Previously, Anrokuzan had been very curious about how Rouran managed to establish itself within the territory of the Land of Wind, one of the Five Great Nations, and remain unviolated.
Now he knew.
The Dragon Vein energy controlled by Rouran's lineage was the very foundation of their existence.
The Daimyo of the Land of Wind didn't make a move against Rouran purely because he didn't dare.
Under the pressure of a sky full of puppets, Minato Namikaze's group of four instantly closed ranks, their expressions grave as they watched the woman slowly approaching.
Of course, because they wore masks, Seramu could not clearly see the changes in their expressions.
"Who are you?" Minato Namikaze asked. This woman's appearance was not in Konoha's intelligence reports. Besides the possibility that she was well-hidden, there was another chance…
"I am Seramu, the Queen of Rouran!" Seramu stopped her advance.
Just as expected…
Minato Namikaze's expression flickered. He slowly lowered the weapon in his hand. "Your Majesty, we mean no harm."
"We come with goodwill."
"Goodwill? Destroying Rouran's puppets is goodwill?" Seramu didn't believe his nonsense; she only believed what she saw.
"From the moment you entered Rouran, you've been relentlessly attacking our puppets. Such goodwill is something Rouran cannot afford," Anrokuzan sneered.
"We were merely defending ourselves," Choza Akimichi retorted. "It was your puppets that attacked us first."
"Ridiculous! If you had entered through the main road, would the puppets have attacked you?" Anrokuzan scoffed. As the puppets' designer, he wouldn't accept such baseless slander.
"So many merchant caravans travel to and from Rouran for trade. How come none of them have been attacked by puppets?"
Choza, Kakashi, and Shibi looked at each other, momentarily speechless.
What could they say? Who ever goes through the front door when intending to cause destruction…?
However, the development of events was somewhat beyond their expectations.
From the intelligence they had, it seemed Rouran was not Sunagakure's arsenal. Rouran still belonged to its people and its Queen.
"We came for him." Minato Namikaze suddenly pointed at Anrokuzan beside them. "He is a missing-nin from Sunagakure. We are the ANBU responsible for apprehending him."
The air suddenly stilled.
"Pfft…" Anrokuzan, after a stunned moment, couldn't hold back and burst out laughing.
His counterpart in this world hadn't even been born yet, and he was already a traitor to Sunagakure. What an honor!
"Ninja, leave Rouran immediately!" Seramu's tone was unprecedentedly stern.
Anrokuzan had already handed over the puppet secret techniques to Rouran. How could Rouran not be clear about his origins?
Sowing discord wasn't done this way.
And so what if Anrokuzan truly was a Suna missing-nin? Based on his contributions to Rouran this past year alone, she was determined to protect him! "Your Majesty, do you really intend to do this? He is a missing-nin!" Minato Namikaze said gravely.
"Anrokuzan!"
The moment Seramu's voice fell, the sky full of puppets, under Anrokuzan's control, shot countless senbon towards the four individuals in the encirclement.
Minato Namikaze was just about to use the Body Flicker Technique to close the distance between them, intending to take the Queen of Rouran hostage and coerce her to stop the attack.
But suddenly, a mortal threat surged through his heart.
It was as if he would die on the spot if he didn't leave immediately.
Powerhouses who had reached a certain level trusted their intuition implicitly, as it was an instinct honed through countless instances of teetering on the brink of life and death.
Minato Namikaze directly used Body Flicker to appear beside his teammates and, via the Flying Thunder God Technique, whisked the three of them away.
Outside Rouran, behind a sand dune.
The figures of the four suddenly appeared.
"Minato-sensei, why did you say just now… that we were Sunagakure ninja?" Kakashi asked.
"The Queen of Rouran controls the Dragon Vein. Since she is unharmed, it means Rouran has not been taken over by Sunagakure," Minato Namikaze explained the reasoning to the three, recalling the secret intelligence the Third Hokage had shown him.
"And the man beside her, dressed as a minister, is the puppet controller. Puppet techniques are Sunagakure's secret art and wouldn't possibly be shared with Rouran. This means that man is likely a Suna missing-nin." "I impersonated Suna ANBU to gamble on whether the Queen of Rouran would yield to Sunagakure's pressure and hand that ninja over to us."
"As you saw, it failed," Minato Namikaze sighed.
"It wasn't a complete failure. We also obtained some useful intelligence," Shibi Aburame shook his head. "From what just happened, we can confirm quite a few things."
Choza Akimichi stood quietly to the side, listening to the analysis of the other three.
He wasn't a strategy-type ninja; there was no room for him to speak in such a situation.
"Rouran has not become Sunagakure's arsenal; that ninja truly is a Suna missing-nin, and the Queen of Rouran is aware of this," Kakashi added.
"Correct." Minato Namikaze nodded with satisfaction upon hearing this.
"Just what could make the Queen of Rouran go to such lengths to protect a Suna missing-nin…" Shibi Aburame mused.
"Too little intelligence," Minato Namikaze also shook his head.
From what he knew, Rouran was not the type of country to interfere in the disputes of hidden villages. Yet, the Queen of Rouran's stance in protecting that ninja just now was undeniable.
"Then, do we still proceed with the mission to destroy Rouran?" Kakashi asked.
"Yes," Minato Namikaze affirmed. "If Sunagakure discovers and takes over Rouran, these puppets will continuously flood the battlefield, harming Konoha's ninja."
"However, the mission content needs some modification. It's not to destroy Rouran, but to destroy the puppet manufacturing base here."
"The people of Rouran are innocent."
Underground space.
"Your Majesty…" Anrokuzan carefully watched the woman beside him, afraid that if his voice was too loud, he would displease her and she would turn around and slaughter him.
Due to Seramu's authorization, he also possessed partial usage rights to the Dragon Vein energy.
Therefore, he knew better than anyone just how terrifying an amount of energy had condensed in this small underground space in that instant.
"They've left." After confirming through the feedback of the Dragon Vein energy that the intruders had indeed departed Rouran, Seramu opened her eyes.
"Lord Anrokuzan, the Dragon Vein energy will be further opened to you. I hope you can dispatch some puppets to guard Rouran's borders."
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
Anrokuzan hastily complied.
It seemed those intruders had truly angered the Queen of Rouran. Usage rights that he usually had to scheme to obtain were given so freely today.
This was perhaps what they meant by fortune and misfortune being intertwined. Just moments ago, he was worried about leaking puppet secrets and being targeted by this era's Suna ANBU, his life uncertain. He hadn't expected such a windfall to turn up.
But speaking of which, were those ninja really from Sunagakure's ANBU? Their accents didn't sound like Suna ninja at all, more like…
So that's how it is. Konoha ninja, then…
Anrokuzan's figure paused. He turned to look at the spot where the group had vanished earlier, a slight smirk playing on his lips.
Konoha is good…
Now that the Land of Fire and the Land of Wind were at war, if nothing unexpected happened, those ninja earlier had definitely entered through unconventional means.
Meaning, they had no immediate reinforcements.
This was good news for Anrokuzan, because the subsequent risk of burying these ninja in Rouran was unexpectedly small.
At the same time, outside Rouran, a golden figure flashed past in an instant.