The next day, deep in a forest outside Konoha.
Four figures converged from different directions. Ōnoki hovered in midair, his diminutive body casting a faint shadow in the sunlight. With his hands clasped behind his back, his cloudy old eyes swept over the others as they arrived.
The Fourth Raikage, A, strode out of the forest to the east. Muscles bulged along his bare arms, and his mechanical prosthesis gleamed coldly in the sunlight. The ground trembled slightly beneath each step.
Kazekage Rasa approached along a path from the west, his face expressionless and his gaze dark.
Finally, the Fourth Mizukage, Karatachi Yagura, slowly emerged from the forest's shadows. His childlike face betrayed no emotion, but a crimson glimmer flashed deep within his eyes.
Ōnoki dispensed with pleasantries, his voice hoarse and blunt. "Mizukage! You went to all this trouble to bring us from Iwagakure, the Hidden Cloud Village, and the Hidden Sand Village together here. Out with it. What intelligence do you have?"
Karatachi Yagura stopped and raised his head, meeting Ōnoki's gaze. His voice was calm and slow, as though he were chewing over every word. "It concerns the intelligence that has stirred up the entire Ninja World lately-the news that the Leaf Village is collecting Tailed Beasts."
A narrowed his eyes, his pupils contracting to pinpoints. He stared hard at Karatachi Yagura, the fingers of his mechanical prosthesis curling slightly with a faint hydraulic hiss. He said nothing, but suppressed fury already showed in his taut muscles.
"The Hidden Mist Village lost half of the Three-Tails during the Third Shinobi World War. And the culprit was Hyuga Tianyi." Karatachi Yagura paused, shifting his gaze from A to Rasa. "If I'm not mistaken, Raikage, your village's Eight-Tails, and Kazekage, your village's One-Tail-suffered the same fate, didn't they?"
Ōnoki