Chapter 89: A Gift Delivered to His Doorstep (Fourth Update, Seeking First-Order Subscriptions)

The capital of the Land of Grass blazed with light. Countless Iwagakure and Kusagakure ninja carried torches and flashlights as they searched for the intruder’s whereabouts, and not until dawn did anyone dare stop without orders from Ohnoki.

Indeed, Minato Namikaze had gambled on a teleportation rescue and fallen into Ohnoki’s trap, only for his space-sealing jutsu to be a step too slow—or rather, for Minato to react too quickly, slipping away with his body flicker before the spatial blockade was fully complete.

Ohnoki was furious. Someone had invaded his headquarters; how could he simply let the man come and go as he pleased? Did he have no pride at all? And so began a game of cat and mouse. Though the Iwagakure ninja were frightened half to death, they could only grit their teeth and beat the drums to hunt Minato down.

Minato learned at once from several Iwagakure ninja that the captives were being held by a group of mercenary ninja, inside a hotel. Yet by the time he reached the place, the personnel had already been moved out completely, and no one knew where they had taken them.

The capital of the Land of Grass was not large, yet finding a single man was still no easy task. After several searches, and with too much chakra spent from being pursued by Iwagakure’s strong fighters, he had no choice but to return to camp and make new plans.

Who could have imagined that he would fail to rescue the people, only to have his own home stolen from him?

...

Onoki looked at Shiba, who had returned together with Lao Zi, with a long string of Konoha ninja trailing behind them. His lips moved for a long time before he finally spat out a newly learned phrase: “Damn impressive...”

They had been drinking wine and eating beef only moments before, talking about taking down a tower, and in the blink of an eye, they had truly brought down the watchtower.

Even Ohnoki had nothing to say. He could only admit that the gods themselves must want Konoha to lose, and so had bestowed upon him a squad of mercenary ninja like this.

“Hahaha... Sarutobi Hiruzen, even heaven wants to bring you down!” Ohnoki laughed maniacally. With Konoha’s watchtower removed, the entire Konoha front line was no different from blind men. With his superior numbers, he could seize control of the entire battlefield.

...

The next stretch of days could be called the calm before the storm. Although Ohnoki gave no explicit orders, the movement of supplies throughout the village and the gathering of combat forces made it clear to everyone that the general assault would come at any moment.

Shiba was in a very leisurely mood. At times he would go to the hospital to check on Karin’s development, and he always brought nourishing supplements with him. He could not allow Karin to lose at the starting line. This left Uzumaki Asuka feeling... indescribably strange. She had seen plenty of suitors, but never one who was courting the child in her belly.

Han’s Iron Fortress plan had already begun preparation. He himself was responsible for the detailed design, while Shiba provided inspiration. The trouble came when it was time to request funding. By rough estimate, the entire Iron Fortress might cost hundreds of millions, perhaps even over a billion ryō. Ohnoki had no interest in giving Han that kind of money, and even gave the design the cruelest possible review: useless scrap metal, a pointless waste of funds.

With that money, wouldn’t it be better to hire the Black Rose for a few more years?

Han’s morale was crushed, but Shiba kept comforting him: a true man must never give up on his dreams easily, and he was willing to invest in the project.

A week passed like this, and at last Ohnoki’s secret war order arrived. As one of the fully trusted men, Shiba also received such a mission scroll...

Launch a full-scale assault on Konoha!

That’s right. Not the border defenses around Konoha, as everyone had assumed.

But Konoha itself!

Ohnoki actually intended to bypass that line entirely and carry out a lightning decapitation strike, destroying the Hidden Leaf Village at its core.

Konoha was now under siege from four villages, with all its elite forces deployed. The village’s defensive power had been emptied to the extreme. If Ohnoki truly struck with lightning speed, and reinforcements could not return in time, then Konoha might well be destroyed for good.

Shiba looked at the map enclosed with the scroll, and a familiar name appeared.

The Kannabi Bridge.

Bridges were highly mysterious things in the world of ninja. Even as powerful a figure as the Sage of Six Paths could only have them built step by step by others, and even Danzo Shimura, the darkness of Konoha, had to desperately seal away a bridge before dying.

Kannabi was a bridge that Konoha had to pass through, and it held immense strategic importance. So long as it were blown apart, Iwagakure would be unable to reach Konoha quickly. Rebuilding it might cost another week, and by then Konoha’s defenses could already be as solid as iron.

“Ah... after waiting so long, it’s finally begun.” Shiba leaned against the desk and let out a long breath as he studied the scroll.

Knock, knock, knock...

