Yahiko looked at the Five-Tails' Jinchuriki, who now lay collapsed at his feet like a huge piece of luggage. He opened his mouth, tried to say something, but nothing came out. His whole face just screamed injustice.
Haseo, the one behind everything, had already run off and left this mess behind… What virtues did he, Yahiko, have to deserve this kind of treatment?
"Yahiko, Lord Haseo actually made sense—we can't let a Jinchuriki roam freely near the Land of Rain, especially one showing signs of betraying Iwagakure," Konan said, offering that "balanced take" as if trying to comfort Yahiko.
"But…"
The logic was sound, yet shouldn't dealing with the aftermath fall to someone else? If Konoha really foresaw this problem, why didn't they finish the job themselves?
"The real issue now is how we should return the Five-Tails' Jinchuriki," Nagato stated succinctly and directly.
Now that they already had the Jinchuriki in their hands, complaining wouldn't help anymore. The key question remained—how best to send him back to Iwagakure… Returning him wasn't exactly simple either—it took real finesse. Otherwise, it could still cause major problems.
After all, for any ninja village, others were untrustworthy; who would believe in a third party's good intentions?
"Or maybe we could just keep this Jinchuriki ourselves... Well, just kidding… mostly," Konan made an unusually unfunny joke.
It wasn't that Amegakure completely lacked the power to control Tailed Beasts—but they definitely lacked the strength to handle Iwagakure's. All Tailed Beasts in the world belonged to certain villages, and given the balance of power, Amegakure would never dare claim, 'possession belongs to those with virtue'—an old saying implying strength wasn't everything.
"In any case, I'll think it through carefully. Even Lord Haseo forbade us from revealing his role in this whole thing… Besides, we don't have much time. We must quickly return the Five-Tails' Jinchuriki."
Yahiko genuinely felt a headache coming on.
He had a feeling—they needed to get the Jinchuriki back to Iwagakure as soon as possible. Holding onto a host of a Tailed Beast felt far too dangerous.
If there was no other choice, Yahiko considered sneaking into the Land of Earth, dropping the Jinchuriki right at Iwagakure's doorstep, then leaving a note behind… Actually, while this idea might sound half-baked, it indeed had practical potential.
At this point, Yahiko wanted to avoid direct contact with Iwagakure as much as possible. Sneaking around like a delivery squad obviously wouldn't involve confrontation—but regarding Haseo's order about concealing his involvement, that really seemed unreasonable.
The Jinchuriki was still alive, after all. Once he regained consciousness, wouldn't Iwa immediately find out what had happened?
...
While Haseo casually left a pile of messes behind for Yahiko and the others before proudly leading the Uzumaki shinobi back to Konoha, a meeting was currently taking place within Konoha.
Present inside one of the meeting rooms within the Hokage's office building were the Fifth Hokage Minato Namikaze, two Konoha advisors, the Anbu Commander, Fugaku Uchiha—the clan leader—and Kohei Sarutobi.
Kohei Sarutobi's current role was somewhat similar to that of Uzumaki Shikou before him, except he lacked the same level of central authority. The ability to counterbalance the Hokage and decision-making power on key issues—those were things he couldn't even dream about.
To put it plainly, he served as the Fifth Hokage's de facto secretary.
Although Kohei Sarutobi was a "male secretary," it should be said that he belonged to Konoha's core power structure. After all, serving as an aide to the Hokage was naturally an important position.
The fundamental reason Kohei Sarutobi had earned his current position lay initially in the fact that his father was the Third Hokage, further promoted by Haseo's attention toward him back then, followed by natural developments thereafter.
His personal administrative abilities formed the internal basis for everything. There was no need to elaborate further upon Kohei's administrative skills—they were excellent. On the other hand, his strength as a ninja wasn't much to write home about anymore.
In short, those who had lived through the era of the Third Hokage were more than willing to grant Kohei Sarutobi a certain status.
They were now holding a relatively serious high-level meeting, mainly focused on matters not directly related to Haseo.
"As of now," Kohei Sarutobi flipped through the documents in his hand and summarized, "most of the Konoha ninja who participated in the pursuit of the rogue ninja from the previous incident—the defected Uchiha and Root rogue ninja—have completed their missions and returned.
While the incident has entered its final stage, it's still far from truly being over."
"The pursuing Anbu shinobi made certain sacrifices, eliminating most of the rogue ninja, but there are several critical points we must note.
Firstly, approximately nine names remain missing from the list; they might simply be hiding extremely well beyond our detection, or perhaps our ninjas were eliminated—or died together with them—resulting in no information reaching the village.
Therefore, these rogue ninja can only be classified as missing, and highly likely still alive."
If Haseo could see the list currently in Kohei Sarutobi's hands, he would notice one familiar name—Obito Uchiha.
Haseo would first feel surprised, then understand.
It wasn't difficult to comprehend how Obito Uchiha became involved in Danzo Shimura's rebellion and thus became a rogue ninja… Although Obito seemed morally sound during his childhood, the real issue was his rock-bottom IQ.
The Uchiha clan itself had significant problems regarding intelligence, and Obito Uchiha repeatedly set new lows for his clan. He probably went undercover with the intention of saving the rebels, yet somehow, along the way, without clear reasons, he ended up being exactly what he tried to save.
Then came grand dreams like "creating a new world."
"Secondly," Kohei continued, "the leader of the rebellion, Danzo Shimura, remains at large. After slipping into the Land of Water, we've had no intel on him since then… It's safe to assume he's already gone.
This individual is extremely crucial—we must locate him.
As a high-ranking member of Konoha and Root division leader, he possesses extensive confidential knowledge regarding Konoha."
At this point, no one could be certain that Danzo Shimura would still protect these secrets with a clear conscience—or if they might now fall into enemy hands. All of these secrets could become his bargaining chips with other ninja villages.
These concerns, though logical, turned out to be unfounded—Danzo Shimura was already dead; it was only that Konoha had not yet learned of his demise.
The council members present were now gripped by anxiety. Their primary objective had always been to capture Danzo Shimura alive and bring him back to Konoha, or failing that, to eliminate him immediately. Yet now he had "escaped."
Both the Uchiha clan and the Anbu had sent out many operatives to hunt down Danzo Shimura, but now it looked like none of it had amounted to anything.
"The third issue concerning Danzo's whereabouts is this: Uchiha Shisui and Uchiha Itachi from the Uchiha clan were also tasked with pursuing him, but both have gone completely silent..."
You all know how strong those two young shinobi are. It's almost unthinkable that they'd be taken down without a chance to resist, not even managing to send back a single message.
Saying this, Kohei Sarutobi glanced toward Uchiha Fugaku seated on the opposite side.
"I know the power of Shisui Uchiha and Itachi Uchiha very well," Fugaku responded. "Based on Danzo's current forces, if they had crossed paths, there was no way the latter could have matched the former. Furthermore, Shisui and Itachi's minds are sound—they stand firm in the will of Konoha.
So if two such powerful individuals suddenly go silent, something significant must've happened on their end."
The Fifth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, spoke up—effectively coming to Uchiha Fugaku's defense. But this was also truly what Minato thought—there was absolutely no way Uchiha Shisui and Uchiha Itachi would ever turn rogue at such a critical time. They had no motive whatsoever.
So something must have happened to them.
Something very serious.
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