"Who was that?"
"The warden!"
"How is that possible?"
The other elders who had originally been standing beside Mui, using ninjutsu to resist Kakashi and Sasuke's Fire Release, also snapped out of their momentary daze.
But when they turned to look at Tsunade, she was already swinging her fist at them as well.
That head-on pressure felt like facing a heavy truck barreling straight at your face on a national highway.
These hooded elders quickly followed in Mui's footsteps.
They were not as strong as Mui, though, and lost consciousness on the spot.
This sudden turn of events left both sides of the ongoing fight frozen in place.
Kakashi and Sasuke hurriedly stopped releasing their ninjutsu to avoid injuring their own people.
As for the people on Hozuki Castle's side, after seeing their boss get taken down in just a few punches and kicks, they already had little fighting spirit to begin with, and now they had no idea whether they should keep going.
They were already outmatched, and now the other side had brought in reinforcements that looked even stronger. What was there left to fight?
They might as well hand Hozuki Castle over directly.
After all, no one wanted to go die for nothing.
Looking at the countless Hozuki Castle guards and prisoners piled up at Naruto and the others' feet, they all understood that this was a battle they could never win.
Those prisoners who had originally been forced into fighting saw that Mui, who controlled the restraints inside their bodies, was now half-dead, and there was even less chance they would step forward.
So in an instant, both sides completely stopped fighting.
When Naruto saw Aoba and the others appear, his face immediately lit up with joy.
"Aoba, Mom, you already finished over there that fast?"
"Heh! Heh! Naruto, you guys were a bit slow."
Kushina put her hands on her hips and replied with a slightly smug tone, giving off a very obvious borrowed-authority vibe.
"Lord Hokage!"
Might Guy and Yamato also led their respective squad members over.
At this moment, Mui, who had just barely caught his breath after Tsunade's attack, also heard how they were addressing him.
Lying on the ground, he struggled to lift his head and look toward the source of the voices, and happened to see Aoba standing at the center of the group, as well as Tsunade who had just sent him flying with an elbow.
They were walking toward him.
"You… are Konoha's newly appointed Hokage?"
Hozuki Castle's intelligence was clearly more up to date than that of the Grass Ninja Village.
He had already learned yesterday that Konoha had a new Hokage.
"Name is Aoba, Shirakumo Aoba," Aoba stopped in front of Mui and looked down at him from above.
He was not some kind of devil. Although the ninja of Hozuki Castle could be considered part of the Grass Ninja Village, they had split off long ago.
So Aoba was relatively tolerant and had no intention of killing him.
The existence of Hozuki Castle was very meaningful. It was a ready-made prison for Konoha.
And Mui had served as warden here for so many years. No one understood better than him how to properly run this place.
"Cough! Cough!"
Mui coughed up another mouthful of blood and said expressionlessly with his corpse-like face, "As Hokage… to bring ninja and attack Hozuki Castle without any reason at all… are you trying to provoke conflict between the Grass Country's daimyo and the Fire Country's daimyo?"
At a time like this, bringing up the Grass Ninja Village was clearly useless, since everyone knew what kind of state it was in now.
Only the daimyo might be able to put some pressure on the other side.
But the completely unmoved expression on Aoba's face made Mui's heart sink.
"You…"
"Before nightfall, the notice of the Grass Country daimyo's surrender should be issued from the daimyo's residence. After that, the Land of Grass will fall under Konoha's rule," Aoba glanced at the sky and delivered this answer without the slightest ripple.
"W… what?"
Mui was clearly shocked by Aoba's words, which could be described as utterly disrespectful.
He even temporarily forgot the pain wracking his body.
A Shadow of one of the Five Great Ninja Villages actually daring to make a move against a country's daimyo.
"Aren't you afraid of being hunted down by the entire ninja world?"
"Hunted down? By a daimyo? How many ninja villages does a daimyo even have?", Aoba said indifferently.
Once those words were spoken, Mui's face was filled with disbelief, completely at a loss for what to say.
This was far too rebellious. It was practically trampling the one-country-one-village system established by the First Hokage underfoot and grinding it into the dirt.
'Is this man really Konoha's Hokage?'
Even Kakashi, Yamato, and the others felt their eyelids twitch when they heard this.
But none of them made any comment, all choosing to ignore it and pretend they hadn't heard a thing.
Only Naruto, whose head was a bit sharp, didn't really understand why a daimyo would want to hunt them down, and quietly asked his mom about it.
He wasn't very clear on what this operation actually meant. Aoba told him to come, so he came.
But Kakashi and the others' reaction was actually normal.
After all, even if most Konoha ninja held a certain sense of "untouchable" reverence toward the Fire Country's daimyo, in terms of action, they would only follow the Hokage's orders.
Even though Konoha's Hokage could be said, in some sense, to be subordinate to the Fire Country's daimyo, Konoha's ninja were subordinate to the Hokage.
As the saying goes, the vassal of a vassal is not my vassal.
The daimyo had no superior-subordinate relationship with the other Konoha ninja. Even if people from the daimyo's residence wanted Konoha ninja to do something, they still had to pay and go through the proper procedures.
In the hearts of Konoha's ninja, there was only one sun: the Hokage.
Seeing Mui in such shock that he couldn't speak, blood continuously spilling from the corner of his mouth, Aoba was also worried that he might suddenly die.
He injected a strand of chakra into Mui's body in the form of a chakra cloak to temporarily stabilize his injuries, then continued.
"Hozuki Castle is a prison jointly commissioned by various countries and built by the Grass Ninja Village. This place is pretty good, very suitable for holding troublesome individuals, so I will keep it. It's just that from now on, this will change from a Grass Country prison into a Konoha prison."
Mui had originally been puzzled as to why the other party would help stabilize his injuries. After hearing this, he immediately understood.
"You want me to continue being the warden of Hozuki Castle?"
"You've been able to serve as warden here for decades. That proves you're a rare talent. The order here is already stable. What we want is Hozuki Castle's ownership. We don't want to disrupt the original order here."
"…"
Mui fell into silence.
As the warden of Hozuki Castle, what he had to be responsible for here was not just the Grass Country, but all the other countries of the ninja world as well.
So he didn't actually have much loyalty to the Grass Country.
And he didn't want to die right now. He still had things he hadn't finished.
This had nothing to do with Hozuki Castle, and nothing to do with the Grass Country.
As a father, he wanted to atone for what he had done in the past. He still wanted to see his son one more time.
After a brief period of thought, he quickly firmed up his decision.
"I understand. From now on, I will help you control Hozuki Castle."
"A wise choice," Aoba was quite satisfied with Mui's ability to read the situation.
Although he could directly extract the Heavenly Prison technique from Mui's head, the many years of experience managing Hozuki Castle couldn't be replicated.
For an obedient subordinate, rewards and punishments had to be clear. Aoba looked at Mui and said calmly,
"As a benefit for a newly joined employee, I can fulfill your wish and help you open the Box of Ultimate Bliss."
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