Hokage: Ryo's Path

Rasa was still in an aggressive mode. He originally planned to run away without helping Konoha. Gaara’s berserk caused him a lot of trouble.

Rasa sighed. “I’m not sure. I think Shukaku caused it.”

Jiraiya gazed deeply at the man and snorted coldly. “Hmph! I hope you speak of the truth!”

........

At the same time, Konohagakure.

Kakuzu was evading Konoha Anbu Ninjas while he wreaked havoc upon the village. Kakuzu knew that it wouldn’t be good if he directly confront the Anbus.

The huge explosion caused some Ninjas to leave the fight to support the village, but the rest that was chasing him were experts.

Whether it’s the Uchiha Clan members or Guy who had Hachimon Tonkou, Kakuzu didn’t want to confront them directly.

........

After leaving the Forest of Death, Lain started to look for Kakuzu in the village. But after a while, she couldn’t find him.

Lain was a little impatient. In the middle of her quest to track Kakuzu, she found that there were too many injured civilians in the village.

After a moment of hesitation, Lain dismissed her previous quest of finding Kakuzu and joined the medical team nearby to help treat the injured villagers.

Because the Yamanaka Clan wanted to mass-produce the Healing Tag, Yamanaka Inoichi insisted everyone in their clan must master basic medical ninja techniques.

Because Shodai cells were transplanted inside Lain, it fits the medical ninja techniques very well. To the point that she was considered as gifted in this particular field.

Unfortunately, Lain had no interest in becoming a medical ninja and simply gave up after half a month of training. But during the half-month of her training, she had mastered Mystical Palm Aura Techniques that was better than most of the medical ninjas at Konoha Hospital.

During the past two years, her Mokuton training had reached the bottleneck, so Ryo suggested she could start training with Chakra control.

The medical ninja technique was truly helpful to improve her Chakra control, and she also gained medical ninja skills.

During the past two years, she went to the Konoha Hospital from time to time, so the medical ninjas in the hospital knew her.

With Lain’s help, the rescue mission speed was slightly accelerated.

Lain glanced at the member of the security department responsible for protecting the medical Ninja and spoke. “Go help the rescue. I’m here in case something happens.”

The member of the security department knew Lain’s strength. Upon her words, they left immediately and started the rescue operation elsewhere.

Shortly after the security team left, Kakuzu, who wandered the village, noticed the medical team.

He didn’t immediately attack but observed the situation for a while.

After a while, Kakuzu confirmed that the Ninja in this team were professional medical Ninja, and there were no guards next to the team.

Kakuzu smiled with malicious intent and hand sealed with both hands, forming a Katon towards the medical team.

The sudden appearance of Katon shocked the medical ninja present.

Lain saw this and quickly calmed the team. “Don’t worry! I’m here! SUITON! GREAT WATERFALL TECHNIQUE!”

Lain’s Suiton quickly extinguished Kakuzu’s Katon. A stream of water blocked everyone’s sight.

Kakuzu wasn’t expecting they would block his Katon and hummed in surprise. “Huh? There’s someone who’s good in Suiton among these medical Ninja?”

Lain was also surprised to see an Iwagakure ninja with strong Katon.

A gust of wind blowing the vaporized water away, clearing the sight.

Only then Lain was able to see the person across her. She shouted in excitement. “You... you... you’re Kakuzu! That’s great!!”

Kakuzu froze. Wondering why someone would get excited to see him. Logically, if she knew who he was, shouldn’t she have started running now?

“Kakuzu! I heard you assassinated Shodai-sama and escaped smoothly. I wonder if you can escape me today!”

After speaking, Lain formed a hand seal with both hands, conducted her Chakra to the ground.

Seeing Lain’s seal, Kakuzu’s expression changed, and he quickly retreated.

Unfortunately, Kakuzu’s feet stumbled upon a tree root, which quickly grew into a big tree under Lain’s chakra nourishment.

The big tree encircled him and then started to entangle him, absorbing his Chakra.

Kakuzu clenched his teeth and created a black silhouette from within-the-body. The creature with a mask spat fire from his mouth and burned the tree. Kakuzu took the opportunity to break free.

Seeing Kakuzu fleeing and leaving the masked creature amidst the tree, Lain snorted coldly. She controlled the tree to surround the creature and squeezed it to death in a second.

Kakuzu shed a cold sweat and looked at the mini-forest with a lingering fear, and then glanced at Lain with high vigilance, “I didn’t expect I could see Deep Forest Creation again after so many years!”

“There’s a lot of things beyond your expectation! Let’s see if you can escape from Mokuton’s pursuit again today just like before. Are you ready, Kakuzu? Next is Mokuryuu no Jutsu!”

Lain’s tone barely fell when the trees in the little forest trembled and a Wood Dragon appeared out of nowhere, rushing towards Kakuzu.

“Huh? So what? Don’t underestimate me, little girl!”

After he finished his words, two black-masked creatures appeared. One of the mask creatures spit out a lot of water from its mouth to form a Water Curtain Barrier, and the Wood Dragon hit the barrier.

Seeing this, he let out a large amount of Raiton Chakra on the other masked creature. The wet Wood-Dragon couldn’t resist the Raiton Chakra and was split into small parts.

Lain was a bit surprised because Kakuzu could resist her attack. After destroying the Wood Dragon, Kakuzu controlled the masked creatures to attack the medical Ninja behind Lain.

Lain’s expression drastically changed, and she quickly blocked the attack. While Lain was blocking his attack, Kakuzu quickly turned around and escaped her.

Noticing Kakuzu’s disappearance, Lain was so upset that she closed her eyes and a black shadow appeared after a while.

BANG!

As the earth trembled, the two masked creatures were hammered down to the earth by Mokujin. Lain controlled the Mokujin to chase Kakuzu down.

The fleeing Kakuzu felt that his connection with the masked creatures was severed. He was terrified because his creation was destroyed.

“That damn woman! She’s strong! Mokuton sure is terrifying! I hope Hidan will help me today, or else he’s going to die today!” Kakuzu fired a flare towards the sky.

Seeing the flare, Hidan, who was waiting outside the village, grew excited that he quickly rushed towards Konoha’s weak spot, took out a Scroll, and used the Scroll technique.

He opened the barrier and sneaked into the village.