Chapter 148: Kill the Chicken to Warn the Monkey
A Kirigakure missing-nin.
Sakura kept her thoughts to herself, but internally she was dry about it.
Missing-nin were practically a Kirigakure export at this point. Zabuza, Kisame, Raiga, Jūzō — they should have been the village's backbone. Instead they'd all run.
The pale-faced woman who walked into the command tent stopped everyone's thoughts cold.
Sakura recognized her immediately.
Right. Even the future Fifth Mizukage ended up running from Kirigakure. Truly, a village dedicated to the production of missing-nin.
The moment Mei Terumī walked in, every eye in the tent landed on her. Mei, for her part, felt something finally release in her chest when she saw Jiraiya. His reputation reached every corner of the ninja world — not just as a fighter, but through a certain author's work that had somehow penetrated even the most closed-off intelligence networks.
"Jiraiya-dono. My name is Mei Terumī."
Jiraiya studied her with his chin in his hand, expression unreadable.
Kirigakure's isolationist policies had made even Konoha's intelligence network largely ineffective there. He genuinely didn't know who this woman was.
"I'm told you have information for me."
Mei nodded, and began.
"Kirigakure is currently under the control of an external force. They intend to open a second front against the Land of Fire and the Land of Earth — to support the Wind-Lightning alliance."
Jiraiya's expression didn't change.
"And you?" he said. "Why tell me this? What do you gain?"
Sakura and Kakashi sat to the side without speaking.
Hasn't she overthrown the Fourth Mizukage yet? Sakura thought. And it sounds like it went badly.
Mei gave a quiet, slightly bitter smile. Something passed through her green eyes.
"I'll be straightforward."
"The Fourth Mizukage, Yagura, has ruled Kirigakure under crushing oppression for years. Many talented ninja have already defected. But many others refused to abandon their village."
"As long as Yagura holds power, nothing changes. So those who remained organized themselves — a movement to remove him."
She looked at Jiraiya steadily.
"I'm their leader."
He studied her face.
"It looks like the uprising failed."
She didn't dispute it. If it had succeeded, she wouldn't be here.
"He had our intelligence. The day before we were supposed to move, Yagura personally led an operation that dismantled our teams before they could assemble. Our complete membership list was already in his hands."
"An inside informant," Jiraiya said.
White Zetsu, Sakura said internally, and said nothing aloud.
"Yes." Mei accepted the framing. It was the most obvious explanation.
"So you want Konoha's help to overthrow Yagura." Kakashi spoke from the side.
"No."
Mei turned toward him.
"Kirigakure's leadership is entirely compromised. Clearing out the external control entirely — from where I'm standing, that's currently impossible."
"The force behind this wants to help the Wind-Lightning alliance defeat the Fire-Earth alliance. Regardless of their deeper purpose — blocking what your enemy wants to accomplish is always the correct move."
Mei's composure didn't waver. She was pale, her clothes barely dry, clearly running on nothing — and she stood in the middle of a foreign military camp with the ease of someone who had been in worse places.
"The enemy of my enemy," Kakashi said, eyes half-lidded.
He thought about it for a moment. He and Ōnoki's people had been trying to kill each other not long ago. And Ōnoki had handed him that parting gesture over sake.
Now a Kirigakure resistance leader was sitting across from him, apparently proposing cooperation.
"Essentially, yes."
Mei continued:
"What I'm asking is for Konoha to neutralize the force controlling Kirigakure. Remove the external manipulation — and Yagura loses his foundation."
Jiraiya, who had been nodding along, suddenly sharpened.
"And you've thought through what that would mean for Kirigakure's ninja? If Konoha goes to war with them?"
His voice had an edge.
She was the leader of an uprising. That level of standing demanded strength, resources, reputation — every one of them. If she was who she claimed, her baseline was somewhere around Kakashi.
"Necessary losses," Mei said, without hesitation. Her eyes were steady.
"If Kirigakure remains a puppet, it disappears from history eventually anyway. A festering wound doesn't heal itself. Sometimes you cut off the arm."
Jiraiya gestured for someone to escort her out. He watched her go, then turned to Sakura.
The girl who'd been sitting quietly this entire time.
"Sakura. Your read."
I read with my eyes, Sakura did not say.
"Her story is suspicious. Not to be fully trusted. Not to be fully dismissed."
"Immediately relay the information back to the village. Hiruzen needs to increase intelligence operations on the Land of Water. Reinforce observation posts facing the Water Country border — the Whirlpool Country shoreline, the Land of Waves. Alert Iwagakure to increase coastal monitoring."
Jiraiya nodded. Reasonable.
"That said," Sakura continued, "I personally think she's telling the truth."
"Oh?"
"Say more."
Sakura's eyes moved slightly.
