Chapter 596: The Complicated Situation
The Shinobi Sect responded faster than Roshi had expected.
"Teacher Sōsuke has agreed to meet you, but he has been extremely busy lately preparing for a major lecture event, so he can only see you after the event is over," Nagato said, relaying Mugetsu's instructions.
"He's holding another unrestricted lecture like last time?" Roshi's heart stirred, and he quickly asked.
Roshi had heard about the previous lecture Sōsuke held, but he had never gone.
First, he had no time then. Second, he had not been interested.
Back then, Roshi had thought Sōsuke definitely would not teach anything truly valuable. At most, he would only talk about some old and basic knowledge.
For a ninja, knowledge truly was power, and in the most literal sense.
Clans capable of consistently producing Bloodline Limits, like the Uchiha and the Hyuga, were rare. Most ninja clans built their foundations by passing down advanced ninja knowledge.
Konoha's Ino Shika Chō, Inuzuka, Aburame, and Sarutobi clans were all examples of ninja clans that had mastered advanced elemental transformation knowledge, which was enough to show how important knowledge was.
Although Mugetsu had not directly taught any specific secret techniques during his lectures, he had explained various elemental transformations from the shallowest principles to the deepest, laying bare the essence of ninjutsu and secret arts.
For ordinary ninja, that kind of knowledge was extremely difficult to access, yet Mugetsu had openly shared it with all the ninja who came to listen.
So after learning the true content of the previous lecture, Roshi's admiration for Mugetsu had deepened greatly. Only someone with extraordinary breadth of mind could do something like that.
"That's right," Nagato nodded.
"This really is a major matter. It is far more important than meeting me," Roshi said seriously.
Although meeting Sōsuke had originally been Roshi's reason for coming to the Land of Rain, if the delay was because of this, then not only did he not mind, he even felt he had been quite lucky.
He had missed the first unrestricted lecture for various reasons, yet now, after coming all the way to the Land of Rain to meet Sōsuke, he had happened to run into the second one. That could only be called good fortune.
"Could it be that he really has no ill intentions toward the Shinobi Sect?" Nagato found Roshi's reaction somewhat surprising.
He then asked Roshi whether he wanted to return to Six Paths City together with him.
Now that the Shinobi Sect had built its own city, such a large event would naturally be held there.
Roshi declined.
There was no point in going to Six Paths City now. He could not meet Sōsuke yet, and the unrestricted lecture had not begun.
He wanted to keep walking there at his own pace, experience the customs and scenery of the Land of Rain along the way, and occasionally help unlucky villages drive off rogue ninja when he came across them.
Nagato did not press the matter after asking once.
With Roshi's chakra, it was impossible for him to run into real trouble on the road.
After parting with Nagato, Roshi resumed his journey through the Land of Rain.
From the northern part of the country, he slowly traveled through the center and then entered the southern region.
Along the way, Roshi could clearly feel the difference between the south and the north.
When he first entered a village in the north, he had run into rogue ninja robbing people. Later, he had even encountered bandits.
But once he entered the south and moved closer to Six Paths City, he no longer saw rogue ninja causing trouble, and not a single bandit or robber appeared. Instead, what he saw were more and more ninja on their way to attend the lecture.
"Sōsuke, who exactly are you?" Roshi carried that question in his heart as he quickened his pace toward the town in the distance.
…
When news spread that Sōsuke would be holding another unrestricted lecture, it caused quite a stir in Amegakure.
Because they were in the Land of Rain and relatively close by, many Rain ninja had attended the first unrestricted lecture.
As for the group of Rain ninja who had avoided going because of the old conflict between Amegakure and the Shinobi Sect, many of them had regretted it after the lecture content became widely known.
Now that the second unrestricted lecture was about to begin, the Rain ninja who had attended the first one wanted to go again, and those who had missed the first one wanted to go as well. As a result, large numbers of Rain ninja began secretly discussing the upcoming lecture.
There were simply too many people talking about it. Even though they were technically being discreet, it was almost no different from discussing it openly.
Some of the higher ups in Amegakure felt this was inappropriate and wanted it suppressed, since it made the whole thing look like a grand event for Amegakure itself.
However, that suggestion was rejected by Lord Hanzō on the grounds that suppressing it would not be beneficial to the stability of the Land of Rain.
In truth, Hanzō did not even need a reason to reject them. Amegakure was his absolute domain, and those so called higher ups would not even dare meet his eyes if he was angry.
Still, Hanzō felt that if he refused without explanation, it would make it seem as though he strongly supported Sōsuke's lecture event and enjoyed attending his lectures.
That, in his opinion, was completely unacceptable.
"Should I go again this time?" Hanzō found himself hesitating.
He wanted to go, yet he also did not want to go.
He wanted to go because Sōsuke truly was knowledgeable and an excellent lecturer. Hanzō was curious about what Sōsuke would teach this time, and whether the quality would be as high as before.
He did not want to go because he was worried Sōsuke would recognize him again.
Last time, he had secretly attended the lecture and been recognized, which had forced him into the Youth Martial Arts Tournament, where he had spent his days either listening to Kakuzu mock him or listening to people praise Fire Dragon Dance before dragging him out to lose face in public.
Even now, Hanzō still did not understand how Sōsuke had recognized him so precisely. There had been so many people at that lecture, and his disguise had been flawless.
