Chapter 170 The "Attacked" Konoha Camp
Hyuga Ritsu returned to the Konoha camp before dawn. His arrival caused quite a stir when entering the encampment. The pair of jade-white horns at his temples was rather conspicuous, and his chakra signature had undergone considerable changes as well, causing the guards on duty to hesitate to let him pass. In the end, Hiruko personally came forward, claiming he'd sent Ritsu out secretly to gather intelligence, finally gaining Ritsu entry into the camp.
Once they returned to the keep, temporarily dismissing other personnel, Hiruko immediately asked with urgency, "Ritsu, what's going on? How did you grow horns?"
He stared intently at the horns at Ritsu's temples, his eyes full of wonder.
Ritsu smiled and said, "It's atavism."
"Atavism?"
"You mean... what you said before about the Hyuga, Senju, the Kaguya clan from the Hidden Mist, and the horned clan from the Hidden Cloud all being descendants of the Sage of Six Paths—that truly wasn't a joke?"
"Though I'd very much like to be a humorous person, I clearly lack talent in that area."
Hiruko fell silent. He stared at Ritsu, discovering his student didn't appear to be joking. He thought for a moment, wanting to say something but not knowing what would be appropriate. Finally, he could only sigh helplessly and say, "As long as you understand your own situation, Ritsu, I have no issues. But this change of yours is quite significant. You'll definitely need to provide an explanation to the Hokage."
Ritsu remained composed, raising his teacup and taking a sip. "I'm telling the truth, and I believe the Hokage won't care about such minor details. As long as I don't harm the village's interests, there won't be any problems."
Hiruko thought about it and didn't argue. Based on his observations during this time, Minato was indeed a pragmatist who prioritized the village's interests. His attitude toward their master-student pair proved this. Though they researched forbidden techniques, they'd never harmed the village's interests. Their strength was equivalent to strengthening the village's power, so Minato turned a blind eye to their activities.
However, Hiruko still frowned and said, "That's true enough, but if the Cloud ninja choose to go to war at this moment, would you say the village's interests are harmed or not?"
"I saw the commotion you caused earlier. That fire burned quite fiercely—it took over an hour to extinguish... By the way, did the Cloud ninja discover your identity?"
He looked at Ritsu, inquiring carefully.
Ritsu immediately explained, "The Cloud ninja started that fire themselves. They used over eighty explosive tags to blast through my Nativity of a World of Trees, causing the blaze."
"As for my identity, I believe they didn't discover it. C only became suspicious after I used Gentle Fist, and besides—"
He paused here, a pleased smile appearing on his face. "So what if they did discover it? Whatever they say is just slander against me. It's not like they can claim whatever they want as truth, is it? This isn't the Third Hokage's era anymore."
Hiruko's brow remained furrowed. He looked at Ritsu and said heavily, "The Cloud ninja may not choose to continue negotiations. You've caused such a disturbance—the possibility of them attacking without declaration isn't small at all."
Hearing Hiruko say this, not only did the smile on Ritsu's face not diminish, it became even more radiant. He said, "So, Sensei, I think rather than passively waiting for the Cloud ninja to make trouble, why don't we strike first?"
Hiruko's eyes widened as he looked at his student.
Strike first?
He felt his head aching terribly. A foolish student was certainly frustrating, but one who was too outstanding also brought endless troubles.
He couldn't help glancing outside. The night was still dark, with some time before dawn, but he felt this night had already been long enough to leave him mentally exhausted.
He rubbed his forehead and emphasized heavily, "Ritsu, don't forget the Hokage's instructions—avoid fighting if possible!"
Ritsu immediately laughed upon hearing this, his face full of dismissal. He said, "But the problem is the situation has already escalated. Even if we claim it was Missing-nin Anonymous, the Cloud ninja may not accept that explanation. And Sensei, you yourself said the possibility of the Cloud ninja attacking without declaration is extremely high. The current situation isn't about whether we and the Cloud ninja leadership want to fight—it's that the Cloud ninja leadership will very likely be swept up by popular sentiment from below and forced into war."
Hiruko was momentarily speechless.
Then he glared at Ritsu irritably and said, "Isn't this all your doing? Insisting on acting so hastily tonight. Things have escalated to this point and you still have the nerve to say such things."
