Konoha Destruction Plan

Temari had blond hair tied into four short pigtails that looked painfully stiff.

Her ninja forehead protector served as the dividing line.

Two pigtails sat above the protector's ties, while the other two below were level with her ears.

Naruto truly had not expected Temari to be seated next to him for this written exam.

As the eldest daughter of the Fourth Kazekage and the sister of Kankuro and Gaara, she and her two brothers formed a ninja team—the vanguard of Sunagakure's Konoha Destruction Plan for these Chunin Ninja Exams.

The Joint Chunin Exams would gather the Daimyo of every nation and influential figures from all walks of life. The Fourth Kazekage's plan was actually quite simple.

Seated toward the back of the examination hall, Naruto looked toward Gaara, who sat near the middle.

Once one knew that Gaara was the Jinchūriki of a Tailed Beast, it was easy to deduce the Fourth Kazekage's original plan.

During the final Chunin Ninja Exams, Gaara would release Shukaku, the One-Tail, before all those influential spectators.

He would shatter the powerful image Konoha had maintained for years!

That was likely the Fourth Kazekage's true plan.

With Sunagakure's current strength, it could not possibly confront Konoha head-on.

The invasion of Konoha was not truly intended to launch an all-out war. The real purpose was to secure a strategic victory for Sunagakure.

It was meant to make the foolish Daimyo of the Land of Wind, who intended to abandon his own country's strength and rely on Konoha's military power, understand what national politics meant.

After the Third Shinobi World War, the Land of Wind and the Land of Fire had formed an alliance.

The Land of Wind's national strength had been severely damaged after the war, and its desert-covered terrain had also severely limited the recovery of its economy and agriculture.

So the Daimyo of the Land of Wind simply bypassed Sunagakure and began assigning large numbers of ninja missions to Konoha.

This caused Sunagakure to decline day by day.

The Daimyo of the Land of Wind even intended to further reduce Sunagakure's power.

As one of the Five Great Nations, after enjoying barely more than a decade of brief peace, the Daimyo of the Land of Wind was actually prepared to cripple his own nation's "military strength."

Instead, he sought to strengthen the already powerful Land of Fire.

Without the strength to protect one's own nation, another country's mercy would become the cruelest form of violence.

Yet the Daimyo of the Land of Wind was too foolish to understand even such basic common sense.

That was what forced the Fourth Kazekage to join forces with the newly risen Hidden Sound Village of the Land of Rice Fields and plan an attack on Konoha.

Seeking cooperation with Hidden Sound had also been a clever move.

Compared to the small ninja villages around the Land of Fire that had existed for years and whose intelligence Konoha already controlled,

the newly established Hidden Sound Village in the Land of Rice Fields had not yet fallen under Konoha's control.

The Fourth Kazekage could more easily win Hidden Sound over.

Hidden Sound's cooperation seemed dispensable to the great nation of Sunagakure, but it was actually the most brilliant part of the Fourth Kazekage's openly laid strategy against Konoha.

He would use Hidden Sound's Sound Ninja as the main force attacking Konoha, preserving Sunagakure's own combat strength.

Once Sunagakure achieved its strategic objective, the Fourth Kazekage would discard Hidden Sound of the Land of Rice Fields afterward.

The act of preserving his combat strength could also be whitewashed as Sunagakure having been deceived by Hidden Sound.

He could blame every problem on Hidden Sound and use the Land of Rice Fields to divert the conflict between the two great nations of Fire and Wind.

And the only price Sunagakure needed to pay was for uninformed people to label the Fourth Kazekage as "a fool from a great nation deceived by a small country."

Sunagakure's gains far outweighed the price it paid.

The Fourth Kazekage had judged the scale of his desired strategic objective perfectly.

It would not be enough to make Konoha and Sunagakure completely fall out and turn from allies into enemies.

After obtaining the practical benefits of his strategic victory, the Fourth Kazekage would only need to verbally lower his head and admit fault first.

So long as Konoha retained even a shred of rationality, it would work with Sunagakure to do everything possible to prevent an all-out war between the two nations.

They would prevent the Land of Earth and the Land of Lightning from reaping the benefits of a full-scale war between Konoha and Sunagakure.

Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage currently in power in Konoha, would only swallow this silent loss whole.

Hiruzen Sarutobi's indecisiveness in his old age was no secret to anyone with clear eyes.

The Fourth Kazekage's scheme could be said to have seen straight through the Third Hokage.

As long as the subsequent political negotiations went well, the cooperation between Sunagakure and Hidden Sound could be turned into a scheme that Konoha and Sunagakure had "planned together long ago."

It would become Sunagakure "helping" Konoha, allowing Konoha to rightfully extend its influence into Hidden Sound Village, this newly established ninja village full of uncertainty for Konoha.

The old but effective tactic of "great nations play politics, small nations pay the bill."

Unfortunately, the Fourth Kazekage's luck was truly terrible.

Other than Naruto, a transmigrator, who could have imagined that the leader of Hidden Sound Village was Orochimaru, one of the Legendary Sannin who had defected from Konoha years ago?

Orochimaru instead used the Fourth Kazekage, disrupting the strategic objective the Fourth Kazekage had originally intended to achieve.

Going along with the plan, Orochimaru used all of Sunagakure to begin carrying out his own extreme Konoha Destruction Plan.

Undercurrents surged, and the victor became king.

That was the ninja world's true nature.

Naruto stared at Gaara's back, pondering the reasons behind the Konoha Destruction Plan.

As he reflected on the ruthless and cruel nature of shinobi, Temari's voice sounded beside his ear.

"Don't have any unnecessary ideas about Gaara. You'll die."

Noticing Naruto's gaze fixed on Gaara, Temari suddenly spoke up to warn him.

Naruto turned toward Temari in surprise. He had not expected her to take the initiative to speak to him.

But Naruto quickly reined in his emotions.

Temari's unexpected action made Naruto instantly realize that this was an opportunity.

"You're Gaara's companion. Kabuto-senpai's information on Gaara's ninja team had your picture in it—Gaara, Kankuro... you're Temari."

Temari had clearly misunderstood Naruto's scrutinizing gaze at Gaara just now. She thought Naruto wanted to challenge Gaara and test his own strength.

Boys of twelve or thirteen always liked finding ways to prove themselves. As the older sister of two younger brothers and someone with several years of ninja experience,

it was not strange for Temari to see Naruto that way.

Naruto and Sasuke at that age had indeed been exactly as Temari imagined in the original story.

But the current Naruto was different.

Naruto did not refute Temari. Going along with her assumption, he put on a curious expression. "Without actually fighting, who can say who's stronger?"

Temari watched Naruto's excited expression as he cracked his knuckles, and her brows furrowed deeply.

She had warned Naruto out of kindness.

But more importantly, she was thinking of Gaara.

Temari did not want Gaara to slaughter too many innocent people and become emotionally excited, making it difficult to suppress the monster hidden within him.

But Naruto had clearly not taken her advice to heart.

"Didn't that Yakushi Kabuto guy say it too? In these Chunin Ninja Exams, Gaara is among the best of the candidates. He's definitely the strongest."

Temari continued trying to persuade him.

Yet although she was warning Naruto, her expression was clouded with gloom.

Temari could not help recalling the B-rank Mission she, Kankuro, and Gaara had carried out not long ago.

She remembered Gaara's bloody methods during that mission.

Temari sank into her own thoughts.