Chapter 208: My Career Panel is Anime-Styled? Chapter 94

Following that, without needing Nagato to say more, the members of the Akatsuki organization, including Li Ang, arrived at the palms of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, which appeared as if they were bound.

Although in the subsequent plot, Obito and Madara used the tailed beasts as they were captured, at the beginning of capturing the jinchuriki, the Akatsuki organization still needed to use the Sealing Technique: Phantom Dragons Nine Consuming Seals to extract the tailed beast from the jinchuriki and seal it into the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path.

At this moment, everyone stood on the fingertips of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, looking at the Six-Tails jinchuriki lying motionless on the ground before it, and formed hand seals.

The next moment, rays of light emitted from the hideous mouth of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, followed by nine dragon-shaped energy forms that lunged out and bit fiercely toward the jinchuriki on the ground.

The Phantom Dragons Nine Consuming Seals required three days and three nights of continuous effort, and the normal procedure required ten powerful ninjas to perform it together. However, because Orochimaru had defected, the remaining nine people had to be extra careful during the casting process.

Fortunately, the ninjas present were among the best in the current ninja world, so naturally, they would not make any low-level mistakes.

Thus, the sealing process continued slowly and steadily.

……

Just as the Akatsuki members began to extract the first tailed beast, the atmosphere outside was gradually becoming treacherous.

In the Hokage office piled high with paper documents, a mature woman with an extremely exaggerated bust was frowning as she looked at the intelligence in her hand.

After a moment, she muttered in a puzzled, low voice: "What is Kirigakure trying to do..."

"Shikaku, what do you think?"

As she spoke, the mature woman looked up at a middle-aged man with two scars on his face standing at the desk.

Hearing her voice, the man named Shikaku reached out and took the intelligence from the desk, examining it carefully.

After a good while, he let out a soft breath: "Lady Tsunade, there are two possibilities now."

"One is that Kirigakure is simply conducting personnel transfers, and the other is that Kirigakure's missing-nin have fled to our territory."

He said this because the intelligence showed that the number of Kirigakure ninjas within the Land of Fire had increased significantly over the past two days.

These were not Kirigakure ninjas passing through on missions, but ninjas specifically tasked with scouting for information.

It was normal for ninja villages to scout each other for information, but Kirigakure's current actions had already crossed the line.

After simple deliberation, Tsunade made a decision: "I will send a letter directly to Kirigakure to inquire."

At this moment, Shikaku suddenly lowered his voice and said: "Lady Tsunade, there is another possibility..."

"Kirigakure is preparing for the Fourth Shinobi World War."

Hearing this, Tsunade's expression became incredibly stiff, as if she had recalled some unpleasant memories.

After a good while, she managed to control her expression and laughed with extreme difficulty: "Hahaha, how come I didn't see before that you had such a talent for telling jokes, Shikaku..."

Tsunade's voice grew lighter and lighter until she finally fell into silence.

Indeed, before the Second Shinobi World War began, the Five Great Nations were only probing each other; who could have imagined that it would later escalate into a war of such massive scale?

But Kirigakure...

Tsunade's mind flashed with images of that country, which was shrouded in thick fog all year round, and a trace of doubt flashed in her eyes.

Given their strength and unique geographical location, do they really have the capability to ignite a war?

Moreover, Kirigakure had always been a peripheral observer in the previous shinobi world wars; what is their motive for doing this now?

Or could it be that they have received a promise from some other ninja village?

After thinking for a long time, Tsunade said in a voice devoid of emotion: "It is too rash to draw a conclusion so quickly. Let the Anbu go and investigate whether anything major has happened in the Land of Water recently."

"As you command, Lady Tsunade."

Nara Shikaku followed her lead; he was not being sycophantic, but rather agreed that Tsunade's judgment was indeed correct.

Matters involving two or even more countries required them to be cautious.

After Shikaku left, Tsunade turned to look out the window.

Although it was bright and sunny outside, she felt as if an invisible haze was shrouding the entire ninja world.

The Hokage office fell silent, and it wasn't until a long time later that a long sigh echoed through the room.

'I hope I'm just overthinking it.'

……

Inside the cave.

The three-day-and-three-night sealing process finally came to an end.

Li Ang looked up at the Ten-Tails, which had opened one eye, and thought to himself:

'At this rate, I'm afraid all nine tailed beasts will be gathered soon, but the difficulty still lies with the Eight-Tails and the Nine-Tails.'

In the original work, the Akatsuki organization tripped up on these two tailed beasts.

Of course, for Li Ang, the biggest problem was the Nine-Tails.

Although Naruto's strength at this stage was quite lackluster, he had a background; who knew if some kind of "deus ex machina" would occur.

At this moment, Nagato, operating Pain, spoke up: "The plan is proceeding very smoothly. Let's rest for a few days, and then the plan will truly begin."

