Naruto: Cultivating to Immortality

Chapter 32 Intelligence Warfare

After leaving the ward, Hinata Kanan headed straight for the rendezvous point.

When Kanan arrived at the meeting point, he saw Orochimaru and Jiraiya there, along with most of the elite forces in the group, a total of 15 people.

What kind of mission requires so many powerful individuals to be mobilized? Hyuga Kanan clicked his tongue in amazement. This was almost all of Konoha's top combat power, with even Commander Orochimaru personally leading the charge.

Orochimaru only began to explain the mission details after everyone had arrived:

"Our mission this time is simple: eliminate all Iwa ninja within a 10-kilometer radius of the camp. Listen carefully, all Iwa ninja—don't let any of them escape!"

Orochimaru then turned his gaze to Hyuga Kanan and said, "Hyuga Kanan, your mission is different from ours. Your sole task is reconnaissance. Mark the locations of all the Iwa ninja and notify us. You don't need to fight the enemy. But I need you to constantly check if any Iwa ninja have escaped, or their escape direction and location. Understand?"

"Understood! But how can we quickly and accurately deliver intelligence to the combatants and pursuing ninjas? After all, timely intelligence transmission is crucial for Iwa ninjas to escape. If I can't give you intelligence immediately, it will be very difficult for you to pursue and escape Iwa ninjas!"

Hyuga Kanan nodded in understanding and promptly raised a crucial question. If he didn't need to engage in combat and instead focused on scouting the Iwa ninja's location, he couldn't stay with the combat personnel constantly, which would compromise the timeliness and accuracy of intelligence.

"I'll handle this!"

Tsunade appeared behind Hyuga Kanan at some point and suddenly spoke to the group, saying, "I will use the summoning beast Katsuyu. Each of you should carry one with you. Katsuyu is a split of the same summoning beast, with only one consciousness, and can communicate and transmit information at any time."

Orochimaru remained silent, only nodding; this was part of his plan. His plan to eliminate the Iwa ninja intelligence scouts in the first step relied on Konoha's superior summoning beasts to ensure rapid intelligence transmission and the Hyuga clan's exceptional long-range observation capabilities. This would allow for the rapid identification of the Iwa ninja's numbers and locations, enabling timely deployment of forces to encircle and annihilate their scouts, while simultaneously ensuring their inability to escape.

Konoha is widely recognized as having the strongest small-scale battles among all the ninja villages in the ninja world. This is because Konoha not only possesses strong ninjas, but also excellent intelligence gathering and allocation capabilities, always ensuring that the most suitable ninjas are in the most suitable battles.

There's a reason why the Hyuga clan is coveted by other ninja villages besides Konoha. They consistently suffer losses in reconnaissance and intelligence gathering against the Hyuga clan, which is frustrating and enviable. This explains why, during their first battle with the Iwa ninja, Hyuga Kanan was surrounded but not killed by numerous Iwa ninja. They also wanted the Byakugan from their own village; capturing a member of the Hyuga clan's main branch alive, or even just bringing back the Byakugan, would bring a very generous reward.

In this Konoha team, only Hyuga Kanan is a member of the Hyuga clan. That's why this mission involved sending Kanan, a recent genin who just graduated from the Ninja Academy, to perform such a high-intensity task. Kanan is quite unlucky; as the youngest son of the Hyuga clan head, he's been assigned to a cannon fodder team to die—a rare occurrence. After all, Hyuga clan ninjas have always been a valuable strategic resource for Konoha, and this is a waste of that resource.

It seems that Hyuga Kanan's performance at the Ninja Academy has displeased many within the Hyuga clan. The opportunity to directly wash away the Hyuga clan's shame is something even his father, the clan head, couldn't stop. After all, he's his youngest son, and he himself had tested Kanan's abilities; Kanan's strength is no less than that of other ninjas considered geniuses from other clans. The fact that he was still sent to this almost certain-death battlefield shows that there's unrest within the Hyuga clan as well.

Konoha was naturally pleased to accept the Hyuga clan's initiative to send clan members to join the mission. They had originally planned to offer benefits to the Hyuga clan in exchange for them sending one of their own to join the team, but now that the Hyuga clan had taken the initiative, saving Konoha's higher-ups the benefit they had prepared, they were certainly happy.

In order to appease the emotions on the front lines during this mission, at least one member of every clan ninja that could be assigned was placed in the team. This allowed others to see the selflessness and authority of the Third Hokage, and the Hyuga clan ninjas were also of great benefit to this mission.

The Uchiha clan, for example, directly refused missions that sent their members to their deaths. In their eyes, even if they were to die in battle, they preferred to die due to their own inadequacy rather than being assigned a certain death mission to be ambushed by Iwa ninja. The proud Uchiha clan believed that only those who lacked strength would resort to sending their members to their deaths in order to turn the tide of battle and secure victory.

This is tantamount to saying that the Third Hokage was incompetent and lacked leadership skills.

