Kapitel 235: Negotiations
Jiro was getting impatient as his men were trying to take the debris aside and make a clear way to get into the part of the warehouse where today's supplies were kept. "What the hell is happening inside?" Jiro fumed. He then heard someone running behind him.
He turned back and saw it was none other than Priest Ji.
"What the hell just happened?" Ji asked as he saw the collapsed entrance. Jiro looked at him and said asked "It is your people who went inside and you are asking me?" Ji felt insulted when Jiro said that he couldn't say anything so he just swallowed the insult and started throwing debris around. As another fanatic of Jashin, he had tremendous strength.
He was able to clear a small entrance quickly and the whole group reached inside. As they went in, the smell of foul blood assaulted their noses. They looked around and saw the corpses of the hooded figures laying in a pool of blood.
'What the hell…how is this even possible? Each of them holds the strength of a mid-chunin rank shinobi. His eyes then fell on the dried corpse that lay in the middle. Ji along with Jiro walked ahead and saw the dried corpse.
"Who is this?" Jiro asked as he looked at Ji.
Ji took some seconds to recognize his own teacher but by the scythe that was fallen near the body and some of the Jashin tattoos he knew that this man was none other than his own teacher. He couldn't believe his eyes as his teacher who had stepped on a mountain of corpses to reach here was lying dead.
'WHO…who did this? Who is capable of countering sensei's absorption technique? It was a blessing given by Lord Jashin' Ji thought. He went ahead to touch the corpse and as soon as his fingers touched, the entire corpse collapsed.
Ji looked around and saw that the crates in which the hearts were stored. They didn't have a single jar inside. Even the supplies were gone.
"I will look into this." Ji said in a calm tone and left the warehouse.
"What do you mean by look into this? After all this mess? Where are you going?" Jiro barraged him with questions but Ji didn't say a thing. He just kept walking and left the scene of the crime. He was fuming inside and wanted to tear apart Jiro and everyone around him. He knew that his religion needed more time to bear their fangs so he couldn't fight against Jiro and the stone shinobis now.
"ugh..this worthless fanatic needs to be shown his place." Jiro said as he kept looking in the direction that Ji had gone. He then turned back to the blooded scene in front of him and ordered his men to find anything that would help him find a clue.
One of Jiro's bodyguards came near him and said "Lord Jiro, the roof has a small opening. We think the attacker entered and left from there."
Jiro looked at the bodyguard with anger and asked "Why was the warehouse not properly secured?"
The guard moved a step back and said "Lord the warehouse is in the middle of our camp and except for our usual supplies, we never kept anything here. Except for shielding against tough weather, there was never any need to secure this warehouse."
Jiro just clenched his fingers and left the warehouse as well. 'I need to go to Moji and get him to end this cold war once and for all. This is stretching too long now.' Jiro thought as he left.
By this time Yami had already left the stone shinobi's camp and was moving toward the bloodline clan's area.
By disguising himself many times as different people, Yami reached the bloodline clans. He reached one of the isolated places where only the drunkards hang out after work. Taking cover behind a big rock, pulled out a piece of paper and started writing everything he wanted to Tsunade. At first, he was confident to turn the Mizukage faction hollow from the inside. He didn't think the intervention of the hidden stone would cause a big problem but now seeing how committed they were, what Jiro's ambitions were, and who his allies were, Yami wasn't sure to win this conflict on his terms while keeping casualties on the bloodline clans side to the minimum.
Neither the bloodline clans nor the Mizukage faction knew how far Jiro was willing to take things. After writing the letter, Yami made a few hand signs and summoned the fat bat. He then pulled out the scroll which contained the destroyed hearts which the Jashin fanatics liked to call demon hearts. He put the scroll inside the bat's mouth and tied the letter to the bat's legs.
As the bat left with the letter in the direction of the hidden leaf, Yami also headed in the direction of the Terumi clan's prisons. It was time to step up things. As he was walking through the streets he heard some people whispering. Using his enhanced hearing the first sentence he heard was "The Mizukage's faction has sent an envoy to the Terumi clan for negotiations."
Yami stopped his advance and smiled internally as he thought 'So you chose to negotiate with the bloodline clans instead of the hidden leaf…good choice.'
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Terumi Mansion.
Outside the Terumi Mansion, was heavily guarded by Shinobis with the same headband but different uniforms. Some were the guards from the Mizukage faction while the other were from the bloodline clans.
Everyone was on edge as to what was going to happen. Inside the Mansion, All the clan heads from the bloodline clans sat on one side of the table while 3 people sat on the other side. Leaning along the walls of the Mansion were everyone the Bloodline clan leaders trusted including Mei, AO, Chojuro, Enko, Elder Wu, the Terumi siblings, and the advisors of the other clan leaders.
The people sitting in front of them were Moji along with two people. One of those was the same purple-eyed man whose squad had headed the operation to kidnap Yami.
"I thought that Hari was the envoy when we got the letter. I didn't expect you to personally come here disguised as a guard, Moji." The Terumi Clan Patriarch Yoshiro said.
At first, when the envoy came the surrounding was a little tense but the clan leaders knew that this day would come. They knew what cards Moji held now so they were a little ready to negotiate but after entering the mansion, the ambassador stepped aside and one of the guards pulled off his mask and it turned out to be Moji. This was a little shocking for them. A leader of a faction going inside another faction so openly could be either confident, brave, or simply foolish and all the clan leaders knew that Moji was definitely not foolish.
Moji didn't say anything and looked at Asami who was little at Yoshiro's left side and said "It has been a while Asami...how about we get married and end this conflict here?" Moji asked in a teasing tone.
Asami just waved her hand and said "Not even with my dead body Moji."
As if he expected that answer, Moji just chuckled. Seeing him like this the clan leaders became a little nervous. The confidence Moji was displaying in their midst was way more than they expected.
"What do you want Moji?" Riko asked to which Moji looked at him as if looking at a kid and said "Always the impatient one, aren't you Riko?"
The taunt was obviously to Rile up Riko and it worked like a charm. Riko was about to get up from his chair but the old man stopped him and made him calm down.
The old man looked at Moji and asked "If you are here to waste time then I'd suggest you go and prepare for the battle that is about to come Moji"
Moji's laughing face suddenly became serious as he heard the old man say. He tilted his neck and said "Do you really think you could handle fighting all of us together old man?"
"What do you mean all of us?" Yoshiro asked.
"Don't act like you don't know anything Yoshiro...You know that I have the backing of the hidden stone and the Mizukage himself wants me to win. On top of that I have a chess piece that will prove as my trump card." he said the last part in a playful way.
Yoshiro didn't say anything so Moji continued talking "I don't want to waste more time on this so I will be clear. I know that you have 3 hidden leaf spies in your custody and we both know that the leader of those spies has a nephew who is currently with me."
"Are you naive enough to threaten us with a civilian's life Moji?" the old man asked. He wasn't someone who would give up so easily.
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Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
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