Frame Them First

The Land of Fire was quite lively in the days that followed.

At the northern ends, Tsunade and Jiraiya each led an army of ten thousand and were stationed on the border between the Land of Earth and the Land of Lightning.

This forced Kumogakure and Iwagakure to also send large forces to keep an eye on things.

This resulted in them not having enough manpower to send to the Land of Fire and the Land of Whirlpools to cause trouble in the shadows.

With fewer people, the prestige of Uchiha ninjas is questionable; it would take three of them to defeat one enemy of the same level.

With Uzumaki Ayaka 'Mind's Eye of the Kagura, which can sense things over ten kilometers away, how could there be a chance for the enemy to fight three against one?

It's usually the Uchiha Kazue who, with fewer people, lead the charge and solve the problem; it should be three against one.

As for having more people, they first got hit by Fa Feng 'Perfect Susanoo's area-of-effect attack, and then were attacked by Kazue and his people in a three-on-one fight.

In this way, the spies and agents sent by Kumogakure and Iwagakure to Land of Whirlpools were quickly and completely eliminated.

Then, Feng, true to his word, sent Ayaka and Kazue to the Land of Fire to help Konoha, his ally, eliminate the Cloud Ninja and Iwa Ninja within its borders.

During the purge, Feng's men did something particularly interesting as Feng had requested.

If Ayaka discovers Iwagakure, and if there are very few, she will have White Zetsu transform into a large, white-haired, black-skinned man and lead a group of people skilled in authentic Kumogakure Lightning Release to surround and annihilate them. If there are many, she will ambush them from all sides, aiming to leave no one behind.

If it weren't any other enemies from Iwagakure, Feng would order his men to surround the enemy from three sides, deliberately leaving them a way out, or simply swarm them to create the illusion of a sudden encounter.

Then, unsurprisingly, Iwagakure and Ōnoki were destroyed.

"Bang!"

"Someone definitely leaked our intelligence on purpose!"

Who is it?!

Looking at the few people, including Kitsuchi and Kurotsuchi, who had fled back to the village in a sorry state, Ōnoki gritted his teeth and slammed his fist on the table in anger.

They also sent people to Konoha to sow discord between Konoha and the Uchiha.

The Kumogakure and other forces were rarely ambushed, so although they couldn't defeat the Uchiha, they were able to escape, and only 30-40% of their men were lost.

Where is Iwagakure?

Despite having Kage Level powerhouse like Kitsuchi and a quick-witted young man like Kurotsuchi, they were always discovered and ambushed by the Uchiha. Of the hundreds of secret troops, less than ten returned, suffering a loss of 99%.

Furthermore, Iwagakure has never had any major conflicts with the Uchiha clan, nor do they have any old grudges.

This left the cautious and suspicious Ōnoki with no choice but to think the wrong thing.

"Father, it's Kumogakure!"

Huang Tu, who was nearly reduced to Kitsuchi by Feng's sudden Flying Thunder God Technique and Susanoo's aerial Ninjutsu: Formless Sword Intent, gritted his teeth and said to Ōnoki.

"??" Ōnoki looked at Kitsuchi with some confusion.

Even though he believed that his side's heavy losses must have been due to being betrayed, he did not suspect Kumogakure Uzumaki Ayaka not been exposed.

After all, while the Fourth Raikage A was reckless, he wasn't stupid enough to betray his only ally when he could now share Konoha with the village.

Not to mention that Darui, the current Fifth Raikage candidate and head of Kumogakure, is intelligent and not reckless, so he would be even less likely to do something stupid.

Upon seeing this, Kitsuchi turned to look into the group of people in the Anbu.

"Whoever signed Summoning Contract with the Weasel Clan, summon the Stone Marten."

"I'll do it."

Upon hearing this, one of the Anbu stepped forward.

Stone Marten is a commonly used communication Summoning Beast in Iwagakure, and quite a few people can summon it.

"Bang!"

A moment later, the Stone Marten that had been shown to it by Uzumaki Ayaka, White Zetsu A-Bian, Uchiha Kazue in a staged performance was summoned.

