The Daimyō of the Land of Grass had a grim expression; he didn't see his eldest son's banner.
When Hatake Sakumo and the others approached, the Daimyō saw the servants wearing hastily made mourning clothes. His eyes turned furious, but then he suppressed the hatred in his heart, his gaze becoming calm.
Before the powerful shinobi of Konoha, he, a Daimyō, had no right to be angry.
He could only find a way to contact Iwagakure and ask them to protect him and his family.
Shimura Kōko said, "Lord Daimyō, the Crown Prince was unfortunately killed by Iwa-nin during their assault. Even Konoha's White Fang couldn't protect him."
Observing the Daimyō's suppressed anger, Shimura Kōko thought to himself that Clan Leader Danzo's arrangements were truly seamless.
This way, the blame for losing the Land of Grass's mission share would fall on Konoha's White Fang.
No one would pay attention to the deaths of three consecutive Shimura clan Guardian Ninja Captains.
The Daimyō didn't say anything, gesturing for the two tribal Chieftains to follow him.
Several nobles entered the Daimyō's tent and dropped the heavy curtain, discussing something inside unknown to those outside.
Outside the tent, Yamashiro-dera was anxious.
Any decision the Daimyō made now would put Konoha in the wrong.
Konoha's White Fang, the Guardian Ninja Captain – such elite forces couldn't protect the Daimyō's eldest son? Then what was the point of the Daimyō spending high rewards to hire Konoha shinobi?
When the sky falls, the tallest person gets hit the hardest.
In this failed mission, Konoha's White Fang bore the greater responsibility.
Whether in reputation or status, Konoha's White Fang was higher than the Guardian Ninja Captain, Shimura Kōko.
Yamashiro-dera swallowed with difficulty.
The prestige Hatake Sakumo had painstakingly built crumbled at this moment.
He didn't dare imagine what kind of storm Hatake Sakumo would face upon returning to the village.
Namikaze Minato came up behind Yamashiro-dera and asked quietly, "Brother Yamashiro-dera, I feel something isn't right. Everything was too coincidental. Were we set up?"
Yamashiro-dera looked at Minato with an appreciative glance and said softly:
"Minato, your intuition is sharp. I also feel something is wrong, but I can't find the reason yet.
The shinobi world is terrifying. The darkness is like a massive rock, suffocating.
The mission to the Land of Grass was assigned by the village. We encountered so many troubles and were passive at every turn.
We are in the light, the enemy is in the dark. The enemy is very skilled at striking from the shadows, yet we don't even know who the enemy is."
Namikaze Minato thought to himself that the darkness and the enemy Yamashiro-dera mentioned didn't seem to refer only to the Iwa-nin. Between the lines, there was also resentment towards the village.
Could the enemy be within Konoha?
For the first time, a seed of doubt sprouted in Namikaze Minato's heart. Was the village not as the Will of Fire proclaimed, illuminating every Konoha villager?
A few days later, Land of Rain.
Yōkō was moving through the rainforest, searching for traces of Uchiha Madara.
A prompt suddenly came from the scroll at the small of his back.
Yōkō signaled the Leaf Monkey Squad to disperse and search the surroundings for enemies.
After the Leaf Monkey Squad left, Yōkō opened Yakushi Nonō's Right Scroll.
Seeing the contents, Yōkō's heart tightened.
Yakushi Nonō had obtained the latest intelligence: Konoha's White Fang's mission failed, the Crown Prince of the Land of Grass was dead.
After Hatake Sakumo and his team left, the Daimyō of the Land of Grass contacted the Iwa-nin and expelled all Konoha Guardian Ninja!
Root began spreading rumors within Konoha that Konoha's White Fang, to save his loyal subordinates and rescue his comrades, caused the mission's failure, leading Konoha to lose the Land of Grass's mission share.
Moreover, with the Crown Prince dead, Konoha couldn't easily retaliate against the Daimyō of the Land of Grass.
Both morally and emotionally, Konoha was in the wrong.
