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Chapter 593: Leaf Warehouse: I Will Fight for Kazekage!
Chapter 593: Leaf Warehouse: I Will Fight for Kazekage!
The Sand Ninjas began to crumble.
After Orochimaru replaced the Kazekage, they already knew that their plan had failed.
However, they continued fighting, hoping to at least inflict some pain on Konoha.
Of course, it was also because of Leaf Warehouse's appearance with her 'reinforcements' of Sand Ninjas.
Now, with Orochimaru's retreat, Leaf Warehouse also led her Sand Ninjas in a withdrawal. These ninjas from the Hidden Sand Village naturally started to lose morale.
Escaping wouldn't be too difficult.
Currently, most of Konoha was engulfed in flames, and the village's forces were primarily focused on rescuing people and extinguishing the fires.
This was the reason why the Sand Ninjas, despite being fewer in number and weaker than Konoha, were able to fight so effectively.
In the original storyline, the Sand Ninja's attack was like a child's play.
Without the giant snakes summoned by Orochimaru, they might not have even been able to breach the gates.
But this time, with Tang Ping's 'gift' of black oil, which set Konoha ablaze, and Leaf Warehouse leading a group of Sand Ninjas to hold off Jiraiya, the 'Heavenly Descending Strong Man', and a large number of Konoha ninjas, the losses were staggering.
The warehouse was breached by Purple Lotus and his team, and although some lives were lost, the gains far outweighed the losses.
Some resources were incredibly difficult to obtain.
For example, chakra metal! Although the Heavenly Guardian Tower had alternative Paulownia tree materials, when it came to ninja tools, this resource was irreplaceable.
There were also some precious medicinal ingredients.
While the Heavenly Guardian Tower collaborated with the Land of Demons and other countries to procure a vast amount of medicinal ingredients, some precious ones were not easily obtainable, making this raid a highly profitable venture.
If not for Orochimaru's Konoha Collapse Plan, their meager strength would never have allowed them to breach the warehouse and obtain these resources; it would have been a pipe dream.
For these resources, losing dozens of lives was a small price to pay, let alone hundreds or thousands.
Some precious resources truly couldn't be measured by numbers.
Leaf Warehouse and Purple Lotus joined forces, creating an escape route and taking the demoralized Sand Ninjas of the Hidden Sand Village with them.
After all, she was about to compete for the position of Kazekage, and boosting her prestige now wouldn't hurt.
She would be indebted to them! How could they not support her later?
After all, she had the qualifications and strength, and with the support of the Heavenly Guardian Tower, it was almost perfect, making it hard for the Sand Ninjas to accept.
However, this resistance was now much weaker.
The emergence of the Heavenly Guardian Tower had made life much easier for the Sand Ninjas.
With the Tower supplying various resources, they were freed from the control of the Land of Wind's nobility, received a share of the profits, and with a steady stream of puppet orders, the population and number of ninjas in the Hidden Sand Village had increased by at least half compared to the original storyline.
With so many benefits, how could they not have positive feelings?
However, with the increase in population, the demand for resources also grew, which was the main reason the Sand Ninjas targeted Konoha.
They were on the brink of poverty, almost reduced to eating sand.
Especially after the 'black oil' conflict, where Konoha had worn down the Sand Ninjas, and with their mission quotas almost entirely taken over by Konoha, how could they endure this?
Thus, the Konoha Collapse Plan, a collaboration between Rasu and Orochimaru, was born.
It wasn't that Rasu was unaware of Orochimaru's danger; it was that he, as Kazekage, had no choice.
Mission quotas were of utmost importance to a ninja village.
They even affected life and death!
With missions, ninjas could earn rewards and gain experience. Without missions, it wasn't feasible to have all ninjas crafting puppet orders or scavenging for bird droppings and black oil.
Speaking of bird droppings, the profits were already divided nine to one, with the nobility taking the lion's share.
In other words, despite the many Sand Ninja casualties, their gains were only a tenth of the nobility's.
And they had to pray that the nobility wouldn't 'cook the books,' or their share would be even smaller.
For black oil, they could claim a third, but they had to openly compete with Konoha and secretly fight other forces, constantly losing lives in this meat grinder.
Hence, there were reasons why the ninja village was struggling.
Even with Tang Ping's two highly profitable resources, the lion's share of the profits didn't go to the ninjas.
Tsk tsk!
