Jiraiya bent down and bowed to him, "Fire God Obito, I shouldn't have underestimated you through the toad's eyes, please be sure to teach me the powerful Fire Release to defeat Hanzo."
If Jiraiya's attitude was sincere enough, there was no reason why he couldn't teach him.
"Goggles kid, you seem too weak to cook, but since you have such a heart, you can be in charge of washing the vegetables." Jiraiya laughed as he patted Obito on the shoulder.
Obito remained expressionless. When the time came, he would definitely teach Jiraiya only the Great Fireball.
The final cooking responsibility fell on Mokgetsu, who voluntarily stepped forward; no one had any objection.
At night, after Obito finished eating, he went around the camp to train.
"Although cultivating hard is good, there might be a major combat mission soon, and you will be very tired then," Kakashi reminded.
As an elite squad, if Minato's plan succeeded, they would definitely be assigned important combat tasks. This was also why Sarutobi Hiruzen sent them to the battlefield.
"This is the difference between us, Kakashi. You can only see the potential missions and the internal conflict months later, while I've been thinking about how to defeat the Demigod Hanzo," Obito replied blandly.
Kakashi: ???
Jiraiya didn't seem to have hit Obito on the head, so why did his brain seem like it had been caught in a door?
Kakashi tentatively took out a photo of Obito and shook it in front of him.
Obito instantly couldn't maintain his calm demeanor, reaching his hands toward the photo.
But Kakashi activated the Transparent World in advance, seeing through all of Obito's moves, sidestepped, and retreated, causing Obito, in his rush, to nearly fall.
"Seems like everything's still normal." Kakashi reassured himself as he placed the photo back into his ninja pouch.
Obito: ...
He hated the white hair!
...
As time passed day by day, Konoha's plan proceeded in an orderly manner.
On one hand, they had Grass Ninja closely monitor Hidden Rock, while on the other, they pretended to fail in an intelligence battle, leading to the leakage of intelligence on an important stronghold.
But the development indeed exceeded the expectations of Jiraiya and other ninja squad high-ups.
"The Hidden Rock Village really isn't easy to deal with," Namikaze Minato said, frowning at the intelligence brought over by the Grass Ninja.
The Hidden Rock, for some unknown reason, suddenly discovered Grass Ninja's betrayal, and after attacking the Grass Ninja Squad, they disappeared without a trace.
"It's not that your plan had an issue, Minato, nor that Hidden Rock is too capable, it's that Grass Ninja's abilities are lacking," Jiraiya said, shaking his head as he put down the intelligence.
Konoha hadn't even started to act. It was evidently the Grass Ninja's failure.
"Isn't that right, Mokgetsu?"
Mokgetsu nodded; it indeed wasn't Minato's fault.
After reviewing the documentation once more, Mokgetsu sensed some anomalies; this incident gave him a strange déjà vu.
In the last battle on the East Coast Battlefield, Konoha also inexplicably lost in terms of intelligence. If it weren't for underestimating Mokgetsu's strength, Hidden Mist could have made Konoha take a big fall.
This time, if Hidden Rock hadn't chosen to directly turn against Grass Ninja but pretended not to notice and delivered false intelligence to set a trap for Konoha, the Konoha Ninja Squad in the Land of Grass Battlefield would encounter a situation similar to that of the Konoha Ninja Squad on the East Coast battlefield.
Clearly, Mokgetsu deduced from Hidden Rock's actual choice that they knew Mokgetsu led an elite squad to the battlefield, so they didn't want to take risks.
If it had been Hidden Cloud instead, Mokgetsu thought the two squads might have already clashed; with the information advantage, Hidden Cloud wouldn't lack the courage to take a gamble.
"Since they've been discovered, let's have the Grass Ninja Squadron openly fight for us and let them fully search for Hidden Rock," Jiraiya thought and then said.
With the strength of the Grass Ninja, Jiraiya didn't expect them to have much impact on the main battlefront, only hoping they could help Konoha establish a larger war intelligence network to assist in defeating Hidden Rock and getting off work earlier.
For Jiraiya, who was used to traveling, staying on the battlefield long-term was really boring.
"This is the only way to go right now," Namikaze Minato couldn't think of a better way.
If they couldn't exploit the intelligence difference to trap others, they'd just have to compete directly in terms of the capabilities of their squads, just like before.
Besides, compared to before, Hidden Rock lost the power of the Grass Ninja, while Konoha gained their full support. In this give-and-take situation, Konoha definitely had a minor gain.
Jiraiya reported the intelligence and made new combat arrangements simultaneously.
Now that they had a greater advantage, naturally, they had to take the initiative to weaken Hidden Rock's strength as much as possible.
Jiraiya dispatched Perception Ninja to search for Hidden Rock, while sending elite ninja to eliminate areas with Hidden Rock sightings. For the moment, the Konoha Ninja Squad held absolute initiative in the Land of Grass.
The Konoha Ninja were all very excited, as though they could already see another great victory ahead.
But only Jiraiya and his team knew that it was merely an illusion; Hidden Rock Squad hadn't lost much strength because they were making every effort to avoid direct confrontation.
Upon learning the intelligence, the high-ups in Konoha quickly convened a meeting to discuss countermeasures.
The Hidden Mist launched a massive offensive against the Land of Fire but was beaten into silence; Hidden Cloud was busy fighting Hidden Sand, not wasting much strength on Konoha. Now, Hidden Rock was the most fiercely contested Great Ninja Village with Konoha, and the high-ups were very concerned about the Land of Grass battlefield.
"Since Hidden Rock is hesitant to fight, let's force them to battle. Directly have Jiraiya lead the army to charge at the Hidden Rock border, pointing swords at Hidden Rock Village. Would they give up their village?" Shimura Danzo was the first to speak.
He believed this was the best current solution. It could compel Hidden Rock forces to engage with Konoha and simultaneously showcase Konoha's prowess.