Lightning-Fire Meeting

The next day, the follow-up troops led by Dodai also arrived in the Land of Soup. After receiving news that Dada had been kidnapped, Dodai had brought a contingent of men via the standard route. Although the crisis had already been resolved, their next task would likely be to handle the aftermath.

As the leader of a village, the Third Raikage suddenly appearing in the Land of Soup required some diplomatic notification to all parties. Furthermore, it was foreseeable that there would be a showdown at the negotiating table with Konohagakure, so A simply decided to stay in the Land of Soup for the time being and ordered his men to set up a temporary base.

With the arrival of the main force led by Dodai, Tsunade finally ended her life hanging from a tree. The Cloud Ninja used the Iron Armor Seal, a technique passed down through generations in their village, to lock away all of her Chakra. This type of Fuinjutsu was originally intended for Tailed Beasts, so restricting Tsunade was a matter of course, allowing her custody to be normalized.

Tsunade did not yet know that her identity had been exposed, and she was playing the role of an ordinary ninja quite convincingly. Meanwhile, the Cloud side remained strangely quiet; they neither sent anyone to protest to Konohagakure nor showed any intention of killing the hostage. It looked as if the Raikage had brought a group of people to the Land of Soup for a vacation.

The reality was much the same. A now took time every day to guide the training of Dada and Yotsuki Ki, and the accompanying ninjas from the village were also fortunate enough to receive selfless guidance from the Raikage.

The result was that the Cloud Ninja were calm and collected, while Konohagakure could no longer sit still. When the search party led by Hatake Sakumo carefully scoured the border between the Land of Soup and the Land of Fire for several days, only to find neither hide nor hair of the missing, Konohagakure finally sent someone to meet with the Cloud side.

The person who came was an obscure, ordinary ninja with a very tough attitude.

"Lord Raikage, the previous conflict was merely a misunderstanding, and it is something neither side wished to see. If the Cloud has no intention of escalating the conflict with Konohagakure, it would be best for both sides to take a step back to avoid letting other ninja villages benefit."

After dropping these words, the Konohagakure ninja retreated, claiming he was only there to provide advance notice and that someone of higher status would come to negotiate later.

"They are clearly testing us. They didn't even mention Tsunade Senju, wanting to see if we have realized the importance of that woman." Dada emerged from behind the Raikage's seat. Just now, Dada had been playing the role of a "death-bringing elementary schooler," sitting behind the Raikage's tall chair and hearing every word the Konohagakure ninja said.

The Third Raikage looked at the smirking Dada with interest.

"Tell me, what are your thoughts on what comes next?"

"That depends on whether Father wants to strengthen the Cloud or weaken Konohagakure." Dada revealed his little fangs.

"What is the difference?"

"If we want to strengthen the Cloud, it is nothing more than enhancing our foundation, secret techniques, research results, influence, resources, or even just money. Konohagakure has many good things; we can demand some openly and hide some in the shadows.

But if we want to weaken Konohagakure, we could consider inciting conflicts between their various ninja clans. If handled properly, delaying Konohagakure's development shouldn't be a problem."

In fact, Dada was more inclined toward weakening Konohagakure. As the strongest ninja village, which produced "cheaters" in droves, Konohagakure's greatest enemy was itself. If he could use this incident to cause internal problems for Konohagakure, that would be the best outcome.

Since the conflict had already started, Dada naturally placed Konohagakure in the position of an opponent. He wanted to make Konohagakure know the price of acting recklessly.

A patted Dada on the head and said, "Only children make choices; as an adult, I want it all!"

Three days later, the people from Konohagakure arrived in the Land of Soup. Considering they did not want to appear too formal, they did not call themselves a delegation, but merely a negotiation team. The leaders were the Elite Jonin who had risen to fame in recent years, Hatake Sakumo, and the right-hand man of the Third Hokage, Shimura Danzō.

Dada did not hide himself; instead, he stood openly beside the Raikage, observing the arrivals from Konohagakure.

The handsome Sakumo looked sharp and reserved, while Shimura Danzō was in his prime. At this time, he was not yet covered in bandages, but his gloomy temperament had already begun to form.

Most importantly, Danzō felt very weak to Dada.

If Hatake Sakumo gave the impression of a sharp short sword capable of slitting an enemy's throat at any moment, then Shimura Danzō gave the impression of an ordinary blade that hadn't been maintained for years—rusty and dull. Even if it were displayed on a magnificent sword rack, it couldn't hide the fact that it was hollow on the inside.

Dada had originally thought that Shimura Danzō in his prime would at least be an Elite Jonin, but he turned out to be quite ordinary.

It seems that Tobirama Senju not passing the position of Hokage to Danzō back then wasn't just because he was afraid of death...

No wonder this guy was fighting Sasuke 20 years later with no combat literacy, constantly showing off his lack of intelligence.

No wonder Hiruzen Sarutobi was willing to trust Danzō for so many years, letting him stir up trouble in Konohagakure, and supposedly didn't even mind when Danzō tried to assassinate him.

He was so weak, what kind of bad intentions could he possibly have!

The ninja world still valued strength above all else. If one had a "right-hand man" who was this weak, whose thoughts were this easy to guess, and who was so willing to do the dirty work, even if he were Hiruzen Sarutobi, he wouldn't be willing to kill Danzō.

While Dada was sizing up the ordinary Jonin Shimura Danzō, the ordinary Jonin Danzō was also sizing up Dada.

"So this is the child who caused a series of troubles? The second son of the Third Raikage, suspected of possessing a special Kekkei Genkai..."

As the person in charge of this meeting for Konohagakure, Danzō carried himself well. He walked straight to the Raikage with a straight face, surrounded by Cloud Ninja, yet his expression remained unchanged.

However, this location had clearly been specially arranged by the Cloud. The Third Raikage sat at the highest point, while Danzō and Sakumo walked through two rows of menacing Cloud Ninja and stopped below the Raikage.

Although the Raikage was indeed of a higher rank than Shimura Danzō, Danzō did not feel that way, and he already felt extremely displeased, but the negotiations were the priority at the moment.

The Raikage looked at Danzō sideways and said, "I recognize you. You came to the Cloud with the Second Hokage back then."

"Yes, long time no see, Lord Raikage." Back then, Danzō, Hiruzen Sarutobi, and others had accompanied the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju, to Kumogakure to discuss a peace treaty with the Second Raikage. However, they happened to encounter the rebellion of Kinkaku and Ginkaku. The Second Raikage died on the spot, and the Second Hokage was also mortally wounded while covering the retreat of the others. In Danzō's mind, it was during that time that his own moment of hesitation caused him to miss out on the throne of the Hokage.

More than a decade had passed in the blink of an eye. Theoretically, the fault for that incident lay with the Cloud; Kinkaku and Ginkaku were undoubtedly affiliated with the Cloud, and they were at fault for failing to protect the head of another state who had come to negotiate in good faith. However, in order to stop the war, the Cloud had paid a significant price as compensation. The ones who handled the matter were the Third Raikage and the Third Hokage, who had just taken office at the time.

The Land of Lightning and the Land of Fire had personal grudges, but they were not significant. It was more about the tense relationship brought about by competition, which was related to the general environment of the ninja world.

Among the Five Great Ninja Villages, which ones didn't have grudges?

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