Becoming the Tsuchikage in the Naruto World

Chapter 247: Unexpected

That Sunagakure completed its war preparations so smoothly was somewhat unexpected for Ishiro and the others. A major reason why Ishiro had slowly pushed forward the process of gathering ninjas was that he was waiting for Rasa.

In the analysis during their meeting, Ishiro and the others had concluded that Rasa should be able to complete the war preparations, but the process wouldn't be fast. There were too many factions within the Sand Village that opposed Rasa or were unwilling to relinquish power.

Ishiro believed that Rasa had sufficient strength and a righteous cause, so he should be able to achieve his goal in the end, but the back-and-forth struggle between the two sides should have taken a considerable amount of time.

However, Ishiro hadn't expected that Pakura, who was Rasa's adversary in the original story, would become his greatest asset.

This way, Sunagakure, including Chiyo, now also had three Kage-level individuals.

Although Chiyo had already retired, as long as she was still in the village, Rasa could confidently leave the village with Pakura to participate in the war without worrying about his base being attacked.

Looked at from another angle, Chiyo was also contributing to Rasa's efforts.

In addition, Rasa also had the Third Kazekage human puppet in his hands. If this thing was in the hands of an Elite Jonin skilled in puppetry, it could exert Kage-level power.

Used well, the Third Kazekage human puppet's strategic value was no less than that of a Jinchuriki.

Thus, Sunagakure completed its war preparations amidst events that stunned all parties.

The Cloud's war preparations were as smooth as Iwagakure's. Also being a key party in triggering the Fourth War, the Cloud, under the strong leadership of the Fourth Raikage, was the first to complete its war preparations.

The most unexpected was Kirigakure. The current Mist was considered the weakest of the five great hidden villages, but they were the first to fire the opening shot of the war.

About a month after the five great nations had stationed troops on their respective borders, the Mist, led by the Byakugan user Ao, directly broke deep into the Land of Whirlpools. They caught Konoha off guard and surrounded a Konoha force of about 800.

This matter had to be traced back to when Minato Namikaze first came to power.

While Ishiro and the others were busy preparing for war, Konoha was not idle either. After the transition of old and new leadership, not only was there no power struggle, but on the contrary, Konoha's war preparation work proceeded very smoothly.

It had to be said that Hiruzen Sarutobi's political sensitivity was still very high. His choice to pass the position of Hokage to Minato at this time had indeed grasped the mentality of all factions within Konoha.

Including the Uchiha clan, everyone was banking on Minato's age. A Hokage who could potentially hold the power of Konoha for the next few decades had to be supported, especially when Minato had just come to power and his footing was not yet stable.

So, although the first batch of orders issued by Minato were all for the various clans to participate in war preparations, all the clans still cooperated with great effort.

Especially the Uchiha clan; Fugaku Uchiha, uncharacteristically, made several strong statements within the clan in support of Minato.

Fugaku Uchiha saw Minato as a new opportunity to integrate into Konoha.

Although Konoha was facing a huge external crisis, internally, it seemed to have completed its integration in an instant. The Uchiha, Hyuga, and other ninja clans, as well as a large number of civilian ninjas, all rallied around the Fourth Hokage.

To set an example, Minato's three disciples, with Kakashi as the captain, also rushed to the front lines.

Of course, Minato still took considerable care of his three disciples, intentionally placing them in the Land of Whirlpools, which he believed was the least likely place for a war to break out in the short term.

But Minato did not know that a black hand behind the scenes had been staring at his disciples all along.

After Madara Uchiha faked his death in the battle at the Valley of the End, he had basically remained detached from the major events of the ninja world for the next few decades.

But judging from the original story, Madara had not been idle. His control over Kirigakure was definitely not as simple as just controlling the Fourth Mizukage, Yagura.

The current Yagura was not yet the Three-Tails Jinchuriki, and Ishiro was not sure if he was being controlled by Madara. But even if Madara wasn't controlling Yagura, he still held a very high level of influence in Kirigakure.

For example, this time, Madara was able to directly mobilize the Mist's army just to get Obito.

The Mist's move was very sudden, with no prior warning. The first time Ishiro received the news, the Konoha ninjas were already surrounded. The second time he received the news, Konoha's reinforcement troops, personally led by Hiruzen, had already repelled the Mist.

However, although Hiruzen had repelled the Mist, the 800 ninjas Konoha had stationed in the Land of Whirlpools were almost completely wiped out.

Due to the heavy casualties Konoha suffered in this battle, with few ninjas left, the work of keeping the battle process confidential was done very well.

Ishiro couldn't find out the details of the battle. He only knew that when Hiruzen successfully broke the siege, of Minato's disciples, only Rin Nohara and Kakashi, who had received a transplanted Sharingan, were left. The rest of the Konoha ninjas were either dead or injured.

The situation in the ninja world had been stirred up by Ishiro to be completely different from the original story, but Obito still died in battle just like in the original, and Kakashi also received a Sharingan just like in the original.

This could only mean that all of this was indeed being manipulated by Madara Uchiha from behind the scenes.

So next, the Mist should still have a Three-Tails incident, just like in the original story. Is there a way to gain some advantage from this matter?

There were fewer and fewer parts of the original plot that could be used as a reference, and Ishiro didn't want to waste such an opportunity.

Ishiro was spacing out at the command post, holding the intelligence report on the Konoha-Kiri battle, when his disciple, Chiko Tomoe, walked in with a pile of documents. She was now Ishiro's assistant, responsible for handling the various daily affairs of the southern front camp.

