Over the next few days, Gua and his two companions had little to do in the camp in the Land of Fire.
They would soon be leaving, so Asuma and the others no longer assigned them missions. They mostly spent their days wandering between tents, checking on the shinobi and occasionally exchanging a few words with familiar faces.
For some reason, Gua always saw intense envy in their eyes.
Were they envious of a young prodigy?
Fair enough. A seven-year-old with the Mangekyo would probably shock the whole world if word got out.
Gua, however, did not feel much of anything about it.
He carried on with his life as usual.
Although nothing had happened to Gua and his companions these past few days, they still heard news of what was happening outside.
Iwagakure had withdrawn its troops, pulling its forces on the main front all the way back into the Land of Earth.
Apparently, their defeat on the main front, combined with the destruction of the Kannabi Bridge in their rear, had thrown their morale into disarray.
But with his experience and prestige among the troops, Ōnoki had managed to stabilize Iwagakure for the time being.
Then Konoha delivered the Five-Tails Jinchuriki's corpse to Iwagakure, and the Iwagakure shinobi completely lost their nerve.
Even a jinchūriki had died. What the hell were they still fighting for?
Moreover, as far as they knew, Iwagakure had two jinchūriki, yet the enemy had only returned one. There was no need to spell out what had happened to the other. He must have met a terrible end, without even a corpse left behind.
Ōnoki did everything he could to dispel the rumors, explaining that Konoha had not killed the jinchūriki. An organization called the Akatsuki had abducted them.
They had extracted the tailed