Chapter 49

Kazuki had not stepped out of his personal chamber for the past two days while producing specialized tags in large quantities. He even halted his shadow clones from practicing to assist him with the war efforts. Only Yoshino was allowed to enter to deliver his meals, and as smart as Shikamaru was, he knew not to disturb his big brother, though concern was evident on the little child's face.

In the morning, as the Kumo envoy was to reach the Leaf village, Gai and his team were already assigned their duties to keep an eye on the Kumo delegates along with other Leaf Shinobi teams. Kazuki was waiting near the village entrance to see the people that accompanied the Raikage, assessing their threat. To avoid drawing attention to himself, he mingled with kids his age who were waiting with flowers to hand them over to the guests as part of the welcome.

After waiting for about ten minutes, Kazuki saw the Kumo envoy team approaching the village entrance. Jiraiya was personally waiting to welcome the Raikage. When the Raikage's eyes fell on Jiraiya, he gritted his teeth and looked at Mabui, who was walking next to him, and simply shook her head. From their latest intel, there was no mention of Jiraiya being in the village, and their plans did not accommodate such an anomaly. They had to modify the plans, so the Raikage couldn't express his frustration openly and walked forward to meet the Sannin.

"Welcome, Raikage-sama, welcome to Konoha," Jiraiya cheerfully greeted the Raikage, not caring about the obvious dislike on the Raikage's face.

The Leaf representatives also stepped up to invite the other delegation into the village. Kazuki carefully observed as the group of kids passed the flowers over. He personally gave his flowers to Mabui and welcomed her while trying to place a seal on her discreetly. However, he was unsuccessful, as Mabui had a counter-seal for marking placed on her body. If he wanted to break it and place his seal, he would need to make physical contact, which would make it suspicious. Realizing the Kumo team had come completely prepared, Kazuki didn't push his luck. What the Kumo team failed to recognize was that the Leaf had made complete preparations and was waiting for the Kumo delegation to make one wrong move.

"Your village seems quite bleak. I thought with the rumors about Konoha going around, I thought the village would be much more vibrant," the old man who was part of the Kumo delegation standing right next to the Raikage couldn't help but comment after noticing the dull atmosphere.

"Well, you know how it is with the word out there about war and all. The villagers are only a bit tense. If our two villages' meeting goes well, then our villagers should be able to relax a bit," Jiraiya shared a comment casually while scratching his head.

"Is one of the Sannins suggesting that Kumo is pushing for war?" The Raikage, who heard Jiraiya's question, couldn't help but ask in a loud voice.

"No, no, that's not what I meant. I was only sharing the reason why the mood was so dull within the village." Jiraiya chose not to irate the Raikage much and simply made an excuse, leading the Kumo delegation towards the Hokage building.

"Are we directly going to meet the Hokage? I was under the impression that we would settle down for the day and then proceed with the meeting the next day. The way you are rushing us feels like you are leading us to an ambush," the Raikage couldn't help but question, as they needed time to plan things out. Although they had made plans for every eventuality, having time to make thorough plans would be to their advantage, and with the number of targets they had in mind, they couldn't afford any mistakes.

"Well, it was just that our Hokage-sama did not want to make esteemed guests such as yourselves wait. So, I thought you would prefer to meet the Hokage directly," Jiraiya countered. He knew that if the Kumo had come with ill intent, giving them more time to settle down would only be dangerous. But he knew he couldn't push the envoy team if they were not willing to meet the Hokage right away.

"Sir, we have traveled quite far, and it would be better if we could start such an important discussion after ample rest rather than being hasty. I am sure the Hokage-sama would understand." It was Mabui who came up with a decent excuse, so Jiraiya couldn't deny it and led the Kumo delegation team towards their prepared accommodations.

The moment the old man laid his eyes on the building, he couldn't help but squint. The Raikage noticed the subtle change in the old man's face but chose not to question him with the Leaf Shinobi around.

"Raikage-sama, these are the quarters arranged for the entire delegation. If you find something lacking, please notify us so that we can arrange it for you and your team. And I would kindly like to notify you: please refrain from moving alone, and in case you would like to look around the village, we can arrange separate escort personnel for each of the envoy members.

I am sure you know that moving around in the village without authorization will be considered an act of aggression against the leaf village."

An ANBU member of the Leaf gave a standard introduction and also made sure to add the last statement as per Hiruzen's orders.

The Raikage simply snorted and moved with the envoy team to the building assigned to them. The moment Raikage entered the meeting room, he punched the wall in pure rage and frustration. Contrary to his expectations, the wall took the complete brunt of the impact without a scratch, leaving the Raikage astonished.

"Ay, calm down. The entire building has been reinforced with fuinjutsu. You need to do way better than that to bring down this building," the old man couldn't help but comment while admiring the fuinjutsu used for reinforcement.

