With that, Satoshi was about to leave.
"I'll tell Hokage-sama right away that Sunagakure finds it troublesome and is unwilling to help us with this favor."
This move stunned Rasa and Baki.
Was this really someone Hiruzen sent?
How can two villages discuss cooperation, and then one party just goes home if things don't go their way?
Isn't this just pure madness?
The so-called cooperation is essentially a game of chess, a back-and-forth negotiation. In Negotiation, you have to actually negotiate.
Asking for the sky and settling for less, that's the basic process.
Satoshi wasn't good at negotiating. But he had bought clothes at a night market before. If the price wasn't right, he'd leave immediately. Before he could count to three, they would surely stop him.
Rasa really did call out to Satoshi, "Satoshi, please wait."
He knew that once Satoshi returned and exaggerated the story, it would definitely affect the relationship between the two villages.
Although Rasa appeared tough, he secretly wished to cling to the Hokage's powerful backing. At this point, he no longer cared about borrowing money or not.
He first settled Satoshi, telling him to rest well for the night, and that he would send elites to act together the next morning.
Satoshi said, "Kazekage-sama, I have another matter I'd like to discuss with you."
Rasa's heart skipped a beat, fearing he would cause more trouble.
"Go ahead. As long as it's not too much, it can be agreed upon."
"I have a habit of taking walks after dinner in the evening, is it alright if I stroll around the village?"
Rasa thought for a moment.
Would an outsider ninja wandering around the village create a bad impression?
What if he used this as an excuse to snoop for village secrets?
But then he thought, if that were the case, it would be even better. He could then accuse Satoshi of violating the spirit of cooperation. This way, he could use this reason to leverage Hiruzen.
After much consideration, he agreed. "Of course, but please be careful."
"Thank you, I'm off."
After Satoshi left, Rasa pinched his brow.
"This Uchiha brat is really troublesome."
He believed that since Satoshi could come alone, it indicated that the Hokage had extremely high trust in his loyalty and strength. But this young man had such... unfathomable ways of doing things.
Baki cautiously spoke, "Kazekage-sama, according to the intelligence we've received, the Uchiha clan is not doing well in Konoha."
"Hmm, that is rather strange. Could our intelligence be wrong?"
Rasa thought for a moment, then someone delivered some more documents.
"Kazekage-sama, these are the estimated expenses for next month, what do you think..."
"Understood, you may withdraw for now."
Rasa pinched his brow.
Money, money, always money.
"I had originally hoped Konoha would lend us fifty million for emergencies, but I didn't expect the Hokage to not mention it at all."
"Baki, inform me if anything else comes up, I need to go to the desert to... clear my head."
Rasa left the office, leaving behind a worried Baki.
In the evening, Satoshi finished eating a few hard flatbreads at the accommodation provided by Sunagakure. Then he silently climbed a rock wall.
This place was on the edge of the village, with an open view. It was a good spot for sightseeing.
He sat cross-legged, precisely capturing an active light spot deep in the desert.
That was the Fourth Kazekage, the Gold Miner, Sunagakure's top model worker, Rasa. He was using Magnet Release to extract gold from the endless desert.
Seeing this, Satoshi already had a bold idea in his mind.
After Rasa was killed by Orochimaru, he would steal Rasa's corpse and make him mine gold in the desert twenty-four hours a day. That should earn him a lot of money.
Just as he was thinking, a figure suddenly appeared behind him and a cold voice sounded. "Get out, this is my spot."
Satoshi turned to look, and saw that the speaker was a small redhead, only six or seven years old.
His eyes held pure hatred and killing intent.
"Who are you? Why is a child so rude?"
Gaara's face showed killing intent. "I'll say it again, get out."
"Go play somewhere else, I don't have time for you."
Rage ignited in Gaara's heart. He was convinced that this strange guy had come to kill him. They had done this more than once, arranging a stranger near him.
Attracting his attention with various actions, and then, assassinating him.
Today, Gaara was especially irritable. There had already been an attempt during the day, couldn't they let him have some peace at night?
"Do you want to die?!"
He suddenly raised his hand, and the suspended sand around him, like sharks smelling blood, instantly gathered into a giant sand claw.
With a muffled roar, it swept towards Satoshi, grabbing him fiercely.
He wanted to suffocate this annoying white-haired guy to death in the sand, to make him feel the despair of suffocation.
"Hmm?"
Gaara's eyes narrowed. The sand claw closed, but there was no sensation of wrapping around flesh and blood, no feeling of compression.
The sand missed? How was that possible?
A chilling coldness unexpectedly pressed against Gaara's nape. He hadn't even seen how the opponent moved.
Satoshi's ghostly figure appeared behind Gaara. His right hand casually rested on Gaara's small shoulder, his tone playful. "The people of Sunagakure want to kill me, so anything I do now is perfectly reasonable, right?"
Before he finished speaking, Gaara felt an utterly irresistible force from behind. He didn't even have time to summon sand for defense, his entire body was like a sandbag violently flung away.
With a loud bang, he was slapped by Satoshi and sent flying over ten meters away. He crashed heavily into a soft sand dune below, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Pain.
It hurt so much.
Gaara lay in the sand pit, his head buzzing, a complete blank.
What happened?
Where was his proud, absolutely defensive sand?
Why couldn't it keep up with the white-haired man's speed? Why couldn't he even see how the opponent attacked?
An unprecedented sense of frustration and humiliation at being crushed welled up in his heart, followed by an even more violent, destructive rage.
After a brief daze, Gaara struggled to get up. His small body trembled slightly from extreme anger.
"I must kill you!"
He roared, and the surrounding sand began to churn violently, more sand rising from the ground like living creatures.
He wanted to grind this guy who dared to humiliate him into a pulp, inch by inch.
Just at this critical moment, a figure rushed over at extremely high speed.
"Gaara, stop."
Baki dashed forward, standing between the two.
Satoshi narrowed his eyes and asked, "Are you here to kill me too?"
"Too?"
Why say "too"?
Baki had a bad feeling.
Satoshi asked, "Baki-senpai, whose child is this? Why do you all want to kill me without a word?"
"Wait, his name is Gaara, he is the Kazekage's son." Baki's body instantly stiffened.
He already guessed what Satoshi was going to say.
The son of the Kazekage actively attacked an envoy sent by Konoha, intending to murder him.
Indeed, Satoshi looked at Baki and said, "The son of the Kazekage actively attacked an envoy sent by Konoha, with intent to murder."
With each sentence he spoke, Baki's face grew paler.
"Baki-senpai, does this count as the Sunagakure unilaterally breaking the alliance treaty between our two great ninja villages?"
"This..."
Baki was a little flustered.
Satoshi's accusation was very serious, but he couldn't refute it.
"Gaara is just an ignorant child, he doesn't understand..."
Satoshi interrupted Baki mercilessly, "Your so-called child has already mastered very dangerous Ninjutsu."
"By Konoha's standards, he is already an excellent ninja."
(End of Chapter)
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