Digging a Pit for Danzo

Jiraiya could guess it was Danzo Shimura, and Tsunade had surely reached the same conclusion.

Jiraiya was more or less bound by propriety, but Tsunade was not.

Tsunade said disdainfully, "That old bastard must have seen you leaving the village this time and wanted to use someone else's hand to kill you."

Uchiha Yato smiled. "Him? He'll never know his own limits."

"He's just a clown jumping around. No need to pay him too much attention."

Seeing that Uchiha Yato and Tsunade had both made up their minds, Jiraiya naturally could not say much else.

He turned back and said, "But we still can't kill people from the Hidden Cloud Village, can we?"

"If the old man holds us accountable later, it'll be hard for us to explain ourselves, right?"

Jiraiya was right. After all, this could be considered a diplomatic issue between two countries.

And if given the chance, Danzo Shimura would definitely use every means possible to make Hiruzen Sarutobi abandon Uchiha Yato in order to preserve Konoha's peace.

Wasn't there something like that in the original story? The Hidden Cloud Village had come right to their doorstep to kidnap Hinata Hyuga.

The Third Hokage had directly humiliated the nation and surrendered its rights, letting the head of the branch family die. If it really came to that, Uchiha Yato would not sit still and wait for death even if he had to defect from the village.

Uchiha Yato relented slightly. "Then what should we do now?"

"I've already fought them. It'd be hard to nitpick me now."

Jiraiya volunteered to negotiate with the dark-skinned brothers.

Uchiha Yato said directly, "Forget it. When they sell you out later, you'll probably still help them count the money."

"Leave this sort of thing to me."

Uchiha Yato stopped his ninjutsu attacks, then strode forward and spoke to the dark-skinned brothers.

"Stop. Don't fight anymore."

The others present were left somewhat speechless.

Aside from the dark-skinned brothers using a few techniques at the start, it had been entirely Uchiha Yato showing off as a spellcasting artillery platform afterward.

"Fighting and killing is so unpleasant, and it might even hurt the flowers and grass."

Silence. The scene instantly became terrifyingly quiet.

This was truly a case of officials being allowed to set fires while commoners were forbidden from lighting lamps. It perfectly described Uchiha Yato's behavior right now.

Jiraiya called out as well, "You were probably deceived."

"We don't have the culprit behind the Eight-Tails' rampage."

Seeing that the other side was willing to talk, A adjusted himself and said, "It was someone from Konoha. We received intelligence that the culprit behind the Eight-Tails' rampage is among your group."

Though he had been beaten, he could not lose face.

Although the future Fourth Raikage had always seemed like a reckless brute at this point, it had to be admitted that he did have some brains.

At the very least, he knew his younger brother was both his weakness and the Hidden Cloud Village's jinchuriki, so he would protect him.

He would not be like the other ninja villages, which treated jinchuriki as disasters and either subjected them to dark management or manipulated them through emotional abuse.

(Hiruzen Sarutobi said: I feel like you're insulting me.)

At that moment, Uchiha Yato said, "I know what happened."

"I also know who sent you here, and I know even better who caused the Eight-Tails' rampage."

Jiraiya and Tsunade were baffled. What was going on with Uchiha Yato?

The people from the Hidden Cloud Village on the other side were equally confused.

Uchiha Yato said, "This was definitely the work of our Shadow Kage."

"No, the Hokage's advisor—Danzo Shimura."

Tsunade and Jiraiya took that fairly well, but A did not.

"Bullshit! How can you prove it?"

Uchiha Yato loved having someone play straight man for him. Although A acted incredibly forceful, he had been following Uchiha Yato's line of thought all along.

Uchiha Yato said, "I imagine your intelligence source was Mr. Dodai, correct?"

"Our Hokage's advisor is a man of Konoha, but his methods are far too dark. So it's entirely possible that he would do something so twisted."

"Based on just those two points, I can roughly infer that Mr. Dodai was used by Danzo Shimura in this matter."

Only then did A begin to feel bewildered. Originally, he had merely wanted Uchiha Yato to show off a little so that the matter could pass.

