Became the mastermind behind the Akatsuki organization

Chapter 351 Naruto and Sasuke

After reading about the situation related to Kirigakure, the Third Hokage looked gloomy and uncertain.

It is a good thing that the Hidden Mist Village has fallen into chaos, and it is also a good thing that the Fourth Mizukage has lost his combat effectiveness. This means that in the next ten years, Konoha will not need to guard against enemies from the sea.

But after seeing that the ninja controlling the Fourth Mizukage was a masked man, the Third Hokage could no longer remain calm.

The masked man is the culprit of the Nine-Tails Night. If there hadn't been the Nine-Tails Night, the Fourth Hokage and the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki would not have died, and the wars between Kumogakure and Iwagakure would not have broken out one after another.

If all this had not happened, Konoha would have recovered by now, presenting a scene of thriving vitality and prosperity.

However, all this has already happened, and the dead ninja cannot be resurrected.

Soon, the Third Hokage noticed the second important person besides the masked man, that was Hanzo's disciple, Bai Ye, whom he had met once.

He has seen Bai Ye's strength. If nothing unexpected happens, he will definitely be a ninja at the Five Kage level in the future.

But what the Third Hokage did not expect was that in this information, Bai Ye defeated the Fourth Mizukage and the masked man successively, and used the Wood Release of the First Hokage.

After seeing the word Wood Release, the Third Hokage even suspected that he had read it wrong.

Byakuya is a ninja from the Hidden Rain Village. Even if he has the blood of the Uzumaki clan flowing in his body, how could he master the Wood Release of the First Generation? That is a bloodline limit that belongs only to the First Generation, and even Tsunade and Nawaki did not inherit it.

Yamato, the only person in the village who has learned Wood Release Ninja, is just a survivor of the Wood Release experiment.

Could it be that Byakuya had already undergone the Wood Release experiment and was an unknown survivor? But judging from the time, even if Byakuya had undergone the Wood Release experiment, the ninja who performed the operation was not Orochimaru.

And according to intelligence records, Bai Ye is extremely skilled in using Wood Release.

Although his Wood Release skills cannot compare to the first generation, they are at least at the level of Kage.

When the Third Hokage thought about Bai Ye, the ninja from the Hidden Rain Village, who was about to make a name for himself in the ninja world with the Wood Release method, he felt as uncomfortable as if he had swallowed a fly. He felt a sense of absurdity that the orthodoxy of Konoha was in the Hidden Rain Village.

At this moment, an idea came to the Third Hokage's mind.

If he could recruit Byakuya, with his status as a descendant of Uzumaki and his Wood Release bloodline, and make him a future core leader of Konoha, could he help the village get rid of the dilemma of a lack of successors?
Soon, the Third Hokage dismissed this idea.

If Bai Ye wanted to join Konoha, he would have taken the initiative to join Konoha long ago. If he applied to the Hidden Rain Village at this moment, not only would he fail to recruit Bai Ye, but he would also offend the Hidden Rain Village and Hanzo of the Salamander.

After more than ten years of keeping a low profile, the Hidden Rain Village is no longer the same as it used to be.

Although due to its land area and population, the Hidden Rain Village has never been able to rank among the top five ninja villages, but as one grows, the other shrinks, and the Hidden Rain Village already has the strength of the top five ninja villages.

Besides, the relationship between Konoha and the Hidden Rain Village is still pretty good, so he can't do something that would offend anyone.

Recovering his gradually dispersing thoughts, the Third Hokage closed the information scroll and looked out the window, wondering what he was thinking.

At this time, Kakashi knocked on the office door.

After getting the permission from the Third Hokage, Kakashi walked into the Hokage's office and reported to him:
"Third-generation master, Naruto has grown very fast in the past few months. Not only has he learned many chakra control techniques, he has even mastered the transformation of wind attribute chakra..."

"Rasengan?" The Third Hokage tapped the table and fell into deep thought.

Kakashi continued, "Naruto's chakra is of wind attribute. Apart from the Rasengan, I don't know what ninjutsu to teach him. But Naruto is still young. Shouldn't he spend a few more years in the Ninja World School before becoming a Genin?"

Hearing this, the Third Hokage looked at Kakashi with a playful look in his eyes.

He knew what Kakashi was thinking. Kakashi didn't want Naruto to graduate early because he didn't want him to go to the war too early. As the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, Naruto had to go to the front line.

In response to Kakashi's idea, the Third Hokage said calmly: "I won't let Naruto graduate early, just let everything take its course."