"Elder Karai, were you able to discern anything about the fuin grandmaster? I am sure you told me if he tried to probe us, you could locate him." The Raikage calmed down a bit and couldn't help but question the elder.

"Ay, do you think finding such a master is a child's play, especially if he or she doesn't want to be found? You really need to stay patient sometimes. I did not detect any probing, and I don't detect any marking seals as well, so the fuin master should not have shown up yet." The elder patiently explained their current situation and moved forward to explore the seals in depth to gain more knowledge and inspiration if possible.

The Raikage couldn't help but sigh after seeing the elder's actions, but he couldn't comment because the man did his job when it really counted. So he turned toward the rest of his envoy team. Out of the eighteen members of the envoy team, except for himself, the elder, and Mabui, everyone was like a death warrior. Even if they were to die while executing their missions, they wouldn't care. Their priority was the Raikage's safety and then the mission. Every Kumo member that was part of the envoy team was at least at the Jonin level, and the Elder and himself were at the Kage level. So they had confidence in completing the mission they had come to execute in the leaf. If they were successful, the Kumo village would reign as the strongest Shinobi village.

Before the Raikage started the meeting, he asked the elder to set up a barrier to ensure that the leaf couldn't eavesdrop on the contents of the meeting. Even so, they stuck to a special gesture language to communicate. The Kumo secret meeting went late into the night in sessions. The envoy members, under the guise of sightseeing, tried scouting their respective targets. The Kumo delegation pushed the meeting with the Hokage all the way into the evening, stating that they were sightseeing. When all their preparations were set, the Raikage agreed to a meeting with the Hokage. Out of the Kumo delegation, only the Raikage, the elder, and Mabui, escorted by three Kumo ANBU, went to meet the Hokage. The rest stayed behind in the building allocated to the Kumo team.

The moment the old elder from Kumo left Kazuki's visual range, he flickered next to the building and placed his palm on the exterior. The Kumo Ninja inside the building were preparing for the upcoming assault. However, what they were unaware of was that as Kazuki placed his palm on the building, a special formation that lay dormant was activated.

Everyone within the formation was tagged with an invisible fuinjutsu mark on their soul. If the Kumo elder was around, he might have detected this, but now it was acting as a beacon to show their location to Kazuki and anyone with access to Kazuki's special scrolls linked with the formation, provided by the Hokage. Even if the Kumo shinobi used special methods, the Leaf shinobi would be able to track their real bodies thanks to the fuin marking on their souls.

The Kumo ninja within the building were gearing up within a barrier set up by the elder. Each of them created a special clone using a simple fuin ritual. The clones were so perfect that it was nearly impossible to distinguish them from the real Shinobi.

The Kumo ninja decoys split up, wanting to sightsee again, and were escorted by Leaf Shinobi. The Kumo Shinobi chuckled in confidence, thinking they had fooled the Leaf Ninjas. However, what they didn't realize was that twelve different Shinobi teams were tracking them—one team for each enemy Shinobi. Gai's team was also assigned one enemy Shinobi team to track.

 Meanwhile, the Raikage and his entourage reached the meeting place where Hiruzen and the council elders were waiting to start their peace talks. The Raikage and Elder Karai sat while Mabui stood next to them, and the three Kumo ninja stood a bit further away from the table, close enough to react under any circumstances. On the Hokage's side, Hiruzen was accompanied by Homura, Koharu, and Kenji, the three elders.

The Kumo Elder looked at the leaf side and couldn't help but question, "I don't see Elder Danzo here. Are we going to wait for him to appear or start without him?"

Hiruzen's face changed for a split second, but he composed himself before answering, "There is no need to wait. Elder Danzo is dealing with some important matters, so we can start without him."

"In that case, let me start. Hand over the fuinjutsu master who was responsible for harming our Jinchuriki." The Raikage didn't care about subtlety and directly dove into the matter.

"Haha, in that case, why don't I ask you to unconditionally surrender Kumogakure to Konoha," Elder Kenji, originally from the Uchiha, didn't like the tone in which the Raikage was making demands.

"You..." However, before the Raikage could flare out, Elder Karai gestured for him to stop.

"Raikage, if this is how you are planning to act during the whole meeting, we might as well end this meeting now to save both our time," Koharu couldn't help but comment.

The Raikage calmed down a bit, and he knew he would only have to endure this for a bit longer, so he hid his frustration and huffed. "Well, maybe our Raikage's words were a bit harsh. The matter remains: if we are to talk about peace, don't you think you need to take responsibility for trying to kill our Jinchuriki? Tell me how the leaf would react if someone tried to harm your Jinchuriki." It was Elder Karai who intervened on behalf of the Raikage and put forth the first topic they wanted to discuss.

"Are we talking about taking responsibility here, Elder Karai? Don't you know what led to this incident in the first place?" Homura couldn't help but ask the Kumo elder, as they shamelessly tried to push the blame on Konoha.