After that day's Konoha high-level meeting ended, the skies over Konoha changed. Not only Konoha itself, but the entire Land of Fire fell into a brief period of turmoil.
In just one week, numerous assassinations took place throughout the Land of Fire. Those killed were all long-established nobles of the Land of Fire. Even the Land of Fire's daimyo was assassinated by an unknown ninja and died in his own residence.
In response to these assassinations targeting the upper ranks of the Land of Fire, the surviving nobles banded together. They not only organized forces to investigate the incidents, but also dispatched envoys to Konoha in hopes of receiving assistance from Konoha's ninjas.
However, they had no way of knowing that these assassinations had been planned by Uzumaki Kuming from the very beginning. The people carrying out the orders were not Konoha ninjas at all, but Kuming's personal guards: Kisame Hoshigaki, Zabuza Momochi, Haku, and the others, who had defected from Kirigakure.
Even within Konoha, only those who had been in the Hokage's office at the time knew the truth. They were all Konoha's upper echelon. Even if they knew the truth, even if they opposed Uzumaki Kuming's decision, they would not spread the word and place Konoha in opposition to the Land of Fire's nobles.
At this stage, Uzumaki Kuming's plan to unify the shinobi world had only just begun.
Therefore, the envoys sent by the Land of Fire to Konoha received a somewhat perfunctory reply. Konoha merely said that it had already dispatched ninja to investigate the matter, yet the nobles saw no results at all. The assassinations had not stopped in the slightest.
At the same time, after a week of fermenting, intelligence related to the assassinations in the Land of Fire had been placed on the