One Month

As delegations from the various small hidden villages arrived in Konoha one after another, the village, which had been through the last great war, grew lively again.

At the training ground.

Shinji, Haku, and Karin were doing their usual taijutsu sparring.

During a break, the three sat on a bench, wiping away their sweat as they chatted.

Karin remarked casually, "There've been more and more shinobi from other villages around lately."

Haku agreed. "Yeah. This morning, I ran into a group of Otogakure shinobi during my workout."

"Otogakure?"

Shinji raised an eyebrow.

Haku said, "Yeah. I heard it's a small hidden village that was established only a few years ago."

Karin said, "Even a newly established small hidden village got invited. Looks like the Shinobi Village Alliance is getting serious this time!"

Shinji fell into thought.

The meeting of the Shinobi Village Alliance was being kept strictly confidential. Even Shinji, who held the title of "Chief," had no idea what the meeting was about.

The Five Great Shinobi Villages had clearly deliberately limited the number of people in the know, in order to assess the reliability of each small hidden village.

It was easy to predict that the Five Great Shinobi Villages would mix all sorts of half-true and false information into the meeting, then use surveillance and other means to test the reliability of the small hidden villages attending.

After all, the Five Great Shinobi Villages had launched a surprise attack on Amegakure last time because their intelligence had been leaked. Not only did they fail to achieve their tactical objectives, they also exposed their own weakness, allowing the Akatsuki Organization to launch successful surprise attacks on Konoha, Kirigakure, and Takigakure, and abduct Utakata, Kirigakure's Six-Tails Jinchuriki.

So, rooting out spies within the alliance was the Shinobi Village Alliance's