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Unfortunately for Dodai, he had been inside the relay base, an environment that worked entirely against him. After all, he had never imagined that members of the Akatsuki would suddenly target him. Theoretically speaking, he should have been perfectly safe within the relay station base. Who could have predicted that this supposedly secure location would become the very trap that sealed his doom?
Thump! Thump!
Hearing the door being struck from the other side, Obito raised an eyebrow slightly. "Finished?"
It appeared so. Dodai's chakra signature had stabilized completely; there were no longer any fluctuations. Under such circumstances, only two possibilities existed: either the man was dead, or he had been knocked unconscious.
Obito manipulated the branches that had been sealing the door, withdrawing them to clear the entrance.
BANG!
With a thunderous crash, the door was violently kicked open from within. Kisame emerged, a playful smirk curling at the corner of his lips, dragging the unconscious Dodai in one hand. "Mission complete. The old man put up a bit of a stubborn fight, but nothing that couldn't be handled."
"Mm." Obito had nothing further to say on the matter. He reached out, seized hold of Dodai, and brought Kisame with him into the Kamui dimension, departing immediately. All that remained behind was the relay station base, still sodden with water stains.
Everyone stationed at the relay base, with the sole exception of Dodai who had been captured, had been killed. Yet the Cloud Village still detected that something was wrong that very same day and immediately dispatched personnel to investigate. One had to understand that the intelligence relay base transmitted a significant volume of information daily. If it suddenly fell completely silent, there was only one explanation: it had been discovered by the enemy and overrun. The Cloud Village's people rushed to the scene to conduct their investigation without delay.
When the Cloud Village personnel arrived, they were stunned by what lay before their eyes. Every person in the entire relay station base had become a corpse. There were almost no lingering signs of prolonged combat; the fighting had concluded with brutal swiftness. It was as though the enemy had materialized right beside them without warning. The interior of the relay base was even more shocking – it looked as though a massive flood had torn through it. Clearly, someone had employed a wide-area Water Style technique within, leaving behind the unmistakable devastation of a flash flood's passage.
Across the entire relay base, aside from the man in charge, Dodai, everyone else had become a corpse. As for Dodai himself, his whereabouts were utterly unknown – no living person to be seen, no dead body to be found.
Who exactly had done this? Was it the Stone Village? That didn't quite seem to fit. After all, the Stone Village had very few ninja proficient in Water Style techniques, and even fewer who could so effortlessly breach the relay base. The investigating ninja gathered all available information but could only choose to report their findings up the chain of command. They had no way to definitively identify the enemy. Since they couldn't lock down the culprits, they would let the higher-ups rack their brains over it.
Dodai was a long-serving elder and meritorious veteran of the village, a man of considerable standing. If something had happened to him, the repercussions would likely be immense. With such a grave matter, no one dared to delay. The intelligence scroll was dispatched to the Cloud Village at maximum speed.
BOOM!!!
A deafening roar reverberated through the Cloud Village under the cover of night, causing the entire Raikage office building to tremble and shake several times. The sudden commotion in the dead of night startled many people. The ninja who had snapped into combat readiness only relaxed after confirming that the disturbance had originated from the Raikage's office building. They then dispersed in small groups, returning to whatever they had been doing. If such a sound had erupted from anywhere else, it would have certainly meant trouble. As for the Raikage's office building... one simply got used to it. After all, generations of Raikage had a habit of breaking things. Every month, several desks in the Raikage's office would end up completely and utterly pulverized. Besides the desks, it was the expensive floor-to-ceiling windows that suffered. Yet each successive Raikage seemed to enjoy standing beside those windows to strike a pose, and when it came time to smash the glass, they never showed the slightest sign of regret.
"Despicable! Are the Intelligence Division and the Anbu all raised on excrement?! They can't even find a single scrap of intelligence or a lead!" After the battlefield reports had reached the village, the Raikage had been roused from sleep. Once he read the scroll, his immediate reaction was to slam his hand down with such force that the unfortunate desk instantly bore the brunt of his wrath. Compared to his usual outbursts, the Raikage had used considerably more power this time.
The intelligence relay base had been compromised. The man in charge, Dodai, had vanished without a trace. No one knew whether he had been captured by the enemy or killed. In short, there was no living man to be seen and no corpse to be found, while everyone else at the base was thoroughly and utterly dead. The battle had been entirely one-sided, the enemy dispatching their victims with contemptuous ease.
"Mabui, does the Stone Village have any ninja who excel in Water Style and possess significant combat power?" In A's memory, the Stone Village truly seemed to have very few ninja proficient in Water Style.
Mabui hastily answered, "Lord Raikage, the ninja of the Stone Village mostly specialize in Earth Style. There are some who are adept at Water Style, but to achieve the results described in the intelligence report... none of those individuals have the necessary strength. I'm afraid the perpetrators may not be from the Stone Village."
"The Mist Village?" A couldn't help but furrow his brow. Though seething with rage, he had not yet lost his reason; his basic capacity for analytical thought remained intact. If one were to suggest the Mist Village was responsible, A's first instinct was to deem it impossible. The Mist Village currently couldn't even handle their old rival, the Sand Village – why on earth would they come provoke the Cloud Village? Most importantly, the Mist Village could barely manage its own affairs; it was highly unlikely they'd do something so self-destructive as lifting a rock only to drop it on their own feet. If they truly angered the Cloud Village and prompted a direct retaliatory strike at their home base, the Mist Village simply could not bear such an outcome. Their ongoing war with the Sand Village had already drained far too much of their energy and resources. The Mist Village had no desire to create trouble on another front.
"Setting aside the Mist Village, then who?" A pressed.
"That leaves the Akatsuki," Mabui analyzed coolly. "The Leaf Village has quite a number of ninja skilled in Water Style, but the Leaf has no reason to move against us. After all, we are allies. Alienating us brings no benefit to the Leaf. Moreover, from what I understand of Uchiha Kazuki, although the man is black-hearted, he will adhere to basic commitments. Therefore, we can cross the Leaf off the list of suspects. Like the Stone Village, the Sand Village also has very little motive. Having eliminated the Leaf, the Sand Village, and the Stone Village, only two suspect targets remain. If we accept that the Mist Village doesn't want to invite more enemies to attack them, then the Akatsuki has the greatest motive of all!"
"The Akatsuki..." A ground his teeth. "Why the Akatsuki and not the Mist Village?"
Mabui strode rapidly on her towering high heels to a cabinet at the side of the room, retrieved a document, and handed it to the Raikage. "Lord Raikage, at present, the Mist Village can't even look after itself. They have no reason to strike against us. If they truly intended to move against us, they would simply launch a direct sneak attack from the rear rather than going onto the battlefield to target Lord Dodai. Judging by the enemy's actions, the Stone Village clearly knows nothing about this, which sufficiently indicates the enemy is not the Mist Village. This document records information on an S-rank rogue ninja from the Mist Village. I suspect he has already joined the Akatsuki."
A opened the file and began to read. After scanning through a few lines, he couldn't help but curse aloud, "Useless, absolutely useless! Among the Five Great Ninja Villages, it's their Mist Village that produces the most traitors and scum!"