A meal together, two people drinking and chatting, the host and guest getting along.
After a sumptuous meal, Kitsuchi immediately chose to take his leave, saying that he wanted to quickly convey the terms that Kirito had offered to the Tsuchikage-sama.
Kirito was very sensible and did not continue to try to persuade him to stay, but he personally saw Kitsuchi to the door of the inn and gave him a generous gift.
Kitsuchi was a simple man, but not a fool, and he accepted all the things Kirito had given him as a deliberate attempt to win him over.
"I hope it will turn out for the best,"
Kirito sighed as he watched Kitsuchi disappear into the darkness.
Then he turned to look at an old man sitting behind the counter behind him.
The old man saw Kirito's impersonation of Hattori Masanari looking over.
"Boom~" A sound was heard.
A white cloud of smoke appeared from the old man.
The white smoke disappeared, and the leader of the Amegakure, Hanzo, appeared before Kirito's eyes.
At the same time, some of the maids and attendants in the inn also changed, and they all returned to their original appearances.
It turned out that all the people in this inn were actually people from the Amegakure who had used transformation techniques to change.
"Let's talk inside."
Kirito was not in the least surprised to see Hanzo and the many Ame-Nin. He spoke softly to Hanzo, and then walked back into the inn without fear.
This inn was originally a contact point for the Amegakure in the border town.
Kirito's bringing Kitsuchi here was naturally an arrangement made deliberately by him, in order to send a signal to Hanzo.
Hanzo did not disappoint him, and came personally.
In fact, Kitsuchi also knew that this inn was Amegakure's contact point, and he had also discovered early on that many of the people in this inn had been replaced. However, he still came, still going to the meeting alone.
This shows how sincere his trade was, how courageous he was, and how confident he was in his own strength. He was worthy of the identity of the Son of the Tsuchikage.
When Hanzo heard what Kirito said, he stared at Kirito coldly for a moment. Then he nodded to Kirito and entered an empty private room with him.
At this time, he was very dissatisfied with Hattori Masanari, the role played by Kirito, for making decisions without consulting others and conducting transactions with Iwagakure.
He knew that Kirito had personally captured the two elite puppet masters from Sunagakure, and that Kirito was still a rogue ninja from Amegakure, so strictly speaking, this trade had nothing to do with Amegakure.
But he was still angry, because Kirito was trading with Iwagakure under the banner of Amegakure, and had bypassed him to deal directly with Iwagakure.
Even though Kirito is currently trading in the Amegakure intelligence station, which is considered notice to the leader of Amegakure, he still has a grudge in his heart.
He has already heard from some close associates about the so-called Amegakure division plan. Even though he does not believe that Hattori Masanari will betray Amegakure and sell out Amegakure's interests, he is indeed wary of Hattori Masanari's future struggle for power with him.
Due to the defeat in the war, the Land of Rain has been reduced to a wasteland, and his prestige in Amegakure has been severely damaged. There are many voices of opposition within Amegakure, and there have even been a large number of rogue ninja who have left the Amegakure village without authorization.
Now that Hattori Masanari has defeated two famous elite puppet masters, Tsunade and Sunagakure, and he has secretly announced that Hattori Masanari is no longer a rogue ninja, Hattori Masanari's prestige in Amegakure is now second only to his.
Once Hattori Masanari successfully uses the two elite puppet masters from Sunagakure to exchange a large amount of resources from Iwagakure and use them on Amegakure to help the village get through the current crisis, his reputation will inevitably reach new heights.
By then, if Hattori Masanari gives a call to arms, he might just get a lot of Ame-Nin who are disappointed in him as the leader of Amegakure to follow him.
Judging from Hattori Masanari's current actions, there is a hint of this.
Amegakure's split plan is something that he, Hanzo of the Salamander, has to guard against.
"You're wary of me, aren't you, Hanzo?"
After Kirito and Hanzo entered the room, he made sure that no one was eavesdropping around them before he sneered at the serious-looking Hanzo in front of him.
"Masashi, don't you think that your behavior of taking matters into your own hands deserves my suspicion? You can take matters into your own hands and trade with Iwagakure because you captured those two people, and I have no objection to you trading them for benefits from Iwagakure, but you shouldn't trade with Iwagakure on your own under the banner of Amegakure.
You brought the son of the Tsuchikage here to trade, which means that you are now an Ame-Nin, isn't it?"