This capture of the Six-Tails jinchuriki was merely a trial; when the plan truly began, the Akatsuki organization would capture the jinchuriki of all the major ninja villages simultaneously.

Based on the situation of the organization's members, Nagato quickly made the assignments: "Sasori and Long, you are responsible for the One-Tails; Kakuzu and Hidan, you are responsible for the Two-Tails; Itachi and Kisame, you are responsible for the Four-Tails."

Just like in the original work, Sasori still received the assignment for the One-Tails.

Li Ang could understand this, as Sasori, being a missing-nin from Sunagakure, clearly knew more about Sunagakure than about other villages.

At this moment, Nagato added: "Zetsu, trouble yourself to go and scout for information first."

"Understood."

As the voice fell, the black-and-white figure resembling a Venus flytrap merged into the ground and vanished.

Seeing this, Li Ang thought to himself:

'The plan to capture the tailed beasts has started so much earlier; I wonder if Sasori will still die like in the original work.'

It wasn't just Sasori; the plot of the entire Naruto world had shifted significantly. Aside from knowing the true purpose of the Eye of the Moon Plan, Li Ang no longer had any lead in terms of intelligence.

Fortunately, he was only one Sharingan away from obtaining what he needed.

Thinking of this, Li Ang glanced at a man with deep nasolabial folds not far away.

There were not many people in the ninja world who possessed the Sharingan.

Uchiha Itachi—the eye of Shisui that he held was something Li Ang coveted.

Uchiha Obito was actually a good choice, but Kamui was still a bit too powerful for self-preservation.

Then there was Danzo, but Li Ang remembered that the "Pot Shadow" had placed a sealing technique on Shisui's eye, triggered upon death, which was quite troublesome to deal with.

As for Nagato...

Unless Li Ang could find the location of his main body, plucking the eyes out of Pain would be useless.

After dealing with the Six-Tails jinchuriki, the Akatsuki members left the cave one after another.

However, not many days had passed since Nagato finished assigning the tasks before he summoned the members for another meeting.

"In the last two days, the number of orders for explosive tags has suddenly increased significantly. Through Zetsu's scouting, it has been discovered that Kirigakure has sent ninjas to all the other four great nations to scout for information."

Having said this, Nagato paused, and his tone rarely carried a hint of strangeness:

"The reason is... they suspect that the other four great nations secretly sent people to capture their tailed beast."

As soon as these words were spoken, the cave fell into an eerie silence.

And Li Ang narrowed his eyes slightly.

What kind of development is this?

Kirigakure wants to start the Fourth Shinobi World War?

Li Ang felt that the reason shouldn't be that simple.

Little did he know that Kirigakure simply felt that someone was targeting them, and they were reacting out of stress.

After all, ever since the Fourth Mizukage, their village had been having a streak of bad luck.

Just as Li Ang was pondering what the next development would be, Nagato spoke: "The plan has changed. Prioritize capturing the Three-Tails to continue stimulating Kirigakure's nerves."

As he spoke, he looked at the black-and-white figure to the side: "Zetsu, disguise yourself as a Kirigakure ninja and kill ninjas from the other four great nations to frame them."

"A chaotic ninja world is more suitable for us to capture the tailed beasts."

Hearing this, Li Ang raised an eyebrow; he hadn't expected things to develop in this direction.

But sowing discord was originally the Akatsuki organization's specialty; otherwise, their initial policy wouldn't have been to incite wars and then accept war commissions.

At the moment, they were just sowing discord between major nations instead of small ones.

Of course, because of the ninja village system in the Naruto world, the difference wasn't that great.

Moreover, the Akatsuki organization now had even more perfect disguises than in the original work.

Because the explosive tags produced by Konan were cheap, all the major ninja villages were now inclined to purchase them from Akatsuki.

There was no need to worry about production capacity; after all, the production capacity of a ruthless person who could hand-craft 600 billion explosive tags couldn't be weak.

Besides, explosive tags weren't something that ninjas of every level could use; in terms of positioning, they belonged to mid-to-high-end ninja tools, and the quantities purchased by major ninja villages wouldn't be overly exaggerated.

In fact, for Akatsuki, exposure didn't matter; after all, once they truly began their plan, they would sooner or later be targeted by the Five Great Nations.

At the moment, they were just making a small attempt.

At this moment, Nagato looked at the "Hand-Puppet Duo": "Sasori, Long, the matter of the Three-Tails is left to you two. Remember to keep your identities hidden."

"If you are discovered by Kirigakure's Anbu, remember to clean up thoroughly and leave traces of Konoha."

The Three-Tails usually stayed at the bottom of the lake; in the original plot, it was captured by Deidara.

It was just that his position had been replaced by Li Ang, so this mission naturally fell to him and Sasori.

"Understood."

"Got it."

Li Ang and Sasori accepted the mission.