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.

“Who is it? Come in.” Shiba frowned a little. Such a gentle knock did not sound like anyone from his own unit, even including Shangi, who always came bursting through the door in a whirlwind.

Could it be Uzuki Yugao?

The door opened. Shiba froze. The person who entered was actually Ohnoki’s secretary, Nono?

Today, she was dressed in a true secretary’s office outfit: a tight skirt, high heels, and even black stockings, with a large round pair of glasses. Her expression was no longer as foolishly vacant as before.

“Uh... Miss Nono? What is it?” Shiba had just returned from a meeting at headquarters and could not understand why Ohnoki’s secretary had come to him. She usually fawned over him with tea and water, but he had hardly paid her any mind.

“Well... Lord Shiba, Lord Tsuchikage asked me to bring you a doll.” Nono bowed slightly, holding a bag in both hands.

Lately, Ohnoki had been plotting a military operation, and her sharp instincts left her deeply uneasy. She urgently needed to uncover intelligence and report it to Konoha.

But Ohnoki was an especially stubborn man, insisting on doing everything himself and handling his affairs with meticulous care. Though she was his secretary, all she ever did was trivial errands like serving tea and water, never getting anywhere near real secrets.

She could only find a way to steal information from one of two others: Huang Tu or Shiba. Because of the Uchiha treasure, she ultimately chose the younger man who seemed less composed.

“Oh! New figures? I didn’t expect Ohnoki to be so busy and still find time to make dolls for me. Hurry up and let me see them.” Shiba’s eyes shone with excitement.

“Yes... this is the Nine-Tailed Fox Demon, this is Uchiha Madara, and this one is your Konoha Princess Tsunade.” Nono bent over as she took each figure out of the bag one by one, inadvertently revealing a little pale cleavage.

Though she hated doing it, she had to admit that for a spy, occasionally using a bit of feminine allure was the fastest and most effective way to steal information.

“Amazing... so white, so big!” Shiba exclaimed.

“Hmph. Men.” Nono forced down the disgust in her heart and kept her seductive pose.

Shiba stared intently at the Tsunade figure, licking his lips with a hungry look. His hands were so tense he did not even know where to put them. This was not the classic drunken Tsunade figure from his past life, but the Tsunade Ohnoki had seen on the battlefield: resolute and full of heroic vigor, her golden twin tails cute rather than merely valiant. In front of her, all the other figures seemed to lose their shine at once, as though touching them without gloves would itself be a blasphemy.

Nono stared for a long moment before finally realizing that the man had not looked at her even once. He had been staring only at Lord Tsunade’s doll!

Did she really have less charm than a lump of mud? For a woman, that was an utter humiliation!

Lord Tsunade was big, yes! But she herself was not exactly lacking, was she?

“Lord Shiba...” Nono said softly.

“If it’s money, I already handed it to Ohnoki in advance. Excuse me, please step aside. You’re blocking the light while I admire Tsunade.” Shiba nudged Nono aside.

“I...!” Nono swallowed her words hard. Then she glanced at the lonely scroll on the desk, and back at Shiba’s eyes, which seemed ready to tear through the clay figure... What a chance!

“That old Ohnoki is really something... If only he’d come a little farther down...” Shiba scratched his head in frustration, then kept tapping his skull. “No, no, this is exactly the kind of half-hidden, half-revealed allure I want.”

“Lord Shiba, your room is rather messy. Would you like me to tidy it for you?” Nono said, looking at the chaos strewn across the room.

“Mm, mm... just do whatever. I’ll be leaving in a few days anyway.” Shiba nodded carelessly.

“It’s messier than a doghouse... If this were an orphanage, I would have thrown a brat like this out long ago,” Nono muttered inwardly as she began to tidy his room.

Rattle...

When she opened the wardrobe, why were there so many women’s clothes inside?

So that’s how it is... He looks so serious on the outside, yet behind closed doors he has such a strange fetish. Hm, I’ll have to write that down.

Next was the bookshelf. Yes, now this looked like a unit leader’s room. A man should read more... books?

Huh? Why were they all the same title?

Was this book really that good? Did he have to buy so many copies?

Messages between ninja villages were often encoded in certain books.

Could this be some kind of codebook?

Her professional instincts flared. She glanced back at Shiba, who was drooling over the figures, and silently opened the pages.

“Bianren’s ninja school grades were not ideal...”

It did not matter that she had only just begun reading; before she knew it, she was completely absorbed.

Ding-dong. Nono, the Yakushi, has become utterly engrossed in Pleasure Paradise and obtained 100 gold.