Tonight is cloudy.
A streak of black moon hangs in the sky, the thin moonlight is further blocked by layer upon layer of thick clouds, and when it falls onto the ground, it cannot even light up the road home.
"Why don't they turn on the streetlights."
A little girl was held in her father's arms, she pointed at the pitch-black streetlights one by one.
"If they turned them on, then we could see the road, right!"
The father raised his head and looked at the sky, not knowing how to explain the complicated reasons to the child.
After being tongue-tied for a long while, he gave an answer that fit for a little kid, "Because recently in the sky there are thieves who steal 'light'. If we turn on the lights, this group of thieves will come find us, so we have to hide the lights."
The little girl nodded as if she half-understood, imitating her father, lifting her head to look at the sky.
Just at this moment, the cool late-autumn wind blew away a patch of clouds that were covering the moonlight.
Under the faint silver-white glow, it shone down and revealed a…
Person flying in the sky.
The little girl's eyes slowly widened, crystal clear, staring intently.
She lifted her small hand and pointed at the person in the sky.
"Daddy! The 'light thief' you mentioned, is it this one?"
The father followed his daughter's little hand and raised his head.
One after another, human silhouettes flying in the sky tore apart the clouds.
They took flares from their waists and threw them downwards. Dazzling balls of light trailed long tails of flames as they fell, just like giant, beautiful fireflies.
The daughter clapped her hands excitedly.
The father's expression, however, was deathly pale.
"They're here… this group of bastards is here…"
In the sound of his daughter's laughter and clapping, he carried the child and started running with all his strength, glancing up at the sky from the corner of his eyes.
With the help of the flares, the ninjas flying in the sky saw clearly the layout of the city below. One after another, they pulled out explosive tag kunai from their waists and threw them down into the city.
A few seconds later.
The little girl's laughter disappeared.
It turned into crying.
A few seconds later again.
The crying also disappeared.
Amidst burning, explosions, tragedy, and death, palm-sized papers slowly floated down from the sky.
———
Ryosuke picked up a wrinkled piece of paper.
This thing wasn't big, about the size of an adult's palm. On it was drawn a picture, planes dropping weapons down, below were ordinary people hiding.
On the two sides of the drawing were words,
[See reality clearly, Konoha cannot protect you.]
[Think carefully, the Awakening Ideology is nothing but a tumor.]
Ryosuke could tell, this was a propaganda leaflet thrown in wartime, intended to be spread on a large scale among enemy civilians and armies.
Back in World War II, the Americans and the British often did this sort of thing. The one Ryosuke held in his hand was actually relatively proper.
In 1944, the propaganda poster America dropped on Japan even drew a Japanese-style housewife lying naked on a chair.
The caption was about Japan exhausting itself in war, the common people living in hardship, ordinary women forced to sell their bodies to survive, in order to crush the morale of soldiers fighting at the front.
Jiraiya pointed at the propaganda leaflet and said, "This thing appeared in the past month. A group of people who come without a trace and leave without a trace, indiscriminately attacking villages and cities inside the Land of Fire."
"Come without a trace, leave without a trace?" Ryosuke asked.
Konoha village, or rather, the reason why ninja villages can exist at all, one of the original purposes, was to assist their country's daimyo, as the armed force to protect the nation.
Now that the towns within the territory were being attacked, Konoha's ninjas must definitely be dispatched.
With the mobility of ninjas, even if they couldn't win, could they not at least catch up?
Jiraiya explained, "Because this group only moves at night, and every time they choose cloudy weather."
They throw down explosive tags from the sky, once done, they hide back into the clouds. Even if you want to chase, you don't know which direction to chase."
"To prevent being bombed, many towns inside the Land of Fire are forced to deliberately extinguish their lights at night, not letting the enemy find them."
Ryosuke shook his head.
Air superiority alone was not enough.
Jiraiya nodded, "Of course, besides having air superiority, they are also truly fearless of death."
"Once they get hit by ninjutsu, in order not to be captured, these lunatics ignite all their explosive tags and bombs, turning themselves into a human bomb and falling down."
The high-speed mobility made it impossible for ninjas to ambush on a large scale.
Their fearless-of-death trait also made it impossible to use captives to force information about their base.
Ryosuke roughly understood, after thinking for a moment, he asked, "The main targets of these lunatics flying in the sky, are they schools, factories?"
"Exactly."
Jiraiya picked up the wine pot, refilled Ryosuke's cup, and said, "Because production can be improved, many schools in the Land of Fire voluntarily teach your course content, of course, an adjusted version."
"But some people, after learning, want to learn the original version. Some even secretly buy books from the Land of Water, going against school rules, forming clubs in secret."
Jiraiya sighed lightly and said, "Those lunatics flying in the sky, are launching what they call 'cleansing air raids' against this situation, demanding the cancellation of related courses nationwide."
"Of course, not only targeting your Awakening Ideology, but also Konoha. Ever since these cleansing raids began, Konoha's commission missions have sharply decreased. After all…"
If a so-called "powerful ninja village" couldn't even grab the enemy's tail, who would trust Konoha?
The reason Jiraiya returned to Konoha to teach Ryosuke the Rasengan was precisely to investigate this group flying in the sky.
"Do you need help?" Ryosuke asked.
To help him train the Golden Spiral, first Jiraiya returned, then Yamana Inoichi was exhausted.
They gave their all, Ryosuke wouldn't be stingy in lending a hand.
Jiraiya raised his wine cup, slowly shook his head, "If it were private, I'd surely ask you for help. But since it concerns the village…"
He didn't finish speaking, but Ryosuke understood Jiraiya's meaning.
If matters inside the Land of Fire couldn't be resolved by Konoha and required outsiders' help…
Don't even talk about other countries or villages, just the people of the Land of Fire, how would they look at Konoha village?
How would they look at Tsunade, who had just recently taken office?
"Being a leader is really not easy." Ryosuke said.
"Yeah."
"Fortunately, I can just be a hands-off manager, only need to occasionally say a few 'thank you for your hard work'."
"Yeah."
Ryosuke was referring to Oda Ieyasu, Jiraiya was referring to Tsunade.
The two looked at each other, gently clinked glasses, and drank it all in one go.
Jiraiya once again picked up the wine pot, just as he was about to pour for Ryosuke, he felt the pot empty. He said to Uncle Ichiraku, "Please bring another pot, and some side dishes."
He glanced at the time.
"This won't affect your closing, will it?"
Uncle Ichiraku waved his hand, "As long as you're willing to eat, I can keep cooking no matter how late. But, "
He raised his chin toward the doorway.
At the entrance stood a masked Anbu ninja, bowing slightly to Ryosuke and Jiraiya. In his voice was an urgency he couldn't hide, "Jiraiya-sama, Tsunade-sama requests you for an emergency meeting."
"Emergency?" Jiraiya asked.
"Yes."
The Anbu ninja walked into the ramen shop, taking out several printed photos from his chest.
"A town one hundred and fifty li away, just half an hour ago, suffered a 'cleansing air raid', and the enemy left new information."
Jiraiya took the photos.
The city in the photos was unbearable to look at, corpses of the dead and injured everywhere, destroyed buildings.
It was hard to imagine, that just half an hour ago, this had been a prosperous city.
In the last photo, the enemy had once again distributed leaflets, but unlike the previous ones, at the very bottom was written in large letters,
[Three days later, we will attack Konoha, let the world witness.]
[How fragile a so-called ninja village really is.]
This time, finally at the bottom of the poster there was a signature, [The Sky Ninja Corps]
═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═
patreon.com/XenosX
🥳Joining Patreon keeps me motivated and eager to work diligently, so please consider joining.🥰