Yōkō closed the scroll, thinking, 'This is bad.'
With Danzo's methods, the rumors within Konoha now were enough to completely ruin Hatake Sakumo's reputation.
If you added a comrade's betrayal to that, then Hatake Sakumo wouldn't be far from suicide.
Was this Konoha's White Fang's destiny?... The power of fate was so strong.
The Ninja Academy bell rang.
Kakashi rushed excitedly towards the school gate; he had seen his father from upstairs.
"Kakashi! I'm going to catch up to you!"
The bowl-cut Might Gai was very fast, like Kakashi, taking two steps at a time down the stairs.
Running to the school gate, Might Gai saw Hatake Sakumo and quickly bowed: "Lord White Fang!"
Might Gai noticed that Lord White Fang just patted his shoulder and said nothing.
Watching Lord White Fang and Kakashi's retreating backs, Might Gai found it strange. Previously, Lord White Fang would always encourage him a few words. This time, for some reason, Lord White Fang left in silence.
Might Gai immediately overheard parents nearby discussing loudly.
"Look! That's Konoha's White Fang. He caused Konoha to lose the Land of Grass's mission share because he rescued his subordinates."
"Strange. I fought in the Land of Rivers war. Hatake Sakumo performed very well as the deputy commander."
"I heard he chose to save his own men and abandoned the mission to fight for power and profit."
"Hatake Sakumo had several conflicts with the higher-ups in the Jōnin Commander meetings."
Might Gai shouted, "Lord White Fang is not a shinobi who abandons missions!"
The few parents ignored the ugly bowl-cut kid and took their children away.
"The Land of Grass's mission share accounts for 10% of Konoha's missions. Losing 10%, what will we do?"
"It's not just the Land of Grass's share. I heard the Daimyō of the Land of Hot Springs can't take it anymore either. If the Land of Grass changes its allegiance, they might want to change too."
"The Land of Hot Springs has even more missions than the Land of Grass, right?"
"Who knows what will happen."
"Even though we won the Second Shinobi World War, it feels like we lost."
"The Daimyō of the Land of Fire reprimanded the Third Hokage. I heard the Daimyō is holding Konoha responsible for the Land of Grass siding with the Land of Earth!"
...
Might Gai wanted to chase after them and ask, but his father, Might Dai, lifted him up.
"Gai! It's not just two or three people saying this! Chasing after them to argue is useless." Might Dai said, "Lord White Fang is one of the village's strongest shinobi. You must believe in him."
At the Ninja Academy gate, only this father and son believed in Konoha's White Fang.
On the way home, Kakashi's mood quickly shifted from happiness at seeing his father to confusion.
Many people pointed and whispered about them.
His teachers' attitudes towards him had changed over the past few days; he thought it was because of his own performance.
Now it seemed it was because of his father.
Kakashi focused, carefully listening to the conversations around him, and heard the content of the rumors.
His father's single mission failure might cause the village to lose the Land of Grass's mission share?
Was it that serious?
After entering their home, Hatake Sakumo said, "Kakashi, it's alright. I'm applying to the Hokage to lead a team back into the Land of Grass. I will definitely reverse the current situation."
Kakashi nodded; he believed his father.
Sitting at the desk by the second-floor window, Kakashi worked on his homework, calculating kunai trajectories, feeling distracted and disturbed by the noises outside.
Beyond the courtyard wall, two people were arguing.
One was drunk, shouting that his wife had died for Konoha in the Land of Grass.
Now the Land of Grass's mission share was lost because of Hatake Sakumo. He couldn't take it and wanted to confront Hatake Sakumo.
The other person desperately tried to pull him back, preventing him from barging into Hatake Sakumo's home.
Eventually, the two moved away from their house in their struggle. Kakashi's mood was exceptionally low.
Why had it come to this?
Kakashi went downstairs and saw his father sitting on the sofa, staring blankly at the water cup in front of him.
Given his father's abilities, he must have heard the argument at the door clearly.
"Father."
Seeing his father didn't react, Kakashi quickly called out twice more.
