"What mission?"
Hearing news of her younger brother, although she trusted Li Anshi very much, she couldn't help but ask.
"Bandit suppression. It's C-rank."
He also knew her worries, so he told her directly.
"Nawaki has completed his Rasengan training, so I found a mission for him to get used to the reality of being a ninja."
"I've checked all three bandit strongholds. There are no ninjas."
"Oh."
Tsunade nodded in relief.
As someone who had been through it, she also knew the discomfort one felt when taking a life for the first time. In severe cases, one could even freeze up, endangering one's own life.
Without ninjas, just ordinary people, even if two of them had a stress reaction after killing someone, the remaining one could still provide support.
It couldn't be that all three of them would have a stress reaction, right?
If that were really the case, then Nawaki's death would be a disgrace to the Senju clan.
At that time, although she would be sad, she wouldn't be overly so.
"Is there something wrong on your end?"
"Why are you so angry as soon as I get here?"
"Hmph!"
His question immediately brought her anger back up.
"It's all the fault of those guys in the village!"
"Three years ago, after I created the antidote for the salamander poison, I told them that if they wanted to fight Hanzo, they couldn't do it without enough antidotes."
"But now, the ninjas of the Rain have had quite a few skirmishes with our Konoha ninjas at the border of the Land of Fire and the Land of Rain. It seems they want to use us as a stepping stone to become a great ninja village."
"Once Konoha and the Rain go to war, the other great ninja villages will not pass up this opportunity."
"At that time, if Konoha cannot defeat the Rain as quickly as possible, then the Second Great Ninja War will definitely break out."
"And this time, it might be even more difficult for Konoha than the first."
"Because in the first war, only the Cloud, Stone, and Sand attacked us."
"But in the second, not only will there be the Land of Rain, whose strength is close to that of the five great villages, but also the Land of Water, which did not fight with us before. They will all attack us to take the opportunity to weaken us."
He nodded.
There were no real fools in the ninja world.
From the time the small villages had started to promote Hanzo's "Demigod" title, to step by step changing the title of the leader of the Rain to "Rain Kage," one could guess what he wanted to do.
Since the establishment of the villages, only the leaders of the five great villages could be called "Kage."
For him to call himself the "Rain Kage" naturally meant he wanted to make the Rain the sixth great ninja village, or replace one of the existing ones.
However, "great ninja village" and "Kage" were not things that could be achieved just by self-proclamation. They still needed the recognition of the other villages in the ninja world.
After the end of the First Great Ninja War, the small villages had fought among themselves. In three years, the Rain had defeated the ninjas of the other small villages, becoming the strongest among them, below the five great ones.
Even the chakra-wielding samurai of the Land of Iron had been defeated by them.
The leader of the Land of Iron, Mifune, had been thoroughly defeated by him in a duel to prove his name, further increasing Hanzo's prestige.
However, if the Rain wanted to truly become a great ninja village, they had to be recognized by the other five.
Otherwise, no matter how much their ninjas clamored, it would be nothing more than the barking of dogs.
Under these circumstances, Hanzo, who was committed to making the Rain great, needed a stepping stone.
And only the five great villages were qualified to be that stepping stone.
The neighboring Land of Lightning, Land of Earth, and Land of Fire were all targets.
However, up until now, in the face of the Rain's provocations, the other two had not shown much of a reaction.
On one hand, it had only been a few years since the end of the war for them, and they had not yet recovered their strength.
If they were to go to war with the Rain, although they could win in the end, they would also suffer considerable losses.
Konoha had been the first to get out of the war, and its development had surpassed the other great villages.
If they were to suffer more losses, the gap between them and Konoha would only grow larger.
Therefore, in the face of the Rain's provocations, they had been very patient.
As long as the Rain did not invade their territory, they would not truly go to war with them.
On the other hand, they also wanted the Rain to go and test Konoha.
As long as the Rain went to war with Konoha, with Hanzo's strength, they would surely be able to inflict considerable losses on them.
They could say that the Rain was weak, but they couldn't say that the salamander and Hanzo were.
Even in the other great villages, there were not many who had a one-hundred-percent chance of defeating him.
What's more, the poison gas of his summon was an indiscriminate weapon of mass destruction on the battlefield.
Wherever the salamander was, a large-scale battle of ninja armies would undoubtedly be a gift of battle merits to him.
At that time, they could decide whether to divide the resources of the Land of Rain or to attack Konoha together, based on the battle between Konoha and the Rain.
Konoha was too strong. The other great villages could not just sit back and watch it grow stronger.
In the past, the First Hokage had loved peace, so after the ninja world had entered the era of the villages, under his will, there had been more than a decade of peace.
The current Konoha, because of Li Anshi, also had some of the residual prestige of the time when the First Hokage was still around.
And it was because of his existence that the other great villages were both wary and on guard against Konoha.
There was a gap between the top powerhouses. This was a problem they couldn't solve. They could only train harder to become stronger and shorten the gap.
Secondly, they could only hope that a powerhouse who could rival him would appear among the younger generation of their villages.
However, if they were to let Konoha continue to develop, so that its ninjas, in terms of both quantity and quality, far surpassed the other four, they were also afraid that Konoha would launch a war of unification.
At that time, when they were inferior in terms of top powerhouses, mid-tier combat power, and even numbers, it was possible that the entire ninja world would eventually be unified by Konoha.
This was something the ninjas of the other great villages could not accept.
