"You!"
Kankuro instinctively reached for the crow puppet, which was always on his back. However, his fingertips only touched air.
Kankuro whirled around, his vision empty.
Damn it! Where's my puppet?
It was so big, and it was just on my back.
"Tsk, looking for this?" A lazy voice sounded.
"This is evidence of a crime, I'll confiscate it for now. Whether or not I return it to you will depend on your performance."
Kankuro felt his throat go dry. He stared intently at Satoshi, his mind a blank.
How is that possible?
This white-haired guy, when and how did he do it? He didn't even detect a ripple of Chakra.
Had the young ninjas of Konoha become so powerful?
Just then, Gaara, who had been knocked down, shakily pushed himself up from the ground.
The moment he saw Satoshi, an emotion called fear appeared on his face. He remembered that it was this guy who had mercilessly beaten him a few years ago.
Gaara silently retrieved the sand scattered on the ground, and it obediently gathered back into the gourd on his back.
He spoke in a hoarse, terrifyingly low voice, "I'll go with you."
Kankuro could barely believe his ears. Gaara had surrendered?
He was Gaara, the strongest weapon of Sunagakure.
He surrendered to this white-haired guy with just one sentence?
"Gaara?"
Gaara sharply turned his head. "Shut up. Say one more word, and I'll kill you."
Kankuro's throat tightened, and all his words were forcefully choked back.
"Understood."
Inaho snorted coldly, then led a few colleagues from the Police Force forward and unceremoniously took the Sunagakure trio away.
This disturbance, provoked by Sunagakure, was once again suppressed by Konoha with an absolutely dominant stance.
The other watching ninjas, seeing Konoha's formidable strength, became much more well-behaved. They obediently dispersed, going about their business.
"Naruto, Sasuke, well done."
"Hehe, not really." Naruto still had that goofy look.
Sasuke, on the other hand, still wore a haughty expression that kept people at a distance.
With his hands in his pockets, he turned his face away. "Hmph, meddling."
After many years, he understood the meaning of a rogue ninja.
He also clearly knew that on that bloody night of clan annihilation, if Satoshi hadn't intervened, the outcome would have been even more tragic.
But facing this murderer who had killed his brother, Sasuke's feelings were still very complicated.
Satoshi seemed not to care about Sasuke's awkwardness and waved his hand casually. "I'm leaving. I still have to go to work."
Half a month later.
The three little ones from Sunagakure obediently paid a fine of 15,000 ryo.
Temari was about to faint.
These bastards actually demanded it!
"What are you looking at?" Inaho glared at them.
"If it were me, considering your street brawl, destruction of public facilities, and attempted assault on Konoha ninja, I'd deduct at least three months from your pay."
"Forget it, Inaho-senpai, don't embarrass them too much." A young ninja beside him advised in a low voice.
"Hurry up and leave."
—
The first two exams concluded smoothly, eliminating a large number of ninjas.
A few days later, the atmosphere in Konoha reached its peak.
After all, the true VIPs of the Ninja World, the Kage of several villages, had arrived in Konoha one after another.
Originally, some major countries didn't want to come. But Satoshi wrote another letter, hoping they wouldn't refuse for Konoha's sake.
If they didn't, it would be a provocation to Konoha's authority. Konoha wouldn't mind starting the Fourth Great Ninja War.
So, for peace—not out of cowardice, but purely for peace—they stated that they would definitely attend on time.
As for why he invited them?
It was because Satoshi wanted to show off his strength in front of them. To let them know that Konoha was still the strongest village in the Ninja World.
With the arrival of nobles from other countries and the leaders of their villages, the third stage of the Chunin Exams was finally about to begin.
Satoshi took on the reception duties. No choice, he just loved his work so much and was willing to share the Hokage's worries.
Yagura greeted him, "Satoshi, I'm really looking forward to the performance of these little ones."
He spoke with great sincerity, because a few years ago, the one who turned Kirigakure upside down was also a little one.
As for Sunagakure, they hadn't even found a suitable ninja to take on the duties of Kazekage. So they had to send Chiyo, assisted by her younger brother Ebizo.
However, although the two were a bit old, they weren't senile. They had discussed on the way that besides participating in the Chunin Exams, there was another very important matter for their visit to Konoha: borrowing money.
Sunagakure's financial hole was almost crushing the village.
But to their surprise, they didn't even get to meet the Hokage. The one who met them was still that annoying white-haired guy.
In the reception room, the two old comrades brought up the old matter again.
"Hokage, you know the situation of Sunagakure, it's really... hard to describe..."
In fact, they both were very conflicted.
It's important to know that although the two villages were allies on the surface, their relationship wasn't that good in reality, which could be seen from Konoha repeatedly ignoring their requests.
There was also another problem: Sunagakure didn't have anything presentable to exchange with Konoha.
They couldn't just give them a few sand sculptures, right?
Sure enough, Satoshi, representing Konoha, once again rejected their loan request. But this time, he gave a reason.
The joint Chunin Exams cost a lot of money, and they had no surplus grain.
After saying that, he swayed away, leaving the two elders of Sunagakure looking at each other, their faces ashen.
Who didn't know that throughout the entire Ninja World, Konoha was currently the wealthiest?
If your village can't even make ends meet, then we might as well go beg for food. They even felt that the alliance with Konoha was worthless. It would be better to find an opportunity to band together with Kumogakure and Iwagakure to jointly resist the increasingly powerful Konoha.
That same night, they found Ōnoki and A. After some discussion, they understood Sunagakure's intentions.
For certain reasons, the two Kage did not rush to express their stance.
They were very wary of Konoha.
The news of Danzo's death had already spread throughout the Ninja World. At first, they were very happy, thinking that without his help, Konoha's strength would plummet.
But on the contrary, after a few years, Konoha's overall strength had increased by an unknown amount.
The ninja equipment was visibly better, and it was said that their salaries and benefits were more than half higher than theirs.
The surrounding small countries surrendered one after another, visiting the Hokage every now and then, hoping to deepen their relationship in various ways.
And Konoha treated them well, with both sides developing hand in hand and progressing together.
This made them wonder, where did Konoha get so much money?