Chapter 381 High-Level Meeting
The search for the Third Hokage lasted for several hours, but the Konoha ninjas still failed to find any trace of the Third Hokage.

Although they still insisted on looking for the Third Hokage, they already had the answer in their hearts.

It is impossible for a powerful ninja like the Third Hokage to disappear for no reason at a time like this. It is very likely that he was ambushed by the enemy and sacrificed himself to protect the village.

Similar situations have occurred before.

The fourth generation couple disappeared while trying to protect Konoha, and were eventually confirmed dead.

After sighing softly, the Anbu captain ordered his men to continue searching for the Third Hokage while sending the information to the Hokage Building for the Konoha high-level officials to review.

At this time, the Konoha’s top leaders were in a state of panic.

Not only do they have to deal with the mess left by Orochimaru's attack, they also have to appease the politicians and wealthy businessmen who are taking the Chunin Exam. If they cannot give an explanation to this group of people, the future of Konoha will become even more difficult.

The task of dealing with these politicians and wealthy businessmen naturally fell to Utane Koharu and Mitomon En.

Although the two men could not be said to be very experienced, they were able to handle the matter with ease due to their seniority and age. After a few sets of words, they managed to appease these politicians and wealthy businessmen.

Jiraiya cleared out the Otonin and rebel ninja hiding in Konoha, and presided over the Chunin Exam at the same time.

After experiencing such a major change, the Chunin Exam naturally could not continue to be held. Fortunately, the top eight had all been selected in the previous competition, which showed the strength of the younger generation.

After receiving the information from the ANBU captain, Jiraiya sighed softly.

Although he was reluctant to admit it, Jiraiya understood that the probability of the Third Generation Sensei being alive was very low. In order to kill the teacher, Orochimaru did not hesitate to arrange assassins to ambush the teacher in advance, and even used the Impure World Reincarnation Technique.

Having committed such a serious mistake, he could no longer convince himself to forgive Orochimaru.

After some time has passed, when the village has a new acting Hokage, he will set out to actively look for Orochimaru and bring him to the old man's spirit to confess his guilt.

Just then, an assistant Hokage found Jiraiya and reminded him to attend the high-level meeting.

Jiraiya frowned slightly, but nodded. He was not interested in noisy high-level meetings, but he knew that he had to attend this high-level meeting.

After arriving at the meeting room, Jiraiya found that there were four people in total, including himself.

The other three are a pair of consultants and Danzo, the leader of the Root organization. They are also the core layer of Konoha at present. The other ninjas, even the elite Jonin, are not qualified to attend this meeting.

The content of this impromptu meeting was very simple. It was to discuss who should be the acting Hokage and the candidate for the Fifth Hokage.

Before Jiraiya could speak, the two advisors spoke first:
"Jiraiya, Sarutobi is currently missing, so you have to take on the role of acting Hokage. Only you can shoulder this responsibility."

"..." Jiraiya was silent for a few seconds, then nodded.

Shisui did not stop the advisory duo from making their suggestions and acquiesced to their decision.

After a few words, they confirmed the candidate for the acting Hokage, and then they started a new round of discussion. This time the topic was much more free.

After a moment's silence, Mizutomon Yan said slowly:

"The foreign guests' emotions have basically stabilized. They will not ask Konoha for additional compensation. However, the number of commissions we receive from them in the future will definitely decrease."

Hearing this, Jiraiya and Utane Koharu nodded slightly.

The failure in the Chunin Exam and the disappearance of the Third Hokage had a huge impact on Konoha. Not only would employers doubt the ability of Konoha ninjas to do things, but even the daimyo would threaten Konoha ninjas to reduce military spending.

Shisui chuckled, then said: "I have long said that those outsiders are unreliable. If Konoha wants to become strong, it must replace those wealthy businessmen and nobles and own its own industry."

Faced with Shisui's ridicule, the duo of advisors were somewhat helpless.

The Root, which used to be a training school for ANBU, needed funding from the Hokage Building to maintain itself, but ever since the Third Hokage disbanded the Root last time, the Root has begun to find new ways and new sources of funding.

Although it is nominally affiliated with the Anbu, it is actually semi-independent from the Konoha Ninja.

