As time passed, Shen, who had originally been showing off various exaggerated facial expressions, noticed many unusual things.
Why was the item Iwagakure used for the exchange so suspiciously fragmented?
Quickly using his brain, Shen came up with two relatively plausible guesses.
Either they were deliberately stalling for time, or they never intended to pay any ransom to retrieve Four-Tails Jinchuriki Roshi at all.
"Could it be..." Cold sweat instantly formed on Shen's back.
With his imagination running wild, he had just hypothesized that if this whole situation was a setup, then Roshi and those previous Rock-nin were clearly putting on a big theatrical performance!
Their goal was obviously to stall for time and wait for large reinforcements to arrive.
"No ambush?" Activating Sage Mode, Shen maximized his sensory abilities but couldn't detect any Rock-nin within five kilometers.
He voiced his suspicion.
Nayou frowned tightly: "We need to warn them."
"Yeah, I'll..." Suddenly Shen's expression drastically changed: "Oh no!"
"Was that Rock-nin just now actually a jinchuriki?" Nayou saw through her Byakugan how enormous amounts of chakra were gathering inside the enemy.
"Snake Uncle, heads up!" Pressing the earpiece switch, Shen immediately sprinted toward the exchange site.
Sure enough, the Rock-nin had other plans.
Orochimaru, hearing through the earpiece, wore an icy expression: "Jiraiya! Tsunade!"
Years of built-up teamwork kicked in instantly. Orochimaru, Jiraiya, and Tsunade moved like a single unit.
Mamba and Angel subsequently also released their puppets, surrounding the slightly restless Roshi.
"I thought I was being so careful!" The Rock-nin named Guren narrowed his eyes coldly.
Then suddenly, steam rose from his body.
[Earth Release: Prison of Stone Pillars!] More than a dozen Rock-nin simultaneously launched their ninjutsu.
Almost at the same time, Jiraiya, who was making hand seals, slapped both hands onto the ground.
Over a hundred newly risen rock pillars meant for confinement softened and collapsed as the earth beneath gradually turned muddy.
"Fall back!" Orochimaru, midair, stared intently at the steamed-up Rock-nin.
While transforming the extensive land below into a swamp, Jiraiya performed another set of seals, hardening and extending his hair to block flying spiky earth fragments.
Shen dashed forward but suddenly raised his hand to stop Nawaki and Jiraiya.
"There's an ambush underground!"
Nayou looked disbelieving: "Impossible. I didn't sense any traces at all."
"They're hiding at least four thousand meters underground." In Sage Mode, Shen placed both hands on the ground, wearing a very serious expression: "There are more than two hundred people."
Pulling off something this big and picking this exact moment—it's clear they're after Team One specifically.
Nawaki stretched out his right hand enthusiastically: "Should I punch the ground really hard?"
Looking upward disdainfully, Shen desperately wanted to kick this guy back to the Ninja Academy for a complete re-education.
For starters, even if you punched down four kilometers, how much strength would that even require?
Secondly, hiding at such depths suggests that each of these over two hundred Rock-nin likely possesses strength on par with ordinary Jonins.
"Snake Uncle, we'll go draw their attention," said Shen, grabbing Nayou and Nawaki respectively with each hand before immediately diving underground.
Orochimaru, locked in intense combat, had no spare capacity for healing.
That Rock-nin's steam-based attack was simply too difficult to handle.
Even Tsunade, who had entered the Hundred-Seal state, could only fight the opponent to a draw in terms of strength.
Half a dozen of Suna's puppets were already destroyed within a short time.
That Rock-nin had such insane defense it'd be damn near impossible to take down without some serious firepower.
Even Mamba and Angel, who had originally restrained Roshi, each lost one puppet.
Well-prepared Iwagakure surely wouldn't have sent out anything less than their main forces.
"Hey Han, watch out for that Uchiha brat!" Old Purple, protected by several Rock-nin, warned the Five-Tails jinchuriki engaged in battle.
Han, fighting Tsunade in close combat, quickly formed a large area of high-temperature steam over his body surface, successfully blocking countless tiny silver needles.
"That kid? The Tsuchikage has other plans for him." He said, twisting his body just in time to dodge a silvery-white blade that came out of nowhere.
"Shen!" Orochimaru retracted the Extendable Kusanagi Blade. "Team One, is anyone receiving this?"
In his anxious state, he suddenly remembered that all three of them had gone off to distract more than 200 Rock-nin hiding underground.
"Ahh!" After charging her power for a while, Tsunade punched Han far away.
"Orochimaru, you figure out a way to inform them!" She leapt upward, planning to hold Han back alone.
Orochimaru was quietly plotting countermeasures when he suddenly gasped in shock.
Just as he analyzed Shen's abilities and what kind of danger he might encounter underground, he realized something was wrong.
Why had Iwa hidden underground, at such a depth—4000 meters—beyond Byakugan detection range?
Only if Shen's intelligence had been leaked would Iwa have made such arrangements.
Also, they must have mastered the communication range of the earpieces used during battle.
Orochimaru thought that probably during the battle, Iwa had first dispatched several people to move around underground, intentionally luring Team One to attack actively.
But they hadn't expected Shen's Sage Mode to have a sensing range stretching five kilometers.
And those Rock-nin who got lured into chasing them clearly understood the quirks of Elemental Chakra Mode.
"Orochimaru, give me some time—I have a method that can suppress jinchuriki," Jiraiya beside him said, sitting down on the spot.
With no idea why, Orochimaru could only trust that the other really did have a solution to the current crisis.
More than ten kilometers away from the Exchange Site, Team One was busy running rings around their pursuers and picking up on a lot of strange behavior.
First, upon seeing them, these enemies asked neither their purpose nor faction—they simply gave chase relentlessly.
Secondly, Shen had slowed his pace deliberately several times, yet these people merely maintained what seemed to Team One a relatively safe distance.
Thus finally leading to one summary conclusion: Iwagakure had plotted this beforehand—the whole charade was specifically targeting Team One!
Shen, who had briefly taken the role of a local earth god, really wanted to fire off one DF missile and bury them all alive.
However, following the principle that waste is disgraceful, he eventually suppressed this thought.
What mattered most now was figuring out the intentions of those more than 200 Rock-nin trailing behind him.
As for Team One, thanks to Shen's many contingency plans, he could probably escape from underground unscathed—at the very least, those over two hundred ninja from Iwagakure wouldn't stand a chance of making it back alive.
However, if the target was only one person, the situation would become far more complicated.
"There must be someone inside the village leaking my information," Shen laid out his suspicions calmly, intentionally leaving out the name of the suspect.
In all of Konoha, when the dust settles, the blame will inevitably fall on Danzo.
And in the shinobi world, every mystery eventually leads back to Black Zetsu.
Fully aware of this truth, Shen didn't want things to get overly complicated.
Safeguarding Nayou and Nawaki's safety was his responsibility as team leader.
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