"Hahaha, thanks to you Gamabunta and Takeshi, otherwise this road would be difficult to clear." Minato looked at the road that had become smooth again and couldn't help laughing happily.
"Huh~ Next time, don't call me for such a boring job. You can call Gamaken and the others. I don't have so much free time." Gamabunta complained while smoking.
When he came he was scratched by that damn cat and the cat even took away his fighting opportunity. In the end he only did some manual labor of creating pathway for the carriage, what'll become of my reputation and pride if other's know about this?
But fortunately for this cat, he still has some awareness and guilt and helped along, otherwise... 'hehehe, next time we met I would've gotten a new black fur coat.' He gripped the handle of the knife, then said farewell to Minato, and left directly to go back to Mt. Myoboku.
"Meow~" Takeshi breathed a sigh of relief, shrank back and laid down on Rin's medical kit - this time he was really tired.
That toad is really vindictive, thankfully helping him around in manual labor seemed to have reduced his anger, though it wouldn't hurt to be careful next time we meet again.
Kakashi seeing the pathway being cleared and the giant beasts going away, decided to start running ahead now carrying the dead Iwa Jonin - his right hand was completely crushed and could not form seals, along with his other limbs also suffering injuries, otherwise it would've been difficult for Kakashi to win over him.
"Sensei, got the dead enemy jonin." He brought the body over and reported coldly.
"Dead? I'll seal it first and when we return I'll ask Inoichi to see if he can dig up something. If that doesn't work, there is nothing else we can get out of this. There's no other way to utilise a sneak attack like this. After all, the opponent has already said that he was a traitor, and there is slash on the forehead protector, we have no evidence that the opponent was sent by Onoki." Minato sighed.
Konoha also sends teams on missions like this. To be precise, almost all the ninja villages have done similar things. They just need to accept this, because making a fuss about this will only bring further trouble, and might make them seem vulnerable and invite more groups of "missing ninjas".
As for the sneak attack itself, Konoha had already been prepared, otherwise Third Hokage would not have sent an elite team like the Minato's team to fulfill this mission.
"Sensei, the main damage they did was to the road, did they come only for using large scale environment destruction? " Obito was a little confused. Although the Earth Release Rock Slide Jutsu caused some trouble to them, it did not cause any damage to the caravan. At most, it only caused the caravan to take a detour.
"What the ninjas don't know is that this trade road is the nearest to border and safest. If you don't take this road, you have to go through a canyon or a river valley. Those two roads are closer to the Land of Earth and are more likely to be attacked, via sneak attack." Kazuhiro Uehara came out to explain. For matters of business, he were more knowledgeable. Not even Minato could compare to him.
After hearing this, he nodded thoughtfully. Looking at it this way, the opponent's purpose is very simple. If they had succeeding in kill them and destroying caravan, the road would have been closed, causing the other caravans to take detours and delay their travels.
It is likely that Iwagakure should have same kind of intention or complete plan in this regard, and the plan would've been to not allow merchants from Konoha to be delayed in their route to Land of Grass as much as possible.
"It seems that the ninjas of Iwagakure Village have already arrived in the Land of Grass. We need to speed up and try to reach the Land of Grass today to meet the head of Kusagakure Village." Minato said after thinking for a moment.
"Yes!" Being the Jonin leader of the mission and team, Minato starts giving away his orders, even the leader of the caravan, Uehara , must listen to him. Therefore, after Minato said this, Caravan immediately sped up.
The travel speed till now was slower, but now the samurai are pushing the cart from behind behind, reducing the exhaustion of the horses and making sure to make them last longer.
With everyone's efforts, the caravan safely passed through the new valley created by the ninjutsu of Iwagakure Ninja and Gamabunta. After passing through this area, they officially arrived in the Land of Grass.
