"Sunagakure!"
"Rasa!""If I don't kill you, I swear I'm not human!"
The Third Mizukage's eyes burned with savage hatred.
The Seven Ninja Swordsmen were one of Kirigakure's greatest assets.
First, Sunagakure had secretly colluded with Fuguki Suikazan, leading to his defection. And now, four more of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen had been killed outright, dealing Kirigakure another catastrophic blow.
That meant Kirigakure had now lost five of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen in total.
No matter how deep Kirigakure's reserves of talent were, they could not endure losses like this.
And it was not just five shinobi they had lost.
The swords had been lost along with them.
Samehada had gone with Fuguki Suikazan.
And this time, the Blunt Sword, the Twin Swords, the Longsword, and the Lightning Swords had all been taken by Rasa without exception.
That meant that even if Kirigakure had jonin capable of filling the vacant spots, without the swords, they would never reach the true level of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen. They would fall far short.
And what about Sunagakure, now that it had obtained those four blades?
"Trash!"
"They're all trash!"
"To lose four of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen just trying to kill one Maki—and still fail to kill him!"
"They died for nothing and even delivered the swords straight into Sunagakure's hands!"
The Third Mizukage was so furious that he spat out another mouthful of blood.
Kirigakure had already been in bad shape to begin with. Now, after a blow like this, what was the village supposed to do next?
For the first time, the Third Mizukage began to understand how Rasa had felt before.
But compared to Kirigakure's future, what worried him even more was the present state of the front lines.
Without Tongcao Jiinin and the others, what would happen to Kirigakure's army under the pressure of Sunagakure's forces?
With that anxiety in mind, the Third Mizukage opened the second letter.
"Yagura…"
His gaze flickered slightly.
"Forging a secret message to seize command… I have to admit, that took some quick thinking."
"And not one of those officers realized it?"
"No… more likely, some of them did realize it, but chose not to expose him. They couldn't handle the front-line situation themselves, so they wanted Yagura to take the blame for it."
"A bunch of cowards with no sense of responsibility."
"Yagura's move may stabilize the Kirigakure army for now, but against Sunagakure, they'll still be at a disadvantage."
"Kirigakure itself still needs Gengetsu to hold the village together."
"My body… my injuries are too severe. I won't recover any time soon."
"And Munashi Jinpachi also has to remain in the village."
"In that case, let Juzo Biwa end the pursuit mission and return to the front lines first."
Yagura's actions made the Third Mizukage breathe a little easier.
At the same time, they also struck him as far too bold.
"He forged an order in the Mizukage's name. If I really chose to pursue this, it would be a capital offense."
"But his motives were for the village's sake. That spares him the death penalty."
"Still, a crime is a crime. Once the war is over, punishment must be handed down."
He continued reading.
"Yagura is proposing an alliance with Konoha? He has a way?"
The Third Mizukage narrowed his eyes.
"But he didn't even say what method he intends to use. Not even to me, the Mizukage? Could this brat have some special connection with Konoha?"
"And if we ally with Konoha, will it really help Kirigakure… or end up harming us instead?"
The Third Mizukage fell into deep thought.
But the choices before Kirigakure were only three.
The first was to prepare for a long period of disadvantage and wage a drawn-out war against Sunagakure.
Just like Sunagakure had done before.
The difference was that the Third Mizukage did not have a system like Rasa's.
The second was to admit defeat outright and withdraw to the Land of Water.
But under those circumstances, Sunagakure would never let the matter rest. Kirigakure would also have to prepare for war reparations.
The third option… was to ally with Konoha.
The first and second outcomes were both unacceptable to the Third Mizukage.
Why should Kirigakure, after once holding such an overwhelming advantage, now be forced to compromise and admit defeat to Sunagakure?
"As for an alliance with Konoha… if Konoha truly agrees, it doesn't seem like it would do Kirigakure any greater harm than the other two choices."
Before long, the Third Mizukage wrote his reply and approved Yagura's proposal.
Under his orders, a Kirigakure intelligence shinobi sped toward the Land of Fire as fast as possible.
The instant he received the reply, Yagura set out alone for Konoha.
"A Kirigakure shinobi—Yagura—requests an audience?"
Hiruzen Sarutobi frowned slightly.
"What would someone from Kirigakure want with Konoha?"
Recently, Hiruzen had begun to feel the pressure ease just a little.
The Uchiha rebellion had dealt Konoha a heavy blow.
Seizing that opportunity, Iwagakure's forces had already pushed deep into the Land of Fire.
And Konoha still had to keep diverting manpower to suppress the Uchiha rebels. There was no helping it. If they did not, the Uchiha rebels would continue harassing Konoha.
Even though Konoha had controlled the spread of the rumors fairly well, some voices still remained.
"As Hokage, the Third failed to deal with the Uchiha issue properly."
And to that, Hiruzen had no real answer.
Because he was indeed the Hokage.
If anything happened in the village, there was no way for him to avoid responsibility.
But as the Kaguya Clan rebellion and the Hongshan Clan rebellion came to light, those criticisms gradually lessened.
After all, the number of rebelling shinobi clans was no longer just one.
And Konoha was no longer the only village to suffer rebellion within its ranks.
People began to feel that perhaps this was a problem with the era itself.
"I really cannot understand what goes on in those Uchiha heads."
Faced with the tremendous pressure of Iwagakure's army, Hiruzen had once tried to withdraw the personnel assigned against the Uchiha.
But the moment Konoha pulled them back—
The Uchiha harassment began again.
It had forced Hiruzen to send those Konoha shinobi right back out.
"Do the Uchiha hate Konoha that much?"
"As expected… the Uchiha are evil by nature."
After thinking for a while, Hiruzen nodded.
"Let him in. I want to see how exactly he plans to convince me."
But in Uchiha Yashiro's eyes, this had nothing to do with hatred.
It was much simpler than that.
As long as Konoha remained alive, the Uchiha would never have good days ahead.
If this war ended while Konoha was still standing strong, the Uchiha would inevitably face a disastrous future.
A clan—even a great clan like the Uchiha, and especially a crippled one—could not realistically stand against a major shinobi village unless someone of Uchiha Madara's level appeared among them.
Because of that, Yashiro was willing to pay a certain price if it meant allowing Iwagakure to inflict even greater damage on Konoha.
"Only if Konoha falls can the Uchiha live."
"Otherwise, once the war ends, there won't be a single place left in the entire shinobi world for the Uchiha to stand."
"Even if we join another shinobi village, we would only be living under someone else's shadow. It would be no different from Konoha."
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