Sunagakure Announces Unconditional Surrender, Minato's Spotlight

Under the orders of Hiruzen Sarutobi, Danzo handed over command of the troops.

Is it destined that I shall be filled with sorrow at this very moment? Taking one last look at the command tent, Danzo reluctantly led his Root ninja away.

Minato suddenly became the supreme commander of this Konoha ninja force at Kikyo Pass.

This was his first time commanding a ninja unit independently.

He felt a bit nervous.

He thought that, just like the Third Hokage, he should start by memorizing the names of everyone in this unit.

Minato spent some time calling the ninja at Kikyo Pass into his tent one by one to get acquainted and assign tasks.

The Konoha ninja were very cooperative toward this outstanding ninja who had brought reinforcements to save their lives. Furthermore, the masterful Flying Thunder God technique Minato had displayed during the relief effort was considered incredibly cool by the younger ones, while the older ones felt as if they were seeing the Second Hokage come back to life.

Walking into Minato's tent, the path was filled with praise for him.

The twelve-year-old boy thought, surely his teacher must realize the Third Hokage's intentions by now? It was practically an open secret that he wanted Minato to become Hokage.

"Zhengyi, Obito mentions you to me quite often," Minato said, looking at Zhengyi sitting across from him.

"I'm sure they weren't kind words."

Minato scratched the back of his head; that was indeed the case.

The atmosphere turned a bit awkward. Minato could chat easily with anyone else, but this Zhengyi seemed to harbor some hostility toward him.

"I don't think there is any misunderstanding between us, is there?" Minato sighed, looking wounded.

Yet, Zhengyi remained unmoved.

Smiles were reserved for his own people.

He didn't know how it looked from others' perspectives, but from his own, Minato was truly his greatest "enemy."

He could smile at Danzo, but he just couldn't bring himself to smile at Minato, perhaps because of Hiruzen Sarutobi's blatant favoritism.

If one were to analyze it carefully, Minato was Jiraiya's student, and he was Orochimaru's student; they were actually of the same generation.

In all honesty, did the combined contributions of Jiraiya and Minato really outweigh those of his teacher Orochimaru and himself?

Yet, Minato's path in Konoha was far, far smoother than his.

The spotlight was always on him, and the discussions were always about him.

He knew Minato was a good person; all of this was the mischief of Hiruzen Sarutobi.

But things had reached this point; there was no way the Orochimaru faction and the Minato faction could have a happy ending.

Rather than Orochimaru vs. Minato, Zhengyi felt it was more like the ideology of Tobirama vs. the ideology of Hashirama.

One was private ownership, the other was public ownership.

"By the way, Rin said..." Minato suddenly thought of something and smiled.

"Hmm?"

"Tell me more, Minato-kun, what did Rin say?"

Zhengyi suddenly brightened up, listening intently, which made Minato click his tongue—this kid was truly pragmatic.

He smiled bitterly to himself.

He used to think that Obito's biggest rival in winning Rin's heart was Kakashi.

Now it seemed...

"Go on, tell me," Zhengyi urged the bitter-smiling Minato.

"Yes, yes."

"But, Zhengyi, do you still like Rin?"

"None of your business."

Zhengyi and Minato worked together to drive the Sunagakure forces that had invaded the Land of Fire out of the country.

Sunagakure announced an unconditional surrender, withdrew from the borders of the Land of Fire, and signed a peace treaty with Konoha.

"Minato, I leave it to you."

Rasa was capable of great restraint; in front of the cameras, he bowed to Minato and presented the letter of surrender.

Once this image was released, the influence Minato would have in Konoha went without saying.

It was truly morale-boosting!

"Konoha and Sunagakure will surely remain at peace forever. Even down to our children's generation, I believe it will be so, because the Kazekage also seems like a man who loves peace," Minato said, his words sounding quite pleasant.

Rasa felt the humiliation under the spotlight diminish slightly.

If Zhengyi hadn't been used as a "lab rat" by Orochimaru, hadn't helped Orochimaru grave-rob, hadn't helped Orochimaru collect dirty money, and hadn't helped Orochimaru dig up Hashirama's coffin... he definitely would have followed Minato.

Yet, at some point, he too had become a "vermin" in the gutter.

To shake off the stigma of being a vermin, he had to become Hokage just like Tobirama, so becoming Hokage had almost become an obsession for Zhengyi.

After the press conference ended.

Zhengyi grabbed Rasa, "Kazekage, would you like to learn about fitness?"

Having suffered for so long at Kikyo Pass, Orochimaru took pity on his hardship and arranged a set of new fitness equipment for him.

As for the old ones... he had put the old ones in the...

Ahem, he was preparing to expand his gym business abroad.

In these times of war, other ninja villages were prone to backstabbing.

Since Sunagakure had just surrendered to Konoha, Konoha industries should enjoy tax-exemption policies in their territory.

Actually, there was no difference between the new and old fitness equipment, but Zhengyi guessed that his teacher didn't know his preferences or what to give him, so he had sent fitness equipment just to be safe.

Sigh.

Not attentive at all.

If it were Nawaki, the teacher would surely rack his brains to come up with a gift, right?

Why did the teacher dote on Anko? Well, Zhengyi guessed it was because Anko's reckless personality was very similar to Nawaki's; well, Anko had become a substitute.

"Fitness?" Rasa was somewhat confused.

In the ninja world, only the Land of Lightning had the concept of fitness, and it had only started to become popular among ninjas in the Land of Fire because of Zhengyi's existence.

In a place like Sunagakure, where they couldn't even get enough to eat, only someone with nothing better to do would bother with fitness.

"Yashamaru." Seeing that Zhengyi was just a Chunin with little fame, Rasa called his brother-in-law over to handle it.

After his brother-in-law arrived and saw that Zhengyi was just a Chunin with little fame, he called his subordinate over to handle it.

At twelve years old, standing there like a nobody.

Zhengyi hated Hiruzen Sarutobi to death; if his battle record in Kumogakure were announced to the ninja world, would these two dare to treat him with such contempt?!

Damn it!

Sunagakure!!!

Zhengyi was a bit petty.

He hoped this village would never have a day where they had to beg him for help.

After the business talk concluded, Zhengyi left the scene with resentment.

"Let's go."

He was a man with subordinates now, too.

Two Genin, both just graduated from the Ninja Academy and assigned to him.

One was named Killua, who looked fair and clean; Zhengyi felt he would look even better if he had the same hair color as Kakashi.

The other was Sakata Yuji, who was quite passionate and sunny.

There were originally three boys, but one had died; sigh, war is truly cruel.

"Teacher, my birthday is in a few days~" Killua, this kid, especially loved to act spoiled around Zhengyi.

Oh my, he called me teacher.

Then as a teacher, I certainly can't treat you poorly.

"Teacher, can you give me a yearly gym membership card for my birthday?"

"Oh? Is it your birthday too?"

"That's not it."

"Then no."