B-rank Mission

As the new year began, Konoha's ninja also started busying themselves with missions.

"Shuichi-kun, after you finish your mission later, Lord Hokage wants you to visit him," Watanabe Shin'ya said to Shuichi, who was preparing to carry out a D-rank mission.

"Oh, all right." Shuichi was not surprised to hear that. It seemed the tedious low-rank missions would be over for a while.

After finishing all his missions that afternoon, Shuichi arrived at the Hokage's office, where he happened to see Orochimaru and the Third Hokage discussing something.

"Orochimaru, are you sure you want to accept this mission? I know Shuichi is an extraordinary genius, but given your style, this will be a major test for him." The Third Hokage seemed somewhat hesitant.

"He is my disciple now. I believe he can do it perfectly. Don't judge his talent by ordinary standards." Orochimaru did not change his decision.

At that moment, Shuichi happened to walk in. Upon seeing him, the Third Hokage decided it would be better to ask Shuichi himself.

"Shuichi, you came at just the right time. Orochimaru and I have slightly different opinions regarding your first mission outside the village. Take a look at this mission first." As he spoke, the Third Hokage flipped to the mission sheet and handed it over.

Shuichi took it and looked it over. He found that it was a B-rank mission, and one of the more troublesome kinds among B-rank missions.

According to the mission description, the location was not entirely certain. It was likely somewhere near the border between the Land of Rivers, the Land of Rain, and Konoha.

The mission had begun when a group of Rogue Ninja looted a small village on the Land of Fire Border. This was not their first offense, but a long time had passed since the last one, and it had not been nearly as vicious as this time.

During the Second Shinobi War, Konoha, Amegakure Ninja, and Sunagakure Ninja had clashed many times in this region. Many missing persons could not be accounted for during wartime, and those who failed to return for a long time were declared dead.

But in truth, some ninja had secretly left their villages amid the chaos. There were Amegakure Ninja, Sunagakure Ninja, and even Konoha Ninja among them.

Under Orochimaru's teasing gaze, the Third Hokage rather vaguely explained the situation to Shuichi.

Even in Konohagakure, many people had no way to access high-level ninjutsu, let alone in other villages, where the ninja selection process was even bloodier and crueler.

Thus, many ninja, after suffering setbacks in their villages, took advantage of the chaos of war to leave their villages while carrying out wartime missions.

Much of what happened in the process could no longer be investigated. Perhaps they deliberately killed or sold out teammates assigned to watch each other, or perhaps they encountered powerful enemies and scattered when disaster struck.

Afterward, they became Rogue Ninja, Missing-nin, or took missions through the black market.

Sometimes, after spotting a village they could plunder, they would turn into bandits as well. They would send ordinary bandits to the front while directing matters from the shadows, eliminate the more threatening targets, and finally take the largest share of the profits.

That was why, nearly three years after the Shinobi World War, Konoha had only just roughly finished cleaning up the situation within the Land of Fire.

The Land of Fire possessed abundant resources and fertile land, allowing Konoha's overall strength to surpass that of the other ninja villages.

But it also made such cleanup missions extremely difficult, because these village-defecting ninja had far too many potential targets. Konoha's own Missing-nin were even a minority; Missing-nin from other villages also loved flocking to the Land of Fire.

At the same time, they were all fairly experienced ninja, and the Land of Fire's vast territory gave them countless places to maneuver.

They hid throughout the forests, struck and ran, and Konoha was short on ninja after the war, so the cleanup naturally proceeded very inefficiently.

During these postwar years, Konoha Anbu, Root, and powerful village Jonin like Orochimaru had mainly been responsible for eliminating Jonin-level Missing-nin.

Only now did Shuichi realize that there were truly quite a few Chunin and higher among the ninja who had left their villages. After all, they had trained bitterly for so many years, only to remain in the village as mission machines under the higher-ups' control, never knowing when they might lose their lives.