Ignoring Shisui's remarks, the duo of advisors pulled out the village's damage and casualty reports and passed them around to each other for review.

Judging from the data in the report, although Konoha's losses this time are serious, they are within an acceptable range.

Because the battlefield was located outside the city and in the Death Forest, the city of Konoha did not suffer much damage, and the ninjas participating in the operation did not suffer too many casualties.

Apart from some unlucky guys who were killed by unknown attacks, Konoha's biggest loss was the Third Hokage.

And losing this old and stubborn Hokage did not seem to be a bad thing for the village, since the Third Hokage would die sooner or later at his age anyway.

It is better to die in the war to protect Konoha than to die on a hospital bed.

From this point of view, Orochimaru is not really here just to kill the Third Hokage and give his teacher a decent ending.

Putting aside the ridiculous thoughts in their minds, they began to discuss the reconstruction work.

Thanks to the existence of Wood Release Yamato, rebuilding the buildings is not a difficult task. It will only take a few weeks at most to restore Konoha to its original state.

After the discussion lasted for half an hour, the meeting finally came to the last topic, which was the selection of the fifth generation.

Jiraiya, who temporarily took over the position of Hokage, was naturally the best candidate for the Fifth Hokage. Whether in terms of contribution, qualifications or identity, Jiraiya perfectly met the requirements to become Hokage.

But Jiraiya explicitly refused to become the fifth generation, and took the initiative to propose the idea of ​​hunting down Orochimaru.

But apart from Jiraiya, there is no one in the village who is suitable to be Hokage.

Seeing that the atmosphere was a little awkward, Shisui imitated Danzo's tone and said, "Since the position of the fifth generation is still undecided, why not let me become the fifth generation."

“Although I am not as good as the first and second generations, I am still good enough to stabilize the current situation.”

As soon as these words were spoken, they were rejected by the two advisors as expected. For the members of the Tobirama Guard, anyone could become Hokage except Danzo.

In other words, Shisui doesn't care about the position of Hokage, otherwise it would be too depressing to bring in Danzo's perspective.

After working so hard for Konoha for so many years, he was never even nominated for Hokage once. He is a loser on the road to becoming Hokage.

Logically speaking, Danzo, who is also a loser, should cooperate with Uchiha.

But Danzo just kept targeting Uchiha, causing both sides to fall into the abyss and never be able to become Hokage. It has to be said that this was a bad fate.

After more than ten seconds, Jiraiya said: "How about we find Tsunade. I think Tsunade is more suitable to be the Hokage than me."

The two advisors looked at each other and nodded. For now, they could only do as Jiraiya said.

...When the Konoha high-level officials started an emergency meeting, the Konoha Jonin team also gathered together.

The captain of the jonin squad is Nara Shikaku, the patriarch of the Nara clan, and the rest are all young and strong jonin. They are the jonin closest to the core of power except for the Konoha high-level officials.

At this time they gathered together and looked at their captain, Nara Shikaku.

In the absence of Konoha's top brass, Nara Shikaku is their backbone, able to tell them what is happening in the village and what to do next.

Nara Shikaku was also straightforward and stated his speculation.

He felt that this time the rebel ninja Orochimaru and the rebel ninja Rasa attacked the Konoha Village, and Orochimaru's main goal was to kill the Third Hokage and prove that his path was not wrong.

Luo Sha’s goal is intriguing.

As a traitorous Kazekage, Rasa had no reason to attack Konoha. If he wanted to regain the position of the Fourth Kazekage, he should have taken advantage of the departure of the Red Sand Scorpion to attack the Sand Village.

But Rasa stayed with Orochimaru and attacked the Konoha Village together.

This is most likely the plan of Rasa and Scorpion, the purpose of which is to weaken the strength of Konoha Village and make Konoha Village voluntarily abolish the treaty signed with Sand Village.

Considering Luo Sha's former identity as the Kazekage, this possibility is very high.

But it is not ruled out that Rasa did this on purpose to create suspicion between Konoha and the Sand Village, so that when he returns to the Sand Village in the future, he will be without the help of Konoha.

And more importantly, Nara Shikaku suspected that this matter was related to the masked man.

Although the masked man has not yet appeared in the Chunin Exam, considering that the masked man once secretly controlled the Fourth Mizukage for many years, the probability of him secretly influencing the Chunin Exam is very high.

