Chapter 265: Konoha's Scheme

A massive chakra appeared around Fujin. The sudden spike in chakra shocked the Suna ninjas. Without giving them any time, Fujin attacked.

'Wind Release: Infinite Breakthrough jutsu.'

Unlike the previous version, this jutsu was as destructive as it could possibly be. The Suna ninja, who considered themselves unmatched in Wind jutsus, were dumbfounded by the scale and destructiveness of this attack!

The attack left giant scars on the sturdy walls of the Provision Depot! The Suna ninjas were blown apart as well. Two ninjas had their throats sliced by the sharp winds. Another had his eyes pierced. One had his left arm sliced off.

The winds also moved into the 8 storage facilities. Hitoshi and his clones were caught off guard. All 4 water clones were dispelled, leaving just Hitoshi in one of the rooms. He quickly weaved a hand seal.

'Water Release: Water Prison jutsu.'

A Sphere of water surrounded him and saved him from the impact of the winds.

While the Suna ninjas were struggling, a shadow clone appeared next to Fujin.

'Fire Release: Searing Migraine jutsu'

He wasted no time in releasing a massive fire into the winds generated by Infinite Breakthrough. The fire spread began spreading instantly! The winds carried the fire to each and every corner of the depot. Hitoshi watched in anger and helplessness as an even bigger fire entered his room.

The 3 storage rooms that had just small fires were set ablaze. Every food grain was burned up. The 5 rooms where Hitoshi and his clones had doused the fire were set ablaze once again with even more intensity. Worse, of the 14 Suna ninjas that were fighting Fujin, 12 were set on fire as well. Only two managed to use defensive jutsus in time.

Fujin noticed the destruction and decided, 'That should be sufficient.'

He immediately flickered out of the depot. Two Suna ninjas were rushing towards the depot when Fujin suddenly appeared in front of them. Both grabbed the weapons and asked, "Who are you?"

Fujin looked at them without replying and began building up his chakra. The two Suna ninjas prepared themselves for a fight. However, Fujin suddenly disappeared. He used Wind Instantaneous Body jutsu to flicker directly to the city walls and left the city. One of the ninjas shouted, "Where did he go?"

He couldn't even follow Fujin's movement. He was about to look for Fujin when the ninja next to him shouted, "Leave him. First, help douse this fire!"

The ninja stopped and focused back on the fire. However, before they could do anything, Hitoshi completed weaving hand signs. He poured over 80% of his remaining chakra into the jutsu!

'Water Release: Great Waterfall jutsu!"

He released a massive amount of water. The water first flooded the room he was in. A massive amount of water was converted into water vapour, but the fire was doused. The water flowed out towards the remaining depot from the door. The Suna ninjas who were on fire immediately ran towards the water and dived in.

In a minute, the water entered all the storage rooms in the depot. The ninjas that were outside the depot immediately jumped out of the way as hot water rushed out like a flood.

Hitoshi walked out of his room. His expression was ugly. He noticed the burns on his subordinates. He realized, 'He was a sensor. If he had done this attack when I was dousing the fire, I could have stopped it. But he timed it perfectly when I lowered my guard slightly after dousing the fires.'

He looked at the two ninjas standing outside and asked, "Did you see anyone leave?"

The ninja nodded, "Yes Captain. We saw a man flicker away in a hurry. We wanted to give chase, but decided that saving the depot was more important."

Hitoshi sighed and said, "It's fine. Even if you gave chase, you have probably been killed. Arrange the two medical ninjas to heal the injured. I'll watch over the other depot. This one is ruined."

He flickered away towards the other depot while being worried, 'I hope he doesn't attack the second depot as well. But if he does, I'll abandon the grains and focus on killing him. However, my chakra is very low right now. It will be a very difficult battle.'

In a few seconds, he arrived at the second Provision Depot. No attack had taken place there. The two ninjas stationed were on high alert. Hitoshi sighed in relief. He analyzed, 'Since he didn't show up here, he should be very low on chakra after using the combination jutsu by himself.'

He frowned and asked himself, 'Should I have abandoned the Provision Depot and attacked him instead? I would have had a good chance of killing him.'

He thought for a bit and shook his head, 'No. If I had done that, all my subordinates would have died in the fire. And I would have no guarantee of killing him. Besides, if he has any allies, he could have lured me into a trap.'

Hitoshi cleared up his thoughts and began passing instructions. The security of the second Provision Depot was increased manyfold. 10 ninjas were deployed to defend it. At the same time, medical ninjas began treating the injured ninjas.

Hitoshi tallied his losses and sighed. 4 ninjas were killed in the fight. 2 of them were Jounins. All the food stored in that Provision Depot was destroyed. So in a few minutes, they lost half of their food supply. It was certain to put an immense strain on the Land of Wind.

Hitoshi wrote reports and sent messages to the Kazekage and the Wind Daimyo.

Meanwhile, Fujin had long left the vicinity of the city. After leaving the city, he kept using Wind Instantaneous Body jutsu continuously to escape over ten kilometers away!

Finally, he took a break and thought, 'That was rough. Bastards came at me with everything they had! Fortunately, the Elite Jounin was more focused on salvaging the grains.'

He let out a sigh and thought, 'No wonder Sunagakure attacked Konoha a few years from now. Shikaku and Hiruzen are two crazy bastards. In order to increase the dependence of the Land of Wind on the Land of Fire, they decided to burn half the food supply in the Western parts of this country.

Now the Land of Wind will have no option but to import massive amounts of food from the Land of Fire. The sudden rise in demand would also raise the cost of food items. And it will hence result in restricting the budget of Sunagakure. At the very least, Suna shouldn't expect any budget increases any time soon. Especially if Shikaku keeps up these tactics. In fact, they will have to spend their own budget to buy food.

If Rasa were to figure out that these incidents were done by Konoha, he would definitely want to attack Konoha even if he didn't have any solid proof. Only the disruption caused by a war will allow him to reset the ties between the Land of Wind and Fire and force the Wind Daimyo to cooperate entirely with him.

Still, Shikaku wasn't too heartless. The scrolls clearly indicate to just destroy one depot and to not destroy anymore if one had already been destroyed. If he had planned to destroy the second depot as well, then these people would have been very hopeless.

It would have been a tragedy. Thousands of people would have died due to food shortages. The Daimyo's position might have become unstable if people died in large numbers due to food shortages. But now, the food they have will be sufficient for them to survive until sufficient food is imported.

In the end, not only will this region not experience any tragedy, but the people here will be grateful to Konoha and the Wind Daimyo for helping them so quickly. On the other hand, Rasa and Sunagakure would be hated as their ninjas were too incompetent to protect their food supply. In fact, Rasa will be forced to increase the number of ninjas protecting this city by at least 2 times. A good scheme indeed.'

Despite not telling him, Fujin was able to discover Shikaku's real intentions through his instructions. Fujin smirked and muttered, "Rasa will be in a real mess soon. Hehehe. If I didn't have to maintain my disguise, I'd have loved to lure him here and fight a few rounds with him after securing my retreat. Though I won't stand a chance, the opportunities to fight against S-ranked ninjas are just too rare."

As Fujin expected, Rasa had a terrible headache. The bad news kept arriving one after another in his office. He had just sent a considerable force towards the West when two more reports arrived at his table. He read them both multiple times and his expression got uglier every time.

The first report came from the hospital in Suna. The doctors had checked the blood samples Yura sent back and stated that it was blood samples of 24 different people. The second was sent by Baki. He informed Rasa about Manabu's investigation and about Hiroshi and the 11 traders that came to Wind Capital along with him.