As the sun set, a bunch of memories started popping up in his mind. He analyzed all the memories and thought, 'Good, all my clones have safely dispelled themselves. No one noticed them. Finally, it's time to begin my mission.'
One week ago :
After eliminating the two groups of bounty hunters, Fujin split off from Kakashi's group and continued his journey forward. However, the fight had exhausted nearly half his chakra. So he decided to take a break in a nearby town.
He entered the town after using the Transformation jutsu and looked for an ordinary hotel. After renting a room, Fujin opened the scrolls Shikaku had handed him and began reading. The scrolls had a lot of details regarding the nobles in the Land of Wind. It contained a detailed list of all nobles, their families, friends and their political standings.
After a few hours, Fujin let out a sigh. He muttered in his mind, 'I used to think that the number of ninjas is quite high. But, until I joined the Anbu, I never ever imagined that the number of nobles would be this high. Every major country has at least a couple of thousand people related to the Daimyo. Do they spend all their time breeding?
And Shikaku's reports have over 500 nobles who he wants to be targeted. Sigh, when we talk about wars, everyone only thinks about the three Great Wars that have happened. Meanwhile, everyone is worried about when the Fourth Great Ninja War will happen.
But, in reality, the 5 major villages are at war with each other constantly with no breaks. It's just that these wars don't have a battlefield. Instead, they are fought by the special forces of each village. Instead of clashing openly, the war is about sabotaging others while increasing your own influence.
In the last 12 months, I have basically been targetting nobles in the nearby smaller countries who are against Konoha. Like in the previous mission, we killed the forces of that noble from the Land of Waterfall who sided with Iwa.
The end result of such clashes is to make these nobles favor your village and hate the enemy's villages. And in this competition, Konoha has a huge advantage. Other than the Land of Rain, every neighbouring country favors Konoha more than its other neighbours. The superiority of Hiruzen and Shikaku's scheming abilities can be seen through this.
Of course, there is another big reason. Konoha has no ambition to claim the lands of other countries. But other countries want Konoha's lands. However, the smaller countries act as a buffer between them. If some country successfully manages to capture territory within the Land of Fire, the smaller countries acting as a buffer will also have to be conquered by them or at least some parts of the country would have to be annexed. And if Konoha couldn't resist them, there's no way any smaller country could resist them.'
Fujin let out a sigh and thought, 'When I first read Naruto, I was disgusted by the fact that Kumo tried to kidnap a little girl. If kidnapped, her fate would have been terrible. Just the thought of it was revolting. But, now it doesn't seem very extreme.
The chances of kidnapping someone from the Hyuga compounds should be close to zero. Perhaps the goal of that kidnapping attempt wasn't to kidnap Hinata but rather to have the kidnapper die in the Hyuga compounds. Perhaps, even if Hiashi didn't kill the kidnapper, as long as he was caught, he'd have committed suicide and died in the Hyuga Clan Compounds.
This way, they would be able to exchange the life of a normal ninja with a strong Clan Leader. Even though Hiashi preserved his life, Konoha and the Hyuga clan lost an Elite Jounin. In peacetime, that is a great loss. I guess they also wanted to sow discord between the Village Leadership and the Hyuga clan. After all, by then, the Uchiha clan were already made to live on the outskirts of Konoha. If the two strongest clans were unsatisfied with the Konoha leadership, the village would become quite unstable. Even if nothing bad happened, as long as the process of recovery is slowed down, Konoha would be in trouble when the next Great War starts.'
Fujin let out another sigh, 'The more I get involved, the more I realize how deep the schemes run in this world. And, for some reason, I have a feeling that soon it will be my turn to play these schemes. If I can't, then I won't be able to achieve much in this life either.'
Fujin rested the night in that hotel before continuing his journey the next day. He crossed the border and entered the Land of Rivers under a random disguise. He found an unoccupied cave and entered it. He inscribed a few seals in the cave to provide some protection and to stop and misdirect any attempts of scouting that place.
