Meeting

In the previous chapter, Elder Yongchuan was mistakenly called Elder Furukawa. This has been corrected.

"Jingyou is right. We hold all the cards in this meeting. In terms of strength, we completely outmatch Sunagakure in the Land of Rain.

"And Sunagakure is even more desperate than we are to invade the Land of Fire. That's their weakness.

"The Sand Shinobi have repeatedly killed shinobi from our village and broken their word. They must make substantial concessions," one of the Senior Officials said.

Ōnoki had remained silent throughout. After hearing the Iwagakure Senior Officials speak, he nodded. "You're all right. Sunagakure was at fault first. Without adequate compensation and concessions, cooperation is out of the question."

"Lord Tsuchikage, Konoha still holds the Five-Tails. If Iwagakure joins forces with Sunagakure and Konoha offers the Five-Tails in exchange for our withdrawal, what do we do?

"Iwagakure no longer has a Tailed Beast it can use. The Four-Tails went berserk, and Rōshi died. We still haven't found a suitable Jinchūriki. That puts Iwagakure at a severe disadvantage."

Ōnoki fell silent. Sending Tailed Beasts into Konoha to wreak havoc and hold back its Reinforcements had been a plan he and the Wind Shadow devised. It had seemed foolproof.

Only a short time had passed between the Wind-Earth Allied Forces' imminent invasion of the Land of Fire and the arrival of Konoha's Reinforcements. The One-Tail and Five-Tails had failed to achieve what they were meant to.

They had been Sealed before they could even force out the Nine-Tails inside Mito Uzumaki.

Things had gone nothing like the original plan.

"Lord Tsuchikage, if Sunagakure offers enough, we might as well work with them. Once we invade the Land of Fire, we'll have leverage to demand the return of the Five-Tails Jinchūriki.

"If the Allied Forces' offensive goes