After hearing this, the Konoha Jonins present were very worried about the future of Konoha.

Although the crisis of Konoha's collapse has ended, a new crisis is brewing. Do they really have the ability to continue to protect Konoha?

Among the crowd, Asuma Sarutobi was very anxious.

He is the son of the Third Hokage. He has been very rebellious since he was a child and hates the monotonous life of the second generation. After clashing with his father many times, he ran to the daimyo's mansion and became a guardian jonin.

Now as he grows older, he gradually understands his father and has always wanted to reconcile.

But before he could apologize, his father, the Third Hokage, had disappeared and even his body was never found.

Might Guy looked at Kakashi on the side, his eyes full of confusion. He was naturally very sorry for the disappearance of the Third Hokage, but he still remembered what Kakashi had said before.

Kakashi once asked him whether Konoha Village was more important or the Hokage was more important. From this point of view, Kakashi seemed to have known that something would happen to the Hokage.

Although the jonin squad had already received intelligence about Orochimaru's lurking existence, he still felt that Kakashi was acting strange.

Walking up to Kakashi, Might Guy whispered, "Kakashi, do you know something? Is the Third Hokage dead or alive?"

Kakashi glanced at Might Guy and said, "I don't know either. I hope nothing happened to him."

In fact, Kakashi has been in a state of confusion. He has always thought that after the disappearance of the Third Hokage, Master Kushina would come forward to take charge of the situation, but he did not expect that Master Kushina has not come forward until now.

This may be because of Obito, or it may be because of Byakuya.

Might Guy glanced at Kakashi but didn't ask too many questions. He believed what Kakashi said and could see from his eyes that Kakashi was not lying.

Even if Kakashi is hiding something, Kakashi will tell him when the time comes.

This is the bond between him and Kakashi, a promise of youth.

If Kakashi knew what Might Guy was thinking, he would probably smile bitterly, because he didn't know what the future of Konoha would be.

……

In the training ground, Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura gathered together.

Sakura felt very scared just thinking back to the grand scenes that took place during the Chunin Exam. Did the fights between those jonin really fall within the realm of ninjas?
I am just a Genin, why do I encounter so many monsters every time?

If I encounter this kind of monster again while carrying out a mission in the future, will I be able to survive to complete the mission?

Thinking of this, Sakura looked at Naruto and Sasuke, and her mood became even more complicated.

Before graduation, Sakura knew that her strength was not as good as Naruto and Sasuke. She originally thought it was because she did not receive guidance from the senior ninja.

But as time went on, she found that she, Naruto, and Sasuke were becoming stronger and stronger.

The opponent that I had to fight hard to defeat was no match for Naruto and Sasuke. What should I do to catch up with them and not become a burden?

Thinking of this, Sakura hid under a tree alone and began to become autistic.

After Naruto and Sasuke looked at each other, Naruto was the first to ask: "Sasuke, do you want to have a sparring match between us to see who has made greater progress?"

Sasuke nodded and agreed to Naruto's proposal.

After the two sides signed the corresponding seal, they began to compete in the open space.

During the sparring, Naruto turned to Sasuke and asked, "Sasuke, where is the Third-Kai now? When are you going to leave with Orochimaru?"

Sasuke showed a surprised look: "Naruto, how do you know that I have a connection with Orochimaru?"

Naruto said disapprovingly: "Your strength has increased so quickly these days, it must be closely related to the curse seal left by Orochimaru. If nothing unexpected happens, you will definitely leave Konohagakure."

"You will pay any price to defeat Uchiha Itachi."

Hearing this, Sasuke shook his head gently: "I'm sorry to disappoint you. I do want to find Orochimaru, but not to take revenge on Uchiha Itachi, but for other purposes..."

Naruto frowned, then said, "What's the purpose?"

Sasuke spoke up: "In order to become Hokage, after defeating Uchiha Itachi, I will become your rival. I also want to become Hokage."

Naruto was stunned at first, then he smiled and said: "I will not give up the Hokage to you, but if you insist on following Orochimaru, you must be careful, Orochimaru is not a good person."

After a pause, Naruto continued, "By the way, Sasuke, when are you Uchiha going to step forward? Stop covering it up?"

(End of this chapter)