So, under these circumstances, if they could delay Konoha's development, the other great villages would surely make some moves.
Since Konoha had the name of the number one ninja village, it had to bear the consequences of that name.
The think tanks in Konoha were surely aware of this.
Otherwise, they would not have let Tsunade come to be stationed at the stronghold on the border when the conflict between Konoha and the Rain was escalating.
After all, she was the number one medical ninja in the world, and also the only one who had created an antidote for the salamander's poison.
Having her here would also be a deterrent to the Rain.
Without the threat of the poison, the Rain would definitely not be a match for Konoha's ninjas.
At that time, the only one Konoha would have to be wary of would be the leader of the Rain, Hanzo of the Salamander.
According to the outside world's estimate of his strength, most of it came from the salamander's poison.
With the aid of the poison, his strength was considered top-tier even among Kage-level powerhouses.
However, once his poison was rendered ineffective, his own strength was only at the entry-level of a Kage.
Currently, although Tsunade had not yet stepped into the ranks of the Kage, as a medical ninja, she was definitely the one who was most able to counter him.
Although, because of the gap in their strength, she was still a distance from defeating him, it would also be very difficult for him to defeat or even kill her.
With her here, they could definitely hold off the Rain's attack.
At that time, if Konoha sent reinforcements, they could definitely defeat the Rain, including Hanzo, and end the war.
However, now, because of some dirty tricks within Konoha, she couldn't even gather enough herbs to make the antidote.
The amount of herbs in this tent was not enough to make enough antidotes to support several battles between Konoha and the Rain.
Once the antidotes were used up, before they had killed Hanzo, Konoha would be dragged into a war of attrition.
As the number one ninja village, once Konoha fell into a decline, it would become a fish on the chopping block, to be divided up by the other great villages.
Of course, to say "divided up" was a bit of an exaggeration.
However, the other great villages would definitely not pass up any opportunity to weaken Konoha.
Even if such means were a "war" that required the lives of countless ninjas!
For the continuation of their villages, they could pay any heavy price.
"Give me a list of the herbs needed to make the antidote."
He glanced at the tent, which had been half-destroyed by her, and at the herbs piled up on less than a fifth of the floor, and said to her.
"When Nawaki and the others have completed their mission, I'll go back to the village and ask the Third Hokage."
"If he can't find enough herbs to make enough antidotes, then you can bring these comrades back to the village."
"As for holding off the Rain, whoever wants to come can come."
"This..."
Hearing him say this, Tsunade frowned.
"Tsunade, don't have any psychological burden."
Seeing her hesitation, he patted her shoulder, "Tsunade, whether it's us, or them..."
He pointed at the ninjas who were avoiding the aftershock of her attack, and his voice sounded in her ear.
"Our sacrifice is all in the hope of protecting our families in the village, so that our sacrifice has value and meaning."
"However, if the higher-ups in the village don't care about everyone's lives, and just keep issuing all kinds of difficult missions, letting everyone fight with their lives, while they themselves sit in the back and enjoy the peace that we've bought with our lives, and don't take our lives seriously..."
"Then why should we still go and sacrifice our lives for their enjoyment?"
"The power is theirs, and the benefits are theirs. When facing a war, shouldn't the ones who have enjoyed most of the power and benefits be the first to stand up?"
"I understand."
Tsunade nodded.
What he had said made a lot of sense.
Whether it was the Warring States period or the era of the villages, it was all the same.
In the Warring States period, the powerhouses of the families enjoyed a great deal of power, but when they encountered enemies, they were also the first to lead the charge.
In the era of the villages, the ninja clans divided up the benefits of the village, and in times of war, it was also the ninjas of the clans who led the charge.
It had been the same in the First Great Ninja War.
But now, the higher-ups of Konoha, perhaps because of the long period of peace, had forgotten that what one gets and what one gives must be equal.
They wanted more power, but they only wanted the ninjas under them to fight desperately, while they hid in the safe rear, under the pretext of "controlling the overall situation."
In fact, in order to consolidate and expand their own power, they had even started to play tricks on the ninjas of their own village.
Who didn't know what Danzo had done?
It was only because Tsunade's voice was growing louder and she was threatening him, and he saw her as a stumbling block on his path to becoming Hokage.
So, when she had come to this stronghold, he had directly taken away all the herbs he had collected to make the antidote, leaving only a small portion for her.
What he needed was not for Konoha to defeat the Rain as quickly as possible and avoid the outbreak of the Second Great Ninja War.
Rather, he needed the troops led by her to be defeated by the Rain, preferably all of them to be annihilated.
At that time, he would come to support as reinforcements, and under the banner of righteousness, he would coerce her into making enough antidotes for him, and then he would be the leader of the army and defeat the Rain.
In this way, he would not only have struck down a competitor, but he would also be able to use the momentum of a great victory to increase his own competitiveness for the position of Hokage.
How could she not detest someone who would harm the interests of the village and the lives of his comrades to achieve his own goals?
But the thing was, such a person, in the current Konoha, seemed to not just be Danzo.
Otherwise, how could he have transferred all the herbs that had been collected for three years without anyone knowing?
"If it comes to that, I'll take everyone back."
In the end, she still agreed to his suggestion.
"Not bad."
"Tsunade, you've grown."
Seeing her like this, he also smiled, "In all battles since ancient times, both sides have fought for every inch of land."
"However, they have forgotten one thing."