It annoys Zoro a little when the 4th Kazekage suddenly comes when he is just about to leave. He has stayed in Tsuna for a few days, yet this guy chose to meet him on the last day.
"What do you want, Kazekage? You have 4 business days to meet me, but you chose today when I'm just about to leave. You better have a good reason for this, you motherfucker."
The guards are angry at how rude Zoro is and almost attack him. But Kazekage stops them and tells them to stay back. Zoro is already known as a rude person by people, so Kazekage is not surprised.
Though well, he usually just talks without any politeness. He rarely curses like now and it's thanks to Kazekage's annoying behavior.
"Ninja Hunter Zoro, I want to offer a commission for you."
"Oh? Now that's surprising. But you know that I don't accept commissions blindly, right?"
"I know. You can refuse after you hear it and you don't even need to keep it a secret because I can't ask someone like you to do a secret job anyway."
"Now that makes sense. So what do you want?"
"Hunt Sasori of The Sand and retrieve the 3rd Kazekage's body that he has turned into a puppet. I will give you more than what we offered as the bounty reward. How about a million?"
Zoro frowns because it's quite a strange request. Sasori has been wanted by Tsunagakure for years now. Putting a high price on his head is already a request for people to catch him.
But now Kazekage personally asks a bounty hunter to hunt Sasori. It means they need Sasori to be caught quickly so they need to ask someone to catch him.
"A million bonus surely sounds tempting. But I have my reason for not targeting Sasori all this time yet."
Sasori is an Akatsuki member that Zoro doesn't want to target if he can help it. It's not that he thinks Sasori is a strong opponent. But Sasori is a very troublesome opponent because of his poisons.
Zoro would rather fight Pain again than Sasori. Fighting Pain will give him flesh wounds that can be treated easily. But poisons need antidotes and Sasori's poisons are mostly special poisons that need special antidotes.
He would at least need someone at Tsunade's level to get rid of the poisons. Or at the very least, he needs a good medic ninja ready to help him anytime. That's why he doesn't want to target Sasori.
Sasori literally killed the 3rd Kazekage when he was young. Zoro knows that it's not that Sasori was stronger than the 3rd Kazekage who is known as the strongest Kazekage. It must be thanks to his underhanded tactics.
As a poison expert, Sasori must've used poisons to weaken the 3rd Kazekage before attacking him. With a thorough plan, he killed the 3rd Kazekage who was much stronger than him.
It shows that Sasori's poisons are very potent and lethal. Even the 3rd Kazekage, a powerful and smart ninja who knew more about poisons than Zoro could die because of Sasori's poisons, not to mention Zoro who has almost no knowledge about poisons.
Maybe he can kill Sasori even while being poisoned, but then what? How will he remove the poisons from his body? It's not like the poisons will disappear along with Sasori's death.
"Thanks for the offer, but I won't take it. If you want Sasori to die, then work together with the other villages to get rid of the organization he is in. That organization, the Akatsuki is more of a threat than all of you think. Though well, I know all of you great villages will look down on them. But the moment you realize how dangerous they are, it will be too late."
Zoro has always told the important people from the 5 Great Hidden Villages that he meets about how dangerous Akatsuki is. But as he thought, they don't think about it seriously even though Akatsuki's members are all S-Rank missing nins.
These villages always think such an organization won't be able to defeat a village even if they have a lot of S-Rank missing nins. Every Great Hidden Village has pride in their power, so they won't admit a criminal organization can threaten them.
Zoro leaves Tsunagakure after refusing the 4th Kazekage's offer. Well, he would still refuse even if the target wasn't Sasori. Zoro doesn't like hunting anyone because of a request, he likes to choose his own targets.
He would only accept villages' commissioned jobs if they aren't hunting criminals. That's why he accepted the escort job from Kumogakure years ago. But most of the job offers are hunting, which he always refuses, that's why he rarely takes commissioned jobs.
The 4th Kazekage has expected Zoro to refuse the offer. His plan wasn't to make Zoro accept it from the beginning. He just wants to be seen talking with Zoro, that's why he met Zoro in the place where the caravans are gathered.
People in caravan groups are good at spreading information. They surely will think that both Zoro and the 4th Kazekage were talking about something important. They will also think that both of them are quite close.
Kazekage does it for a scheme that will involve Zoro even if Zoro doesn't want to get involved in it. His scheme might make Tsunagakure become Zoro's enemy, but he doesn't care because in the end, Zoro is just 1 person.
Some days after Zoro leaves Tsunagakure, a rumor spreads that Zoro is selling information about the other 4 Great Hidden Villages to Tsunagakure. It spreads like wildfire among the Hidden Villages and people are talking about it.
Among the other 4, only Konoha and Kumo don't believe this rumor. They are the closest with Zoro and know that he isn't such a person. Though many of their villagers think the rumor is true, at least their Kages don't believe this crap.
Iwa is still doubtful about this rumor while Kiri thinks it must be true, mostly because they have a negative opinion about Zoro. But no matter what, this rumor is not good for Zoro.
He is a bounty hunter. He hunts criminals and gets rewards for it from the hidden villages. So it's not good if the hidden villages think badly of him because then they might not even let him enter their villages so he can't get the rewards.
Zoro doesn't know Tsunagakure's motive for doing this, but it doesn't change the fact that they want to become his enemy.
"Seems like you want to taste blood, Rasa. If that's what you want, then I'll gladly give it to you."
Sometime later, another shocking rumor spreads in the ninja world. Zoro announces that he will attack Tsunagakure. He even tells them the date and says they can prepare for it.
People think it's just a crazy rumor because it's said that Zoro will attack them alone. A single person is going to attack a Great Hidden Village that has thousands of shinobi alone.
After that, another rumor spreads. It's said that Tsunagakure is challenging all the other 4 Great Hidden Villages to start the 4th World War. The rumor says that Tsunagakure has developed hidden weapons that can obliterate all 4 Great Villages at once.
But that's not the end. More and more ridiculous rumors about the 5 Great Hidden Villages keep spreading. Tsunagakure is mentioned the most in those rumors.
There's even a rumor that says the 4th Kazekage is actually a fake. The real Rasa has been killed by Akatsuki and the one who leads the village now is a puppet made by Sasori who controls him from behind the scene.
Because of those worrying rumors, Tsunagakure's villagers become very uneasy. They demand the Kazekage to explain the truth of those rumors. Tsunagakure becomes chaotic because of those rumors.
Rasa knows who spreads those rumors and his guess is correct. Zoro is the one creating and spreading them to get back at Rasa for the rumor about Zoro selling information about the other Hidden Villages to Tsunagakure.
What Rasa doesn't know is that Zoro is close with many big information broker organizations. He is a VIP customer in many of those organizations. These information broker groups are the best at spreading rumors.
Zoro needs to pay them, but it's fine as long as he can destroy the rumor about him and even get back at Tsunagakure. After working with scheming and cunning people for years, Zoro obviously knows how to handle something like this.
He isn't just skillful with swords now, but also mental and verbal wars. If the 4th Kazekage wants to destroy his reputation, then he will also do the same to the guy.
But Zoro doesn't just spread rumors. He isn't all talk like some people. When he said he would attack Tsunagakure alone, he wasn't lying because on the promised date, the madman really came to attack Tsunagakure alone.
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Chapter 120. Konoha Crisis
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