"You're going back, Nagato?"
"Mm. I've been out for so long all at once, and so many things happened. I need to go back and properly explain everything to Yahiko, Konan, Karin, and the others."
Inside the only tavern in Konoha still open for business, Nagato and Jiraiya, master and disciple, sat facing each other.
While drinking sake with a low alcohol content, they discussed their plans for what came next.
"Sigh. Konoha only managed to survive this crisis by luck this time. It really was thanks to your help…"
Jiraiya raised the small half-cup of sake in his hand. While gently shaking it, he sighed sincerely.
"If you hadn't noticed Root's objective in advance and tracked them all the way to Konoha, then even if Kirigakure later entered the field to support us, Konoha would probably have been left with only the fate of gradually falling apart."
Jiraiya's words were sincere and heartfelt. There was not the slightest exaggeration or flattery in them.
If Nagato had not personally appeared and helped block the first wave of Tailed Beast Ball attacks from those three Tailed Beasts, then Konoha's active forces would have suffered a devastating blow immediately.
At the same time, if Nagato had not passed this news to him, then he could never have brought Tsunade back from outside the village at this time.
And if Tsunade had not endured the poisonous mist, held back Hanzo, and killed the Black Salamander, then the casualties caused by Hanzo and his Black Salamander would have been at least ten times worse than they currently were.
If the situation had been that terrible from the very beginning, could Konoha have lasted until Kirigakure later entered the field and extended a helping hand?
The answer was naturally no.
Therefore, in Jiraiya's view, Nagato was the first person he needed to thank.
"It can only be said that Root used Iwagakure and Kumogakure's distrust toward me and the Akatsuki, and seized a one-time-only opportunity in battle. That was how they achieved such exaggerated results."
Nagato shook his head, lightly took a sip of the sake in his cup, and sighed.
"Moreover, even if their ultimate objective of destroying Konoha failed, this operation has already completely destroyed the political foundation of the Akatsuki becoming a negotiation platform between nations… The next era will probably become a binary age of opposition, with only black and white."
"You mean Iwagakure and Kumogakure will choose to bind themselves to Root, then go all the way down the path of opposing us?"
Jiraiya could not help frowning.
"From what I know of the Third Tsuchikage, Onoki, that stubborn old man is not someone willing to have his actions forcibly bound by anyone… Not to mention Root is only a notorious terrorist organization."
"But Iwagakure and Kumogakure have no choice. Especially under the premise that Konoha is injured but not dead, and Kirigakure has clearly shown that it will support Konoha. If they want to preserve their current position, then they must bind themselves deeply to Root and provide them with enough support."
Nagato pointed at the map of the shinobi world placed between them and analyzed calmly.
"Before Konoha's defense battle erupted, although Kirigakure had displayed an upward, vibrant momentum, in Iwagakure and Kumogakure's eyes, Kirigakure was ultimately only a village propped up by Rei Kaguya alone. In addition, its location is remote. It was far less threatening than Konoha, which occupies the richest land in the shinobi world and produced many geniuses during the baptism of the Third Shinobi World War."
"But now, Rei Kaguya has used a heaven-shaking battle to prove that even he alone fully possesses the strength to defeat or destroy any one of the Five Great Shinobi Villages. Under such circumstances, Konoha, which has already been heavily damaged and crippled, is clearly less threatening than Kirigakure, whose strength remains complete."
"Considering Kirigakure's clear support for Konoha's position, as well as the fact that Obito Uchiha, who commands Root, is the only shinobi capable of causing Rei Kaguya some trouble, Iwagakure and Kumogakure, who have already stood in opposition to Kirigakure, have a very high chance of maintaining their alliance and forming a camp together with Root, one whose core purpose is to oppose the alliance between Kirigakure and Konoha."
Jiraiya looked at the line Nagato drew across the map with his finger and asked with a slight frown, "Are we not considering the hatred between Iwagakure and Kumogakure? The Third Raikage was surrounded and killed by Iwagakure through human wave tactics. It hasn't even been that many years. As the Third Raikage's own son, the Fourth Raikage cannot possibly let go of his hatred toward Iwagakure so easily…"
"But if Iwagakure and Kumogakure do not form an alliance, and if they do not maintain cooperation with Root, they will inevitably fall into endless fear of Rei Kaguya's personal strength."