On the third call, Hatake Sakumo blinked his sore eyes and turned to look at Kakashi.
"Kakashi, it's alright. As long as I go to the Land of Grass again, I can definitely resolve these issues."
At the same time, in an abandoned house under Konoha's perimeter wall.
Shinma sat horrified on the dusty floor, his ten fingers tightly digging into the rotten wooden floorboards.
"No! I absolutely cannot do that!"
Across from him, Danzo turned and left, giving Shinma no room for negotiation.
Either do as Danzo said, or... Root had captured Shinma's nephew. If he refused, his nephew wouldn't return today.
"Advisor Danzo! Lord Sakumo didn't even blame me! He found me the best medical-nin, spoke up for me in the mission scroll! How can I do that to Lord Sakumo!"
Danzo ignored him, disappearing with a Body Flicker.
Shinma collapsed on the floor.
He had already paid a high price.
If he didn't agree to Advisor Danzo, and Advisor Danzo revealed his dishonorable role, it would be worse than death.
His nephew would also be forcibly conscripted into Root, subjected to brutal training, and might even die in some mutual killing exercise meant to cultivate killing intent.
If he agreed to Advisor Danzo and completely switched allegiance to him... perhaps... given Lord Sakumo's nature, he wouldn't do anything to him?
Hesitation, uncertainty, struggle.
Shinma finally staggered to his feet.
Gritting his teeth, he looked towards Hatake Sakumo's house and made his decision.
The next day, Yamashiro-dera was staring at a scroll, reviewing the mission failure, when Hayama suddenly rushed in through the window.
"Bad news! Brother Yamashiro-dera! Shinma went to accuse Lord Sakumo!"
"Shinma went to accuse Lord Sakumo?"
Yamashiro-dera stood up abruptly.
His fist slammed onto the scroll, right on the passage describing the Crown Prince's strange departure from the sacred mountain.
Shinma definitely had a problem!
Yamashiro-dera rushed towards Hatake Sakumo's house. They didn't even heed the village prohibition against using the Body Flicker Technique on rooftops.
When the two of them arrived at Hatake Sakumo's house,
Gekkō Sō had arrived first and punched Shinma, sending him flying.
Shinma got up, his face wearing a strange look of relief, as if saying, 'See, I knew you'd treat me like this.'
He pushed through the crowd and walked away.
Kakashi watched the people outside the gate whispering behind their hands, occasionally looking up at his father. He didn't know what would happen to his father.
After landing, Yamashiro-dera hurriedly said, "Sakumo! I think Shinma is suspicious! Let's review the investigation scroll again!"
Namikaze Minato said, "Sensei, I'll go bring Shinma back!"
Hatake Sakumo raised his hand and said, "There's no need to say more. The mission has already failed. Nothing said now matters. Thank you for your concern. I'm fine."
Hatake Sakumo spoke briefly with the others, indicating they should each return and prepare for the next mission to the Land of Grass.
Kakashi saw all the adults out and closed the courtyard gate.
Through the crack in the door before closing it, Kakashi saw many onlookers in the distant streets.
A few days later.
Yōkō opened a scroll and saw the latest intelligence Yakushi Nonō had sent him.
Konoha's White Fang had committed suicide!
More crucially, Yōkō had obtained the name of that traitor.
Shinma...
Danzo's methods of manipulating people were still ruthless, finding such a suitable person.
Yakushi Nonō also said that the Hokage Building had been embroiled in intense arguments for several consecutive days.
White Fang's suicide, losing the Land of Grass's mission share – it was hard to say which was more harmful to Konoha.
Besides gathering intelligence on White Fang, Yōkō hadn't been idle in the Land of Rain. Searching high and low, he finally found an elite Jōnin from Amegakure, Hanzo's assistant, Tokage Ame (Lizard Rain), whom he killed, gaining 0.2 times Kage-level chakra.
His total chakra reserve reached 2.2 times Kage-level.
[Monitoring host has died. Mochizuki's Arc system activating...]
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