MSIN: Chapter 71
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"Confirmed presence of concealed enemies. Lower the altitude a bit more. I need to confirm their numbers and identities," Hyuga Hizashi continued.
"Enemies…" Haori was also startled. Were there really enemies who could infiltrate such a tightly sealed environment?
But there was no need to doubt Hizashi's judgment. When it came to reconnaissance, the Byakugan was the most professional.
"Should we stay at this position?" Haori only asked this.
"Yes!"
After receiving a positive answer, Haori controlled the Eight-legged Crow to circle a few times in place, performing a spiral descent, then stopping steadily.
Now, compared to before, besides the decrease in altitude by a few hundred meters, their horizontal position in two dimensions basically remained the same.
"1, 2, 3, 4… Spotted a total of four ninja teams, 16 people in total. They are using Earth Release jutsu to conceal themselves 30 to 50 meters below the surface, with a concentrated horizontal distribution. They are roughly concentrated within a 200-meter circle."
In this restricted area, hiding themselves so deep underground, who else could they be but the enemy?
And four teams, a total of 16 ninjas, that number couldn't be considered small.
"The enemy is not moving for now. Suspected presence of a sensor ninja. Worst-case estimate, the enemy has already discovered us." After observing a little more, Hyuga Hizashi made this judgment.
Daring to bury themselves, theoretically, to understand the situation on the surface, there must be a sensor-type ninja among them.
"Are they Suna ninjas?" Haori asked.
This was a crucial question. If these 16 people were from another enemy force, that would be fine. But if they were Suna ninjas, then the problem would be huge. It would mean that their actions this time were likely just a pretense of peace. Their real purpose was not that.
If that were the case, the Third Hokage's safety would indeed be a concern.
If these 16 people were Suna ninjas, it would mean that they weren't strictly executing the sealing mission at all. They had even deliberately opened some gaps. That would mean that the enemies who had infiltrated were far more than just 16 people. It could even be 160.
The enemy had buried themselves so deep with Earth Release. They were definitely prepared. At the very least, they had received detailed intelligence about the meeting between the two Kage.
Now, it was impossible to determine when the enemy had infiltrated, whether it was the Leaf Village's side or Suna's side that leaked the information. But the most important thing now was to prevent them from disrupting the meeting between the Hokage and the Kazekage.
This kind of thing had already been planned in detail when Haori joined the mission. This was to ensure that the ninjas could make their own judgments if they encountered an emergency, instead of blindly waiting for instructions.
The enemy did have ulterior motives. If it weren't for the fact that the Kazekage had just passed through this area, Hyuga Hizashi had increased the power of the Byakugan and coincidentally saw the situation below the surface, they might not have discovered them.
"Judging from their attire, they don't look like Suna ninjas. They are probably subordinates of Hanzo of the Salamander."
"Amegakure?"
Haori murmured. Hearing that they weren't Suna ninjas, he breathed a sigh of relief.
In the early stages of this Shinobi World War, Amegakure was indeed very active. But a small country is a small country. Hanzo of the Salamander, the leader of Amegakure, was indeed a powerful ninja, but the Shinobi World War wasn't won by relying on one Kage-level powerhouse. Hanzo was strong, but Amegakure only had him. Besides him, there weren't any other decent ninjas.
The war between the Leaf Village and Amegakure was still ongoing. If the war on this front ended, the Leaf Village might concentrate its forces on Amegakure. Hanzo certainly wouldn't want to see that. So, after learning that the war between the Leaf Village and Suna was about to end, he planned to disrupt the meeting?
Logically, this idea makes sense.
But why didn't these hidden ninjas attack when the Kazekage passed through this area? If they had attacked the Kazekage, whether they succeeded or not, the Kazekage would have turned around and left, and the peace talks would have been disrupted, right?
Haori was about to blurt out this question, but he swallowed his words. Because he instantly thought of a possibility.
This… was Suna colluding with Ame?
But this possibility was unlikely. Because the situation now was ultimately that Suna desperately needed to end the war with the Leaf Village. If the talks were disrupted, what would they gain? Would they be able to counterattack the Land of Fire after restarting the war?
No, no. How could that be? If Suna still had that kind of power, they wouldn't have chosen to negotiate peace with the Leaf Village.
This guess was a bit unrealistic. The remaining possibility was easier to guess—these 16 ninjas were simply suicide bombers. They would attack the Kazekage and the Hokage simultaneously to create greater chaos.
As for why they didn't act when the Kazekage was nearby, it was partly because it was an unexpected situation. No one would have expected the important target to be so close to them. Objectively speaking, it was a good opportunity to launch an attack, but unfortunately, it didn't align with their plan. On the other hand, judging from the depth they were hiding at, they couldn't launch a sudden attack. It was likely that as they moved upwards, the Kazekage's people would be the first to discover them. At that time, forget about attacking. They would probably be killed as soon as they emerged from underground.
"Although the overall distribution of the four teams is relatively concentrated, their different squads are still scattered. According to the mission requirements, we need to immediately eliminate the enemy in this situation, and we can't cause too much commotion. But looking at it now, it's difficult for us to force them out of the ground at the same time… What do you think? Should we wait for Senpai Minato's contact?"
Hyuga Hizashi said. He seemed to be asking for Haori's opinion, but in reality, he was mostly talking to himself.
He didn't expect Haori to come up with any good ideas. Although he had heard of Haori's exploits, especially his powerful move that broke the tailed beast, the problem was that such a move was too powerful to use. If he unleashed it on this ground area, it might really suffocate the enemy at the same time, but the commotion would be too great.
Hizashi didn't know that to avoid being too terrifying, Haori had already verbally sealed that kind of move. He couldn't unleash that kind of powerful attack now. After all, according to his own words, he couldn't release that kind of move without accumulating chakra for three or four years.
But now the situation was urgent. Haori wanted to act immediately. "Can you mark the enemy's positions in detail? Including information like the distance between them and the depth at which they are hiding."
He felt like he had just the right jutsu to bury them all at once.
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