He quickly changed into the attire of Suna Anbu and thought, 'For the next few months, this will be my disguise while doing shady work.'
He left the cave and journeyed towards the Land of Wind.
The border of the Land of Wind was as massive as that of the Land of Fire. However, unlike Konoha, they were suffering from a massive budget crunch. In addition, the desert conditions in the Land of Wind were many times rougher than the green forests in the Land of Fire.
So very few patrolling teams used to patrol the borders. Fujin had no trouble infiltrating the Land of Wind. He continued moving rapidly across the vast deserts while thinking, 'Though the rough environment makes patrolling difficult, the vast open desert makes hiding very difficult.'
After travelling a few hundred kilometers into the desert, Fujin took a break and began making a plan. He analyzed, 'Most of my targets are in the Wind Capital. I will have to begin from there. But, how should I infiltrate it? Should I just sneak in?'
Fujin calculated his chances of sneaking in successfully. After some time, he rejected that idea, 'No. I have been to the Fire Capital a few times. Though the security wasn't as good as Konoha, it was still very tight. Samurais patrolled the walls and the walls themselves had numerous seals carved in them. Though I could still infiltrate without alarming any seal, it will be incredibly difficult. So, I guess my only option is to enter through the city gates.'
Suddenly, Fujin changed his direction. Instead of travelling towards the Wind Capital, Fujin began travelling towards the north. After travelling for another day, Fujin stopped and opened a map. He concluded, 'This should be the route where trading caravans pass through while trading between the Land of Wind and the Land of Earth. I'll just wait until I can catch a ride.'
He carved a seal on the sand and made a hand seal. The seal began sinking into the sand. He repeated the same process at distances of 25 meters dozens of times. Finally, he weaved another hand sign and placed his hand on the ground.
'Earth Release: Underground Camp jutsu'
He poured his chakra into the ground as the rocks and sand began moving. In a few minutes, one small underground room was formed. Fujin inscribed a seal on the wall of this room and thought, 'Good. Now if anyone passes through this route, the seals will detect the vibrations in the ground and cause this seal to light up. I will wait here for up to a week. If no one shows up, then I will try to actively find a group of travellers instead of just sitting here.'
Fujin carved some seals to ensure that the room can't be sensed. He entered it and rested while waiting patiently.
In the next 2 days, the seal lit up thrice. Fujin exited the room to observe each time. Unfortunately, all three groups were ninja squads from Suna. Luckily, none of them was sensing when Fujin exited the room. So his location stayed hidden.
Finally, on the 3rd day, the seal lit up once again. Fujin sighed and muttered, 'If it is another group of ninjas, I will kill and impersonate them instead of traders or merchants.'
He exited the room. Chakra gathered in his eyes as he began observing the chakra signature while staying under the sand. A smile appeared on his face as he thought, 'Finally! A group of sixteen people. Twelve have civilian levels of chakra while four have Chunin levels of chakra.'
He made a hand seal and his figure disappeared from under the sand. Suddenly, one of the four ninjas turned and looked at where Fujin was. The ninja next to him asked, "Did you notice something, captain?"
The captain replied, "It felt like a breeze suddenly passed through that area. Leave it, I might be imagining it."
They continued on their journey. After travelling for around 2 kilometers, one of the ninjas said, "Captain, there is someone ahead."
The ninjas got alert. The Captain said loudly, "Be careful everyone. It might be another bandit group."
However, the ninja shook his head and said, "No captain. It is only one person and his chakra is very low. So he isn't a ninja."
The group travelled forward carefully. After a couple of hundred meters, they saw the person. He was a man in terrible shape. His clothes were torn in multiple places and dyed in blood. He had multiple injuries on his body. He turned his head towards them and hope appeared in his eyes.
[A/N : Bonus chapter on next Sunday if the fic gets 1000 Power Stones. Bonus chapter on next week's Saturday if the fic gets 2000 Power Stones.]
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