A person wrapped in a flash of lightning was thrown backwards, their body scraping the ground and carving a deep trench.
But the next moment, the person wrapped in lightning sped forward even faster.
Nagato's face showed obvious helplessness. He sighed inside and stepped forward to meet the attack. The ball of lightning collided again.
The exploding lightning and powerful ninjutsu clashed for a long time. Finally, the speeding lightning finally stopped.
"Does the Land of Rain really have people like you? No wonder you could kill Hanzo," said the Fourth Raikage, A.
His face looked gloomy. He had planned to sneak attack this mine while Jiraiya was away, but instead, he met someone even more troublesome than Jiraiya.
Although the ninja world talked about three great dōjutsu eyes, except for the Byakugan and Sharingan, the Rinnegan was said to belong only to the legendary Sage of Six Paths.
But here, on a ninja from the Land of Rain, he actually saw the Rinnegan.
If he hadn't used his Hollow power, and if Nagato hadn't had to divide his attention on him, he wouldn't have lasted so long under those eyes!
This made Raikage A feel very unhappy.
It seemed like every raid by the Cloud Village was disappointing, failing to meet their goals.
His father's raid on the Sand Village was like that, and his own sea route raid on a Konoha base in the Land of Rivers was the same!
The worst part was, the one blocking him was a ninja from the Rain Village!
"I don't want to fight you, Raikage," Nagato said with a slight headache.
The Raikage's strength was beyond his expectation. Besides, he needed to be careful to stop other Cloud ninja from sneaking into the mine to cause damage.
"Konoha really is getting worse with each generation! They actually let other ninja villages guard such an important mine! If they don't have the strength to hold this mine, they should just give it up!" The Raikage muttered angrily.
Although Konoha had hidden the information about the Gelel Stone Mine well, in the past two years, Konoha had made big moves here, and it was impossible to keep many secrets.
Even if Konoha captured or eliminated some spies every day, it didn't matter. As long as one spy slipped through, the information would leak.
Besides, the Cloud ninja had already gathered some vague intelligence from the start.
A rare resource like the Gelel Stone Mine was enough to start a ninja world war in the past!
Now, the ninja world had just finished a war. The great countries were still recovering and too weak to start a second war so soon.
But no matter what, the local fights and battles over the Gelel Stone Mine were unavoidable.
The chaos in the Land of Rivers in the last two years proved this clearly.
Before, only the nearby Konoha and Sunagakure had much influence or power in the Land of Rivers.
But in the past two years, the Land of Fire and Land of Wind had more frequent cooperation and contact—from leaders to ninja—because of shared interests.
Their relationship was in an unprecedented honeymoon phase.
With this, the situation in the Land of Rivers should have been more stable. But now, it was even more chaotic.
This was not just because of the Cloud ninja. The interference of the Iwagakure's Onoki also played a part.
The Hokage naturally had his own ideas. Both Konoha and they did not want another war in the ninja world.
If the Raikage really needed the Gelel Stone, it would be better to go to Konoha and negotiate directly with the Hokage.
Nagato's face was cold, but his tone was sincere.
If possible, he did not want a serious conflict with the Raikage.
If things went wrong and the Raikage was hurt here, the ninjas of Kumogakure might not be able to handle Konoha, but they definitely would not let the Village Hidden in the Rain off.
The Land of Rain had just recently entered a period of stability under their control. The civilians and ninjas of the Rain had only just begun to live peaceful days.
If Kumogakure used any excuse to invade, whether they won or lost, the Land of Rain would become chaotic again.
The investments and plans that the Village Hidden in the Rain had made might be completely destroyed.
Neither Yahiko nor Nagato wanted to accept or face such a loss. ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ novᴇlfire.net
So the best way was to make the Raikage understand the difficulty and retreat, to know that he could not succeed here.
Nagato's words were not meant to blame others—after all, this was a problem between the Raikage and the Hokage, and naturally, only they could discuss and resolve it.
Unless the Raikage was determined to start a war on his own.
But did the Raikage really have that idea?
Nagato, who had grown a lot through his experiences in the Rain Village and the Ninja World War, was no longer as innocent and unguarded as before.
The Raikage did have thoughts about starting a war, but he was not sure if Kumogakure could win.
Although Konoha had suffered heavy losses in the previous ninja war, their top fighters were now strong enough to make any ninja village think twice before attacking—including the Raikage!
Though the Fourth Hokage had taken the position, the Third Hokage was still alive.
Jiraiya, Tsunade, Minato Namikaze, Uchiha Shisui, Uchiha Fugaku, and other strong ninjas who fought in the ninja war were all still there.
Konoha's top fighters were not lacking. In fact, they had even more and stronger ninjas than before the Third Ninja World War.
At least from Nagato's point of view, although the Hidden Cloud under this Raikage's leadership was sending signals to the ninja world about starting a war, the other side was actually hesitant.
Otherwise, this time they wouldn't have come with just an elite Cloud ninja squad for a surprise attack—they would have brought the whole ninja army.
"What price did Konoha give you? The Hidden Cloud can offer more!" The electric light around the Raikage's body slowly faded. Even though he knew it was unlikely, he still asked.
Nagato shook his head and did not answer the Raikage.
"This kind of resource struggle and game between big nations is not something a small country like the Land of Rain can get involved in. Konoha is just using you as pawns," the Raikage said, half threatening, half provoking, unwilling to give up.
"At least Konoha respects and supports us," Nagato replied.
After what happened with Hanzo, they no longer trusted the promises of the higher-ups.
But whether it was Kagetsu saving Yahiko, or Jiraiya as their teacher, or Konoha's support for the Land of Rain over the years, Yahiko and the others naturally trusted Konoha more than any other ninja village.
The Land of Rain's development now depended on Konoha.
Neither the Hidden Rock nor the Hidden Cloud had the ability to replace Konoha.
"Hmph." The Raikage snorted in displeasure.
Nagato's unexpectedly strong power cooled down the arrogance the Raikage had gained from his recent strength increase.
But the Gelel Stone mine—he would never give that up.
Even if he had to pull in the very hostile Hidden Rock's Onoki and the Hidden Mist, he would force Konoha to make concessions.
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