Knock knock.
At that moment, someone knocked on the door to Hanzō's office.
"Enter," Hanzō said calmly, looking up.
The Rain ninja who had received permission pushed the door open and walked in. Approaching the desk, he lowered his head, placed a letter on top of it, and said, "Lord Hanzō, this is a letter from the Shinobi Sect."
Hanzō gave a faint nod, and the messenger tactfully withdrew, closing the door behind him.
Hanzō opened the envelope and saw that it had been personally written by Sōsuke.
Its contents were very simple.
It was an invitation to the lecture.
"Could he even guess what I'm thinking right now?" Hanzō's mood became rather complicated.
If this had been an official invitation from the Shinobi Sect, then there would have been no reason for him to hesitate.
The main reason he had disguised himself before was because he had not wanted the ninja of Amegakure to know he was attending.
Although he was somewhat weaker than Sōsuke in battle, he was still the long renowned Demigod of the Ninja World. Openly attending a junior's lecture would feel like bowing his head.
But with a formal invitation, the meaning changed. Then he would merely be giving face out of courtesy.
Even so, Hanzō still could not immediately decide.
If Sōsuke invited him and he simply went along with it, then what would happen to his dignity?
After all, Sōsuke had made his name in the Ninja World by stepping on Hanzō's reputation. Whenever people talked about Sōsuke or his famous techniques, Hanzō was inevitably dragged out as the foil.
In the end, Hanzō picked up a pen and began writing a reply.
Listening to Sōsuke's lecture was a secondary matter.
The primary purpose was to ease the relationship between the Shinobi Sect and Amegakure, and to stabilize the situation in the Land of Rain.
As time passed, news of Sōsuke's second unrestricted lecture spread throughout the Ninja World.
Neighboring countries like the Land of Wind, the Land of Fire, and the Land of Grass heard about it first. More distant places such as the Land of Hot Water and the Land of Lightning learned of it somewhat later.
Perhaps because the previous event had been so successful, even some ninja from the island nation of the Land of Water became interested in the news.
Still, because of distance and circumstance, ninja from beyond the sea rarely took action.
The main force attending the event would still be made up of ninja from the Land of Rain and its neighboring countries.
…
Land of Fire, Konoha Village.
The lecture event that had become a hot topic throughout the Ninja World did not cause much of a stir in Konoha.
A lot of people talked about it, but most treated it as nothing more than an interesting topic. Very few actually wanted to go.
On one hand, Konoha's situation had been tense for quite some time, and many ninja were still stationed on missions at the borders or in small countries, leaving fewer people in the village. On the other hand, Konoha had Mugetsu.
Mugetsu had already taught many people through various training sessions and special classes. By now, through reputation alone, most Konoha ninja knew that Mugetsu possessed extraordinary teaching ability.
Still, while Mugetsu's students showed no particular interest in attending Sōsuke's lecture, one of his disciples was especially eager to go.
"That Sōsuke definitely doesn't teach as well as Teacher Mugetsu," Obito said again during a break in training, repeating a view he had already voiced many times.
He was the one who most wanted to go to the Land of Rain and attend the lecture.
But unlike normal attendees, Obito wanted to go in order to prove that Mugetsu was the greatest teacher of all and expose Sōsuke as a fraud.
"If you want to go, then apply and go. I'm not going," Kakashi said calmly.
Under normal circumstances, Kakashi might have found the time to take a trip to the Land of Rain, especially since the issue of the Akatsuki going astray was also tied to that place.
But recently, after growing much stronger by mastering the Yang Seal, Kakashi's mind was full of nothing but training harder and then challenging Guy.
"I never said I was going," Obito said, glancing around at everyone else's expressions.
Seeing that no one seemed interested in Sōsuke's lecture, he could only temporarily suppress the idea.
Going alone would be too boring.
And if Kakashi and the others stayed behind and used the time to train hard, Obito would feel as if he had missed out badly.
On the other side, in the Root base, Danzo was studying newly obtained intelligence.
In fact, among all Konoha ninja, Danzo was the one paying the most attention to the unrestricted lecture.
But for Danzo, the lecture itself was not the important part.
The true focus was the person and the organization hosting it.
If the event had been organized by Amegakure, Danzo would not have paid nearly this much attention.
"Order our people in the Land of Rain to act quickly and infiltrate Six Paths City while they still can," Danzo decided, recognizing this as an excellent opportunity to gather intelligence on the Shinobi Sect.
With so many ninja heading there for the lecture, and the Shinobi Sect having only a small number of members, mistakes were bound to happen.
Although he had already received information about the sage inheritance from "Uchiha Madara," Danzo was too suspicious by nature to rely on someone else's words alone. He still wanted to investigate the truth personally.
The thought of "Uchiha Madara" made Danzo frown.
Ever since the day they had discussed cooperation, "Uchiha Madara" had never contacted him again, and Danzo had no means of reaching him. That made Danzo feel as though he had been toyed with.
Danzo shook his head.
Regardless of what that masked man was doing, he still had to get his hands on the Rinnegan and the sage inheritance.
Even if he could not obtain the Wood Release that "Uchiha Madara" had promised, Root still had a Wood Release user under its control, so that part was not truly a disaster.
.....
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