"Leader!?"
Utakata's heart lurched.
He had not expected that these people before him—people capable of beating a Jinchuriki like him as if he were helpless—actually had a leader.
His expression turned somewhat blank, and then he suddenly seemed to think of something.
He remembered the Six-Tails saying that the other side had found him through Kirigakure's methods. Could it be...
"Then can you tell me how you found me?"
Nagato glanced at Utakata indifferently, then said, "The method for finding you was handed to us by Kirigakure."
"As I thought!"
Utakata gritted his teeth. He had not expected Kirigakure to have fallen this far, to the point where they had begun selling information on the village's Tailed Beasts.
"You don't need to be angry. They also gave us the Three-Tails."
Nagato added another sentence.
"The Three-Tails! Isn't that Karatachi Yagura, that bastard..."
Utakata suddenly felt as if his brain had stopped working properly. A village had handed over its own Kage?
Since when had the Ninja World become this absurd?
Looking at Utakata, who had fallen into a daze, Nagato no longer paid him any attention.
He continued searching for the whereabouts of the Four-Tails Jinchuriki, Rōshi.
He had already more or less finished checking the places where his calculations suggested Rōshi might appear.
--
Southern Land of Lightning.
A flat stretch of land on the outskirts of a forest.
Rōshi wore purple clothing and chest armor, his hair tied at the back into a small ponytail-like knot, and he had a thick beard.
At that moment, he was speaking with a ninja wearing an Iwagakure forehead protector.
"That guy Ōnoki actually wants me to go back?"
Rōshi looked stunned. He had not expected that stubborn old fossil Ōnoki to actually intend to let him return to the village.
"Did