Chapter 205 Tripartite Talks
The night before the formal meeting, Jiraiya received a message from the Hokage Building.

After carefully reading the contents of the letter, Jiraiya looked extremely solemn. He slammed his palm hard on the table, leaving a clear palm print on it.

A few days ago, he reported intelligence to the village in order to get support from the village.

Unexpectedly, within these few days, a major event happened in the village. His best friend, Orochimaru, one of the three ninjas, actually attacked his companions in the village and chose to defect.

He couldn't understand why Orochimaru would attack his companions and why he chose to defect.

If he was not the front-line commander of Kumogakure at this moment, he would really abandon his responsibilities to find Orochimaru and ask him why he left the village.

Nara Shikaku and others noticed Jiraiya's expression, their eyes full of suspicion.

Jiraiya sighed softly, and then said, "I received a letter from the Third Hokage Sensei saying that they cannot send more people to support the front line because Orochimaru has left the village."

"Orochimaru left the village?"

The Konoha ninjas present were slightly stunned, and then quickly understood what Jiraiya meant. Orochimaru's departure was probably Jiraiya's euphemism, and the real situation was most likely that Orochimaru had defected.

But why did Orochimaru defect?
Seeing the puzzled looks on their faces, Jiraiya directly pushed the letter to them. After passing it around, their expressions gradually became solemn.

There are two main reasons why Orochimaru defected.

First, he attacked his fellow villagers and robbed them of their blood. Second, he secretly conducted wood escape experiments, violating the village's ban.

In any case, Orochimaru has now become a traitor and is wanted by the village.

After hearing the news, the expressions of Nara Shikaku and others became a little gloomy, and they were deeply worried about the future of the village.

Orochimaru is not only a powerful ninja, but also one of the three best ninjas in the village. He has at least dozens of ninjas serving him, and his force is no less powerful than that of the ninja clan.

After Orochimaru defected, even if these ninjas did not defect with him, they would be monitored and tortured because of their identities as Orochimaru's subordinates, further depleting the village's already limited strength.

When someone is worried, someone else is happy.

Orochimaru's defection was a huge bad thing for Jiraiya and Ino-Shika-Chou, but it was a good thing for the Uchiha.

Orochimaru's defection means that the strength of the Hokage line has been further weakened.

As one grows stronger, the other shrinks, and the Uchiha's strength is already very close to that of the Hokage series, and the probability of a Hokage appearing will be greatly increased.

Despite his ecstasy, Fugaku still looked worried and said, "Master Jiraiya, what should we do next?"

Jiraiya looked at Fugaku and said helplessly: "We can only take it one step at a time. If we can't gain more benefits, we must at least ensure peace with Kumogakure."

Hearing Jiraiya's sigh, all the Konoha ninjas present fell into silence.

They knew that what Jiraiya said was true. With Orochimaru's defection, Konoha really did not have much confidence to fight for the interests of the Land of Hot Springs.

Even if the Hidden Rain Village had not forcibly intervened, Konoha might have lost the war.

……

The next morning, a tripartite meeting between Konoha, Kumogakure and Amegakure was held in the meeting room of Yugakure Village.

As the host, the leader of Tangyin sat in the main seat, waiting for representatives from all parties to come on stage to discuss how to deal with the country of Tang.

When he thought of this, the leader of Yuyin felt a little sad. He was the leader of Yuyin Village, and this meeting was also discussing the future fate of Yu Country, but the protagonist of this meeting was not him, but Konoha and Kumogakure Village.

This is the tragedy of a small country. In peacetime, it can enjoy prosperity and development, but in wartime, it can only become a chessboard for the five major ninja villages to play against each other.

After sighing softly, Leader Tangyin looked towards the area where the Yuyin sign was placed, with a hint of envy in his eyes.

It is also a small ninja village outside the five major ninja villages.

The Hidden Rain Village is not as good as the Hidden Water Village in terms of land area or economy, but the Hidden Rain Village has the strength to compete with the big ninja villages, and even forced back the war between Konoha and Hidden Cloud Village not long ago.

It would be great if Tangyin Village had such strength.

Not long after, Konoha, Kumogakure and Amegakure appeared outside the meeting room.

The leading ninja of the Cloud Village has not changed, it is still the Fourth Raikage, followed by Killer Bee, Darui and other Iwagakure jonin.

The leading ninja of Konoha was still Jiraiya, followed by Fugaku, Hizashi and others.

Seeing this scene, the Fourth Raikage frowned and said to Jiraiya unceremoniously:

"Jiraiya, it seems that you Konoha are not very interested in this peace talk. Not only did the Third Hokage not come, but even the other elders did not come. Are they too old to walk?"

Hearing this, Jiraiya stopped and said, "Teacher is in good health, so don't bother the Raikage to worry about him. As for why he didn't come to the peace talks, maybe he thought it wasn't very important."

Under normal circumstances, Jiraiya would never say such a thing.

But when he came, Nara Shikaku told him that he had to show a tough attitude in order not to arouse the suspicion of the Raikage.

It is necessary to sign a treaty that is beneficial to Konoha before the news of Orochimaru's defection spreads.

The Fourth Raikage stared at Jiraiya for a while, then said in a cold tone: "Jiraiya, you seem very confident. I hope you can maintain this confidence in the negotiations later."

"Although Hanzo sent people to forcibly stop the war between us, he may not necessarily stand on the side of your Konoha. Maybe the next one to wage war against you will be the Hidden Rain Village."

As soon as these words were spoken, the atmosphere between Konoha and Kumogakure became much more solemn.

What the Fourth Raikage said was right, the war between Konoha and Kumogakure was forcibly stopped. Although both sides were considering signing a peace agreement at this moment, they had mobilized a large number of ninjas.

It is not impossible to return to a state of war the next moment.

At this time, the Rain Village ninja also arrived outside the meeting room. After hearing the Fourth Raikage's speech, Bai Ye said in a deep voice:

"Why did Raikage-sama try to sow discord between Amegakure and Konoha while I was away?"

"Could it be that the always upright Raikage-sama has also become sinister and cunning? This is not in line with the style of the Hidden Cloud Village."

The Fourth Raikage glanced at Bai Ye. He didn't want to pay attention to this sharp-tongued boy.

As for Bai Ye's words that the Hidden Cloud Village is upright, he felt that this was like Bai Ye's mockery of the Hidden Cloud Village. After all, their style of behavior was similar to that of a rogue.

The Hidden Cloud Village once kidnapped Uzumaki Kushina in peacetime and destroyed a small country for chakra technology.

(End of this chapter)