Malphegor
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HSU: Ch. 215
🕑 Added 2025-03-08 22:44:23 +0000 UTCMasashi left the Land of Iron.
He retraced his steps back, passing through the Land of Waterfalls and then entering the Land of Rain via the Land of Grass.
By the time he appeared in the Land of Stone, word had already spread everywhere.
It was unavoidable.
Excluding the Land of Iron and the Land of Waterfalls, both Kusa and Ame were second-tier ninja villages. For someone like him to traverse multiple countries so far from home without being noticed was nearly impossible.
As a war observer of the conflict between Iwa and Kumo, Masashi's presence in the Land of Stone sparked much speculation.
The Hokage's office, as usual, remained silent.
Mediation, of course, was necessary, but that was just a means to an end. The only thing that truly concerned Konoha's top five elites was whether this war would escalate into a full-blown Great Ninja War—and if it did, which ninja village would pose the greatest threat to Konoha.
Iwa and Kumo needed to be observed. So did Suna.
Aside from Masashi, there was no one else in Konoha fit for this mission.
Only he could carry out this S-rank task.
For him, revisiting old places, the Land of Stone was no longer what it was the last time he came.
Back then, the land was filled with energetic grassroots organizations.
This time, they were nowhere to be seen.
Dressed in his Konoha ninja uniform, he found that the wary and subtly hostile glances he once received had been replaced with fear.
As a land ravaged for years by battles between the Suna and Iwa forces, the country had deeply ingrained memories of the Great Ninja Villages.
They had learned one lesson well—never provoke the ninjas of a Great Ninja Village.
And those once-vibrant grassroots organizations? The moment large groups of ninjas entered the country, they rebranded themselves, becoming more docile than anyone else.
In short—"I'm harmless, please spare me."
The Suna and Iwa ninjas generally did not go out of their way to harm the truly good-hearted civilians of the Land of Stone. However, in their eyes, these so-called "energetic organizations" were hardly any different from bandits. They were happy to treat them as easy prey.
Not only could they replenish their war resources, but they could also win the gratitude of the local population—why not?
Most Suna and Iwa ninjas weren't lucky enough to have faces that made them look like good people, but that didn't stop them from wanting to be good people.
The desert warriors, as tough as blades, also despised evil.
The men of the Land of Earth, as unyielding as stone, had compassion in their hearts as well.
Ask them why, and they'd simply say, "Human nature is inherently good. Who doesn't want to be a good person?"
Thus, by the time Masashi arrived, those so-called "energetic organizations" were already gone.
This was the norm in the Land of Stone.
Suna and Iwa were like farmers, while these organizations were weeds—burned away by wildfires but always growing back in the spring. A prime example of sustainable harvesting and development.
But now, the battles between the Suna and Iwa forces had begun to reach the towns.
The battlefield situation here was completely different from that in the Land of Iron.
Both sides engaged in combat in relatively dense formations.
Suna ninjas, skilled in poison attacks, and Iwa ninjas, experts in coordinated Earth Release techniques—neither side could completely avoid civilian casualties.
The best they could do was to try and fight in the wilderness rather than in the towns.
But the towns themselves were strategic objectives being contested.
When Masashi arrived at the first town, he walked right into one such battle.
Iwa ninjas were laying siege, while Suna ninjas were defending.
To their credit, the Iwa forces showed some restraint. Knowing that many civilians were inside and that their goal was to capture the town rather than destroy it, they refrained from using Earth Release to tear down the walls.
Collapsing the walls with Earth Release would have been easy, but rebuilding them wouldn't be something simple Earth Release techniques could accomplish.
If it were that easy, there wouldn't be a need for masonry as a separate craft.
After all, once Iwa seized the town, they would have to become the defenders.
After observing for a while, Masashi noted that the Suna ninjas were performing better than the Kumo ninjas.
On the Land of Iron battlefield, the Iwa forces had overpowered the Kumo forces.
But here, the Suna ninjas had the upper hand over the Iwa ninjas.
Both sides had shown restraint—the war had not dragged on long enough for them to disregard civilian casualties for the sake of victory.
Rasa's elite-focused policy was working well. He was proving to be a good Kazekage.
In this war, Iwa had turned the tables against Kumo.
And under Rasa's leadership, the Suna army had also turned the tables.
With Suna ninjas holding the advantage, Iwa was being forced to send reinforcements to this front.
Iwa was starting to falter, all because the Suna army had demonstrated absolute superiority.
Puppet techniques, which seemed underwhelming in a direct clash between Kage-level fighters, were proving their full value in large-scale conventional warfare.
At the same time, just as Ōnoki and Deidara played a crucial role as master and apprentice in the Land of Iron, the father-and-son duo of Rasa and Gaara performed a similar role in the Land of Stone.