Kitsuchi picked up the Stone Marten and brought it to Ōnoki. At the same time, he took out a sealing scroll and "bang!" unsealed several badly burned corpses, as well as the barely recognizable nameplates that the Stone Marten had pulled out of the corpses.

Then he spoke:

"These bodies were brought back from different battlefields; they are the bodies of our comrades from Iwagakure."

At first glance, it's quite obvious that they were all destroyed by Fire Release.

In the Ninja World, only the Uchiha Clan and Sarutobi Clan can unleash such powerful Fire Release.

Therefore, most people would subconsciously assume that they were killed by ninjas from Konoha or Land of Whirlpools.

But that's not the case, Father. Look here on this corpse, and this one too..."

As Kitsuchi spoke, he moved around among several corpses, pointing out certain places to Ōnoki.

"This is...!! A trace of Lightning Release!?"

Ōnoki, who possessed the lightning attribute himself, quickly understood what was so special about the places that the Kitsuchi had pointed out.

"Well, Stone Marten, you tell everyone the rest."

Seeing that his father understood what he was trying to say, Kitsuchi nodded and then drew everyone's attention to the Stone Marten that had just been summoned.

"I brought back extremely important intelligence this time. Remember to prepare two roasted rabbits for me later, and add plenty of cumin!"

However, the Stone Marten, who was being watched by everyone, did not speak directly but instead asked for benefits first.

Kurotsuchi, standing nearby, punched it with a loud "bang!" and stared intently at it with bloodshot eyes. "Get to the point!"

It was her first time participating in a major mission for the village, going to another country to cause trouble. Before leaving the village, she was full of confidence and high spirits.

Now... if it weren't for her father's protection, she would have almost died like any other passerby from the unknown area-of-effect attacks on the battlefield.

Having barely escaped with her life and fled back to the village in a sorry state, Kurotsuchi was now seething with anger and had no interest in Summoning Beast. All she wanted was to find out why she had lost so miserably.

"Okay, okay, I got it."

Stone Marten turned its head and saw that the one who had beaten it was Kurotsuchi, whose anger was so great that it was almost setting the house on fire. It quickly coughed and wisely began to get down to business. The other party was the precious darling of the entire Iwagakure, and it could not afford to offend him.

"About two weeks ago, I sent a message to the two teams of ninjas who destroyed a village in the Land of Whirlpools."

After sending the message, I was hungry, so I didn't come back immediately. Instead, I went to the village to find something to eat.

As soon as I crawled into a ruin to start searching, I turned around and found that your two teams of ninjas were already surrounded by a group of ninjas who were completely covered up.

Then, dozens of enemy ninjas simultaneously unleashed their Lightning Release, and your eight ninjas were instantly wiped out.

After killing the person, the perpetrator immediately had a ninja skilled in Fire Release burn the body to destroy the evidence.

Yes, the corpses that have been processed are exactly the same as the ones you see in front of you now.

As for the murderers, they should be from Kumogakure).

"How do you know they are ninjas from Kumogakure? Could it be that they have the same purpose as us, deliberately framing others from Kumogakure?"

The suspicious Ōnoki was about to speak when Kurotsuchi, who was standing nearby, asked him the question first.

"First of all, the Lightning Release they used is Ninjutsu that only genuine Kumogakure are skilled in; I've seen it before."

Secondly, I personally witnessed the enemy leader at the time. He was standing not far behind Raikage when Kitsuchi Raikage was discussing the alliance.

Although he was disguised, I recognized him at a glance by his hair color, skin tone, and build.

Of course, you might say that those external things can be faked, but don't forget, I'm the Weasel Clan, the best at finding people.

A person's appearance can change, but everyone's Chakra aura is unique and cannot be altered.

"I recognized him not only by his appearance, but also by his unique Chakra aura."

Upon hearing this, Ōnoki, Kitsuchi, Kurotsuchi, and the other Iwa Ninja frowned and fell into deep thought.

Stone Marten's words were reasonable and well-founded, and they could find no reason to refute them. In addition, during the last Third Shinobi World War, Iwagakure used 10,000 ninjas to wear down the Third Raikage of Kumogakure.

The feud between the two ninja villages is quite significant.