At this critical juncture, if Gekkō Raito decided to kill them, wiping out a village would be as easy as raising his hand.
After all, they had started the war. Even if they were wiped out, they would deserve it, and no one would sympathize.
Yet faced with this temptation, Raito merely smiled disdainfully.
"A vassal? If Iwagakure really did that, wouldn't the so-called order of the five great ninja villages exist in name only?"
"I have no interest in vassals. What I want is something practical."
"Iwagakure must close its borders immediately, for twenty years! And that's not all. You must pay tribute to Kirigakure every year, amounting to eighty percent of your village's total income!"
"Of course, I'm not unreasonable. Every ten years, the tribute rate can decrease by ten percent."
At these words, Ōnoki froze as though he had been struck by lightning.
How ruthless!
Raito intended to seal off Iwagakure's prospects for the next several centuries without shedding a drop of blood!
Once they agreed, Iwagakure could forget about recovering for hundreds of years, let alone challenging Kirigakure.
First came twenty years of isolation, which meant cutting off all contact with the outside world.
Combined with that terrifying eighty-percent annual tribute, this meant that Iwagakure would not merely stop developing; its economy and strength would even decline drastically.
Meanwhile, during those twenty years, Kirigakure would undoubtedly expand at a tremendous pace using their hard-earned money.
The gap between them would widen to a point that inspired despair.
And that was not even counting the sixty more years of being bled dry afterward.
During that time, Kirigakure would have long since left the other villages so far behind that they could not even see its taillights.
But!
Even faced with these oppressive terms that bordered on enslavement,