_________ POV Narration _________

"Why did you kill, and hide the remains of my son...?"

The Raikage's words echoed throughout the tent, his accusatory tone and cold gaze sent a shiver through the spines of the people involved.

The Mizukage was the most surprised however, his eyebrows rose in confusion as the entire image finally clicked in for him.

'... Wait... Does that mean...'

The Mizukage turned his head and looked towards the Red Dot with wide eyes.

'He's likely here to help the Raikage... For some reason, I feel like I shouldn't be getting involved in this... But...'

The Mist Village Leader pondered about taking revenge for the 7 Swordsmen once more... The preparation he needed was nullified by the fact that he had both the Tsuchikage and a Jinchuriki by his side...

Sure, they still needed to deal with B and the Raikage, but the Mizukage had high hopes of being able to hold the assassin back enough for at least the Tsuchikage to be done with his fight.

The Raikage was strong, sure, but so was the Tsuchikage. In fact, Onoki was the one with the strongest attack power in the room, one that completely ignored defences...

The Raikage's question managed to do one thing besides putting the kage on the spot... It also warned them. They now couldn't be taken by surprise if a fight was to break out.

To the Mizukage, that felt like a grave mistake.

'Yes... I can use this to get rid of the Red Dot... If he's gone the Dark Brotherhood will fall with him.

And we'll be able to recover our swords as well as save some face at having lost good Jonin to bounty hunters...'

In the end, it all came down to that. The Mizukage suppressed a smile as a perfect picture started developing in his mind.

Alas, the Third Mizukage still had much to learn... Despite being the right hand of the Second Mizukage, he still didn't personally know either Onoki or Yusuzo.

There was never going to be a surprise attack, because the two of them would never be taken by surprise so easily. Especially not when they knew their guilt and were already cautious around the Cloud.

The Raikage understood that, so he decided to try and get some answers out of them... To better understand why such fate would befall his son.

"... That is quite the accusation to throw around, Lord Raikage..." Onoki seemed to recover from the shock first. Yusuzo also recovered eventually, he took another glance towards the bounty hunter/assassin standing by his side.

The Jinchuriki's eyes widened as he immediately reached the same conclusion that the Mizukage did.

'Shit... The Red Dot is here as hired help...

But the Tsuchikage has the right idea... Maybe we can talk our way out of this?'

"Accusation, huh... Then would you like to explain why exactly my son's arm, the only thing left of him, is in the Jinchuriki's possession?"

The Raikage's face shifted in rage as veins popped up on his forehead, and lighting flickered around his hair as he spoke.

The Tsuchikage scoffed.

"What arm?! Why would Yusuzo have such a thing...?"

"That's right! I find such an insinuation to be insulting..." Yusuzo gritted his teeth as he composed himself enough to speak out as well.

"We are willing to forget this happened i-" The Jinchuriki was interrupted when he tried to continue.

"Insulting, is that so?..." Ken, who sat by his side seemed to turn his masked face towards him.

"What do y-" Yusuzo was about to verbally lash out, to question the assassin's meddling in the matter, but Ken's pressure seemed to build up as he interrupted the Jinchuriki once more.

"If it's nothing more than a baseless accusation... Then I guess you wouldn't mind if we searched you, right?

That way, there will be no more suspicion, and we can go on with this meeting..."

The Raikage nodded at Ken's suggestion, his eyes narrowing. He appreciated the fact that Ken was helping confirm their information.

After all, A's arm was an extremely valuable piece of blackmail towards the Tsuchikage. It was something that Yusuzo couldn't afford to entrust to anyone else, nor store anywhere.

It was something that was much safer with Yusuzo's eye permanently on it... Therefor, it was likely on him at all times...

"T-that's preposterous! How can I accept such a thing!?"

The Blind Assassin smiled underneath his mask, realizing that he had hit the nail right on the head before he continued applying more pressure verbally.

"Well, as I've said. By allowing a search, you would prove your honesty... And if nothing can be found on you, then you are clearly innocent...

And without that arm, the Tsuchikage would also be able to claim innocence unless proven otherwise..."

Ken's words were like a bucket of cold water pouring onto the Jinchuriki's head.

The sleigh of hand he pulled on the, at the time, panicked Onoki was now coming back to bite him in the ass and in colossal fashion...

"Fine, whatever! Just allow them to search you, Yusuzo!" Onoki crossed his arms and huffed when hearing Ken's words.

'There shouldn't be any issue then... I'm glad I destroyed that arm back then, I guess it was the right choice in the end!'

Internally, Onoki couldn't help but heave a sigh of relief. His relief made him somewhat oblivious to the panic that Yusuzo was displaying, unfortunately.

But the Mizukage wasn't at all oblivious... He could feel the slight shift in the tone of the usually stoic Jinchuriki. He could see the man's eyes jumping around the room.

'This situation is looking more and more interesting...'

The Mizukage rubbed his chin as he noticed the discrepancy between the behaviour displayed by the Tsuchikage and the one displayed by Yusuzo.

'... Don't tell me...'

It wasn't hard for him, as an observant third party, to put together the pieces of what had occurred...

The Mizukage would've smiled in amusement at the situation was it not inappropriate.

"I-I..." Yusuzo's tone contained to sound more and more frantic, losing his usual cool demeanour in the process.

This time, it was impossible for the Tsuchikage to not notice it. The old man's eyes widened as he immediately turned his head towards the Jinchuriki.