It could only be said that ninjas were strong in combat, but in other aspects... they were truly incompetent.
If the Heavenly Guardian Tower had intervened, it would have been a complete package of might, management, and sales, swallowing all profits and leaving no crumbs for the nobility.
This is also the reason why the Tenkudo developed so quickly.
They monopolized all aspects of profit, so they didn't need to rely on others for any benefits.
But this also made the Tenkudo a target of resentment from the nobility.
No, it's not just resentment, it's more like deep-seated hatred.
After all, the changes in the Tenkudo were not hidden from the major ninja villages; they could clearly see what was happening.
With their model, by bypassing the middlemen (nobility), their profits would skyrocket, allowing them to expand their ninja forces tenfold and still afford to maintain them.
However, the Tenkudo's model was too challenging, and the major ninja villages lacked the confidence to emulate it.
After all, maidens were a specialty of the Land of Demons, something the major ninja villages didn't have.
Without maidens, who were skilled in gaining favor and had maxed-out internal management skills, they would worry about bureaucratic pitfalls, hindering internal development.
Konoha couldn't spare the strength to pursue their fleeing enemies.
After all, the enemy had Tenkudo ninjas like Leaf Warehouse, a Shadow-level ninja, and Purple Lotus, a quasi-Shadow, not to mention several strong Sand ninjas who had been rescued.
To pursue them, they needed Jiraiya to lead the pursuit, and the major ninja clans would have to dispatch their elite forces to have a chance at stopping the enemy.
So, the major ninja clans all expressed that being a ninja meant having the heart to communicate and not always being available.
Anyway, their clansmen were all busy rescuing people and putting out fires, and they didn't make appointments to pursue.
This is also a significant difference from the original plot.
In the original story, no one from the Sand Village could escape, not even Gaara's three siblings, who were handed over to Temari. In the end, Shikamaru, the lazy one, benefited from Temari's sacrifice, and there was indeed a deep conspiracy behind it.
Perhaps Temari sacrificed herself to ensure the safety of her three siblings, allowing them to return to the Sand Hidden Village, where a 'mysterious force' supported Gaara's successful ascension to Kazekage.
With this in mind, the plot made perfect sense.
Otherwise, a teenager becoming Kazekage was beyond anyone's wildest dreams, let alone reality.
The ninja world in anime may seem passionate and sunny, but in reality, it's terrifyingly dark.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
At this moment, Leaf Warehouse abruptly abandoned her troops.
After all, with Purple Lotus, a quasi-Shadow, present, even if they encountered a strong opponent, they could hold out until she returned.
This time, she was going to pick up Rasa's three children.
As the future Fifth Kazekage, she naturally had to show some attitude.
She wanted to prove to the villagers and elders that even though Rasa had betrayed her, she could put aside their grievances and treat his children well. Not choosing her as Kazekage again would be impolite.
And if they were impolite, she would be impolite too.
The Sand ninja forces had successfully retreated due to Leaf Warehouse and her Sand ninjas' intervention, but Gaara's three siblings were in trouble.
They were stopped by Konoha's Twelve Strong.
The battle had reached the level of a power-up fight, and everyone else was watching from the sidelines, not even qualified to intervene.
Boom! Boom!
Amidst the continuous loud noises.
A tanuki with all-over purple orchid patterns was currently battling a toad holding a 'short sword' that was several dozen meters long in the forest, and a large area had already been flattened by their fight.
Bunta!
The toad was Jiraiya's best partner, but he hadn't appeared during the battle in the village.
Turns out he had been summoned here.
"Tch, two brats!"
Leaf Warehouse scoffed and snorted lightly.
The Tailed Beasts and Summoned Beasts were indeed incredibly powerful, but they weren't something Naruto and Gaara could control. For a Shadow-level ninja like her, finding a solution didn't require much effort.
"Later, try to severely injure that toad, but don't let it suspect anything!"
A voice suddenly appeared in her ear.
And this voice was very familiar to Leaf Warehouse.
"This is..."
She immediately looked around but found nothing, though her expression was one of extreme excitement.
You know how she spent these years?
She thought of Tang Ping every day. If he hadn't told her beforehand that he would disappear for a long time, she might have rebelled.
She had always been his person, not Tenkudo's. There was a big difference.
Yes, the speaker was the person Leaf Warehouse had been thinking of day and night.
(End of Chapter)
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