If Jiraiya could guess it was Shimura Danzo, Tsunade would certainly reach the same conclusion.
Jiraiya was somewhat bound by etiquette and propriety, but Tsunade had no such restraints.
With disdain, Tsunade scoffed, "That old bastard must have seen you leaving the village and decided to use outsiders to get rid of you."
Uchiha Yato chuckled. "Him? He'll never see himself clearly."
"He's just a clown—no need to pay him much mind."
Seeing that both Uchiha Yato and Tsunade had already made up their minds, Jiraiya didn't press further.
Instead, he turned back and said, "But we still can't kill these Cloud ninja, right?"
"If the old man blames us later, we won't have a good explanation, will we?"
Jiraiya wasn't wrong—this was, after all, a matter of international diplomacy.
And if given the chance, Shimura Danzo would undoubtedly pull every trick to convince Sarutobi Hiruzen to sacrifice Uchiha Yato for the sake of the Hidden Leaf's peace.
Hadn't something similar happened in the original timeline? The Cloud Village had literally tried to kidnap Hyuga Hinata right from their doorstep.
And what did the Third Hokage do? He bent over backward, letting a Hyuga branch family head die to appease them. If things ever reached that point, Uchiha Yato would sooner defect than sit around waiting to be sacrificed.
Uchiha Yato relented slightly. "Then what should we do now?"
"I've already fought them. It's not like we can just nitpick at this point."
Jiraiya volunteered to negotiate with the dark-skinned brothers.
Uchiha Yato cut him off. "Cut it out. You'd get swindled and still be counting their money for them."
"Let me handle this."
With that, Uchiha Yato ceased his ninjutsu assault and strode forward, addressing the dark-skinned brothers.
"Stop. Let's not fight anymore."
The remaining onlookers were left speechless.
Aside from the initial exchange where the dark-skinned brothers had actually used their techniques, the rest of the battle had just been Uchiha Yato showing off his spell artillery."Fighting and killing is no good, and it's easy to harm the flowers and grass."
Silence. The scene instantly became eerily quiet.
Truly, it was a case of "the magistrates are free to burn down houses while the common people are forbidden to light lamps"—this perfectly described Uchiha Yato's current behavior.
Jiraiya then called out, "You've probably been deceived."
"There's no culprit behind the Eight-Tails' rampage on our side."
Hearing the other side giving face, A adjusted his stance and said,
"It was definitely someone from your Hidden Leaf. We received intel that one of your group is the culprit behind the Eight-Tails' rampage."
Even though he'd already been beaten, he couldn't afford to lose face.
Though the future Fourth Raikage always came across as a brute, one had to admit he wasn't entirely without brains.
At the very least, he knew his younger brother was both his weakness and the Jinchūriki of Kumogakure, and he made sure to protect him.
Unlike other villages that treated their Jinchūriki as disasters—either subjecting them to oppressive management or outright psychological manipulation.
(Sarutobi Hiruzen thought: I feel like you're insulting me.)
At this point, Uchiha Yato spoke up, "I know what's going on now."
"I know who sent you here, and I also know who the real culprit behind the Eight-Tails' rampage is."
This left both Jiraiya and Tsunade puzzled—what was Uchiha Yato getting at?
The Kumogakure ninja on the other side were equally confused.
Uchiha Yato continued, "This has to be the doing of our 'Kage of Blame'—"
"Wait, no, the Hokage's advisor, Shimura Danzo."
Tsunade and Jiraiya took this relatively calmly, but A was having none of it.
"Nonsense! How can you prove that?"
Uchiha Yato loved this kind of straight man. Though A acted tough, he was unwittingly following Yato's lead.
Yato replied, "I assume your intel came from Dodai, right?"
"Our Hokage's advisor is indeed from Hidden Leaf, but his methods are so underhanded that he'd easily orchestrate something twisted like this."
"Just based on these two points, I can deduce that Dodai was manipulated by Shimura Danzo."
Now A was starting to waver. Originally, he just wanted to let Uchiha Yato show off a bit so they could move on.
