After Hanzō gained control of the Hidden Rain Village, he sent an envoy to the Hidden Leaf Village to discuss an alliance between the two sides.
The Hidden Leaf Village naturally agreed to this matter, and after formal procedures, the envoy from the Hidden Rain Village arrived at the Hidden Leaf Village to meet withFumori Masaki.
The meeting room was the reception room in the Hokage's office building.
Besides Fumori Masaki, the other six advisors were also present.
They were the high-ranking officials of the Hidden Leaf Village, and for a major event like an alliance, they could not be completely ignorant.
Even if they didn't have the final decision-making power, they should have the right to participate.
"It's a pleasure to meet you for the first time, Hokage-sama," the Hidden Rain envoy said, bowing toFumori Masaki first.
"I represent Lord Hanzō, the leader of the Hidden Rain Village, and wish to form an alliance with the Hidden Leaf Village."
"Please convey my regards to Hanzō.
I truly didn't expect him to encounter such a situation,"Fumori Masaki said with a sigh.
The Hidden Rain Village's public narrative was that Basa was jealous of Hanzō's talent and took suppressive measures against him, who had high prestige within the village.
Later, Basa even tried to take Hanzō's life.
Fortunately, Hanzō learned of the conspiracy in time and, to protect himself, decisively counterattacked, killing Basa and overthrowing the Basa faction that ruled the Hidden Rain Village.
He then ascended to the position of leader of the Hidden Rain Village, as was widely expected.
In this era, rulers of any country or ninja village had no goodwill towards rebels, and the fate of rebels was always the same: extermination of their entire clan.
Just as when Kin-Gin and Gin-Kin of the Hidden Cloud Village failed in their rebellion, the Second Raikage exterminated all their blood relatives.
Even knowing they were descendants of the Sage of Six Paths, he dared not trust and use them again.
Once they chose to rebel, they would completely lose the trust of the ruler.
Therefore, Hanzō could not directly say that he had long intended to usurp power.
Instead, he used a series of propaganda measures to portray himself as innocent and Basa as utterly depraved, making people ashamed to associate with Basa.
This way, Hanzō's plight could gain the sympathy of ordinary people, and his position could be solidified.
Moreover, what Hanzō said was not entirely false, because Basa indeed wanted Hanzō's life, and Hanzō could only be said to have taken preemptive measures.
"Thank you for your concern, Hokage-sama," the Hidden Rain envoy said.
"That Basa fellow didn't know his place, couldn't stand talented people in the village, and his current predicament is his own doing," Shimura Danzo snorted coldly.
When he was in the Anbu, he often probed Basa's subordinates and was very annoyed with this stubborn old man.
Now that Basa was dead, it was a great relief.
"Forget it, the man is already dead, so there's no need to talk about him anymore.
His rights and wrongs will be judged by the future generations of the Hidden Rain Village,"Fumori Masaki said.
"What we need to discuss now is the alliance agreement between the two ninja villages.
What is Hanzō's intention?"
"Lord Hanzō's thoughts are all here.
Please take a look, Hokage-sama and all the advisors," the Hidden Rain envoy said, quickly taking out the scroll containing the records.
This scroll had been checked by the Anbu, had no issues, and was confidently delivered toFumori Masaki.
Fumori Masaki opened the scroll, briefly glanced through it, and then passed it to the person beside him.
It was passed around one by one until all seven people had seen it.
With a loud slap, Shimura Danzo slammed his hand on the table, glaring at the Hidden Rain envoy and saying, "You're being too greedy!
Our Hidden Leaf Village sympathizes with the harsh environment of your Land of Rain and is willing to cooperate to improve the lives of your people, but do you think we are fools?
Do the conditions you proposed have any sincerity?"
"Exactly, do you think our Medical Corps ninjas aren't human?" Koharu Utatane, though a rational kunoichi, also possessed a woman's sensibility.
After reviewing the medical data from the Land of Rain collected during the previous ninja war, she felt a sense of compassion and wanted to do her best to help the Hidden Rain Village, but the terms in the scroll were too excessive!
The other advisors remained silent, but their gazes were not very friendly, making the Hidden Rain envoy sweat profusely.
He quickly turned to the silentFumori Masaki and said, "Hokage-sama, please understand, this is not Lord Hanzō's intention, but…" He hesitated at this point.
Seeing the Hidden Rain envoy's reaction, the advisors seemed to understand something.
It appeared that Hanzō, having ascended to the leadership through such means, could not immediately command absolute authority.
Other people in the village lacked foresight, which was why the proposed terms were somewhat outlandish.
