you won't forget."

Danzo narrowed his eyes slightly, and said in a fearful tone: "Their intervention once or twice before can be regarded as an accident, but even the shrewd guy Ohnoki ran into a wall and was defeated there."

"Obviously, those mud legs are not easy to deal with. Of course, we must guard against them interfering as before."

The information on the black market is interoperable. As the root of Konoha, how could he be unaware of Ohnoki's behavior of hiring bounty ninjas.

But he didn't take it seriously at the time, thinking that there would be no other result except that the "Dawn" was hit hard.

He even planned to wait for those bounty ninjas to return from the Rain Country and use his connections to get a copy of the information about the Dawn from them.

Unexpectedly, the "Dawn" was not beaten, but instead eliminated all the bounty ninjas, and even hung their heads and bodies outside the city, slapping Ohnoki's old face a few times, which was completely beyond the expectations of all those who knew about it.

When the photos of the scene were passed to Danzo, the shocking scene surprised him and even made a bold guess.

In the previous action to lure Hanzo to take action, could it be that Dawn secretly intervened?

When this idea came up, he was shocked, but the more he thought about it, the more suspicious he became, and even cold sweats came down.

Because it makes perfect sense.

In that incident, the biggest beneficiary, besides Konoha, was Dawn.

Before Hanzo declared war on the Wind Country, he first went to seize the position of the leader of the Hidden Rain Village. The leader of Dawn also happened to help, and took the initiative to let the black cat assist Hanzo to defeat the Hidden Sand Village.

That leader not only solved his enemies, demonstrated his strength for the first time, took away a large number of Rain Country ninjas, but also received rewards from Hanzo, and reasonably split off the northern part of the Rain Country.

Realizing this, how could Danzo not be on guard and fearful of him?

In addition to solving the remnants of the Rain Country, Jiraiya's role was to cut off the possibility of the remnants escaping to the northern part of the Rain Country, to prevent Dawn from picking them up and strengthening their strength again.

"I understand."

Tsunade nodded calmly, then stood up and said, "If there is nothing else, I will go to prepare first."

After that, without waiting for Orochimaru and Danzo to respond, she took a step and lifted the curtain and walked out of the tent.

Seeing him leave, Danzo also stood up, but before leaving, he looked at Jiraiya and sneered, "If you are still a Konoha ninja, be prepared for me, obey orders, follow commands, don't act on impulse, don't be soft-hearted!"

As the two left one after another, only Orochimaru and Jiraiya were left in the tent, and it fell into a dead silence.

"Is it really right for us to do this?"

After a long silence, Jiraiya's voice became hoarse, as if he was talking to himself.

"This is how the world is."

Orochimaru looked down at the map and said calmly, "Rational people will always fight against irrational people, endless contradictions, endless interweaving of darkness and light, some people are successful, and some people are destined to be victims."

As he spoke, the corners of his mouth slightly raised, and he sneered: "If you can't bear it in your heart, just treat it as an act that you have to do for the peace between the Land of Fire and Konoha."

"If death has meaning, it only exists when it can be used."

Listening to Orochimaru's increasingly cold-blooded and indifferent words, Jiraiya slowly raised his head, his eyes fell on Orochimaru's face through his forehead hair, as if he wanted to see through this pale face and see the real thoughts inside.

After a moment, Jiraiya shook his head and whispered: "You have changed, Orochimaru, you were not like this before."

"..."

The finger sliding on the map paused, and Orochimaru said calmly: "Maybe."

"After all, I am the same, Tsunade is the same, and you are the same. People will always grow, right?"