Hyuga Kanan had actually figured out why he'd been assigned to this mission. After all, being called the worst student at the Ninja Academy for over three years had brought shame to the Hyuga clan, a prestigious family in Konoha with a thousand-year history. Now he finally understood why his reputation as the worst student had been circulating among the graduates in recent years. It seemed it wasn't necessarily other clans targeting the Hyuga clan; it was possible that the Hyuga clan itself wanted to eliminate him, the member who had brought shame upon the family.

At the time, I was only thinking about not attracting the attention of the Sage of Six Paths, so I deliberately didn't show myself. Now it seems...

In short, Hyuga Kanan felt that he had gotten himself into trouble by hiding his true abilities, and that he was about to get himself killed.

Now, Hyuga Kanan has become a public tool, and he is dispatched whenever he is needed.

This mission is a prime example. A genin, who had just survived a life-or-death battle, was put in a dangerous mission to hunt down Iwa ninja without even having time to rest.

As Tsunade summoned a slug, which split into more than a dozen smaller slugs that crawled onto everyone's shoulders, everyone was startled and looked at Orochimaru. Orochimaru nodded to Tsunade, turned to look at the people around him, and waved his arm, and the group quickly rushed out of the camp while maintaining their formation.

The group moved swiftly through the trees, heading towards the area between Konoha and Iwa ninja, where they were locked in a standoff, preparing to await the arrival of Iwa ninja's reconnaissance team.

Hyuga Kanan, standing in the group, glanced at the slug on his shoulder. During the previous ambush, he hadn't summoned a slug to heal his injuries. He only dared to use his soul power to draw upon natural energy to restore his own after the slugs had exhausted their power and disappeared, fearing the slug might sense his soul power and the natural energy it was drawing. Now, with a slug perched on his shoulder, he dared not use his soul power to probe the distance. He could only obediently activate his Byakugan to survey the surroundings, but the range was much smaller, only about ten kilometers. Fortunately, he didn't need to participate in the battle, ensuring the slug wouldn't detect his presence.

As the squad moved quickly, they soon went beyond the Konoha camp's warning range, and now they needed to be more vigilant. After all, they had now entered a war zone.

Hyuga Kanan activated his Byakugan and carefully surveyed the area. After finding no Iwa ninja activity nearby, he reported to Orochimaru so that Orochimaru could keep track of the surrounding situation.

As the group continued forward, 50 kilometers beyond the Konoha camp, Orochimaru immediately waved for everyone to stop and lie in wait, awaiting the Iwa ninja's next move.

And so, time slowly passed, the sky gradually darkened until it became so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, and the day slowly came to an end.

Suddenly, Hyuga Kanan whispered to Katsuyu, "The Iwa ninja are here. There are four squads in total, and they are moving rapidly toward us. They are about five kilometers away and are still closing in quickly."

Upon hearing the information, Orochimaru reacted immediately and quickly relayed the arrangements.

"Everyone move in other directions, avoid these Iwa ninja squads, let them pass, don't stop them or get spotted!" Orochimaru's order was delivered to everyone's ears by Slug's gentle voice.

"Move three kilometers towards the seven o'clock direction. This will perfectly avoid the Iwa ninja's sensory abilities, and it will be easier to hide there." Hyuga Kanan looked around and found that only that direction had obstacles, and it was just right to avoid the Iwa ninja. He immediately relayed the message to the slug.

"Move in that direction immediately, without leaving a trace or making a sound." Orochimaru's order came through immediately, and everyone began moving in the designated direction, quickly reaching their destination. They swiftly concealed themselves and lay in wait.

Hyuga Kanan continued to use his Byakugan to observe which Iwa ninja team was hiding there. Soon, that Iwa ninja team passed the location where Hyuga Kanan's team had previously been lying in ambush, and moved quickly without stopping.

“The Iwa ninja probably didn’t spot us. They bypassed our previous location without stopping to check, and moved there very quickly,” Hyuga Kanan explained his observations to Orochimaru.

“Very good. We will follow them slowly, while leaving a small team to wait at our original hiding place to ensure that no one who escapes will get away.”

Orochimaru nodded slightly and immediately made the task assignments.

The group immediately split into two parts. One small team moved in the direction they had come from, while the main force followed behind the Iwa ninja team, quickly approaching the enemy.

Both sides were moving quickly, and soon the Iwa ninja split into four teams, approaching the Konoha camp in four directions while carefully avoiding Konoha's guards.

Hyuga Kanan immediately reported this, and the team sped up, clearly now was the best time to deal with the Iwa ninja.

Now that the enemy is scattered and conducting reconnaissance, Hyuga Kanan's team can defeat them one by one, making the battle easier and reducing casualties.

As they increased their speed, they soon clashed with the Iwa ninja, but the Konoha side had more people and stronger combat power, and quickly wiped out the Iwa ninja reconnaissance team one by one.

The first step of the Konoha Plan has been successfully completed. Now it depends on whether the Iwa ninja will follow Orochimaru's plan.