Are You Kidding Me?

It wasn't as if Danzo could be blamed for thinking that way.

The others all thought the same.

The only son of a nation's Daimyo, the undisputed heir to the title, was a man of immense power and influence. How could he become a ninja and casually put himself in danger? Besides, they had been running Konoha for so many years and had never heard of a Daimyo with ninja talent. Their ingrained way of thinking led them to believe this was nothing more than some ridiculous scheme the Daimyo had cooked up to indulge his only son.

They could just find an excuse to turn him down.

Of course, the four at the top clearly hadn't grasped how serious the matter was.

"Since we're all gathered here, there's something I'd like to bring up."

Danzo stood, his gaze dark and fixed on the Third Hokage's face as he said coldly:

"猿飞, the war is over."

When Sarutobi showed no reaction, Danzo raised his voice. "Sakumo's reputation is growing by the day! He's just won another major victory on the battlefield in the Land of Wind!"

The Third Hokage furrowed his brow, picked up the pipe from the desk, and silently began to smoke.

But Danzo only grew more agitated as he spoke, pressing on relentlessly. "White Fang of the Leaf—what a grand title! His reputation has already eclipsed yours, Third Hokage! What comes next? Are we going to choose him as the Fourth?"

Utatane Koharu chimed in from the side. "It's true. Sakumo's prestige has grown far too great. Even Orochimaru and the others, who made names for themselves on the battlefield in the Land of Rain, can't match the attention he's getting."

"We should make him rein it in."

The three of them grew louder and louder, while the Third Hokage simply puffed away at his pipe.

He was troubled, too.

Sakumo's reputation really was too great. He had accomplished incredible things on the battlefield in the Land of Wind and built up immense prestige among the ninja. That prestige had even eclipsed the Third Hokage's, and people among the civilians were already calling for him to become the Fourth.

After a long while, the Third Hokage finally lowered his pipe and said gravely, "Sakumo has only just distinguished himself. If you try to suppress him now, won't that demoralize everyone?"

"Hmph! Sarutobi, you're far too softhearted! If you don't curb Sakumo's influence now, you'd better get ready to step down!"

The Third Hokage had already been troubled by this for some time. At those words, he snapped, "Danzo, I'm the Hokage!"

That was the last straw for Danzo. His face darkened, and he shouted furiously, "Sarutobi, you'll regret this!"

"Bang!"

Danzo slammed the door on his way out.

"Sarutobi, Danzo meant well, and he wasn't wrong."

"All right, I understand. You can go."

The Third Hokage took a deep drag on his pipe, his face clouded with worry.

He was still in the prime of his life, at the height of his strength as a ninja. Naturally, he didn't want to give up the Hokage Position so soon and retire home to enjoy his old age. But suppressing a meritorious shinobi wasn't a decision he could bring himself to make, either.

Sigh...

Ye Ning naturally knew nothing about the argument in the Hokage Building.

At that moment, they had run into their first problem since leaving the Capital of the Land of Fire.

Ye Ning moved a little closer to the carriage. His expression remained calm, but his body was already completely tensed as he kept a close watch on the wooded roadside.

They had encountered ninja.

Ye Ning found it hard to believe.

As far as he knew, there had never been an assassination of a Daimyo anywhere in the entire Naruto world. Even the Daimyo of the Land of Wind, who had cut Sunagakure's funding down to nothing, had always been left in peace.

What's more, a Daimyo's guards weren't particularly powerful. The fact that an ordinary person could survive among ninja and hold such a high position probably came down to an unspoken agreement.

No ninja would attack a Daimyo.

So here was the question: why were the ninja hiding in the shadows targeting them?

Of course, the most absurd part was that those two ninja... really weren't very good.

At the very least, they were terrible at hiding themselves.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have found them so quickly.

"My lord~ have some grapes~"

"No~ have some of mine~"

"..."

Inside the carriage, the indecent, lewd noises continued.

Ye Ning's face twitched. He wanted to give them a warning, but was afraid of frightening his cowardly adopted father, so after thinking it over, he lowered the hand he'd been about to use to knock on the window.

Still, it wasn't right to keep listening to that sort of thing from behind the carriage!

He was only twelve!

He was still a kid!

Ye Ning let out a long, weary sigh. For a moment, he really wanted to rush into the trees and drag out the two ninja hiding there.

But the fifty samurai guarding the front looked alert without having noticed a thing, so Ye Ning gave up on the idea.

What if those two fools who'd given themselves away were just bait meant to lure them in? That would be a disaster. Better to wait patiently...

Fortunately, the two unlucky fools didn't make Ye Ning wait long.

After what seemed like a brief observation, they couldn't hold back any longer and made their move.

"Whoosh! Whoosh!"

Two faint whistles suddenly cut through the woods. Two shuriken came streaking toward the carriage!

The samurai guarding them barely had time to blink before two figures shot out from the tranquil woods, leaping high over the towering trees and diving toward the ornate carriage.

"Assassins!"

"Protect the lord!"

The samurai weren't so startled that they froze, but they fell into chaos at once. Two of them instinctively shouted and tried to protect their lord, but they were clearly too slow to stop the two ninja.

At the last possible moment, Ye Ning leapt into the air and landed on top of the carriage. He swept his sleeve out, knocking aside the two incoming shuriken, then lunged at the two ninja like a hawk diving for a rabbit, both hands reaching for them.

Thud—

In the blink of an eye, the two ninja who had burst from the woods were pinned against a nearby tree root, knocking a few leaves from the branches above.

The entire thing had happened so suddenly that even after Ye Ning had restrained the two ninja, the Daimyo inside the carriage only just managed to react. He shakily poked his head out through the window and stole a look.

The two ninja had clearly realized they'd picked a fight with the wrong person. They didn't even try to resist, only shouted again and again:

"Spare us! Spare us! I was only trying to rob you. I didn't mean to kill anyone..."

"We saw how fancy the carriage was and thought we could rob it for some money to pay off our gambling debts... Please spare us..."

!?

Are you kidding me?

You two are ninja, in the Land of Fire, trying to rob the Daimyo of the Land of Fire just to pay off your gambling debts?

Ye Ning didn't answer. His gaze naturally fell on the Forehead Protectors on their heads.

A clearly visible slash ran through the symbol in the middle.

Ye Ning's expression tightened. He turned his head, wary, and asked, "Rogue ninja?"

And that symbol on their Forehead Protectors... why did it seem so familiar?

Rogue ninja from Konoha?

Konoha's rogue ninja were robbing the Daimyo of the Land of Fire, right here in the Land of Fire?