Ritsu's face was thick enough. He continued smiling and said, "That's exactly why I'm thinking about cleaning up my own mess. I've thoroughly scouted the Cloud ninja camp's strengths and weaknesses. With my power and our camp's current strength, I'm one hundred percent confident we can defeat this portion of Cloud ninja with minimal casualties."
By the end, his eyes were blazing, looking at his teacher with great anticipation.
Hiruko felt Ritsu's gaze was truly scorching. He said irritably, "So what if we can defeat this portion of Cloud ninja with minimal casualties? Once war breaks out, the Cloud ninja main force will certainly follow. The scale of warfare won't be something we can control then."
"Then we'll fight!"
Ritsu was completely without pressure, smiling as he said, "The Cloud ninja are merely warlike, not fearless of death. As long as we hurt them badly enough, I guarantee the war will end quickly. It absolutely won't drag on like the Eastern Front, becoming a continuously bleeding wound."
Hiruko rubbed his temples with a headache, unable to speak.
After a moment, he sighed helplessly and said, "Even if I'm the Supreme Commander and you're the Deputy Commander, if we want to proactively attack the Cloud ninja, if core members like Kimeki Koto, Unno Ikkaku, and Nara Suzaku don't agree, we master and student may not be able to mobilize many forces."
Ultimately, it was too rushed.
From when they'd assumed the positions of Supreme Commander and Deputy Commander until now, not even twenty-four hours had passed. To command these thousands of Konoha ninja like extensions of their own limbs would truly be miraculous.
Seeing Hiruko relenting, the smile on Ritsu's face grew even more brilliant. "Sensei, we don't need to mobilize too many forces. Honestly, I'm confident enough now to break through the Cloud ninja camp single-handedly. But relying on myself alone makes defeating the Cloud ninja simple—yet very difficult to capture sufficient spoils of war. I still need some personnel to help."
Hiruko stared directly at Ritsu, asking with considerable surprise, "Ritsu, you're certain you can break through the Cloud ninja camp single-handedly?"
"Of course."
Ritsu answered confidently, then asked in return, "Sensei, when have I ever lied to you?"
"I see!"
Hiruko chose to believe Ritsu, then frowned in thought. "Since you're confident you can break through the Cloud ninja camp on your own, we do indeed have considerable certainty of achieving results with minimal cost. However... we need a reason to deploy troops!"
Unable to resist his precious student, Hiruko completely changed his thinking, no longer considering how to smooth things over. He began racking his brain figuring out how to better help Ritsu clean up the mess.
Simply put, finding a way to proactively declare war on the Cloud ninja in a more reasonable and justified manner that wouldn't implicate their master-student pair—defeating the Cloud ninja as thoroughly as possible to completely end the standoff and draw a period on the Third Shinobi World War that had dragged on for years.
His gaze turned toward the northeast, where flames had shot skyward from the Cloud ninja camp not long ago.
Perhaps they could imitate that approach.
The more Hiruko thought about it, the more feasible it seemed. He immediately said, "Ritsu, have your clone use Wood Release: Transformation Technique to disguise as a Cloud ninja and also set a large fire."
Ritsu's eyes lit up. His mind raced quickly. "Sensei, that's an excellent idea! The Cloud ninja attempted to assassinate you. Though the assassination failed, as your student, I attacked the Cloud ninja in fury, demanding an explanation. Yes, that's it. That's the first public explanation. The second explanation is that Missing-nin Anonymous controlled the Cloud ninja frontline Supreme Commander C to assassinate you, Sensei, attempting to provoke war between us and the Cloud ninja. I fell into Missing-nin Anonymous's trap in a moment of anger. Sensei, what do you think of this explanation?"
"...Not bad."
Hiruko thought seriously for half a minute, a gleam flashing through his eyes as he nodded heavily. He also knew about the incident where Missing-nin Anonymous had once controlled Cloud ninja to fight against Ritsu and Minato. "An excellent excuse. Though it won't convince the Cloud ninja, I think it will have no problems dealing with the village's post-incident questioning and investigation."
"Then I'm really going to do it!"
"Won't you rest a bit? You've been running around all night. You should rest and adjust your condition—"
"Sensei, no need. My condition right now is unprecedentedly good. Though I haven't had time to become proficient with my current power, actual combat is the best training ground."
As he spoke, Ritsu lightly shrugged his shoulders. A wood clone grew directly from his body. Before the master and student pair, it used Wood Release: Transformation Technique and transformed into C's appearance.
Immediately after, the wood clone's entire body erupted with lightning.
