Avengers of the Whirlpool Family

Unlike the five major ninja villages that all have their own iconic "Shadow Buildings", Takigakure Village does not have the conditions to build overly luxurious buildings. The government hall is where successive leaders handle government affairs and receive foreign guests. The back is the office space and the front is the reception hall.

The series of buildings built around the government hall are almost all offices of important positions in various departments of the village.

The garrison squad is located in a two-story building on the left side of the government hall.

Menma still looked like a young man as before as he stepped into the house.

"Master Yifang!"

A Taki nin who was on guard at the front immediately bowed his head and greeted him.

This was a Taki-nin who had witnessed Menma's crushing attitude some time ago. In addition, Menma's current status and identity were far beyond those of ordinary Taki-nin. Naturally, these ordinary Taki-nins would salute Menma when they saw him.

Menma also smiled and nodded in response.

Go straight through the hall, go up the stairs, and arrive at the second floor.

"Ajun-san."

The person sitting on the main seat is Ajun, the squad leader who now commands the three to four hundred garrison troops of Takigakure Village.

"Oh! It's Yifangsang. Didn't the chief give Yifangsang a few more days to settle down? Why did he come here today?"

I saw Menma’s figure.

Ajun also stood up from his seat at the first moment, and said to Menma with a smile on his face.

Menma disguised himself as 'Accelerator' and joined Takigakure Village.

It’s hard to say how hostile and suspicious Ajun was.

Unlike other Taki ninjas, as Shibuki's absolute confidant, he can naturally learn more information. Except for Menma's true identity, Ajun knows the rest, including the endorsement made by the late Elder Mizuno Satoru for Menma's joining. Based on this point, Ajun has a certain degree of trust in Menma.

But definitely not much.

After all, Menma is an outsider.

He is an outsider who joined halfway.

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 228 Intervene

Not to mention that their Takigakure Village had just experienced a rebellion, and the leader was an experienced Taki ninja like Shizuka. In addition, their leader's personality has always been soft and gentle. Even though there seems to be some changes recently, Ajun still feels that he must be more careful than before and treat everything more vigilantly.

Of course, all of this can only be kept in one's heart, and not even a little bit of it can be revealed on the surface, as that would be detrimental to the stability of the village. Moreover, Menma still owes a debt of gratitude to their Takigakure Village, and he is still the daimyo who represents the Land of Fire (this is still an identity that Ah Jun misunderstood. At this stage, the only two people in Takigakure Village who can know Menma's true identity are Shibuki and Fu.)

"Haha, I've had enough rest, and my family is almost settled. It's not appropriate to continue sitting at home. I should also fulfill my responsibilities."

Menma replied with a slight smile.

"Yifang-san is really serious."

Ah Jun smiled casually, but at that moment a hint of suspicion flashed in his pupils.

He always felt that Menma was so active and enthusiastic, maybe there was some ulterior motive behind this?

But then Ajun himself shook his head in his heart and threw this idea out of his mind. He could be vigilant, but it was inappropriate to suspect others without limit and reason. After all, they were companions endorsed by Elder Wu and personally allowed by Chief Shemu to join. He still needed to be cautious in his attitude and not make random guesses or doubts easily.

"Since Yifang-san is interested, this is the scope of work that Yifang-san needs to be responsible for. Yifang-san should familiarize himself with it first."

Ah Jun took out some documents from a pile on the left and handed them to Menma, then pointed to a pile of scrolls on another table and said softly.

There are many kinds of important government affairs in a ninja village.

But among all these political affairs, the defense of the village is definitely the one that comes first. A ninja village or a powerful group will not have any cohesion if it cannot even guarantee its own safety.

The reason why the power scale of ninja villages came into being is to allow people to better unite and protect each other. This is true for the five major ninja villages and the Takigakure Village as well.

This is different from the five major ninja villages, which can almost extend their sphere of influence to the entire national border and the scale of defense within the surrounding small countries.

The garrisons of ninja villages in other small countries are generally limited to the vicinity of the ninja village.

Ninja villages with slightly stronger power, such as Takigakure, Kusagakure, and Amegakure, can extend their influence a little more, but there are also many restrictions. The five major countries will not allow other ninja villages to cover too many areas. This is not in their interests.

