Chapter 71: Knife at the Enemy's throat!
Chapter 71: Knife at the Enemy’s throat!
The short resting period allowed the Team-11 to recover a little bit, and now what to do next became an urgent issue before them.
The four members of the Team-11 sat on the ground spreading a map to discuss their further course of action.
While pointing at the map Shisui was the first to speak: “Cloud Village has too many spies infiltrated within the Land of Hot Water, so us staying in this territory for too long is definitely not a wise choice. I suggest we choose to leave immediately using the Unison route.”
The ‘Unison route’ referred to by Shisui goes along the easternmost coastline of Land of Hot Water back to the Land of Fire.
Judging from the map, this route seems to be the most unsafe; as it lies in the combined area of control of Konoha Village, Cloud Village, and Mist Village. But for this very reason, this ‘Unison Route’ can, in fact, be considered the safest, because no village has absolute control over it.
For this reason, Unison Route has become a unique zone with many wandering and retired ninjas hiding here.
Guy immediately nodded at Shisui’s proposal, “Well, I think it will a good choice.”
With the current combat power of Team-11, as long as they don’t get too unlucky and directly encounter the main combat force of Cloud Village or any supposed Ninjas Village, they should be able to cross any territory without much difficulty.
However, the captain of Team-11, Kakashi hasn’t spoken his opinion yet, he seems to be considering something.
Kuroto guessed that Kakashi has some other plans, so he asked, “Kakashi, if you have something in mind, just say it directly. After all, we are a team, who have already experienced life and death battles, I think you should be comfortable in expressing your thoughts by now.”
What Kuroto said isn’t wrong, even if Kakashi concealed the details of the previous mission and led Team-11 into such a dangerous situation that almost got them killed, but nobody could blame him.
The mission was personally issued by Hokage-Sama and as the member of Anbu Black Ops, they must complete his orders, Kakashi doesn’t have any right to reject or question Hokage-Sama’s orders, not to mention he took the most dangerous part of the task upon himself and almost got himself killed, therefore nobody blamed him.
Listening to Kuroto’s words, Kakashi sighed.
Pointing at the current location of Team-11 on the map, he slowly said, “As Shisui said, we have already completed our mission and should retreat to the Land of Fire as quickly as possible. However, everyone, think about where are we currently?
From one perspective, we are stuck between the Cloud Raid troops at the front while the Cloud Village at the rear, but from another perspective, our position is too critical!”
Kuroto understood what Kakashi is trying to say, “Well, you are right about that, indeed our current position is extremely dangerous for us, but at the same time our stay in the Land of Hot Water is like a knife at the enemy’s throat that can strike any time. I am afraid that the Cloud troops wouldn’t be rest assured until they eliminate us.”
Not only Team-11 destroyed the secret warehouse but also eliminated more than 300 ninjas, so no matter how conceited Cloud Village maybe, they wouldn’t dare to ignore such an existence hidden behind the rear of Cloud Raid Forces.
As soon as the Cloud Village discovers that Team-11 is hidden within the territory of Land of Hot Water, their frontal offensive will obviously weaken and some of it might even be directed towards chase and hunt of Team-11.
Shisui also thought a little and said, “Yes, Cloud Ninjas don’t know about our injuries, they may estimate us to be a little weakened to exhausted but we can utilize this ignorance to our advantage. As long as we hide well enough and occasionally choose to strike to scare them critically, they wouldn’t be able to concentrate entirely on the Konoha Front.”
‘Well, indeed, Team-11 is not entirely in a battle-ready state.
Kakashi has still not recovered completely.
Although Guy is fit enough to jump around, his fighting power is still not restored entirely due to several fractures.
Shisui is in a better state than two of them but he is still not at his 100% combat effectiveness. Due to using Susanoo for too long he also suffered from Chakra Overdraft; so, he is also in a weakened state, so, at most he can play at around 50% to 60% of his full combat potential.
At least, my situation is better than the others, I have already recovered about 80% of my Chakra, and there are close to no injuries as they were already healed from the Chakar of giant Tenseigan as well as because of using ‘The Secret Technique of Physical Regeneration’ so my combat effectiveness is almost close to 100% as my Chakra recovered’ – thought Kuroto.
After some more discussion, Team-11 reached a consensus and decided to extend their stay within Land of Hot Water to harass the raid troops of Cloud Village.
Kuroto agreed because he knows that Cloud Village has no intention to expand the conflict to full-scale war. Once the situation reaches a stalemate or disadvantageous, Cloud Village should propose peace talks.
And if Team-11 is the one that caused Cloud & Konoha to sit on the negotiation table, then it would be considered a great honor. Not to mention their authority in the Anbu will also skyrocket.
Take Namikaze Minato as an example, nothing could build reputation and authority faster than the Meritorious Services in War Period.
So, this course of action is natural the best suited in Kuroto’s opinion.
Land of Fire, Cloud Raid Camp.
Through active communication with the village, several commanders of Cloud Village including Killer B, Cloud Head Ninja, and the young, Nibi’s Jinchuriki Yugito Nii, finally learned why Raikage-Sama issued the absurd order of pausing the attack against Konoha forces.
Holding the piece of paper in his hand, even Killer B’s always cheerful face was gloomy.
The news from Raikage-sama mentioned that the four secret warehouses of the Cloud Village spread around different parts of the Land of Lightning were all attacked by the Anbu Black Ops of Konoha Village within a short period of 2 days.
But that wasn’t it, at the location of one of the warehouses, more than 300 Cloud ninjas were found dead, with no signs of the enemy around whether injured, dead, or alive.
This new surprised all the 3 sitting around.
The youngest Yugito Nii folded her hands around the chest and said coldly: “Huh… Konoha also knows some tricks!”
Cloud Head ninja was more worried: “Konoha was able to get intelligence about the location of the secret warehouses, this isn’t too surprising, because of the transportation of goods, it is indeed difficult to cover up all the tracks, but they were able to wipe out more than 300 hundred of our men, this is not something to be taken lightly.”
Although Yugito Nii is a proud Kunoichi, she also knows that it is not an easy task for just some random Anbu squad to kill more than 300 shinobi, so thinking a little she asked, “Among Konoha’s high-level combat personnel who hasn’t made an appearance on any battlefront yet?”
The Jonin secretary on the side immediately replied: “According to the information we have gathered, so far only the Patriarch of the Uchiha, and the Hyuga, as well as the Hokage-sama himself, hasn’t made an appearance on any battlefront!”
Cloud Head Ninja also gave his analysis: “The main family of the Hyuga Clan rarely shows up on the battlefield and that too when the situation is too dire, this was the case even in the 3rd Shinobi War and going so deep into the enemy territory isn’t something the Hyuga Clan could afford so they can be ruled out.
There was something weird with the Uchiha this time, there is no news of any Uchiha being on any battlefield, this wasn’t the case in the 3rd Shinobi war, so in my opinion, the warehouse where our 300 men died should have been attacked by the Uchiha!”
At this time Yugito Nii suggested, “It has to be the Uchiha Clan and their Patriarch, and if not them then it can only be the Sandaime Hokage himself!”
Both Killer B and the Cloud Head ninja nodded at her conclusion, they also agree that no one else in Konoha has this kind of power…
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