Kakashi looked at the Third Hokage with a surprised look.

The Third Hokage lit his pipe, took a puff and said, "The conflict between us and the Iwagakure Village will soon be over. Since the Iwagakure Village does not use its Jinchūriki, it will not be easy for us to use our Jinchūriki."

"And recently something big happened in the Hidden Mist Village..."

The Fourth Mizukage was controlled, the Six-Tails Jinchuriki was abducted... After hearing the news, Kakashi was shocked. He finally understood why the Third Hokage did not let Naruto graduate early.

Although Naruto now possesses the strength of a Chunin, he is far from enough compared to the Jinchūriki who have the strength of a Kage.

In Konoha Village, Naruto was still able to avoid being attacked by the masked man under his own protection and that of the Anbu. However, once he left Konoha Village, Naruto's safety could no longer be guaranteed.

However, the reason why the masked man attacked Konoha that year was finally found out, it was for the Nine-Tails.

In addition, Byakuya’s outstanding performance in the Hidden Mist Village also attracted Kakashi’s attention. He still remembered that his strength was almost the same as Byakuya’s back then, and now Byakuya can even defeat the masked man.

The gap between geniuses is sometimes even greater than that between humans and dogs.

At this moment, Kakashi suddenly remembered something and said, "Third Hokage, I have something to ask of you."

The Third Hokage looked at Kakashi, nodded and said, "What is it?"

Kakashi took a deep breath and said, "Third-sama, since Naruto already has the ability to protect himself, shouldn't we tell Naruto about his life experience?"

After hearing this, the Third Hokage's face changed, he exhaled smoke and said: "Right now is not the right time to make Naruto's life story public."

"May I ask, Third-generation sir, when is the right time?"

The Third Hokage was silent for a few seconds, then said, "Let's wait until Naruto becomes a Jonin. Besides, Naruto has not been bullied in the village. With his understanding of the Will of Fire, he has won the recognition of the villagers."

"It doesn't matter whether Naruto's identity is revealed or not."

After hearing this, Kakashi's eyes flashed with an imperceptible complex look, nodded and said:
"Since the Third Hokage has made his decision, I have nothing more to say. Please take care of yourself, Third Hokage. I will leave now."

With that, Kakashi left the Hokage's office.

After Kakashi left, the Third Hokage took a deep puff of smoke. With his experience, he knew that Kakashi was expressing his dissatisfaction with him.

But what can he do?

At present, Naruto has gained recognition through his own efforts. If he announces the news that Naruto is Minato's orphan at this time, the villagers' attitude towards Naruto will not change much.

But there will inevitably be a stain on him.

The villagers and the former subordinates of the Fourth Hokage would question his actions, accusing him of why he did not reveal Naruto's identity earlier, causing Minato's orphan to be treated unfairly.

But if we continue to delay, the situation may get worse... Throwing all these messy thoughts behind him, the Third Hokage shouted into the air: "Anbu, send me all the information about the major ninja clans in the village."

The Anbu nodded and quickly delivered the ninja intelligence of the past few days.

Among the major ninja clans in Konoha, the Anbu mainly monitors the Uchiha, Hyuga and Ino-Shika-Chou clans, all of which have the ability to threaten the Hokage.

The information about Zhuludie remains the same as before, with not much changes.

As before, Ino-Shika-Chou still holds a low but irreplaceable position. He has never thought of replacing the Hokage, but he has never lost in a political struggle and is always the winner.

The Hyuga clan does have the ambition to become Hokage.

Especially after the demise of the Uchiha clan, the Hyuga clan took over the title of the number one ninja clan and became the biggest force threatening the position of Hokage.

However, unlike the extreme Uchiha clan, it is still very simple to deal with the Hyuga clan.

The Hyuga clan was divided into the main family and the branch family like a caged bird. At the beginning, the main family and the branch family were just in a relationship of protector and protected, but as time went on, extremely fierce conflicts arose between the branch family and the main family.

Theoretically speaking, the main family has the power of life and death over the branch family, and no branch family can rebel against the main family.

But the caged bird system cannot override the rules of Konoha. He only needs to express support for the Hyuga branch on a regular basis to plunge the Hyuga clan into endless fighting.

The last part is the information related to the Uchiha clan.

After Itachi Uchiha exterminated his clan, Sasuke was the only Uchiha left in the village, making it extremely easy to monitor him. All that was needed was to send two Anbu to take turns.