The scenery of the Land of Grass is no different from that of the Land of Fire. If there is any difference, it is that this side looks more desolate. In this small country, there are many villages near the Fire Country, but further ahead there are only the ruins of some villages, not many villagers can be seen at all, and some villages can be seen through this area. This should be close to the Kusagakure Village.
"Sensei, there are traces of Iwagakure ninja activity here, but they left quickly." Kakashi pointed out.
"I know." Minato nodded slightly. His perception was much better than Kakashi's. Minato had already noticed when those people appeared, but they had already reached the boundary of Kusagakure Village and the opponent did not create much nuisance, hence they have no justified reason to fight them.
After all, no matter what anyone says, the Kusagakure Village and the Land of Grass is independent from the Land of Fire and Konoha, so Konoha cannot dispatch ninja teams to retaliate against Iwa Ninjas even if they are allies.
The Iwa ninjas obviously didn't dare to create too much of a mess as well. They knew that Konoha's ninja teams were coming and did not take action but quietly retreated.
Although it was difficult to guess what the opponent was going to do next, it was obviously unlikely that they would fight again immediately.
This is good news. At least it can be proved that there are things that Iwagakure Village is not ready for at the moment, and they don't want to start a war with Konoha immediately, So their focus...should be on the side of Sunagakure Village, right?
Minato was thinking about all of this, and at the same time worried about Shikaku and the others. Shikaku, Inoichi and Choza were ordered to stay at the border and lead the remaining ninjas to guard against the ninjas of Sunagakure Village.
During this time, the Sunagakure ninjas were mobilized quite frequently. If they really took action, all the ninjas from the whole village would come together. the InoShikaCho team matter how talented they are, they wouldn't be able to stop them. Fortunately, his mission will be settled here soon and he can rush there immediately.
Takeshi didn't get up until late night. The Takeshi's version of the Human Boulder Jutsu, which is a combination of Eight Inner Gates, Multi Size Jutsu and Needle Jizo, is a bit expensive chakra and stamina wise, especially when the enemy is the Iwagakure Jonin and the four Chunin's, most of the damage to his enemies was caused from Needle Jizo. If they hadn't used large scale Earth Release ninjutsu, he wouldn't have needed to spend so much effort, and wouldn't have slept for so long.
Another advantage of this is that he had already digested around 70% of the natural energy he had eaten not long ago.
Originally, according to Takeshi's style, he would return back to sleep and likely rest further, but the scent of meat at this moment was too fragrant. It was too much for this cat to resist! "Meow~"
"Takeshi, wake up. Come on, I specially ordered a lot of barbecue for you. Thank you for helping to clean the road this afternoon." Rin heard the cat meow and immediately came over with a large plate of barbecue.
The Takeshi pounced on it and gobbled it up immediately. Ninja cats consume a lot of chakra, so they need eat a lot. He quickly finished the meat on the plate and jumped on the table.
"Damn kitten... don't eat so fast you might choke, here take some more." Obito originally wanted to tease Takeshi, but halfway through his words he remembered the cat's vengeful nature, and immediately changed his words. So he pushed some of his own meat on Takeshi's table.
The Takeshi glanced at it, then raised his paw. 'Obito, you're growing up. Seeing how sensible you are, I will let you go this time.'
Takeshi quickly finished the plate of meat, and glanced at Kakashi's portion with greedy eyes. Kakashi raised his eyebrow and put his hand on the handle of Kiba Blade behind him, hmm... 'There isn't much food on his plate anyways, why would I want it?'
He looked at Uehara , and could see that he should be the person who bought the meal for their team, so Takeshi feeling that he played an important role in previous battle, felt there's nothing wrong in eating some more food.
"Takeshi!" Rin's face turned red. This cat is really... so embarrassing for his owner. But she immediately thought that there was probably no concept of "owner" in the eyes of cats.
Well, this was what Obito told her, and it was also the conclusion Uchiha had come to after raising cats for many years.
"Hahaha , it's okay, he's a great hero, he should eat his full, chef, get the same amount of barbecue again."
"Okay!"
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