Looking at his hostages, Akane had a thoughtful look on his face. He was contemplating whether to use Dream Manipulation to get information from them or just torture them.
'The latter would be a bit difficult since they are Jonin and must have already received quite good training and torture from enemies.'
"Before that, check if they have any seals or poison on them."
Tsunade, who was standing beside him, nudged him and got him out of his thoughts. She didn't understand what complex things he was thinking, and her choice was to just use Dream Manipulation as quickly as possible and end the task.
"Hmm, I know," Akane replied, and he put his hand on the Jonin's head. Sending his chakra into the Jonin's body, he looked for any hidden poison and if seals were engraved in the mind.
He did find a seal engraved in Jonin's brain, but Akane didn't find any poison to be taken when committing suicide.
"Soft? I don't think so. It seems Iwa was confident in this." Akane murmured while removing the seal and then woke the Senior Jonin up.
"Yo, how are you feeling?"
When the Senior Jonin came into his senses, he heard a devlish whisper. Hearing the voice, his body flinched, and when his hazy vision became clear, he got a good look at the man who had defeated him easily in the fight.
'I was completely defeated, without even being able to do anything. My current position shows how strong the opponent is, and I need to take each step carefully or Iwagakure will suffer even more losses.'
"Done thinking?"
Akane could see that Senior Jonin was thinking of something, and he decided to give him some time before questioning. Being a Senior Jonin, Akane was sure that he would understand the situation he was in, and he might make the following process easier if the Jonin cooperated with him.
The Senior Jonin nodded at his words, and he decided to speak half-truths and half-lies to test the limits of his opponent.
'I am sure I will die soon. Let's see how much I can fool him with truths and li--' "AAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!"
Before the Jonin could complete his thoughts, a mind-numbing pain struck his legs and arms. He couldn't even hold his screams, even though he had faced torture situations before and had trained a lot.
"WHAATTTTTTTTTT!!!!" "SSTOOOPPPPPPPPPP!!!!"
Annoyed by loud screams, Tsunade hit the nerves to prevent Jonin from screaming, and this increased the pain Jonin was feeling since he did not have any outlet for his emotions.
"Stop," Tsunade said as she looked at the Jonin who was about to lose his consciousness. Akane did as she said, and the Jonin stopped feeling the pain instantly. The change in situation was too sudden for his mind to comprehend, and the Jonin's mind decided to shut itself down to prevent itself from being damaged.
"Nope," Noticing the change in Jonin's situation, Akane acted and helped him to prevent the Jonin from losing consciousness. With Akane's timely
'Help', the Jonin didn't lose his consciousness, and he felt even worse now.
"Do not think you can fool me, okay? This was just the start, and my words are the same for all."
The screams of the Senior Jonin were loud enough to wake the other Jonins, who were unconscious, and now all of them had a look of terror on their faces.
It was because it was their first time seeing the Senior Jonin screaming loudly, and from Akane's words, they felt that he was really serious and not joking at all.
The Senior Jonin, who had been given time to catch his breath, looked at Akane, who seemed to be smiling.
'I am sorry, Tsuchikage. It seems I won't be able to fool him.'
The Senior Jonin coughed, spitting blood. His limbs trembled, not just from pain, but from resignation. Akane stood before him, calm and patient, as if time were in his control.
"I'll talk," the Jonin muttered hoarsely. His voice was rough, hollowed out by the pain. "But I want a deal. I speak, you let the others live. Interrogate them later if you want, but don't kill them now."
Akane crouched to his level, eyes still glowing faintly with chakra. "That depends entirely on what comes out of your mouth."
The Jonin gave a bitter smile. "Fair."
He took a deep breath as if preparing to throw himself into another battlefield. "Our orders came directly from Iwa's council, not the Tsuchikage. Officially, this mission doesn't exist. We were told to work with a small Rain Village cell… and a few rogue groups from smaller nations. Not many, just enough to hit and vanish."
Tsunade raised an eyebrow. "And what exactly were you supposed to hit?"
"The supply lines between the Land of Fire and the Land of Wind. Specifically, the shared border outposts Konoha and Suna were using for surveillance and joint missions. We've already wiped out one. Two were left… until now."
Akane's eyes narrowed slightly. "Why drag Rain and others into this?"
"Plausible deniability. If any of us got caught or identified, the assumption would be that rogue ninjas were causing the chaos, mercenaries or bounty hunters, nothing more."
"And the purpose?" Tsunade asked, voice low, dangerous. "There's always a deeper reason. Why stir conflict between Konoha and Suna now?"
The Jonin hesitated. "There's talk… that the relationship between the Kazekage and the Daimyo of Wind Country has grown tense. The Daimyo's daughter was recently wounded, and instead of sending her to Suna's medics, he sent her to Konoha. There were… political implications."
Tsunade's expression hardened. "So it's that mission, and wait a minute. The convoy from before," she muttered.
Akane turned his head. "I understand the mission part, but convoy?"
Tsunade gave a slight nod. "I saw a convoy and thought it was just a noble's convoy. They didn't disclose her identity to us, but I do remember the chakra signature and guard detail being too unusual for a noble. Though I ignored it since I had other things."
The Iwa Jonin continued the words while acting as if he couldn't hear the words they said.
"The Kazekage took offence. Claimed it was a breach of pride, and maybe even trust. Apparently, he believed the Daimyo was trying to show Suna's weakness to Konoha—make Konoha look stronger, more dependable."
"So Iwa decided to help the situation escalate," Akane muttered, eyes narrowing. It was a typical Iwagakure-type decision to escalate any conflict and then reap benefits while acting as a middleman for peace or joining the conflict for more damage.
"Exactly," the Jonin replied. "If enough bases fell, and if there were enough signs of Konoha pulling back, or letting Suna forces take heavier losses, mistrust would deepen. You know how these things go, it doesn't take much for a crack to split."
Tsunade cursed under her breath. "And if a war broke out between us and Suna again, Iwa would sweep in, take territory, maybe even ally with the Wind Daimyo under the guise of peacekeeping."
Akane stood up, his face unreadable. "You were pawns in a false-flag operation. And you almost pulled it off."
"Iwa's not alone," the Jonin said weakly. "There's someone else. We didn't see him. But he was in the Rain group's command. Rain-nin took orders from him like he was above them. Black cloak, a mask, and we thought that he was a bounty hunter, but he gave intel like a Kage."
Akane and Tsunade exchanged glances.
"That's not Rain. That's… something else," Tsunade muttered.
"Maybe or maybe no," Akane said, his voice low. "Though I might have an idea about who it might be."
He turned away for a moment, rubbing his temples. The web was bigger than he'd expected.
'I didn't expect Hanzo would start interfering this soon. I don't know if that man is Hanzo, but I am sure it is related to him.'
Akane thought with a frown, and he looked at Tsunade, who had clenched her fists. "We need to send this to the Hokage—immediately. This is no longer just border defence. This is manipulation on a global scale."
"No," Akane said.
Tsunade turned to him. "What do you mean by 'no'?"
"We will inform the Hokage," he replied slowly. "But not just yet. First… we track the rest. This group wasn't the only one. If someone's been pretending to be part of the Rain group, giving commands like a ghost… we find out where that trail leads."
"And if we run into the masked?" Tsunade asked, already knowing the answer.
Akane's grin returned. Feral, cold. "Then we pull off the mask and see if he is really the one playing this game or if it's some other group."
---
Support me, and read extra chapters at P@treon: https://[email protected]/Kaoski
Chapter 68 is out on ptreon