"She calls herself the uprising's leader. Even with Kirigakure's closed-door policy, that kind of standing leaves traces. A few inquiries and her identity can be confirmed. And a ninja of that caliber doesn't get used as a disposable information carrier — not even by the Raikage, who I generally don't respect, but who said one true thing: in this world, without strength you are nothing."
She paused.
"Someone like Mei Terumī is one of her village's next-generation pillars. Nobody burns that kind of asset on a bluff that collapses the moment you verify it."
She let a beat pass.
"Except possibly Yagura's people. But that move would be immediately obvious, which defeats the purpose."
"That tracks," Kakashi said, voice level. "The deception would be too fragile to be worth running."
"Agreed."
Jiraiya exhaled. He'd been leaning the same direction and not wanting to admit it.
Because if it was true, the war had just gotten significantly larger.
"A great ninja war."
He said it quietly, almost to himself.
Five great nations. Several minor ones holding their breath, hoping not to be noticed.
"All the more reason to end it fast," Sakura said. "Decisively."
"If this drags out and all five nations lose themselves in the mud — whoever's been operating in the shadows wins by default."
Jiraiya came to attention.
"You're saying there's a coordinated external force shaping this entire conflict?"
She looked at him.
"Kakuzu at the River Country front. Kisame at the Ghost Country front between the Land of Earth and Land of Wind. An intelligence asset here in Frost Country that's been tying us in knots without ever showing its face. And now this force controlling Kirigakure."
"Jiraiya. Does that sound like coincidence to you?"
The tent went quiet.
One, two — coincidence. Four events, all pointing the same direction?
"Itachi Uchiha was traveling with Kisame Hoshigaki." Kakashi's voice was careful.
"Yes. Matching black-and-red cloud robes. Two confirmed. Add Kakuzu. Add whoever has been feeding Kumogakure perfect real-time intelligence. I find it very difficult to believe they don't share an organization."
She let that land.
"These aren't ordinary ninja. Every one of them can hold their own against a village's Shadow."
Jiraiya said nothing for a long moment.
He thought of Orochimaru. He'd been tracking his former student's movements since the defection. A source had confirmed he'd joined an organization — but the name hadn't surfaced. What had surfaced was that even with Orochimaru's capabilities, he was a rank-and-file member.
That was the part that had kept Jiraiya quiet about it.
Orochimaru — one of the Sannin. A name that had meant something in the Second Shinobi World War.
Ordinary member.
"This is..." Kakashi trailed off, expression grave.
A single organization with the reach to reshape the alignment of the ninja world.
"Given that we need to move fast — what's the play?"
Jiraiya said it with deliberate intent, opening the floor.
"I told you already."
Sakura gave him a look.
"Go straight for the Raikage's home."
"And you said no."
Jiraiya had the decency to look uncomfortable.
It was bold to the point of ignoring the Land of Fire's political reality entirely, which was the part he couldn't absorb. The daimyō's position complicated everything.
But it was also correct.
If Mei's intelligence was accurate, Kirigakure could move at any moment. Konoha couldn't afford a third front while the other two were still active.
The fastest path to preventing that was ending Kumogakure's engagement so decisively, so quickly, that Kirigakure's leadership reconsidered the math. Kill the chicken so loudly that every monkey in the forest got the message.
"Do you have something better?" Sakura asked him.
Jiraiya was quiet for a long moment.
His brow stayed furrowed. His expression ran through several things.
"I'll send word back to the village. Tsunade takes a defensive position along the Land of Fire border to contain the Raikage."
Sakura's expression eased into something like a smile.
There we go.
Strike with everything. End it before the third front opens. A decisive, visible Kumogakure defeat — loud enough that even a Kirigakure leadership compromised by external manipulation had to factor in the consequences.
If they pushed anyway — what did Kirigakure actually have left?
The Seven Swordsmen had been hollowed out by years of defections. Without Mei Terumī's uprising as an internal force, what was the village working with? Yagura and whoever else was still loyal?
Aoi?
The kid who'd supposedly taken the Sword of the Thunder God? Sakura wasn't losing sleep over him.
She stood up. The decision was made.
Straight at the Lightning Country.
Hokage Tower — the Hokage's office —
Hiruzen stared at the intelligence brief from the front and felt his headache deepen.
Kumogakure's guerrilla campaign: resolved. New problem: potential Kirigakure intervention.
He hadn't suggested using the Yamanaka arts to extract information directly from Mei Terumī. He wouldn't.
She'd come openly. In front of witnesses. Multiple Konoha ninja had seen her face — she had that kind of presence, the kind that made an impression. Turning around and pulling her mind apart would send a message to every other potential ally that Konoha wasn't worth approaching.
The fact that she'd chosen to walk in openly, in broad view — that itself was a kind of caution. She hadn't trusted them fully. But she'd trusted them enough.
She was still being careful.
Hiruzen looked at the brief, exhaled slowly, and spoke to the ANBU standing in the shadows.
"Bring Tsunade."
(Chapter End)
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