Operation

In an unremarkable room in Konoha, Tanaka and Fujimura met once again.

"How is it? Have you confirmed the details?"

"Senior Fujimura, I have. More than a thousand ninja returned to Konoha with Orochimaru and Tsunade. The Two Advisors, Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu, went to meet them.

"Three hundred were recalled from each of the Land of Wind and Land of Earth fronts, and four hundred from the Land of Rain front."

Fujimura gave a cold smile. "Good. I'll send word to Sunagakure about the situation in Konoha. Keep a close watch on the village."

"Yes, Senior Fujimura."

The next day, Fujimura finished gathering the supplies he needed. Dressed as a down-on-his-luck traveling merchant, he left Konoha. After a year of peace, the village's vigilance had begun to slip.

Trade in Konoha was also thriving. Traveling merchants came and went in droves, and more than a few were spies from other nations, just like Fujimura.

Not far outside Konoha, he summoned a messenger hawk. Watching it vanish into the sky, Fujimura could almost picture Sunagakure dealing Konoha a crushing blow and seizing a stretch of fertile land from the Land of Fire.

Two days later, a messenger hawk arrived at Sunagakure's Intelligence Department. The intelligence officer saw the words "Top Secret" on the message and immediately notified the Kazekage.

The Third Kazekage read the intelligence in his hand and nodded. His little plan had worked.

Ever since the Logistics Minister of the Land of Earth's capital had been killed, the Third Kazekage had set his sights on several ministers in the Land of Fire.

For more than a year, he had secretly been buying off low-ranking clerks in key departments there. He had not approached them as the Kazekage, of course, but through several wealthy merchants who had infiltrated