In the year 33 of Konoha's reign, August.
Team One, which had been running rampant throughout the Land of Earth, ultimately sparked a fierce confrontation between the Third Tsuchikage and Roshi.
"Tsuchikage-sama, Four-Tails absolutely couldn't have emerged while I was asleep!" Roshi's face slightly flushed as his tone grew increasingly irritated.
The Third Tsuchikage, Onoki, simply stated a fact: "Roshi, I know you have a good relationship with Four-Tails, but how do you explain the recent appearances of lava zones across the Land of Earth?"
Then he added with a kind-looking face: "Tailed beasts bear enmity toward shinobi. Their words cannot be trusted."
However, Roshi refused to accept this reasoning: "Tsuchikage-sama, that's prejudice. If we treated tailed beasts kindly, they wouldn't hate us in the first place."
That was just who Roshi was. Years of being a jinchuriki had long taught him to think from others' perspectives.
But clearly, Onoki did not agree: "Have I not treated you well enough normally?"
Granting a jinchuriki freedom to travel across the Land of Earth had already been his greatest concession as Tsuchikage.
Moreover, several Iwagakure squads had recently gone missing entirely, and Onoki was certain these disappearances were tied to Konoha.
Sunagakure or Kusagakure? He had never even heard of either faction possessing shinobi capable of orchestrating such operations.
"Then all the more reason to let me move freely and capture both whoever framed me and those Konoha shinobi in one fell swoop!" An impassioned Roshi insisted he could absolutely complete this mission.
"No." Onoki directly refused: "You're a jinchuriki of Iwagakure. During peacetime I allowed you freedom, but this is wartime now!"
At that moment, Roshi saw clearly — in essence, all village Kages were the same.
Being allowed free movement across the Land of Earth was nothing more than exchanging one prison for a larger cage.
"Tsuchikage-sama, I won't leave the borders of the Land of Earth, but I want to join frontline units," said a somewhat calmer Roshi, still determined to prove himself and Four-Tails innocent.
Onoki, wrestling internally with conflicting thoughts, silently nodded upon seeing that resolute face: "Fine, but you must follow orders without question."
With very few people aware, Roshi, the jinchuriki of Iwagakure, thus entered the battlefield.
Though his goal was to uncover the hidden orchestrator, this act marked the first time a jinchuriki entered actual combat.
Above the Land of Streams.
A Hagoromo's Ship bearing Konoha's insignia circled thousands of meters above ground.
Inside the cabin, over thirty members of the Scientific Combat Division sat tensely in their seats, awaiting attack orders.
"Finding Takigakure Village really was no easy feat," Orochimaru at the pilot's seat smirked, gazing down at the waterfall below.
"So *that's* why no one in the shinobi world could ever locate them," Jiraiya stepped into the cockpit upon hearing this, staring downward at the waterfall.
Beneath a two- to three-hundred-meter waterfall actually lay a fairly large village.
Even Tsunade, infamous for her explosive temper, understood the implications: "Are we launching an assault on Takigakure?"
"Right, this is our last option," Orochimaru explained to the two beside him without any relaxation in his mood. "Sarutobi-sensei won't agree. Konoha doesn't have the position to attack Takigakure just for an ally."
"Tenten thinks too much about this and that—that's probably why the old man always hesitates." Tenten crossed her arms, showing strong disdain toward the Hokage position.
Jiraiya felt similarly: "Thinking too much about these things all day long—that's probably why the old man always hesitates."
Orochimaru agreed with both evaluations of the Hokage: "Indeed, rather than negotiating with them, it would be better to simply fly down and fight directly."
His thinking had gradually shifted—clearly under someone else's influence. He even suggested that a mere two or three dozen rocket strikes on the poorly defended Takigakure might force their leader to surrender immediately.
Then he listed intelligence data he had collected, compared it with their combat strength, and concluded that taking the main forces from the Land of Grass would be sufficient to completely annihilate Takigakure.
Jiraiya and Tsunade stared speechlessly—feeling the boastful Orochimaru before them must be an imposter pretending to be some death-defying lunatic.
A village like Takigakure with a population of ten thousand to twenty thousand should still have ninja numbering two or three thousand, even if defenses were weak. The allied forces from Konoha, Sunagakure, and Kusagakure only amounted roughly to this number.
Who could possibly claim they could wipe out an enemy like that?
Orochimaru, who lately always wore a cold face, bit back the words "regardless of casualties" he originally wanted to speak.
If he truly said those four words aloud, his two teammates would definitely scold him as ruthless and cruel, refusing to associate with him at all.
Meanwhile, somewhere within the Land of Earth—
Team One, ever cheerful, was creating lava again!
Head commander Nayou clearly designated the construction site when suddenly, enforcer Nawaki leapt forward first to clear the area.
Like a brown humanoid meteor, he crashed into several earthen walls.
Knocked backward over ten meters by the counterforce, Nawaki got up and immediately jumped again.
With a loud shout of [Nawaki-sama's consecutive punches!], several Rock-nin resisting relocation were smashed into the ground.
The final survivor—the squad leader, an unnamed Iwagakure jonin—glared angrily at the enforcer before him.
"So you're from Konoha, huh! Damnable!" He spat out these words before activating a Ninjutsu and vanishing underground.
As a jonin, he needed to report this news to Iwagakure immediately.
"Hello there!"
A huge smiling face abruptly appeared before his eyes.
"You Konoha shinobi, since when did you learn our—"
"Don't misunderstand. I didn't come here through any jutsu." Contractor Shen cheerfully replied.
In such a moment, how could he resist messing with the enemy a bit?
Suddenly exuding a mystical presence, Shen casually stretched out his hand, instantly expanding the underground chamber ten times its size.
After skillfully placing several flashlights, he began his performance: "This immortal sage is none other than the Land Spirit himself."
To strengthen his credibility, he raised his hand and used Sage Chakra to transform the soil in this underground chamber into a table and two chairs.
At first, the Kumogakure Jonin felt somewhat confused, until he noticed the Konoha Forehead Protector on his opponent's forehead.
"A ninja from Konoha? I knew it—you're all just a bunch of frauds!" He finished coldly, suddenly pulling out a Kunai knife from his waist.
The flying Kunai did not even cause a flicker of emotion across Shen's face.
He simply channeled Chakra into the cells of his left index and middle fingers, effortlessly catching the Kunai between them.
"Why are today's youngsters always so impatient?" Still holding that pose, Shen shook his head with the air of an old master scolding a disrespectful student: "This immortal calculated with a single finger—that great misfortune is about to befall you."
Of course, this Jonin didn't buy any of his nonsense.
He was a Jonin who had received standard ninja training in Kumogakure—how could he possibly believe in such an absurd 'earth god' when even the Sage of Six Paths was questionable to him!
"It exists if you believe; disappears if you don't," Shen said solemnly, slightly tightening his grip with the two fingers, bending the Kunai in his grasp.
"You, quit fooling around and take care of the person already," came a voice suddenly through the earpiece he wore.
In the silence of the underground chamber, those words cracked through the air like thunder.
"Brother, you're up."
With those words still hanging in the air, a roaring wave of flame surged forward, swallowing the retreating Iwagakure Jonin.
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