Fierce Battle! The Human Realm!

"Pfft, pfft, pfft~"

Within the Land of Fire.

On a narrow forest path, birds on both sides startled and flew away as three ninja in black robes patterned with red clouds slowly made their way down the trail.

It was the Akatsuki.

Needless to say, their public identity was still that of mercenaries, and the mission on this trip was to assassinate the Daimyo of the Land of Fire!

At this point in the Third Shinobi World War, as time went on, the fighting had gradually reached a fever pitch. The four great nations had gathered more and more intelligence on their respective opponents, and the final decisive battle was about to begin!

And at this critical moment, Konoha, which was fighting three nations at once while its highest symbol of combat power, the Hokage, had yet to even enter the field, was absolutely the flashiest of them all!

Naturally, it became a target.

As the saying went, to catch bandits, first catch their king. As long as the enemy's leader was dealt with, the battle was basically more than halfway won. And the Third Hokage, as the strongest combat force on the surface, naturally could not be the target.

That would not be called an assassination. That would be called throwing money away.

Naturally, the target was set on the Daimyo, the head of a nation!

And because Konoha had too many enemies—putting aside everything else, there were four great nations alone that did not want them to win! As for the small nations, there was even less need to say, though not many of them dared to actually hire anyone.

Even so, as the mercenary organization with the greatest reputation in the current Shinobi World, Akatsuki received three orders at the same time! And the amounts were substantial!