"Then what is Hanzō's true intention?"Fumori Masaki asked, his expression gentle and amiable.
The Hidden Rain envoy quickly explained Hanzō's general ideas, and the expressions of Hiruzen Sarutobi and others softened slightly.
Compared to the terms in the scroll, Hanzō's ideas were relatively fair.
Although still somewhat exaggerated, they were at least open for discussion.
Fumori Masaki chuckled inwardly.
Hanzō was not just a simple warrior; as the leader of the Hidden Rain Village, he still had some abilities.
Hanzō naturally hoped that the Hidden Rain Village could gain more benefits, but being unable to determine the Hidden Leaf Village's bottom line, he used this method to probe.
If it succeeded, all the better; if it failed, he could push the responsibility onto other high-ranking officials and emerge as the good guy himself.
Fumori Masaki felt that it was nothing and would not genuinely harm the interests of the Hidden Leaf Village.
Hanzō's actions could be considered human nature, and there was no need to get angry about it, so he began to discuss the treaty details with the Hidden Rain envoy.
As the leader of the Hidden Rain Village, Hanzō had to seek benefits for his village, and as Hokage,Fumori Masaki naturally had to consider the Hidden Leaf Village.
His idea was for the Hidden Rain Village to completely abandon the idea of rising and peacefully serve as a subordinate ninja village to the Hidden Leaf Village, which would be beneficial to both sides.
However, Hanzō still harbored some delusions at this moment.
While he would not oppose the Hidden Leaf Village, he also did not want the Hidden Rain Village to become a complete dependency.
Ideally, it would be an independent small nation, cooperating with other countries while protecting itself.
Fumori Masaki could understand Hanzō's thoughts; after all, he was also an ambitious person, otherwise, how could he have earned the title of Demigod and harbored the idea of unifying the Five Great Nations?
But in reality, Hanzō's ideal was undoubtedly a castle in the air.
Fumori Masaki felt that letting the Land of Rain be independent was fine, but it had to be closely aligned with the Hidden Leaf Village.
He was willing to give Hanzō time to understand this principle.
After a series of negotiations, the Hidden Leaf Village "reluctantly" accepted the cooperation treaty of the Hidden Rain Village.
Although the Hidden Rain Village did not achieve the expected results, it was still a joyous occasion.
One of the signed agreements between the two parties was for the Hidden Leaf Village to send a medical team to the Land of Rain to deal with the epidemic.
This was also an initial point of contention, as the Land of Rain offered meager benefits, yet expected the Hidden Leaf Village to painstakingly treat the people of another country.
Fortunately, the Land of Rain had now offered satisfactory conditions, and the Hidden Leaf Village no longer needed to be stingy here.
It decided to send a medical team, with Koharu Utatane, the head of the Medical Department, responsible for selecting the personnel.
In those days, the Hidden Leaf Village obtained very valuable data from the epidemic in the Land of Rain, which played a crucial role in future medical research.
Now, once again, they were to go to this country, and Tsunade, a rising star in the Medical Department, couldn't sit still and immediately applied to participate in this medical mission.
Although Tsunade had not participated in the Chunin Exams, the primary goal of the Chunin Exams was to reduce ninja wars, and the secondary goal was to test Chunin talent.
Within the Hidden Leaf Village, there were other assessment standards, and Tsunade achieved remarkable results in the Medical Department, earning Koharu Utatane's recommendation and thus being promoted to Chunin.
Due to the reform of the mission system, Tsunade did not need to perform other meaningless or combat-related missions, dedicating herself entirely to medical research.
Her talent was fully unleashed, and she achieved great success in the research of medical ninjutsu.
For example, in the research of Earth Grudge Fear, she created a technique to improve chakra condensation efficiency.
If it could be widely promoted, ninjas who were troubled by insufficient chakra would have room for further improvement.
It's likely no one would have expected that a secret technique related to combat could be created through medical research.
Previously, Tsunade's main halo was being the granddaughter of the First Hokage, but after demonstrating her medical talent, the name Tsunade became increasingly prominent.
She was no longer merely dependent on the glory of her ancestors.
For Tsunade, she also had the capital for confidence and pride, allowing her to look down on medical ninjas of her age, and even some older ones were not as good as her.
When Fumori Masaki learned of this, he merely smiled, thinking that Tsunade going there was not a bad thing.
Of course, safety still needed attention.
Kana's incident back then made Tobirama and Mito somewhat sensitive, and Tsunade did not object to this, but she did not expect that one of the people protecting the medical team would be an annoying fellow.