When Ritsu used the Chimera Technique to seize C's bloodline, he'd also incidentally developed his own Lightning Release chakra, pushing it to an extremely high level in one go. However, the Chimera Technique couldn't seize others' techniques—Ritsu could directly master Wood Release because he gained comprehension from the Kekkei Genkai itself.
But C's bloodline contained no record of Lightning Release technique secrets.
Fortunately, simply releasing Lightning Release chakra throughout the body to imitate the Cloud ninja's Lightning Release Chakra Mode was still manageable, and imitating Cloud ninja's Lightning Release taijutsu wasn't too difficult either.
Looking at the wood clone flickering with lightning, Ritsu decisively retrieved five explosive tags he carried with him. This number was honestly somewhat few. Seeing this, Hiruko also produced five explosive tags. Together, master and student only had ten explosive tags—honestly quite insufficient.
Ritsu simply created another wood clone that ran downstairs to find Hyuga Arima and other clan members, gathering approximately thirty explosive tags. Then all these explosive tags were posted throughout various locations in the keep.
"Sensei, prepare your defenses!"
Ritsu called out to Hiruko, then decisively detonated these forty-plus explosive tags in total.
BOOM!!!
An earth-shaking explosion echoed throughout the Konoha camp. Under the gaze of over a hundred Konoha ninja, the keep serving as the command center was blown apart, flames shooting skyward and reflecting in the pupils of Konoha ninja after ninja.
This sudden change left everyone stunned.
Because of the situation with the Cloud ninja, everyone had been on guard against attacks from the northeast where the Cloud ninja were positioned. Yet they hadn't seen a single Cloud ninja shadow from the northeast—instead, the keep had been directly blown up. Everyone's brains momentarily failed to process what happened.
About two seconds later, a flash of lightning burst from the fire scene at the keep's upper levels, moving at extreme speed toward the northeast. Some quick-reacting Konoha ninja attempted to intercept, but this Cloud ninja wreathed in lightning was truly fast—so fast that the Konoha ninja's scattered, unsystematic interception was completely useless.
"Damn it, don't you dare escape!!!"
Ritsu roared furiously. His white clothing had been blown to tatters, covered in black ash. The exposed arms showed obvious burn injuries, yet he pursued the fleeing lightning ahead with visible wounds and obvious fury.
At this moment, watching the pursuing and fleeing figures, the Konoha ninja finally realized what was happening. Those sons of bitches from the Cloud had already attacked them, even blowing up Konoha's command center! The Deputy Commander looked somewhat disheveled from the explosion. Looking at that fury, could it be the Supreme Commander had been killed by the Cloud ninja?
Fortunately, Hiruko soon appeared. He was still alive.
Of course, like Ritsu, he'd also been left somewhat disheveled by the explosion—torn clothing, singed hair. The only improvement over Ritsu was that he wasn't injured.
He formed hand seals and used Water Release to extinguish the flames burning around him, charging out from the fire scene to reach the keep's fifth floor.
When Ritsu had placed the explosive tags, he'd been quite particular about positioning, not randomly pasting them everywhere. He'd directed the explosive tags' destructive force mainly at walls and the roof. The foundation beneath—the fifth floor's ceiling—though also damaged, suffered limited destruction. The Konoha ninja stationed on the fifth level were merely disheveled without casualties.
At this moment, Kimeki Koto, Unno Ikkaku, Nara Suzaku, Inuzuka Tsume, Akimichi Toto, and others rushed over. They'd been residing on different floors, and tonight, due to the Cloud ninja's movements, none had slept. The moment something happened, they all hurried over.
"Hiruko, are you all right?"
Kimeki Koto looked at the extremely disheveled Hiruko, his expression shocked and furious. "Where are the medical ninja? What are the medical ninja doing? Hurry over here!"
Seeing this, Hiruko waved his hand and said urgently, "Koto, calm down. I'm fine. Ritsu protected me in time—I just look somewhat disheveled!"
His voice was full of vigor, and indeed showed no obvious wounds.
This made Kimeki Koto, Unno Ikkaku, and the others breathe sighs of relief. If the Supreme Commander had been killed by explosion in the command center on his first day, each and every one of these subordinates would face enormous trouble.
Nara Suzaku, however, frowned and couldn't help asking, "Hokage Advisor, could you explain exactly what happened? That Cloud ninja who just escaped looked like C, the Cloud ninja's Supreme Commander?"
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