Naruto: My Progress in Konoha.

Chapter 824 Undercurrent and Analysis

"This is really true."

For a moment, Qing Ming didn't know what to say.

Back then, after Takigakure Village lost the Nanabi, they didn’t make much of a fuss, did they?
However, think about it, when he attacked the Seven-Tails, the Third Ninja World War had just ended not long ago. No one wanted to trigger the Fourth Ninja World War, especially a small ninja village like Takigakure.

In the Third Ninja World War, one of the reasons why Taki Country did not become the central battlefield was naturally because of the unique terrain of Taki Country, which was not suitable as a battlefield for large-scale battles.

The second reason is that Takigakure Village has a tailed beast as a deterrent.

When the benefits and risks are not equal, naturally no big ninja village would invade them. At most they would just borrow a passage.

However, if the Fourth Shinobi World War was caused by them, then one of the battlefields would definitely be in Takikuni.

Just like the Rain Country and the Hidden Rain Village during the Second Ninja World War, this is the tacit understanding among the five major ninja villages that they will not allow small ninja villages to grow and become stronger, nor will they allow them to disobey their will.

As for the so-called terrain restrictions
This is just because the major ninja villages have not made up their minds. Once they really decide to start a war in Takikuni, the so-called terrain will not be important at all.

Ninjas are not ordinary people. Their adaptability and tolerance to the environment are far beyond the reach of ordinary people.

Therefore, it is normal for Taki Country to become a battlefield.

In addition, the loss of the tailed beasts made them lose the only means to intimidate the major ninja villages, so they naturally dared not do anything that would cause misunderstanding.

For this reason, after the Nanabi was kidnapped, although the Takigakure Village investigated for a while and had several clues, it ultimately came to nothing.

There is no way. This is the sadness of the small ninja village. It can be said that it is like swallowing a broken tooth.

However, Iwagakure Village is different.

As one of the five major ninja villages and the village with the largest number of ninjas, they will not give up easily.

They have the ability and confidence to conduct a detailed investigation into those who acted in secret.

Just as Qingming was receiving the memories of his shadow clone, on the other side, Oonoki received the preliminary investigation results.

······
The land of earth.

Iwagakure Village.

night.

Located in the Tsuchikage Building in the center of the village.

Oonoki's small figure sat in a large chair.

While flipping through the report in his hand, he listened to the report of an Anbu ninja below.

"Your Excellency, based on our subsequent analysis and the investigation over the past two days, we can basically confirm that the person in the dark must have targeted the four tails of the village a long time ago, and secretly left pawns in various cities to specifically monitor the whereabouts of Master Lao Zi."

Below, the Anbu ninja first made a summary.

Hearing this, Onoto said without even raising his head: "Continue."

"Yes, my lord!"

The Anbu ninja below responded, and without any nonsense, immediately told the process of their investigation.

Then he said, "According to Black Snake's report, we know that in Black Rock City, the one who targeted Master Lao Zi was a bounty ninja, and he tried to report the incident before being subdued by Black Snake.

We have reason to suspect that the enemy learned of Lord Lao Zi's whereabouts through him.

Then, he rushed over quickly, killed the black snake, and followed the clues to catch up with the rest of the people, annihilated the entire Black Snake team, and finally captured Master Lao Zi."

At this point, he paused, then continued: "But there is a question here, how did the bounty ninja know that Master Lao Zi would appear in Black Rock City?"

“Initially, we suspected that something went wrong internally and someone leaked the information.

To this end, we investigated all departments and personnel who might know about Mr. Lao Zi's whereabouts.

Unfortunately, we didn't find anything unusual. So we turned our attention to the outside, and raided several underground black market bases based on the identity of the bounty ninja.

At first, we didn't find anything. Although there were bounties on the black market for Old Purple and Four Tails, those were things that happened a long time ago, and no one has issued a similar bounty recently.

We realized that there might be something wrong with the direction of our investigation, so we focused on investigating the identity of this bounty ninja.

Finally, during an investigation, we discovered that a bounty ninja who had once interacted with him had also disappeared inexplicably.

Following this line, we continued to investigate and found that it was not just these two bounty ninjas, but also bounty ninjas in other cities and some wandering ninjas who had disappeared without a reason, and..."

Hearing this, Ohnoki finally raised his head and asked, "And what?"

"Moreover, the time they disappeared was all concentrated in these two days."

The Anbu ninja below replied bravely.

"Murder to silence the witness? Cover up the tracks?"

Onokichi.

"Yes, sir, we thought so too!"

The Anbu ninja below nodded and said, "The enemy probably doesn't know the exact whereabouts of Master Zi, they only know that he may have gone out recently.

Then, by casting a wide net, they placed spies in various cities to look for similar characters, and finally the mastermind would be confirmed.

Now, that person's goal has been achieved. In order to prevent us from tracking him, he killed everyone on the Internet."

"Hahaha~, very good, you caught the Four-Tails and killed our people, yet you dare to come back? You really don't take our Iwagakure Village seriously!"

After listening to the narration of the Anbu ninja below, Oonoki suddenly sneered.

After laughing, he asked again: "What about the others? What have you found out about the enemy's abilities and identities?"

Although Ōnoki's voice was plain, to the ears of the Anbu ninjas below, it sounded like a volcano about to erupt, causing great pressure on them.

Suppressing his inner restlessness, the Anbu ninja replied: "Your Excellency, according to our investigation and analysis, the enemy should not belong to the other major ninja villages. Even if they do, this action should not have been approved by the top leaders."

"Is it because of those bounty ninjas and wandering ninjas?" asked Ohnoki.

"Yes, my lord!"

The Anbu ninja below nodded and said, "The quality and ability of these ninjas are too poor. If the higher-ups of other villages give their approval, more detailed arrangements can be made."

Hearing this, Oonoki did not comment, but just said: "Continue!"

"The enemy should possess a space-time ninjutsu that can teleport over extremely long distances, as can be seen from his rapid appearance and disappearance."

This time, Ōnoki nodded in approval.

Below, the Anbu ninja continued: "In addition, this space-time ninjutsu will not be the ninjutsu of the Hidden Cloud Village's 'Heaven's Sentence' that has extremely high requirements on the human body's endurance."

"Is it because he left with Lao Zi?"

Oonoki heard this and thought for a moment.

"It's not just Old Purple, but also those ninjas who disappeared in other cities."

The Anbu ninja below nodded, then shook his head and said: According to our investigation over the past two days, these people disappeared at roughly the same time in an adjacent area.

In other words, the enemy most likely used the space-time ninjutsu during this process, and teleported a clone such as a shadow clone.

These clones have limited endurance, so it is impossible for them to use space-time ninjutsu such as 'Heaven's Sent Technique' which requires extremely high physical endurance."

"Oh, in that case, there seems to be only one possibility."

Ohnoki groaned, raised his head through the office window, looked towards the southeast direction of Konoha Village, and murmured, "'Flying Thunder God Jutsu'?"

(End of this chapter)