Grind is My Ninja Way

Two hours later.

With the rise of a massive sealing array, the Four-Tails' enormous body was bound and then rapidly shrank and disappeared.

No, to be more precise, it didn't disappear but was sealed back into Roshi's body.

It was just that Seimei was too far away from him, and Roshi's body was too small, so it appeared to Seimei as if it had disappeared.

Sensing the oppressive aura in the air disappearing along with it, Seimei withdrew his gaze and returned to the Kogatani Village stronghold.

"Captain, did you find anything?"

As soon as he returned, several Konoha Jonin came forward to inquire.

Seimei shook his head, not saying much, and simply replied, "It was Iwagakure's Four-Tails that went out of control. Arrange the patrol and guard duties, and then go back and rest. We'll talk about other things tomorrow."

Hearing this, the Konoha Jonin exchanged glances and then excused themselves.

No one now viewed Seimei as a twelve-year-old child.

As his strength was continuously revealed, the aura around him became increasingly imposing. These Tokubetsu Jonin didn't dare to disobey his wishes.

Therefore, even though they still had many questions in their hearts, they could only suppress them for now.

The reason Seimei didn't want to say too much was, firstly, there was no need, and secondly, many things were just his speculations. He didn't want to say too much about things without evidence.

So, as for the specific situation, it was better to wait and see what the higher-ups said.

Seimei believed that it wouldn't be too long.

Facts proved that Omura Yuino's reaction was even faster than he had expected, as if he had been prepared. Almost as soon as dawn broke, he received the news.

Taking the intelligence from a messenger Chunin, Seimei quickly browsed through it.

As he read, he finally had a more detailed understanding of last night's situation.

Just as he had expected, the Four-Tails' rampage last night was indeed related to their operation.

And their operation, as he had previously predicted, was still a beheading mission.

It made sense. In the current situation, apart from beheading, there seemed to be no other effective way to stop Iwagakure's advance.

In the end, the competition between the two villages still came down to hard power. Some small schemes and tricks might achieve temporary victories but would never lead to ultimate victory.

And on this front line, Konoha was currently in a position of overall weakness, so they could only adopt methods like the "beheading operation," which were low-cost and had obvious effects, to delay the enemy.

However, unlike the previous time when they targeted the Iwa ninja command system, this time, Omura Yuino set the beheading targets as Roshi and Han.

As the Four-Tails Jinchuriki and the Five-Tails Jinchuriki, once they died, the Four-Tails and Five-Tails would enter a revival phase.

And without the existence of these two powerful weapons, Iwagakure's offensive momentum would definitely be frustrated, or even come to a complete halt.

This way, they would have a chance to breathe.

It had to be said that if the plan had really succeeded, the situation might have indeed changed.

But the problem was that this plan failed.

It was temporarily unclear whether the intelligence provided by the undercover agent was problematic or if Iwagakure had accidentally arranged more guards.

In any case, last night's operation was exposed in advance.

In the end, even with Namikaze Minato, a Kage-level expert, personally taking action, they couldn't successfully behead the targets.

However, their actions weren't entirely fruitless.

At the very least, they managed to make the Four-Tails go berserk again.

Although the operation team paid the price of two true Jonin and four Tokubetsu Jonin, Iwa's losses were undoubtedly greater.

After all, the Four-Tails went out of control within their camp.

Even though the Iwa high command had been guarding against this and arranged Roshi and Han's residences in relatively remote locations,

However, with the Four-Tails' massive size, that distance was nothing.

Thus, coupled with the price paid to reseal the Four-Tails later, Iwa lost at least two or three hundred people last night.

Seeing the village's estimated report, Seimei finally understood why so many people had prejudices against Jinchuriki. In this situation where one loss of control led to the deaths of many, no one would feel good about it.

After all, these people weren't loners. They also had their own relatives and friends. If they died at the hands of a Jinchuriki, wouldn't their loved ones have objections?

Therefore, it was almost inevitable for Jinchuriki to be ostracized by villagers. After all, which village's Jinchuriki hadn't lost control before?

'Sigh, I'm getting off track. Let's see how Omura Yuino arranges things next!'

Thinking this, Seimei continued reading the intelligence in his hand.

And when he saw the subsequent arrangements, he knew his feeling was right. Omura Yuino was indeed prepared for the mission's failure.

According to his orders, all the outer strongholds needed to be evacuated within a day, and all personnel would gather at Kaze no Sato.

Then, everyone would transfer to the stronghold further back together.

In other words, the Kaze no Sato stronghold was going to be abandoned.

Seimei didn't find this outcome strange.

As a Jonin, he had access to far more information than ordinary Konoha ninjas and knew that the defensive forces in Kaze no Sato had already reached their limit.

Especially in the past month, Iwagakure had been frantically attacking the strongholds around Kaze no Sato, continuously draining their manpower, making their situation even more dire.

In this situation, continuing to hold on would be a slow death.

Omura Yuino probably also saw this, which was why he planned last night's operation and made preparations for both success and failure.

If they succeeded, they might continue to hold on, but if they failed, it would be like now, with everyone retreating together.

Of course, this must have been discussed with the main camp at the rear.

Otherwise, how could Omura Yuino, a mere commander of a frontline stronghold, have the authority to make such a major strategic adjustment?

It was important to know that their retreat meant that other strongholds on the same front line also had to retreat, equivalent to the entire front line moving backward.

In this situation, if the main camp hadn't agreed, Omura Yuino would definitely not dare to issue this order.

And now, this order had come down, which meant that the main camp was already prepared to shrink the defense line as a whole.

"But this timeframe..."

Seimei looked at the total evacuation time of two days and frowned, thinking to himself if this timeframe was a bit too short.

One day to retreat to the Kaze no Sato stronghold and another day to transfer to the rear. Wouldn't this mean working non-stop?

However, since the higher-ups had notified them, he could only execute the order.

Putting away the intelligence in his hand, Seimei dismissed the messenger Chunin and immediately notified several Jonin in the stronghold to come over and assign tasks.

When they heard that they were going to retreat, although surprised, they didn't say much and went to prepare.

At noon that day, everyone in the entire stronghold had packed their belongings. They didn't leave a single bit of supplies for Iwagakure, taking everything with them as they headed towards the Kaze no Sato stronghold, over twenty kilometers away.

Originally, Seimei was still worried that Iwagakure would intercept them.

But it turned out that he was overthinking.

The Iwa ninjas were currently overwhelmed by the Four-Tails' rampage last night and simply didn't have the time or energy to deal with them.

Therefore, they smoothly arrived at the Kaze no Sato stronghold.

(End of this chapter)