3.31

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Kumo's Jonin was not as antagonistic as before, as his voice was now a little more serious than before as he asked, "You are hoisting yourselves in quite the powerful position. Besides, what tells us you won't show favoritism when dealing with cases?"

Yahiko shook his head at that, "Our goal is not power. As for preferential treatment, we've already shown much restraint today. As you might know, we fought Hanzo of the Salamander and his troops yesterday. But what you may not know, was that Hanzo had allies with him."

As he said that, Yahiko turned to look at Konoha's side, and as everyone followed his gaze, he added, "Konoha fought alongside Hanzo, and killed many of our men. Yet, we have still reached out our hand today, and accepted to work with them."

Yahiko finally looked away from Minato and Shikaku, and said to Kumo's Head Jonin, "In the Second War, it was Iwa's, Suna's and Konoha's war that tore apart our country. So, with all due respect, compared to them, your rudeness means very little."

At this, Konan quickly added from behind Yahiko, "Yet, here we stand, negotiating for peace."

Nagato finished, making the people present uncomfortable with his Rinnegan, "We forgive, but we do not forget."

The room turned silent as everyone was deep in thought, pondering upon the Ame Orphans' words. So I decided this would be a good time to say, "Whether this goes on or not, you shouldn't see the Akatsuki as merely another hidden village, or this country as a second Land of Iron. The Akatsuki aims to become the enforcers of peace, not vie for power."

Shikaku looked at me for a second, before turning his gaze to Yahiko, and asked, "Even if we manage to reach an understanding here, and that's still quite hypothetical, but if we do, we cannot represent our villages, so why are we even talking?"

Rasa shifted a little in his seat at Shikaku's words, as he was actually capable of speaking for his village, being the next Kazekage in line, with the old one dead.

Yahiko, although not entirely convinced by what I had told them, chose to tell them what I told him.

"While you might not be the Kages of your respective villages, you each hold important positions within your villages, giving any decision you make important." But then, he also decided to add something of his own.

"Of course, we don't expect to literally end the war right here, right now. But each of you has a broad perspective on the situation within your village, at the very least, and should know whether you can afford to continue the war."

Saying that, he stared at Rasa and the Swordsman from Kiri, who looked back unperturbed, but if there were any doubt about us knowing their situation, these had completely disappeared.

Yahiko sent a look at Kumo's representative, and said, "One of the things I have learned through my years of living in a war-torn country led by a ruthless dictator, it is that man is a deeply egoistical creature. So let me-"

I suddenly coughed into my fist, stopping him from insulting the people around the table as I quickly slipped in, "What Yahiko means to say, is that you need not worry about repercussions once you return to your villages for accepting a deal on your village's part, because you won't have to."

For some reason, Yahiko seemed quite pissed at Kumo's representative, so much that he had almost insulted everyone around the table for it. At least, I didn't like where he was going with his last argument.

So I continued despite his frustrated glare, "As long as everyone comes to an agreement here today, then you don't even have to tell your village you agreed to anything. All you have to do, is to say the other villages already came to an agreement, and we'll see if your village wants to be the one left out. Of course, that would also erase any of your accomplishments of participating in the end of the war, but who cares about that. We are here for higher purposes, aren't we?"

As I said that, the eyes of the different representatives changed as they fully realized what the situation had become.

As for Yahiko, he was still young. He was smart, of course, and a rather talented speaker, considering he had not received much of an education, if any as I didn't know if Jiraiya taught him anything else than pranks and Shinobi training, yet he had still managed to create a huge organization at the tender age of 15.

However, for all his talent, in the end, he was a little too green.

Wet behind the ears.

Plainly, inexperienced.

As I spoke, I realized he wanted to use their greed against them, to have them agree to the pact for peace to further their own careers. However, his delivery was quite wrong, as he had been about to tell them straight up about it.

This kind of direct speech surely works wonderfully for mobs and insurgencies, but we were dealing with powerful men here, and subtlety was preferable.

So I delivered the message he had wanted to convey, but with a different delivery, which was a wise choice seeing the nods around the table.

After I said my piece, Minato did not leave them much time to ponder on the question as he said, "It is already within Konoha's intentions to put an end to the war, so as long as peace is reached with even one of you today, you may consider my promise as the Hokage's."

They all looked at each other following his words, waiting to see who would make the first move, and in the end, it was Rasa, who asked, "If we were to agree to this, and assume the terms would be respected by all parties, how long would it take for the merchants to operate between our lands?"

Shikaku answered for Minato, "Considering the usual time villages take to retrieve their troops, I think we should expect the first merchants in about ten days, and we should experience a slight boom in two to three weeks. Of course, the situation with the other villages will influence the speed at which our merchant routes will recover."

Rasa had only asked a question, but he might as well have admitted that his village was in a bad place and that they needed the merchants to be active again as soon as possible.

After a moment, Iwa's Head Jonin sighed and said, "I won't make promises I won't be able to keep, but I will do my best to convince my Tsuchikage once I return that this is the proper course of action for us."

The Ame Orphans and I looked at each other in surprise, as we didn't expect Iwa to be folding this quick. Unlike Suna, who were crippled both militarily and economically, with the absence of their Kazekage, Iwa wasn't in as much distress.

Their economy wasn't great, but it was never their strength, and even with peace their economical situation wouldn't improve massively. They were mainly a military force, and while they had taken losses, they were still pretty strong for this war.

Of course, the destruction of the Kanabi Bridge and the death of a thousand of their men at the hands of the Yellow Flash had damaged the village quite a bit, and the best thing for them would be peace, but Iwa's Shinobi were known for being head strong, so them accepting this fast.

This might mean their Tsuchikage already had thoughts of surrendering.

And if I could guess this, so could the rest.

The Swordsman of the Mist spoke up next, "I can't speak for my Mizukage, but I will do my best to convince him. But no matter his personal grudges, he should agree to go for peace if you all are."

I nodded, and everyone's heads turned towards Kumo's Head Ninja.

The man stared back at me for a moment, before looking at each of the representatives, and groaned, "Unlike you all, I will not be insubordinate and make promises for my village, when it isn't my place to do so. I will be reporting what happened here to my Raikage, as it is my duty."