After all, following ten minutes of being baptized by Fire Release, he had already acknowledged Uchiha Yato's strength.

But as they continued talking, he found that Uchiha Yato's words sounded detailed and plausible. It really did seem possible that Danzo Shimura was the one pulling the strings behind the scenes.

The feeling of being used as a weapon made A feel terrible, as though a pair of donkey ears had grown on his head.

The Hidden Cloud Village's higher-ups had been deceived by a single Danzo Shimura, leading to A's defeat at Uchiha Yato's hands and his subsequent humiliation here.

A said stubbornly, "Those are only your guesses. You have no substantial evidence at all."

Uchiha Yato said, "Even if I did have substantial evidence, I couldn't possibly show it to you."

"Should I help outsiders bully someone from my own village?"

"I'm not that stupid. Or are you trying to bait me into revealing something with such a crude method?"

Only then did A realize that the person speaking before him was not from his own village, but from an enemy village.

Uchiha Yato had said that on purpose.

First, as he himself had said, he could not expose all of his village's secrets before ninja from another village.

Second, only by leaving behind doubts and plenty of room for speculation, allowing the Hidden Cloud Village's higher-ups to think for themselves, could he make the other side believe his words more readily.

Lastly, only by leaving them in suspense could he stir up their frustration and fleece them for a huge haul.

A was indeed beginning to feel irritated. Both sides understood perfectly well that if anything went wrong, it could very likely spark another ninja world war.

Konoha had Tsunade, while the Hidden Cloud Village had the A-B Combo. Under the subtle pressure of the situation, both sides had begun to give each other a way out and soften their stance.

For Uchiha Yato, yielding was fine, and giving them a way out was fine too.

But he had to gain some benefit and fleece them for something first. Otherwise, he would not give anyone face.

Uchiha Yato spoke again. "When you return, be sure to remind your higher-ups properly. How could they fall into a trap so easily?"

"If this little misunderstanding were to trigger the Third Ninja World War, then the blame would be on you."

Uchiha Yato was not wrong. Rumors that could so easily cause misunderstandings were the most likely to lead to trouble. Wasn't the outbreak of the Third Ninja World War caused by the disappearance of the Third Kazekage?

The Sand Shinobi had successfully concluded that Konoha was behind it, then launched the war.

Neither Jiraiya nor Tsunade stopped Uchiha Yato as he stirred up trouble.

Because they knew that this was when Uchiha Yato was at his most genuine—and his most infuriating.

It could be called: even dogs would shake their heads upon seeing it.

After Uchiha Yato gave them a round of verbal "education," everyone thought that would be the end of it.

Uchiha Yato said, "All right, we're done talking about national affairs. Let's discuss something personal."

A was utterly confused. What did that mean?

Uchiha Yato explained, "Earlier, you attacked us for no reason at all and caused me immense emotional distress."

"So you must compensate me with damages for emotional suffering."

Both sides mentally offered their greetings to Uchiha Yato's family.

Why was Tsunade also mentally offering greetings to Uchiha Yato's family?

Because when Uchiha Yato demanded money, he did not mention her at all. After all, she had been the one beaten at the beginning.

Yet when demanding money, he had not mentioned Tsunade even once.

A felt even worse. He had been deceived, bullied, and now extorted.

Three layers of debuffs had been stacked on him at once, crushing him so thoroughly that he could barely breathe.

And that only counted the mental damage. Physically, Uchiha Yato's relentless ninjutsu bombardment and Tsunade's fist-to-flesh blows had already exhausted all of A's energy.

Not wanting to argue with Uchiha Yato any longer, he handed over the only twenty thousand ryo he had on him. Uchiha Yato then left the area with the remaining Hidden Cloud ninja.

Naturally, while sowing discord, Uchiha Yato repeatedly brought up Danzo Shimura's name.

Having successfully diverted the heat, Uchiha Yato was even deeply grateful to Danzo Shimura for taking the blame for him once.

After this minor interlude ended, Tsunade and Jiraiya returned to Konoha Village with Uchiha Yato.