Once they successfully changed their identities, someone with Jonin-level strength could easily become an honored guest in a small city or country. Money and beautiful women could immediately send their happiness soaring.

Cleaning up these powerful and cunning ninja was often extremely time-consuming and labor-intensive. Some of the more ruthless ones even disfigured themselves or used secret techniques to alter their builds, making them far harder to identify.

Even Konoha's elite Anbu had to constantly gather intelligence, lie in wait at likely locations, and only pursue them after discovering traces. If things did not go smoothly, an entire team might come up empty-handed for months.

So, if one had only watched Naruto anime and videos in his previous life, one really might have thought Konoha was entirely peaceful, with Danzo alone constantly stirring up trouble within the village.

Sarutobi Hiruzen and the advisers were not fools. In all the years since the Third Hokage took office, no prominent Missing-nin had emerged from Konoha to wreak havoc throughout the shinobi world. Danzo's Root must have hunted down many such ninja.

To become the Shinobi World's Darkness acknowledged by the Kage of other villages, Root must truly have carried out countless dirty and exhausting jobs in secret.

Tasks such as gathering intelligence on enemy countries, sowing discord, and fighting deadly covert battles against enemy villages' Anbu were all extremely dangerous and tedious. Root had only a little over a dozen people in total, which showed just how difficult their work was.

Those were all thoughts Shuichi had after listening to the Third Hokage. The discussion then turned to this mission.

Although the vast majority of Jonin-level Missing-nin had basically been eliminated, there were still far more Chunin- and Genin-level Missing-nin than Konoha had manpower to clean up.

These people all knew how powerful Konoha was. They naturally did not want the village to issue wanted notices and extermination missions against them, so they rarely did things as blatant as public murder.

But there were always a few who had fallen on hard times and reached the end of the road, or who had been blinded by profit and committed atrocities such as massacring civilians, only to be discovered. Konoha naturally had to eliminate such Rogue Ninja.

This mission was one such case. A village near the borders where several countries met had been robbed and massacred by a group.

Not long ago, Konoha had issued a related C-rank escort mission. But when the team that accepted it arrived, they found the village being massacred, and an unexpected encounter battle followed.

From the intelligence they obtained, the criminal group contained one Chunin and several Genin. They did not know whether there were stronger ninja among them, but they could confirm that their base was likely located somewhere not far from the village.

That was why this mission was so troublesome. First, they had to find the movements of the entire group, especially identify the leader.

Then they had to find a way to kill everyone in the group, while preferably ensuring that not a single person escaped. In the process, they might face being surrounded and attacked, or even an ambush by an unknown Chunin.

Thus, this mission's difficulty was infinitely close to A-rank. With Orochimaru present, there would certainly be no problem, but master and disciple had agreed beforehand that Orochimaru would not act unless absolutely necessary.

The author really was not trying to whitewash Danzo or anything. I have always valued objective facts. Konoha had not been founded very long ago, and the Ninja Clans had done most of the work in the first two wars, so the Will of Fire naturally had broader appeal among those with greater ninja potential.

As for the large number of others, asking them to sincerely embrace the Will of Fire and sacrifice themselves for their comrades would be rather unrealistic. So while Konoha's Missing-nin did not include many major threats, their numbers were certainly not small.

The official explanation for Root was that it was one Anbu unit, with one commander overseeing four squads, for a total of seventeen people. Of course, Danzo certainly had other subordinates, but being responsible year-round for espionage missions in four countries still seemed extremely taxing. There truly were many dark matters in the ninja profession.

Therefore, regarding Danzo's contributions to Konoha, we cannot completely deny them simply because he was portrayed as a villain in the manga.

It is a fact that he later acted against people within the village, and that will not be whitewashed. At the same time, I believe the Third Hokage must bear a great deal of responsibility as well. I think the most reasonable point for Danzo's complete descent into darkness was after the Third Shinobi War. Please look forward to it—I will do my best to write an exciting story!