The Kazekage wasn't just about digging for minerals, he had earned his title through real skill.
After Masashi arrived on the battlefield, a Suna ninja squad quickly came to greet him.
Unlike Ōnoki, Rasa was much more open in inviting the White Ghost.
Masashi gladly accepted the invitation.
He was curious to see if this timeline's Gaara was any different from the one in his original timeline.
The Suna army's main camp was set up near the border between the Land of Earth and the Land of Stone.
Originally, this camp had belonged to the Iwa forces.
He could tell because as soon as he entered, he saw many remnants left behind by the Iwa army.
Suna had truly fought a brilliant battle this time.
Even Rasa's tent was golden, truly befitting of a Kage with a built-in "wealthy" aesthetic.
Upon entering the tent, Masashi finally reunited with the Fourth Kazekage after a long time.
Rasa looked to be in excellent spirits.
"Masashi, it's been a long time," Rasa greeted him with a bright smile.
Back during the joint Chunin Exams, he had looked nothing like this.
At that time, he rarely spoke and always had a stern expression—his face might as well have had the words "Being Kazekage is exhausting" written on it.
"Kazekage-sama," Masashi responded. He never gave anyone a reason to fault his etiquette when handling official matters. Bowing slightly, he sincerely praised, "Under your leadership, Suna has grown more and more prosperous."
Putting aside their political stances, he actually admired Rasa.
When it came to making money, he felt that he and Rasa had a lot in common.
He didn't mine gold himself, but his role as Konoha's financial strategist wasn't any easier.
Meanwhile, Rasa not only had to secure funding but had also been striving for years to strengthen Suna's military.
After the Third Great Ninja War, Suna had almost become a laughingstock in the shinobi world.
Now, with their actions on the battlefield, the Suna forces had proven their worth to their Kazekage.
This war had solidified Suna's rightful place as one of the Five Great Ninja Villages.
"I wouldn't dare compare. Suna is still no match for Konoha," Rasa replied with a smile. "If only a talent like you had been born in our village..."
"You flatter me."
In this cycle, he had been actively targeting Kumo, but in his first life, he had actually paid the most attention to Suna.
To be fair, all of the First Kage were formidable figures. Take the First Kazekage for example—among the five, he had taken the most aggressive approach. He had crushed every ninja clan within the present-day borders of the Land of Wind with overwhelming force to establish Suna.
The true establishment of the Five Kage's status happened at the First Five Kage Summit. No one even acknowledged Taki, despite it also possessing a tailed beast. Hashirama and Madara stood at the top, but just below them were the other four Kage. Only Hashirama had the ability to gather them together.
Even now, the Kazekage lineage, with its signature Magnet Release, remained one of the strongest inheritances in the ninja world.
Speaking of which... Masashi looked around but didn't see Gaara.
"Kazekage-sama, Gaara is your son, isn't he?" Masashi said, testing the waters. "You must be very proud of him."
Rasa's smile noticeably faded.
"He's nothing special. Just another ordinary Suna ninja. He still has a long way to go."
Gaara, in the original timeline, made his debut in an overwhelmingly powerful fashion. The first time he appeared before the audience during the joint Chunin Exams, he was a total badass.
In terms of age, among Naruto and Sasuke's generation, only two people could keep up with them in the original timeline—Gaara and Deidara.
And Gaara was even stronger than Deidara.
Of course, in this timeline, Deidara is not from the same generation as them.
Excluding the two reincarnated chakra monsters, Gaara was, by all normal standards, the absolute ceiling of his generation.
But judging from how he seriously cheated in the first round of the Chunin Exams, this so-called badass probably didn't do too well in his academic studies.
You'd have to ask Rasa about that.
After all, in the original timeline, this man was one of the top contenders for the "Best Parent" award, right alongside Fugaku.
Rasa was open about things—he invited Masashi to his extravagant tent for a chat. And so, Masashi decided to be just as straightforward.
He kept bringing up Gaara, and his intentions were clear—"Your kid is so impressive, why don't you show him off?"
This made Rasa a little uncomfortable.
If he weren't completely sure of his relationship with his late wife, and if this guy didn't live nowhere near his home, he might have even started doubting whether Gaara was really his own son.
Of course, that was just a joke.
But for a powerful ninja, publicly recognized as someone who could control tailed beasts, to show such intense interest in Suna's jinchūriki?
That made hefeel uneasy.
"You seem very interested in my son."
"Genius ninjas are common, but ones who can give even Iwa's a headache? Those are rare, Kazekage-sama." Masashi smiled. "Sasuke from my clan is the same age as Gaara, yet he's nowhere near his level. How could I not be curious to meet such a talent?"