Therefore, the area that Takigakure can get involved in is within the Land of Taki, close to the important borders of several major countries, which are guarded by ninjas from Konoha, Iwagakure, and Kumogakure. In the past few decades, once the three Ninja World Wars broke out, these places became the places where the three major countries fought over each other. That is, the location of Takigakure is relatively far back, not like Kusagakure and Raingakure, which are almost at the core of the struggle between several major countries.

Takigakure Village still has a little more autonomy and self-protection capabilities.

But that's all.

The situation of small countries is so difficult.

As the main person in charge of the garrison squad, Ajun is generally responsible for coordinating the garrison work of the entire Takigakure Village, but he is basically responsible for the security around the village. The allocation of Takigakure garrison work at the border is basically arranged by the leader himself.

The garrison affairs that Ajun has now entrusted to Menma are the summary and organization of the different information received by the garrison personnel every day.

This task is very important, and it is indeed very important.

But for the overall defense work, it is a less important part.

As soon as Menma came to his seat and looked through the contents recorded in the scroll, he roughly understood Ajun's intention.

However, this is a very normal development. Any outsider who enters a group must go through such a process. Even if one has the most charming attributes, it is impossible to gain everyone's recognition and trust right from the start.

The aura of a king and a tyrant is so strong that everyone bows down to him?

That's not reality, that's a fairy tale.

Therefore, Menma is very satisfied with the current progress. He eats his meals one bite at a time and walks one step at a time.

At least at this stage, Menma is not qualified and has no intention to carry out any power seizure behavior. He has not even established basic prestige and trust, so how can he seize power?

Someone has to believe in you before you can take the next step.

and so.

For Menma, the most important thing to do now is to strengthen his presence in the village and gain as much recognition and trust as possible from people in Takigakure Village, such as Ajun.

The most direct approach is to bring benefits to Takigakure Village and bring visible development and changes to Takigakure Village.

As it happens, Menma doesn't have much else to say, but he does have a lot of ideas in this regard. Most of them are still on paper or in the preparation stage.

But there is one idea that can be put into practice directly.

That is the issue of defending the village.

Of course, we still need to look at how to implement it in practice to avoid any misunderstandings.

"Ajun-san, can I check the defense layout of our village? Also, the personnel deployment issue."

After spending more than an hour browsing the information stored on his desktop and not seeing the intelligence he wanted, Menma looked up at Ajun who was sitting at the top and asked directly.

It doesn't matter whether it is presumptuous or not.

As the deputy squad leader of the guard squad personally assigned by Shibuki, Menma has such authority, but a normal person who has just joined the village would not easily ask such sensitive questions at the beginning.

Even if it is within the scope of authority.

I will also wait for a while and do it again after I am more familiar with it.

It was brought up directly on the first day.

It is easy to make other people suspicious.

Obviously, when Ah Jun heard Menma's request, his expression paused slightly, but it only lasted for a moment.

Ah Jun's mind also flashed back to Shibuki's previous instructions. He took a deep breath and swallowed back the excuses that he wanted to blurt out at first. He looked back at Menma, nodded with a smile and said, "Well, no problem. I was planning to let Ichifang-san get familiar with it later. After all, I will need Ichifang-san to lead the team to carry out corresponding defense work in the future."

As he spoke, he also pulled out another scroll from the drawer below and threw it in the direction of Menma.

Then catch the scroll with your backhand.

There was a slight arc on the corner of Menma's mouth.

'It seems to be much stronger than expected!'

Originally, Menma was mentally prepared to be politely rejected by Jun-sang.

The defense layout and personnel configuration of a ninja village are basically top secret. Generally speaking, once outside enemies learn of them, the entire ninja village will be in a very dangerous situation.

Not to mention a special ninja village like Takigakure Village.

In the entire ninja village, only Shibuki, Ajun, the recently deceased elder Mizuno Satoru, and the executed Shizuo were qualified to know about it.

It is understandable that Ajun did not tell me for the time being.

