Chapter 173: Chapter 175: Gaara: The Enemy Is at Honnō-ji!
"Hoo—yeah!"
Naruto had nearly slipped off Gamabunta’s head, but he caught himself, shifted to a better grip, and clambered up to the top.
"Ha! I was the one who summoned you!"
He straightened his forehead protector, face lit with triumph.
"Ha? You got any idea whose head you’re standing on, hollering like that?!" Gamabunta’s mouth fell open. "I’m the great Gamabunta! What makes a little runt like you think you can summon me?!"
"Uwah!"
Gamabunta only had to say one word, and the force of that one enormous breath nearly blasted Naruto clean off.
"This guy... so big... the wind pressure alone..."
"Hey! Jiraiya! Jiraiya!"
Gamabunta grabbed Jiraiya’s leg and gave him a good shaking, but Jiraiya refused to wake up.
Well, of course. If he woke up now, he’d be the one dying.
"Tch."
After establishing that Jiraiya was a lost cause, Gamabunta turned his gaze back up to Naruto. "A rare trip to the mortal world, and Jiraiya goes and passes out on me. On top of that, some random little brat crawls up my head."
"I keep telling you, I was the one who summoned you!"
Naruto hauled himself right up in front of Gamabunta again.
"Hmm... Bwahahahahaha!"
Gamabunta burst out laughing—the whole sky around them trembled.
He casually tossed Jiraiya aside. "You got any idea what you’re saying? A shrimp like you, summon me?"
"Hahahahaha! Hahahaha!" Gamabunta was losing it.
Naruto had run out of patience. "You great big toad! You’ve been talking at me this whole time and not listening to a word I say! I summoned you with the Summoning Technique—that makes me your master! So get over here and do what I tell you!"
[We’re toast]
[We’re so cooked]
[Naruto, just transform into Naruko already]
[But the other side is a frog?]
[Emm... Toad-Naruko?]
[Oh god—NO—]
[Take it away! That is not what we came here to see, I tell you!]
"Bwahaha, you’ve never even had a drink in your life, and you want to be the great Gamabunta’s master?! Zip it!"
Hanabi had already retreated to a comfortable distance.
But the broadcast still had a clear view of this whole scene.
She could tell that despite everything Gamabunta was saying, he’d actually confirmed long ago that it was Naruto who’d summoned him. He was just messing with the kid.
"Now listen here, brat. Even if I grant you—against all reason, one million steps against all reason—that you summoned me. You nearly slid right off me just now. I will never acknowledge someone like that as my master."
"Since I’ve gone to the trouble of being summoned, I might as well catch up with Jiraiya. You—shrimp—go home and take a nap. Bwahaha!"
And with that, Gamabunta turned around.
"Hey! Hey!" Naruto got mad at the taunting and rushed right to the front of Gamabunta’s head. "Fine—you want me to not fall off? I’ll stay up here all day then! So if that’s your condition, then I’m going to be right here on your head all day long!"
"I tried speaking nicely to you and you wouldn’t listen, you little brat! Get down here!"
Gamabunta started shaking his head. He leaped and bounded off toward a distant forest. Even just the shockwave from the landing sent a hurricane tearing through the trees.
"Hoo hoo hoo hoo—lucky I thought fast, played dead and fooled old Gamabunta."
It was only now that Jiraiya peeled himself off the ground, a little disheveled but in good spirits.
"Right, now—time to collect some material, material~"
"Jiraiya-sama~"
But Jiraiya hadn’t taken two steps before a voice stopped him.
"Ah, Hanabi, was it. Still something you need? Naruto’s little bet—there’s not much I can do about that one."
While the audience’s view shifted to another location, the Stage cut to a different scene.
This was Kikyō Castle, just outside the village of Konoha.
In the original story, this was meant to be where the proctor of the third exam, Hayate Gekko, would meet his end.
But this time around, Kabuto Yakushi was still at the hospital "recuperating," his identity as a spy still undisclosed. The whole sequence of events—Kakashi pursuing Kabuto, everything that followed—simply hadn’t happened.
In fact, many things had already changed.
For instance: today was only the second day of training, yet Naruto had already summoned Gamabunta three and a half weeks ahead of where the original story had it.
But Hanabi had long since thrown the original script out the window, so this sort of thing didn’t bother her at all.
However it goes, the more spectacular the better.
"...The enemy is right here—within our own country!"
The Sand Siblings were in discussion.
And Kankuro’s line was the opening of this scene.
[The enemy is right here—within our own clan!]
[People keep spamming this, what even is this reference?]
[It’s a Sengoku Rance reference—rare game. The very first scenario is literally called that]
[What?? Someone actually remembers that old game? Wild]
[Wait, isn’t this the "enemy at Honnō-ji" thing though?]
The audience was off on their tangent.
The three Sand Siblings, meanwhile, all wore serious expressions.
"Nothing from Baki?" Temari asked tensely.
Kankuro shook his head.
After witnessing Hanabi’s abilities for themselves, both Kankuro and Temari had privately decided to back out.
But even after Kankuro relayed Hanabi’s situation to Baki, Baki had held firm: the original plan stands.
Baki had even floated the idea of abducting Hanabi—given that she seemed capable of "calming" Shukaku, that kind of asset could be valuable.
Kankuro and Temari, needless to say, did not share this view.
Baki was a jōnin of the Hidden Sand, bound entirely by the Kazekage’s orders.
The most he’d agreed to was reporting the situation up the chain. But that was something he’d have passed along anyway as an unexpected development.
"If we go forward with the original plan, Konoha might already know," Temari said.
"Based on intel from the Sound’s agents, though, nothing like that has happened."
The Hidden Sound was the one who’d planned this whole operation. The Hidden Sand was just the executor—and heavily dependent on Sound intelligence.
"Something about this whole thing has been off from the start." Temari frowned. "But is it really okay to keep going like this..."
She trailed off and glanced over at Gaara.
Gaara seemed to not have been paying attention to either of them. He was just letting sand flow through his fingers, over and over. Lost in his own thoughts.
—Is the protection this sand gives me really not Shukaku’s power?
"I need to find that person and get some answers."
He wanted another fight with Hanabi.
"What do we do about the plan, though?" Kankuro was uncertain.
"Doesn’t matter." Gaara showed no interest in it whatsoever. "If every problem traces back to the Wind Daimyo—then just kill him. That solves it."
Neither Kankuro nor Temari said a word.
Gaara had just spoken aloud what everyone in the Hidden Sand knew but no one dared say.
The one responsible for the Hidden Sand’s current predicament was the Wind Daimyo himself.
A man who had weakened his own country’s defense forces, then outsourced their work to a neighboring village, funneling money straight to the enemy—an astonishing "benefactor."
The enemy is at Honnō-ji.
And the enemy inside that Honnō-ji is the Wind Daimyo.
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