Nagato pointed at Kirigakure's location on the map. Half emotional and half yearning, he said, "Right now, Rei Kaguya truly is a godlike existence with the ability to erase one of the Five Great Shinobi Villages from the map and history through his own power alone. Before a nation-destroying level combatant like him, who does not need to mobilize large numbers of personnel, does not need to prepare war supplies in advance, and can even ignore ninety-nine percent of an enemy's precautions, how could the Tsuchikage and Raikage place their villages in a situation where they might be destroyed at any time because of hatred from the past?"
"If you still do not believe it, Jiraiya-sensei, you can have Konoha's intelligence personnel pay more attention to Iwagakure and Kumogakure's movements. Before long, they should reach toward the nations around them, doing everything they can to plunder strategic resources and draw shinobi villages into choosing sides, hoping to improve their strength as much as possible before Konoha and Kirigakure free their hands."
"War is coming again?"
Jiraiya looked at the locations and names of the many countries marked on the map and let out a long sigh.
"Clearly, none of the villages have fully recovered from the wounds left by the previous war, yet now they are immediately going to draw blades against one another again?"
"On that… I actually believe that extreme military conflict like before should not happen again in the short term."
Nagato drained the sake in his cup, then spoke seriously to Jiraiya, who had looked at him in surprise.
"Before they find a way to break Rei Kaguya's absolute advantage in personal military power, and before a relative balance of strategic power is reached again, like when the First Hokage distributed Tailed Beasts to various villages, Iwagakure and Kumogakure should not take the initiative to provoke large-scale war against Konoha and Kirigakure…"
"However, methods outside direct war should soon be implemented. Measures like sanctioning merchant caravans, prohibiting shinobi from the Land of Fire and Land of Water from entering the Land of Earth and Land of Lightning to carry out missions, reducing exports of specialty products from the Land of Earth and Land of Lightning to the Land of Fire and Land of Water… Hm. During that period, there should also be large numbers of spies going undercover, border friction, and even operations such as supporting puppets and subverting the governments of smaller countries."
"In Rei Kaguya's words, this should be called… a cold war, right?"
"A cold war…?"
Jiraiya carefully chewed over what Nagato had said.
After a long while, he slowly took a deep breath, shook his head, and sighed.
"That brat Rei Kaguya, is he some god who was born knowing everything? Otherwise, why would someone who had never left the Land of Water before the age of fifteen be able to produce so many ever-changing ideas that always strike directly at the core?"
"Who knows?"
Nagato shrugged.
He pushed the map he had specially marked toward Jiraiya, then lightly stood up.
While calling over the tavern owner to settle the bill, he said to the thoughtful Jiraiya, "If Jiraiya-sensei is truly that curious, why not go stay in Kirigakure for a while and have more ideological exchanges with that fellow Rei Kaguya? Given the current relationship between Konoha and Kirigakure, he should not go so far as to throw you out for something like that…"
"…Nagato, don't tell me you took advantage of our master-disciple farewell to act as Rei Kaguya's lobbyist!?"
After realizing something, Jiraiya widened his eyes and suspiciously questioned Nagato, who was paying.
"Even if I said yes, could you restrain your curiosity, Jiraiya-sensei?"
Nagato smiled as he received the change from the tavern owner.
Then, in a very good mood, he hummed a folk tune from the Land of Rain and walked lightly out of the tavern.
Jiraiya, left speechless by Nagato's question before leaving, remained silent for a moment. Then he sighed helplessly and muttered softly to himself.
"Damn it, Nagato, you schemed against me…"
"Forget it. I already promised Minato that I would help him go to Kirigakure, take a look around, and understand Kirigakure's reform plans. I might as well use the opportunity to serve as a guard for that exchange student program and settle this matter."
"Hmm. Speaking of which, Kirigakure's negotiation team also seemed to mention that they hoped Tsunade could go to Kirigakure to exchange medical ninjutsu experience… What is that brat Rei Kaguya doing? Is he trying to catch all three Sannin in one net? Tsk. If Orochimaru had not defected and vanished without a trace, he probably wouldn't be able to escape either, would he?"
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