Rumors and Negotiations

"Is that the White Fang?"

"Yeah. I heard he abandoned his mission and caused the village to suffer terrible losses this time!"

"What? No way! Didn't the White Fang help Lord Orochimaru defeat Sunagakure?"

"Hah, what do you know?

My sixth uncle's friend's niece's boyfriend works in the Anbu. Apparently, if the White Fang hadn't abandoned the mission and had continued to complete it, the village wouldn't have suffered such a serious blow!

I heard even Lord Orochimaru was severely injured this time!"

"What? Even a ninja as powerful as Lord Orochimaru was seriously wounded?"

Having just finished reporting on his mission and stepped out of the Hokage Building, Hatake Sakumo looked at the villagers he normally knew so well and found them strangely unfamiliar at that moment.

Their gazes held suspicion and disgust, but none of the reverence they had once shown him.

He recalled what Orochimaru had told him during their secret conversation that night...

"The higher-ups have already begun to fear us, Sakumo. This mission of yours was very likely a conspiracy!"

"Orochimaru, don't joke around. Lord Hokage wouldn't..."

"The Hokage wouldn't, but that doesn't mean the other higher-ups wouldn't! Our strength is too great, and our prestige too high!

"Sakumo! A truly magnanimous person would not feel jealous because someone else surpassed them, but those mediocrities currently in power only fear us!

"Our strength and reputation have far surpassed theirs!

"They have become uneasy!

"They fear our abilities!

"Because we are fully capable of replacing them!"

So... Orochimaru had really been right!

The mission had only just been reported, yet the news had already spread into this. Lord Hokage, did you truly have no hand in this?

Were you blaming me for failing to protect your son?

"Father! They're all lying, right? There's no mission you can't complete!"

Kakashi squeezed through the crowd and ran up in front of Hatake Sakumo.

Sakumo forced out a faint smile, crouched down, and said to Kakashi, "Kakashi, there are too many people here. Let's go home and talk."

Inside the Hokage Building, Hiruzen Sarutobi smoked his pipe as he watched Hatake Sakumo pat Kakashi's head outside the window.

Hopefully this will suppress Sakumo a little...

I should remind Danzo not to go too far.

Root.

Danzo narrowed his one remaining eye as he listened to his subordinate's report.

"White Fang, this time, don't even think about making a comeback!"

"Pass down the order. Every Root ninja without an assignment is to spare no effort in spreading public opinion! This time, I'll make sure Hatake Sakumo never dares show his face again!"

His cane struck the floor heavily.

"Yes!"

The position of Fourth Hokage is mine, Danzo's!

Even if your great strength makes you difficult to kill, I'll still make sure you can never remain in Konohagakure!

"That was what happened. In the end, Lord Orochimaru led his subordinates to meet us, then decisively launched a full-scale assault while Sunagakure was thrown into internal turmoil, winning this battle."

"Then Father was clearly the greatest contributor to this victory! How can they say such things?"

Hatake Sakumo looked at the indignant Kakashi before him and gently placed a hand on his head.

"No matter what, I ultimately failed to complete the mission I was assigned. Lord Hokage's original intention in issuing the mission was to kill the Kazekage and cause Sunagakure to collapse without a fight. If that had happened, the village's losses would indeed have been far smaller."

Sakumo sighed inwardly. The higher-ups had already made their move against him. At worst, he could simply die.

But what would happen to his young son, Kakashi?

He was still only a child!

Orochimaru did not know what was happening in the village, though he had some suspicions.

He was currently seated in a temporary tent, negotiating with Sunagakure's representatives.

It was called a negotiation, but he was not the main negotiator—or perhaps that was not quite right?

His deterrent value was still quite useful in these negotiations.

At the very least, more useful than Ebizo.

"We do not agree to your proposal to transfer ten thousand mission quotas per year. We hope the quota can be reduced to below three thousand!"

Sunagakure's negotiation spokesman was a yellow-haired Jōnin, supposedly a confidant of the Fourth Kazekage.

"Three thousand? You must be joking! Ten thousand means ten thousand! It cannot be lowered any further!"

Orochimaru recognized Konoha's negotiation spokesman. He was the pineapple-headed Nara Clan ninja from Hiruzen Sarutobi's advisory group whom he had met in the Land of Rain.

"Ten thousand? Isn't Konoha asking for far too much? Sunagakure's bottom line is three thousand at most!"

The yellow-haired Jōnin said excitedly.

But when he saw Orochimaru staring at him with that perverse smile, he added somewhat weakly:

"Actually, four thousand isn't impossible either?"

Orochimaru split his mouth into a wide grin.

"Five thousand! Five thousand at most, or there's nothing left to discuss!"

"Fine! Five thousand, right? Sunagakure will transfer five thousand mission quotas to Konoha every year! Then two years makes twenty thousand. Sunagakure will pay compensation for a total of five years, so that comes to eighty thousand mission quotas altogether!"

Good grief, should this guy be called a negotiation genius or an arithmetic genius?

"What nonsense are you talking about?! It's clearly twenty-five thousand!"

The yellow-haired ninja was on the verge of collapse. Perhaps that had been the intention of this Nara Clan strategist all along?

Smack!

Ebizo propped himself up and slammed a hand heavily onto the table.

"Enough! You Konoha bastards, are you even negotiating in good faith?!"

"We can keep fighting. I don't mind, Elder Ebizo!"

Orochimaru rose as well, confronting Ebizo head-on.

The others had no choice but to intervene. It would not do for the two of them to start fighting at the negotiation table.

In the end, both sides agreed on the transfer of thirty thousand mission quotas in total, paid in installments over five years.

"Then let us proceed to the next item of negotiation: Sunagakure's war reparations!"

"According to our calculations, Sunagakure invaded seven cities and one hundred twenty-eight villages and towns in the Land of Fire..."

"Bullshit! There weren't one hundred twenty-eight villages and towns! There weren't even a hundred!

"Also! Is something wrong with you Konoha people's brains? We only captured six cities!"

"No, no. According to our assessment, although your side did not take Kikyo Castle, you besieged it for more than four months, causing economic losses exceeding two hundred million ryo!"

"It wasn't nearly that much! We couldn't even get more than one hundred million ryo from taking a single city."

What an honest kid.

"Then let's count each of the six captured cities as one hundred million ryo."

"Konoha, don't push us too far!"

Seeing the other side getting worked up again, Orochimaru extended his long tongue, circled it around the man across from him who was pounding the table as he spoke, then drew it back in. He even used it to wash his face while he was at it.

"Hmph! One hundred million ryo it is!"

The ninja spoke the most cowardly words in the toughest tone.

Ebizo watched everything unfold before him with a dark expression.

"Enough! Forget this hundred million ryo nonsense. What they just said doesn't count! Orochimaru, you and I are the chief negotiators! Only what you and this old man say counts! Negotiate with me!"

"Why be angry, Elder Ebizo? Aren't both sides negotiating quite pleasantly?"

Pleasant my ass!

Did you misunderstand the meaning of the word 'pleasant'?

This old man's lungs are about to explode from anger!

"You and me, that's it! Hurry up, Orochimaru, stop dawdling!"

Orochimaru agreed. After learning from what had just happened, he felt that if all negotiations were conducted like this, he actually had quite the talent for negotiation.