Inside the Raikage's office, the Third Raikage, A, burst out laughing as he looked at the secret letter on his desk.
"HAHA! Excellent! All that effort we spent planting our people inside Iwagakure's Anbu wasn't wasted after all. The Four-Tails' jinchūriki, Rōshi, has escaped, and Ōnoki's gone racing into the Land of Rain to bring him back. This is the perfect chance for us!"
With that, the Third Raikage slammed his hand on the desk and stood up abruptly.
"Pass down my order—assemble three thousand Kumogakure shinobi at the village gates! This time I'm going to show that old bastard Ōnoki what real pain feels like—hahahaha!"
Meanwhile, on the other side, Ōnoki was maintaining Earth Release: Super Light-Weight Rock Technique, propelling himself swiftly toward the Land of Rain.
Knowing this time that Rōshi had almost certainly already reached the area near the Land of Rain, Ōnoki didn't waste time searching along the way—his flight speed was a notch faster than before.
While flying, Onoki was also contemplating the pros and cons of Roshi's escape.
Earlier, all he could think about was the risk: if the Four-Tails was unleashed recklessly, the consequences could be catastrophic. That worry had made it hard to think straight.
But now that Roshi's escape had become a reality and the situation had spiraled into this irreversible state, Onoki suddenly calmed down.
Thinking about it from a different angle… just as he'd said earlier, bringing Rōshi with him to the battlefield might not be as bad as it first seemed.
With both himself and Rōshi present, they'd be nearly unstoppable. And on top of that, he had a method to suppress Rōshi if necessary. If he timed it right—letting Rōshi release the Four-Tails and then coordinating with him—the two of them alone could inflict massive casualties.
His Dust Release and the Four-Tails' Lava Release—both were large-scale, area-clearing techniques. Anyone caught in their sweep would be annihilated.
He didn't even need other Iwa-nin to support him; if they came along, they might just get in the way.
The plan was simple: one sudden strike, kill or cripple most of Konoha's forces in one blow, and if possible, take out Gekkō Hoshiyomi along with them. Achieve those two goals, and Iwagakure would have no more troublesome opponents in the Land of Rain.
As long as his retreat was secure, the gamble seemed entirely worth taking.
With that thought, the anxious expression on Onoki's face disappeared, replaced by a cold, killing resolve.
"Since it's come to this, Konoha's Silver Moon… you can't blame us for being ruthless."
He snorted and sped up even more, flying quickly towards the Land of Rain.
Just as Onoki was about to reach the border of the Land of Rain, Roshi had already arrived at Iwagakure's front line in the Land of Rain.
Without a word, he headed straight for the command camp. Some tried to stop him, but the moment they recognized his face they quickly stepped aside.
The Four-Tails' jinchūriki wasn't the type to rampage without cause, but he wasn't known for a good temper either—no one wanted to provoke him.
So they let him march straight in, unopposed.
The commander of Iwa's front-line forces was Akagi Kazuma. After suffering two consecutive defeats, he'd been sulking in his tent, sighing heavily.
When Roshi came in, he didn't even have time to react before Roshi grabbed him by the collar and lifted him up.
At first, Kazuma was ready to lash out—but the instant he saw it was Rōshi, his expression turned to shock. As a high-ranking officer of Iwagakure, he of course knew who Rōshi was—and knew his relationship to Yogan.
He hadn't received any prior notice of Rōshi's arrival. If Rōshi was suddenly here, there was only one explanation: the jinchūriki had escaped.
"Rōshi—what are you doing here? This isn't your battlefield. Go back at once! If something happens to you, our jinchūriki, then this war will be over before it's begun."
"Pah!"
Rōshi, already hot-tempered by nature, took one look at him and thought, Another coward scared out of his wits by Konoha. Feeling disgusted, he spat a mouthful of phlegm directly onto the man's face.
"You think I'm some useless waste like you? Tell me exactly how my brother died on the battlefield. If I find out you had anything to do with it—"
Before he could finish, a faint red chakra was already starting to seep from Rōshi's body.
Kazuma was no weakling — as a high-ranking officer of the village, he was an elite jōnin whose raw ability exceeded Rōshi's in the absence of tailed beast chakra. But being humiliated like this, he was still furious.
However, the moment he saw that red chakra, he swallowed back the curses he had been about to unleash.
He had been involved in a tailed beast sealing operation before; he knew all too well how terrifying the Four-Tails was. If Rōshi lost control and went berserk inside Iwagakure's own camp, it would be a disaster beyond imagining.
So even though he was cursing Rōshi's ancestors eighteen generations back in his heart, Kazuma still forced himself to placate the red-haired hothead before him.
"Rōshi, listen to me. Your brother's death wasn't anyone's fault here. In fact, we all respected him greatly—he was a hero of Iwagakure.
If he hadn't stayed behind alone to cover our retreat, we would have been forced to withdraw from this war much earlier…"
Rōshi, still young, was half-convinced by the obvious flattery.
"So you're saying my brother died all because of that Konoha 'Silver Moon'?"
"Exactly! If that guy hadn't ambushed our Explosion Release Unit and killed several of our jōnin, we never would've suffered such a crushing defeat."
Without another word, Rōshi dropped Kazuma and strode toward the exit.
Kazuma let out a breath of relief—then quickly ran after him.
"Rōshi, where are you going now?"
"To the Konoha camp. To avenge my brother."
Kazuma nearly dropped to his knees. Still, he knew the Tsuchikage would never allow the jinchūriki to just run off, so all he needed to do was stall him.
Gritting his teeth, he physically held Rōshi back.
"Rōshi—please, Rōshi-sama—calm down! Charging into the Konoha camp alone won't do any good. There are over a thousand Konoha shinobi there, more than ten of them jōnin. Even as the Four-Tails' jinchūriki, you'd burn yourself out too fast.
If you want to fight, fine—the rest of us Iwa-nin are eager for payback too. But wait! Let the men get a full meal first.
Once we're all fed and ready, we'll march together and take that Konoha Silver Moon's head. How about it?"
Rōshi was the kind who would never yield to force but could be swayed by reason if you softened your approach.
Seeing this high-ranking comrade practically crawling on the ground as he was dragged along, he couldn't quite bring himself to keep resisting.
Besides, there was some sense in what Kazuma said, so he agreed.
"All right. I'll trust you this once. But if I find out you're lying to me… my lava doesn't care who you are."