After all, after ten minutes of being roasted by fire jutsu, he had already acknowledged Yato's strength.
But now, the more they talked, the more plausible Yato's explanation sounded—it really did seem like Shimura Danzo was the mastermind.
The realization that he'd been used as a pawn made A feel terrible, as if he'd grown a pair of donkey ears on his head.
The higher-ups of Kumogakure had been fooled by Shimura Danzo, leading to A's defeat at Uchiha Yato's hands and now being lectured and humiliated.
A stubbornly retorted, "These are just your speculations. You have no concrete evidence."
Uchiha Yato smirked, "Even if I did have concrete evidence, why would I show it to you?"
"Help outsiders bully my own village?"
"I'm not that stupid. Or are you trying to trick me into revealing something with such a cheap tactic?"
Only then did A realize—the person talking to him wasn't from his own village, but an enemy shinobi.Uchiha Yato said this entirely on purpose.
First, as he himself stated, he couldn't possibly reveal all of his own village's secrets in front of ninja from another village.
Second, by leaving doubts and ample room for interpretation, he allowed the higher-ups of the Hidden Cloud to draw their own conclusions, making them more likely to believe his words.
Finally, only by leaving such suspense could he provoke irritation in them, allowing Uchiha Yato to ruthlessly fleece them.
At this point, A was indeed starting to get frustrated. Both sides were well aware that if things escalated, it could very well reignite the flames of war across the shinobi world.
The Hidden Leaf had Tsunade, while the Hidden Cloud had the A-B Combo. Gradually, both sides began offering concessions and softening their stance.
For Uchiha Yato, backing down was acceptable, and giving the other side an out was fine—but only if he could profit from it. If he couldn't squeeze some benefit out of the situation, he wouldn't spare anyone's pride.
Uchiha Yato spoke up again, "You must remind your higher-ups when you return—how could they fall for such an obvious trap so easily?"
"What if this tiny misunderstanding leads to the outbreak of the Third Shinobi World War? Then the blame would fall squarely on you."
Uchiha Yato wasn't entirely wrong. Rumors like these, which easily bred misunderstandings, were the most dangerous. Hadn't the Third Shinobi World War erupted precisely because of the disappearance of the Third Kazekage?
The Sand Village had then successfully pinned the blame on the Hidden Leaf, sparking the conflict.
At this moment, Uchiha Yato, who was stirring the pot, faced no objections from Jiraiya or Tsunade.
Because they knew this was Uchiha Yato at his most authentic—and his most infuriating.
One could call it the kind of behavior that would make even a dog shake its head in disapproval.
After delivering his verbal "lesson," just as everyone thought things were finally over—
Uchiha Yato said, "Alright, now that we've settled matters of state, let's discuss something personal."
A was baffled. What did he mean?
Uchiha Yato explained, "Earlier, you attacked us without reason, causing me immense psychological distress."
"So you must compensate me for my emotional damages."
Both sides mentally cursed Uchiha Yato's family.
Why was Tsunade also cursing his family?
Because when demanding compensation, Uchiha Yato hadn't mentioned her at all—even though she was the one who had been attacked first.
He hadn't so much as uttered her name in his money-grubbing demands.
A was even more miserable—deceived, bullied, and now extorted.
Three layers of debuffs weighed down on him, suffocating him under the pressure.
Of course, that was just the psychological damage. Physically, he had already been battered by Uchiha Yato's relentless Ninjutsu and Tsunade's bone-crushing punches.
Exhausted and unwilling to drag things out further with Uchiha Yato, A handed over the last of his money—20,000 ryō—before leaving with the remaining Hidden Cloud ninja.
Naturally, while sowing discord, Uchiha Yato had made sure to repeatedly drop Shimura Danzo's name.
Successfully diverting the blame, Uchiha Yato was even grateful to Shimura Danzo for taking the fall for him this time.After this brief episode, Tsunade and Jiraiya followed Uchiha Yato back to the Hidden Leaf Village.