However, the Anbu ninja discovered that there were other monitors besides them.

All the evidence showed that the ninjas who were monitoring Sasuke were from the disbanded Root. The Anbu did not dare to take any action on this situation and could only report it to the Third Hokage.

The Third Hokage glanced at it and didn't pay much attention to it, tacitly approving of Danzo's actions.

As long as Sasuke did not disappear from the Konoha Village, he was too lazy to pay attention to this Uchiha orphan, nor was he too lazy to do anything to Sasuke.

As for why Root Ninja still appears after the Root is disbanded.

The Third Hokage was too lazy to worry about these things. As long as the Root Ninjas did not have a legitimate identity, he could suppress and recruit them at any time.

It's a good thing that Danzo is now training Root ninjas at his own expense.

It was the spy Uchiha Itachi that made the Third Hokage somewhat unhappy. When Uchiha Itachi left, he repeatedly promised him that he would take care of Sasuke in exchange for collecting information about the masked man.

But so much time has passed and Uchiha Itachi has not sent back any information.

He doesn't know the masked man's abilities, his conspiracy, or how many subordinates he has. Everything is still an unknown.

Sometimes, the Third Hokage even suspected whether Uchiha Itachi was in cahoots with the masked man.

However, as long as Uchiha Itachi did not show clear hostility, it would be difficult for him to terminate the deal with Uchiha Itachi. It was already very rare to have a Mangekyō loyal to Konoha.

After waving his hand to let the Anbu retreat, the Third Hokage picked up the future planning book.

Many contents in the plan have been crossed out. These years are all decisions that can help Konoha Ninja Village improve its overall strength. Each plan is at least equivalent to an S-level task.

This included taking over the Land of Waves and gaining overseas interests for the Konohagakure, as well as holding a joint Chunin Exam to enhance the overall influence of the Konohagakure.

The Joint Chunin Exam is an exam for selecting Chunin, and is actually an arms race between ninja villages.

The goal of participating in the Chunin Exam is not to become a Chunin, but to demonstrate one's strength in front of daimyos from various countries in order to obtain more resources and commissioned tasks.

A few years ago, Uchiha Itachi won the first place in the Joint Chunin Exam, which brought many benefits to Konoha.

Right now, due to the military conflict, the Chunin Exam has been delayed for several months, but once peace is restored, the Chunin Exam will definitely continue.

Only by achieving excellent performance in the Chunin Exams can the Konoha ninjas regain their confidence.

……

After leaving the Hokage's office, Kakashi came to the training ground.

In the training ground, Naruto and Sasuke had been waiting for a long time. When they saw Kakashi coming, they hurriedly said, "Senior Kakashi, you are finally here. You are late again today."

Kakashi glanced at Naruto, then his eyes fell on Sasuke.

He actually did not receive the task of training Sasuke, but Sasuke, who was Naruto's rival, also came over to train together after hearing that Naruto often received special training.

Kakashi wanted to reject Sasuke by using the excuse that only elite students could receive special training.

But unexpectedly, Sasuke also quickly learned how to climb trees and tread water, and Kakashi had no choice but to accept Sasuke as a temporary student.

Taking care of one child is the same as taking care of one more, so it’s no big deal.

As time went by, he discovered that Sasuke had a very similar personality to his own, and their chakra properties were also quite similar, so he could teach Sasuke many of his ninjutsu.

As for whether the Third Hokage would stop him from teaching Sasuke.

Since the Anbu who were observing from the sidelines did not try to stop him, it meant that the Third Hokage knew about this and approved of his actions.

"What's the reason today, sooner or later? Is it because I helped an old lady cross the street?"

Sasuke glanced at Kakashi, and then said, "Naruto has helped all the old ladies in the village, so there shouldn't be anyone who needs your help, or have you lost your way in life again?"

Kakashi secretly thought that his excuse had been figured out by someone, and then he told the truth:

"Hasn't Naruto always wanted to know his life story? I just asked the Hokage, but he's still keeping it a secret, saying that Naruto's strength isn't enough..."

"Is that still not enough Naruto?"

Hearing this, Sasuke's expression changed and he looked at Naruto behind him.

He is very clear about Naruto's strength. Although the two of them have not yet graduated from the ninja school, they are enough to defeat the chunin teacher in the ninja school. With such strength, are they not qualified to know their origins?
Naruto didn't react much, and said with a smile: "Hokage may have his own difficulties. We don't need to force it. Sooner or later, he will tell me on his own initiative."

(End of this chapter)