72 Chapter 72: Do you want to be a Kazekage?
After, Hinata showed off her undisputed strength, she was officially promoted to a genin of the Cloud.
A decade ago, she would have gone straight to Chunin.
Even then, as she accumulated experience she would without a doubt slowly become a Jonin.
"You can go first, I have to go attend to some important business."
Since, he and Samui weren't interested in the rest of the students, they just walked home.
A few hours later, Mabui showed up with a present for her.
It was a brand new forehead protector symbolising her new status.
"Congratulations, Hinata. I don't think anyone expected you to be able to learn the late Raikage's hell stab jutsu. At a record age as well, you might be the greatest genius born in our village!"
Hinata thanked her shyly, and tied it around her neck like a scarf.
"You seem very happy, Mabui."
Samui said flatly,
What she was insinuating, couldn't be more obvious.
"No! No, I meant..."
After being put on the spot she panicked.
...
...
Hachiro opened the secret letter and summarised it for the two women in the room.
"It's a letter from Orochimaru, he requested that we assist him in attacking the current Kazekage in hopes of furthering our plans of annihilating Konoha."
Noticing that Pakura's expression was complicated, he said,
"You can come too, I know you want revenge without bringing Sunagakure in. I'll try to work around that."
Pakura still had some fond feelings and memories for her birth place, making her feel entangled in a web where every path led to the wrong answer.
Killing the Kazekage, would result in Sunagakure falling into chaos. That would damage the village severely and be detrimental to their already crumbling economy.
"He's just a less cunning and determined, Sarutobi Hiruzen. As long as we act cautiously and play our cards well, our lives will not be in any danger, what's so ever."
Hachiro said with slight contempt,
Although, he had not personally encountered Rasa, he already knew he was a hard counter to anyone with magnet release, without any brains to redeem himself, the Fourth Kazekage wasn't all that impressive.
In response, Pakura nodded her head and motivated herself silently.
"Well, let's go."
...
...
Along the border of the Land of Wind, Hachiro raised an important question.
"Do you want to be the next Kazekage?"
Shocked, she slipped and almost fell off the edge of the cliff.
Izumi exclaimed, "Ms. Pakura!"
Hachiro grabbed her around her waist, before pulling her back up.
He gave a smirk and said,
"Be careful, I didn't think you would still be as stupid as 6 years ago."
Anger twisted Pakura's facial expression as she retorted in a quiet voice,
"Then don't say, ludicrous things, so out of the blue."
"Well, I was being serious. You would definitely do a much better job than the current Kazekage, after some training you would be a perfect candidate."
Hachiro smiled as he explained,
"I'm not saying it would be easy, especially after you've disappeared for so long. But, I'm sure if you work hard enough and with some support you could manage to get the position."
In the past six years, the topic had been brought up between him and the Raikage, they decided to grant her access to the more advanced ninjutsu from the Scroll of Sealing to improve her qualifications, in case they ended up going that route.
With the addition of several S-rank fire and wind ninjutsu, her combat strength had increased explosively.
If she had to fight future Gaara as an opponent, she may have struggled. But against Rasa, a low-kage, she would turn him into a desiccated corpse within seconds... okay, a minute. You get the idea?
Pakura bit the inside of her cheek, as she thought about an answer.
Like every young child in the village, at one point she had run shouting about becoming the Kazekage of the village.
It was one of the most popular dreams that were soon dropped after everyone attained a degree of maturity.
She hesitated, maybe it was because of doubts in herself but she wasn't certain what she should say.
The Land of Rivers was a country sandwiched between the Land of Wind and Land of Fire.
It was a richer country which frequently hired shinobi for various purposes, generally those from the sand for their cheaper prices.
This Land was going to be the supposed rendezvous point between Orochimaru and Rasa.
According to the letter from Orochimaru, he had sent Kabuto to lurch in Sunagakure before finally catching the attention of the Kazekage.
He had expressed his sincere intentions of joining the Sand shinobi for an attack on Konoha as the leader of the Hidden Sound Village.
In recent years, under the wraith of many natural disasters and their climate, they had suffered from a lot of damage. In order to save costs, they had to disarm many of their troops causing their military strength to shrink even further.
Their allies, the Land of Fire was sitting right beside them just waiting to be devoured with their recent decline of strength.
Unfortunately, although, Konoha was weaker than before, the Sand was even weaker than them preventing them from gobbling down on this rich feast out of starvation.
After, hearing that Orochimaru, a kage-level ninja, who was now the leader of a prominent village was intending to deal the Leaf a heavy blow,
he felt as if the world was looking up for him.
Without so much as a word, Rasa temporially handed over the villages affairs to his confidant Baki and rushed towards to Land of Rivers with only a few measly Anbu.
He intended to remove them after this business trip, so the lesser amount of people, the less amount of corpses there would be.
...
...
A few days later.
Rasa and several Anbu members stopped at a barren mountain in the land of Rivers.
This was the agreed location.
"Kazekage-sama, isn't it kind of weird Orochimaru chose to set the meeting place here? Couldn't we have just went somewhere else and place a genjutsu on any passerby's?"
A Jonin from the sand looked around and asked in wonder, noticing the absence of people or even animals in the surrounding terrain.
Rasa shook his hand and explained to him,
"Orochimaru, is like a snake, he is always cautious and makes multiple back up plans. He probably just didn't want to risk anything."
He frowned and thought to himself, "...snakes are also cunning and treacherous."
He realised that he had moved too fast after being invited to this alliance. He should have brought a few more subordinates.
However, Rasa was confident in his own strength.
He believed that while he wasn't a much for the three Sanin at once, alone was a much different matter.
"Scorch Style-Explosive steaming Murder!"
The howl of burning flames sounded,
The large rock beside them melted as balls of flame, shot through and arrived at the feet of Rasa and his companions.
Even if the Kazekage and his entourage were all Jonin, the situation became precarious too suddenly.
With five ghostly wails, five mummified corpses collapsed.
What fire style ninjutsu was this?!
The remaining five people revealed astonished expressions.
A lethality and speed surpassing any other, they had seen before.
The ground below their feet softened and started to wiggle like it was alive.
Among the swampy terrain, a hand emerged and latched onto a rock. It pulled launching its body up in the air.
Like a python, it sprang towards its prey. A sword extended from its mouth piercing the throat of two shinobi behind Rasa.
Following it up, a fleet of kunai approached from the right taking the life of a distracted shinobi.
"Humph!"
A trace of anger showed itself on the last Sand Jonin's face, as he tilted his head to narrowly avoid any sharp edges.
However, he hadn't noticed that on said Kunai, there was a multitude of strange seals hidden by the bandage tied around the handle.
A slender shadow miraculously appeared in the air and pierced the last Jonin's throat.
"Flying Thunder God Slash!"
Izumi muttered, after confirming her kill, she released a sigh of relief before retreating a few steps.
Boom!
Lightning smashed into a nearby boulder as an individual with a bored expression appeared and complained,
"That was fast. Did you really need to specifically ask for me to come?"
The flickering figure of Pakura appeared beside him.
"Haha, I apologise, Hachiro-kun. I strive to create foolproof plans leaving my opponent no chance of survival."
Orochimaru shrank the Kusanagi blade and offhandedly replied.
Five seconds had not passed, but the 10 people brought out by Rasa, were all dead!