Rasa sneered internally. Does he really not know why Kumo performed so terribly this time?
Over the years, he had been systematically assassinating their most promising talents, and if he couldn't assassinate them, he would find ways to sabotage them openly.
Sure, there was never any solid evidence linking him to those assassinations, but everyone suspected Masashi.
And when it came to open sabotage, he had done plenty of that too—Kumo almost lost the Eight-Tails again because of him. And his excuse?
"The Eight-Tails attacked me first."
That time, quite a few Kumo's ninjas got caught in the crossfire between Masashi and the Eight-Tails.
Rasa thought this man was ruthless.
This was way more brutal than just killing a Raikage.
A Kage-level ninja targeting a bunch of chunin? They had no chance of surviving.
Because of this guy, Konoha's reputation as a "rogue village" had skyrocketed in recent years.
But at least he was only messing with Kumo.
As for Gaara, Rasa felt that his own emotions didn't matter. So, in his eyes, his method of raising Gaara wasn't wrong. The moment Gaara became a jinchūriki, he ceased to be his son.
However, Rasa knew exactly what kind of person Gaara was now, and he was determined to prevent him from meeting Masashi.
Gaara's status as a jinchūriki was classified information in Suna. He wasn't even officially listed in their records.
Ever since he had sent Yashamaru to assassinate Gaara, the boy's mental state had been highly unstable. From Rasa's perspective, even though Gaara was a genius, he was also a failed jinchūriki.
That was his assessment, and he said it openly—everyone in the upper ranks of Suna knew that he considered Gaara a failure.
He hadn't passed the test, after all.
In Rasa's view, if Gaara had survived his uncle's assassination attempt and still remained loyal to the village, only then would he have been a successful jinchūriki.
And by Rasa's usual standard of "efficiency," since Gaara was a failure, and he had already abandoned him as a son, then logically, he should have extracted the One-Tail from Gaara and sealed it into a new host.
Yet, he hadn't done that.
It was as if he had conveniently forgotten about it, and he even went so far as to teach Gaara a few more ninjutsu techniques.
So, over time, everyone else also "forgot" that Rasa had labeled Gaara a failure. And no one was stupid enough to remind him.
The only real change was that the villagers went from fearing Gaara to openly calling him a monster.
The day the assassination attempt failed, Gaara didn't just carve a kanji into his forehead—he rampaged.
In the end, Rasa took Gaara to the battlefield against Iwa, and under the pretense of "ensuring the One-Tail's safety," he made sure Gaara never left his sight.
And it turned out, Gaara's talent was terrifying.
At just ten years old, he was dominating the battlefield. The angrier he looked, the more effortlessly he controlled his sand. His chakra levels were already at jonin-tier.
And that had nothing to do with the One-Tail—Gaara and Shukaku were constantly fighting each other.
If you want to know what it was like when a jinchūriki and their tailed beast don't get along, just look at Naruto before he graduated in the original timeline.
Except in his case, Kurama's idea of resisting was passive-aggressive chakra sabotage.
Shukaku, on the other hand, had a lot more tricks up his sleeve.
Everyone knew it was loud. Its voice was piercing. And among all the tailed beasts, it was the noisiest and the most unpredictable—whatever crazy idea pops into its head, it just did it.
To be fair, Masashi didn't have any malicious intent toward Gaara—after all, this kid was bound to be a major player in the future.
"I didn't expect Gaara to receive such high praise from you." Rasa sighed dramatically, as if he regretted something. "If I had known, I wouldn't have sent him on a mission."
No matter how much he disliked his son, that didn't mean he was about to throw Gaara into a tiger's den.
Right now, Gaara had an absolutely terrible temper. He was the kind of person who would glare at you just for looking at him, with zero emotional regulation. He was well on his way to becoming a cold-blooded killer.
Gaara listened to him only because he couldn't beat him.
But Gaara didn't know Masashi. If Masashi tried to talk to him, he definitely wouldn't get a polite response.
Rasa could already picture it—Masashi would just say, "Your son attacked first."
And then what? Go to war with Konoha?
"It's fine, Kazekage-sama. The mission comes first." Masashi said. "By the way, you called me here—what's the matter?"
"Oh, my apologies, I almost forgot." Rasa smacked his forehead. "You're here to observe our battle with Iwa, correct?"
"That's right," Masashi replied. "As allies, we wish to mediate between Iwa and Suna, to help clear up any misunderstandings."
"You must be joking."
Rasa gestured for him to sit, and the two of them settled down at a small table. "Suna isn't as wealthy as Konoha, so don't mind the simple accommodations."
"Simple, huh?"