Chiko Tomoe called Ishiro a few times. Apart from subconsciously acknowledging her, Ishiro did not come back to his senses.

Chiko Tomoe was somewhat curious about what Ishiro was spacing out over and peeked at the intelligence report in his hand.

As his assistant, she had actually seen this report a step ahead of Ishiro. She didn't understand what incredible news was in this report that was worth Ishiro spacing out for so long.

After a while, when Ishiro had completely come back to his senses, Chiko Tomoe, while handing him the documents she considered important for him to know, asked him if there was anything else worthy of attention in the intelligence from the Land of Whirlpools battlefield this time.

Ishiro couldn't mention the original story to Chiko and could only casually find a reason.

"Among the Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze's three disciples, there was a member of the Uchiha clan. This matter, to some extent, brought the Konoha higher-ups and the Uchiha clan closer."

"But now, this Uchiha Obito has died in battle. More importantly, Uchiha Obito's Sharingan was transplanted to Kakashi Hatake."

"I'm thinking, can we stir up some trouble from this and throw Konoha into chaos for a while?"

Chiko Tomoe thought about it and felt it made sense, saying, "The Uchiha clan's support for the Fourth Hokage is not small. Why not take this opportunity to incite the Uchiha clan to move back to the center of Konoha?"

Ishiro's eyes lit up.

Whether the Uchiha clan returned to the center of Konoha was not important, but the attitude of the Konoha higher-ups on this matter was very important.

If the Konoha higher-ups agreed to the Uchiha clan returning to the center of Konoha, then the fact that the Third's stance and the Fourth's stance were different would be laid bare before all the ninjas of Konoha.

It might be possible to split the Konoha higher-ups to a certain extent. Ishiro believed in Hiruzen's resolve when he relinquished the Hokage position, but it should be known that the advisor lineup in Konoha had not changed; it had only added the former Hokage, Hiruzen.

Koharu Utatane and Homura Mitokado might not necessarily make way for a junior whose political views were completely opposite to their own. As for Danzō, it was hard to say anything about him.

At that time, if the Konoha higher-ups had differing opinions, it would inevitably affect the external war.

And if the Konoha higher-ups ultimately rejected the Uchiha clan's request to return to the village center, would the Uchiha clan still support Minato as they did before?

A leader who couldn't even protect the vital interests of his own supporters—was he worth following?

Even if Fugaku could understand Minato, what about the other Uchiha? Those arrogant fools in the Uchiha clan wouldn't even need Ishiro's instigation to cause trouble.

Chiko's idea was good and worth a try, but this matter couldn't be handled by Iwagakure.

"Hiruzen went to the Land of Whirlpools and probably hasn't returned yet, right? Is Danzō Shimura still in Konoha?" Ishiro asked Chiko.

Chiko was stunned for a moment, then said, "Yes, the only Kage-level from Konoha who went to support the Land of Whirlpools was Hiruzen Sarutobi."

"Tell Danzō about our idea just now. Let him incite the Uchiha clan," Ishiro instructed.

Chiko frowned and asked, "Danzō is the one among Konoha's higher-ups who staunchly rejects the Uchiha. Why would he incite the Uchiha to return to the center of Konoha?"

Ishiro smiled and said, "Danzō will. He will make full preparations before inciting the Uchiha clan. At that time, even if Minato wants to agree with the Uchiha, it will be impossible for it to pass in a high-level meeting."

"And with this back and forth, Minato's prestige will decline, which Danzō will surely be happy to see."

Hearing this, Chiko felt it made sense and immediately went to make arrangements. Since they planned to leak the information directly to Danzō, the operation became simple; they didn't even need to expose a spy, and a regular ninja could complete it.

After Chiko left, Ishiro picked up the pile of documents and began to read.

In Ishiro's planning, personal training always came first. So after being appointed as the commander of the southern front, Ishiro immediately transferred a batch of ninjas he was familiar with under his command.

Among them were his first and second batches of disciples. In addition, there were also his former teammates and classmates.

They now held many clerical positions in the southern front troops, handling various daily, trivial affairs for him.

This way, Ishiro could free up time for training.

Even so, there were many documents that he, the commander of the southern front, had to look over.

For example, the one Ishiro was looking at now was a summary of the battle situations from the past few days after Iwagakure's forward reconnaissance teams encountered Konoha ninjas.

The two sides had been in a standoff for about a month. Although small skirmishes were continuous, the higher-ups on both sides intentionally controlled the scope of the conflict, so casualties were not large.

In addition, with the steady progress of the medical system reform, many injured ninjas in Iwagakure could receive proper treatment, and the proportion of those who recovered after being injured had increased significantly compared to before.

After reading the document, Ishiro began his daily training. Now, the focus of Ishiro's training was the Storm Release Kekkei Genkai.

The development of the second Kekkei Genkai was more proficient than the first. Whether it was experimenting with Storm Release ninjutsu or chakra fusion, the difficulty for Ishiro was far from what it was the first time.

But there was still a problem in the development of Storm Release, and that was the rejection his body felt from possessing two Kekkei Genkai.

It was precisely because of this rejection that the development progress of Storm Release had slowed down considerably.

But no matter how slow, there would still be a day of success. Ishiro estimated that in another month or two, his Storm Release could enter the final stage.

In the final stage, Ishiro would need to use medicine to accelerate the body's transformation. At that time, Ishiro would experience an unprecedented period of weakness. So today, Ishiro sent a letter to Ikura, who was assisting Ōnoki in the village, asking him to come to the front line to take his place for a while and also to act as his protector.

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