Hanzo retorted with reason and evidence, his voice full of anger.
"Hmph, you still have the nerve to say that the reason I would trade with Iwagakure without notifying you first is because of your incompetence. I don't want to be obstructed by you, to be precise, obstructed by those Sunagakure spies hidden by your side."
Upon hearing this, Kirito said his reasons without any sense of guilt.
"Masashi, what do you mean by that?"
Hanzo's face changed when he heard this, and he stared hard at Kirito's eyes, gradually exuding a dangerous aura.
"What do you mean? Wasn't what I said clear enough, or are you just continuing to pretend you don't understand? Think about why you foolishly chose to declare war on Konoha back then,"
said Kirito coldly.
By the end of his sentence, he was almost shouting.
During the time he had been using the White Zetsu clone to operate in the Land of Rain, he had not hesitated to use the Spirit Transformation Technique to have his clone infiltrate Amegakure and gather intelligence.
In contrast to Konoha's Hidden Village, where sealing barriers could be found everywhere and even the entire village was enveloped in a super-large sealing barrier, Amegakure, which lacked the foundation of sealing techniques, was like a sieve with loopholes everywhere, and was simply unable to stop his Spirit Transformation Technique from detecting anything.
Therefore, he collected a lot of useful information using the Spirit Transformation Technique, and also stealthily obtained some unexpected secrets from some of Hanzo's trusted subordinates.
To his surprise, many of Hanzo's trusted subordinates had secretly contacted Konoha, Suna, and Iwagakure to find an escape route in advance.
Some of them were spies that the three ninja villages had sent to Amegakure a long time ago to lurk in secret. Among them, there were mostly spies from Sunagakure, and many of them had secretly taken up high positions and held many important positions in Amegakure.
In that case, he could fully imagine what kind of situation the demigod Hanzo was in, being held back by these spies.
It would be strange for such a village as Amegakure to be able to defeat Konoha.
If it weren't for Hanzo's truly formidable strength in the Land of Rain, and his hard work to support Amegakure on his own, Amegakure would have fallen long ago.
No wonder why Hanzo has always hidden in the shadows, never taking the initiative to show himself, with many escorts arranged around him, and these escorts rarely seeing him. On the one hand, his strength has declined too much, and he is afraid of death; on the other hand, it is also because he is worried that there are spies from other ninja villages around him.
As soon as Kirito mentioned waging war against Konoha, Hanzo's momentum instantly weakened.
He looked at Kirito's eyes, which revealed hatred, and subconsciously avoided Kirito's eyes, feeling a strong sense of guilt.
Unwisely declaring war on Konoha had resulted in heavy losses for Amegakure and the Land of Rain. It was the biggest mistake he had made in his life.
In fact, after the war ended, he had done some soul-searching and realized that it was due to his blind arrogance that he had mistakenly believed that he and Amegakure's combined power could make the Land of Rain the sixth great country, and foolishly declared war on Konoha.
As a result, he suffered a crushing defeat.
However, after thinking about it, he realized that the reason he was so arrogant was that he was blindly challenging Konoha, the strongest ninja village in the world, and that it was also due to the constant encouragement of his close associates.
It was his close associates who secretly encouraged him to start a war with Konoha.
"It seems that you are not as stupid as you look. You have noticed that there is something wrong with the people around you. Has someone been encouraging you to trade prisoners with Sunagakure recently? You know best what public opinion in the village is regarding this prisoner exchange, don't you? Do you still think I should tell you in advance about this trade with Iwagakure?"
Kirito saw that Hanzo did not dare to look him in the eye and continued.
Hanzo remained silent, tacitly agreeing with Kirito.
Since Kirito captured two Sunagakure puppet masters, there have been rapid voices in the village expressing the Sunagakure threat theory, which is specifically concerned that Sunagakure will start a war with Amegakure as a result.
Because of these remarks, Amegakure, which had just barely escaped the quagmire of war, is now in a state of panic, fearing that war will break out again in the Land of Rain.
As a result, some people kept persuading him to order Hattori Masanari to return the two puppet masters to Sunagakure. Some even suggested that the people be returned to Sunagakure unconditionally, and that Hattori Masanari, the rogue ninja who had destroyed the friendship between Amegakure and Sunagakure, be severely punished afterwards.
If Kirito had informed him in advance that he would be trading with Iwagakure, there would have been fierce opposition within the village, and the trade would likely have ended in failure.