Menma was going to find a way to find out from Shibuki. He didn't have any ill intentions, but he wanted to improve the village's defense by understanding this aspect. However, Menma didn't say it directly. One reason was that he wanted to see if his intention could be realized to avoid any problems. The other reason was that he wanted to test how much Ajun trusted him.

It seems okay now.

At least it's much stronger than expected.

One day, my identity will be exposed. Before that, I need to reveal it little by little in a small range. I can't keep using the false identity of 'Accelerator'!

Ajun is obviously the most suitable and qualified person in Takigakure Village to be the third one to learn his true identity.

Now Ajun's confidence in himself is higher than expected, so the speed of launching the next step can be increased faster.

Received the garrison intelligence scroll.

After looking through it carefully.

Combined with the previous information, Menma also had a general understanding of the defense of Takigakure Village. It must be said that the decline of Takigakure Village is really not unfair at all. It is an all-round degradation. In terms of defense configuration and strength, it really does not match the existence of the village that almost could be called the sixth largest ninja village decades ago.

Just think about the past, especially some information obtained from Orochimaru. During the most prosperous period of Takigakure Village, although it was still quite a distance away from the weakest Sand Village and Mist Village at the time, it definitely had an overwhelming advantage when facing other ninja villages.

Otherwise, why is it that Takigakure can get a share of the tailed beast, but not Amegakure? Yugakure? Kusagakure?

In that period, being able to obtain a tailed beast was itself a reflection of one’s strength.

Don't forget what the first Hokage's original intention was in assigning the tailed beasts.

Isn't it for the purpose of allowing the most powerful ninja villages in the ninja world to gain enough power to check and balance each other, and then bring peace to the entire ninja world?

If Takigakure Village was really weak, Hashirama Senju would never have assigned the Seven-Tails to Takigakure Village!

It's not a question of having money or not.

Not to mention, under the special system of the ninja village, having money itself represents powerful strength!

A weak ninja and a weak ninja village are not worthy of and cannot obtain huge wealth.

To put it bluntly, if the Takigakure Village at that time had worked harder and taken one more step forward, it would indeed not have been able to match Konoha, but it would have had no problem touching the chrysanthemums of the Sand Village.

All it needs is a top-notch Kage-level warrior to improve the quality and quantity of the Takigakure ninjas, and Takigakure Village can become the sixth largest country, and the leader of Takigakure Village can be called Takikage!

It's a pity that there is no if.

decades down.

After the initial internal rebellion in Takigakure, which resulted in the tragic death of more than half of its core members, the village has been in a straight decline over the years. It has been weakened from being able to barely keep up with the five major ninja villages to being slightly stronger than Kusagakure, Amegakure, and Yugakure. This "strength" is still due to the Seven-Tails Jinchuriki.

if not.

With the rise of Hanzo Salamander, the Hidden Rain Village can defeat the Hidden Taki Village.

That is why, as the overall strength weakens, the defense of Takigakure Village is becoming more and more worrying.

The Otogakure Village under Orochimaru's command is more well-organized than the Takigakure Village.

"It's still a little off."

Menma watched and shook his head silently in his heart.

"Hmm? Have you finished reading it? You should also understand the defense mode of our village. I plan to let Fangfangsan take care of you in the next work..."

When Ah Jun, who had been paying attention to Menma on the main seat, saw Menma put down the scroll and looked up again, he spoke in advance.

Although I was a little dissatisfied with Menma's overly proactive and 'intrusive' behavior.

But in the end, Ajun still regarded Mianma as a companion.

In order to better maintain this relationship, Ajun plans to take the initiative to share more power with Mianma. Of course, the main body still needs to be in his own hands. Ajun really does not want any more accidents like the hookah incident to happen.

He also hoped that Menma could understand the meaning of his words.

Menma did understand what was said, but it was obvious that Ah Jun misjudged Menma's intention, so he had not finished speaking.

"Oh, there's no rush, Ajun-san. I'm still in the familiarization stage. It's better not to rashly participate in the overall defense of the village. Besides, I'm not familiar with other colleagues. Let's wait for a while before talking about it."

Menma smiled and waved his hand.

This shows the attitude.

This also made Ajun slightly stunned.