Sword skills and lightning element.
Everyone in the room tried to remember if there was anyone remarkable in the world with those characteristics, but they couldn't remember anyone.
Whether ninjas or samurai, there were no notable swordsmen currently on the continent of the elemental nations.
Not even in the land of iron has such a formidable samurai appeared, and they wondered about his identity.
The last shinobi with those characteristics was Hatake Sakumo, the White Fang of Konoha, but even then there are no records of the man destroying a mountain in this way.
The fact that someone with that level of power could be walking around the land of fire without them knowing it was worrying.
"The Daimyo has not asked us to find the person who destroyed this mountain."
"But he will not be prosecuted as a criminal."
"The Daimyo wishes to extend an invitation to you to join the 12 ninja guardians."
Everyone in the room nodded, relieved not to have to send their ninjas into a suicidal battle.
"Of course, the main mission remains to find the foundations of this mysterious organization."
"Finding this swordsman is secondary."
This time it was the Third Hokage who spoke and the others nodded in agreement.
This swordsman was powerful, and it was clearly not convenient for the Hokage to have someone so powerful joining the Daimyo's forces.
After all, the village is financially dependent on the Daimyo and would receive less money if the Daimyo had such a powerful shinobi or samurai under his command to order around.
After a few more minutes, the meeting ended and the clan leaders and the 2 advisors left the room.
The only one who stayed in the room was Hiruzen, who was smoking a pipe and a name appeared in his mind.
'Danzo'
Knowing his friend, Danzo's name was the first that came to mind when he learned about this organization with a base so close to the capital of the land of fire.
Although he ordered him to disband Root after the Uchiha clan massacre, Hiruzen knew his friend too well to know that he would not comply with the order.
But since he knew that sooner or later he would need Root again, Hiruzen didn't pursue the matter further and wasn't bothered by Danzo.
As long as he doesn't cause any problems, Hiruzen won't be bothered by him.
Of course, it now seemed that his friend had not been lazy during the past few years, as he had apparently expanded his organization aggressively and built so many bases in the land of fire.
He even had 200 children in one of them training to join Root, and they definitely wouldn't be the only ones.
Hiruzen could already guess that there were many Root bases throughout the Land of Fire training the same number of children to turn them into ninjas loyal to Danzo.
Thinking about the loss of such an important base, Hiruzen laughed at his friend's misfortune.
Did Hiruzen feel threatened by Root?
Not at all.
Besides the fact that Root's numbers were minuscule compared to the thousands of Leaf Village ninjas under his command, Root's selection of ninjas is drastically reduced under his training and selection method.
Because they were so brutal, the number of ninjas under his friend's command was small.
And to lessen the danger, it's unlikely Danzo will be able to get a powerful ninja under his command.
After all, the orphans Danzo trains at Root are mostly untalented civilians, so most of them will only be Genin for the rest of their lives and few will ever reach Chunin.
The few Jonin that Danzo had under his command were from ninja clans of the village and were few in number.
Therefore, Hiruzen did not feel threatened.
Now the only thing that worried him was the appearance of such a powerful variable in the land of fire.
Reviewing the photographs Shikaku left behind, the man had to admit that he had doubts about confronting someone like that.
After all, he's not young anymore.
His peak period was long past, and he didn't have much confidence in facing such a powerful swordsman head-on.
If this variable became an enemy of the Leaf Village, he had to devise a plan to overwhelm it or rely on forbidden techniques to defeat it.
Even if that meant his death, he would not feel at ease in the afterlife knowing that the village had such a powerful enemy.
.
.
.
And as Hiruzen suspected, Danzo was furious at this moment.
And not only because of Root's destroyed base as Hiruzen thought, but also because of the other 2 training bases in nearby cities and the taverns where Root receives assassination missions.
And if that wasn't enough, he received numerous reports of losses across the country every few hours.
Having previously wrecked a room, the old man stopped to rest and continued analyzing the information Root was able to gather about this attack.
And it was practically nothing.
I didn't know if it was a single person or a group behind the Root attack.
All Root could gather for himself was a list of powerful ninjas and samurai within the land of fire and the likelihood that they were responsible for the attack.
But this information was of no use to Danzo because everyone had less than a 30% chance of being the perpetrator of the attack.
Besides never having shown similar abilities or being strong enough, it could be confirmed that most of them were far from the capital of the land of fire at that time.
Danzo could only grunt in frustration because he had many enemies and couldn't say for sure who had attacked one of his bases.
It could be another village or even Hiruzen himself who led ANBU to attack Root.
But Danzo didn't want to believe his latest conjecture because he didn't want to believe that Hiruzen had such a powerful subordinate.
The worst part is that he would soon run out of time to continue personally investigating the perpetrator of this attack, as his organization had been exposed and the entire country would be searching for traces of his bases.
Danzo could only let his subordinates continue investigating while he dealt with the disaster.
Just thinking about moving all the bases from their places, destroying them to leave no evidence, and hiding all of Root's ninjas until all this commotion is over, gave Danzo a massive headache.
.
.
.
Days later.
"Rest in peace, my love"
In the capital city of the land of fire, Hanako Ichihara was leaving her husband's room after feeding him the medicinal soup prescribed by the doctor.
After handing the dishes to the maids, Hanako headed towards the courtyard where she ordered tea and other snacks to be served.
After a few minutes, a man arrived and knelt before her.
The man was one of her subordinates, one of the many she fed during her years as Tetsui Ichihara's wife.
And since she had the man's family under her influence and control, she was sure that he would not betray her and was able to entrust him with certain delicate tasks.
"My lady…" said the man.
Hanako nodded, ready to hear confirmation of the mission she had commissioned, but the man's report was not what she expected.
Kozue, one of her husband's sons, had appeared in the various cities where he inherited properties from his father.
'Didn't he die?' Hanako wondered.
She had clearly commissioned that mysterious organization to kill her husband's son, but apparently they had failed.
During all the years he had worked with this organization, this was the first time his assignment had not been fulfilled.
Many years ago, when a mysterious organization approached her for collaboration, she accepted without hesitation because she needed their help to prosper as the wife of the head of the Ichihara family.
But unfortunately for her, she was never able to separate herself from this organization.
Although she sometimes regretted getting involved with such a shady organization, Hanako couldn't deny its efficiency and the help she had received over the years.
That's why his son was considered one of the candidates to inherit the mantle of head of the Ichihara family.
With the help of this organization, the businesses it controls have thrived by eliminating a large number of competitors.
Of course, he also felt terror at Root's methods for achieving his goals.
But did he dare to end his cooperation with her?
The answer is no.
Hanako was too scared to do this.
Furthermore, they were the ones who helped her get her husband out of the way.
With her husband on the verge of death, unaware that he was poisoned by his own wife, Hanako was pleased with her son inheriting his father's position.
And even though she was afraid, she didn't dare to report it.
In addition, he was also benefiting from working with them.
His son would soon get his father's job and nothing else mattered.