'... Don't tell me...'

Onoki gritted his teeth as he finally put the pieces together. His anger was skyrocketing.

Internally, he started weighing his options.

'This fool pulled a fast one on me... And he clearly has that arm on him, otherwise, he wouldn't be acting as if there's a stick up his ass...'

The first thing Onoki thought about doing was outright disintegrating Yusuzo in anger for his betrayal. That would get rid of the evidence, sure...

But that would also leave him in a bad/incriminating position... The Raikage was certainly just going to take that as an admission of guilt, and the Tsuchikage was not going to attempt to fight both B and the Raikage at the same time...

He then turned his gaze towards the Mizukage, who nodded, providing him exactly the assurance he needed.

'The Mizukage is helping us... Likely wants to settle his dispute with the Red Dot... We can work with this...'

"You better give me an explanation after this..." Onoki whispered to Yusuzo before he immediately brought his hands together.

"Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World Technique!" A white square immediately came out of the Tsuchikage's palms.

It violently expanded towards the sitting Raikage and B, who were both in range.

In a split second, the Raikage's body was completely covered by black lighting, his eyes filling with rage as he rolled backwards and grabbed B, pulling him aside as the chair and everything around it disintegrated.

"B-black-" The Tsuchikage was surprised, but he didn't get the time to speak. Before he could even react, the enraged Raikage was already on him.

"HOW DARE YOU?!?" With an enraged shout, the Raikage's hand expanded into a large black lighting claw, which slashed towards the Tsuchikage.

Onoki was by no means slow, but even so, he was only able to slightly shift his body and fly upwards, avoiding a lethal attack.

But the claws still dug into his body, dealing quite a bit of damage and leaving two slices across his chest and one on his face.

The Tsuchikage was immediately sent flying, breaking through the roof of the tent as he also flew upwards of his own volition to avoid any further punishment from the Raikage.

Onoki looked down, his eyes wide in shock as he watched the tent he left behind burst into an explosion, both purple and yellow lights flashing out of it.

The entire camp was swiped by a powerful gust of wind, as the pressure broke all of the tents with ease.

Onoki could clearly see Yusuzo and B grappling.

B's purplish octopus tentacles wrapped around Yusuzo's yellow segmented tail.

The 8-tail Jinchuriki was clearly overpowering the 7-tail one. The chakra tentacles pulled onto Yusuzo, dragging him towards B, who was already almost fully transformed.

His entire body was covered in purplish chakra and bones, his head had grown long and pointed horns.

Yusuzo was also transformed, a yellow coat covered his entire body as wings grew out of his back.

He tried to fly away and gain more distance from B, but the Cloud Rapper was not giving him an inch.

Onoki only scoffed when seeing that, realising that Yusuzo wouldn't be much help against the Raikage, who looked up at him with anger still.

The Tsuchikage noticed that the Raikage was not even attempting to target Yusuzo, which confirmed something else for him...

'I guess they delegated roles already...'

As expected, the Raikage never had the intention of letting them walk out of that tent unscratched...

As the dust cleared slightly, Onoki noticed something else... The Red Dot was still lounging on his chair, unbothered by the fights going on around him.

There was only some blood around his chair, signifying that something had happened there.

The Mizukage was nowhere to be seen...

'Shit... I have to at least get rid of the Raikage...'

Onoki gritted his teeth and floated down a bit more, putting his hand together once more and concentrating.

"Dust Release!" This time, a pillar shape ray fell down from the sky towards the Raikage, who moved out of the way immediately.

Onoki grunted a bit, realising that he wouldn't be able to hit the Raikage at all under those circumstances.

The camp was already in chaos, the Cloud Shinobi that were present already attacked and killed a few of the shinobi from the other villages.

'Shit... As expected, we walked right into a trap...'

At that moment, Onoki cursed himself for not following his intuition and just calling off the meeting or not attending it at all...

'Too late for regrets... I'll at least kill as many people from the cloud as I can... The Raikage can't walk on air, so I am relatively safe here...'

Onoki smiled at that point, and directed his attention at the Shinobi below, his eyes glinting slightly.

Then, a shiver passed down his spine, as he immediately rolled backwards in midair, and a black flash passed right by him, only scratching his back slightly as it continued to go upwards.

Onoki's panicked gaze immediately turned to the skies, only to see the Raiakge already above him.

The Raikage roared as he kicked the air behind him, immediately propelling himself towards the Tsuchikage, who managed to roll to the side once more, his focus fully on dodging his enemy's attacks.

Down below, Yusuzo was not having the best time of his life...

When he noticed Onoki's intention to attack, the very first thing he did was rise his hand towards the Red Dot, much to the disagreement of the Tailed Beast within him.

Yusuzi was hoping to at least take him by surprise and land some hit, but all that it led to was him getting his chest sliced open in the blink of an eye.

The Jinchuriki didn't even see Ken draw his blade, but the assassin's hand was already on its hilt before he even realized it...

After that he was bum-rushed by an enrage B, who almost impaled him on his horns was it not for his tailed beast reacting in time and giving him chakra to protect himself with.

Ken continued sitting on his chair, the only visible reaction to the whole situation from him was the fact that his hair moved in the wind.

The Jinchurki were stuck in their own stalemate, and he was just a casual observer...

Or he would've been was it not for the presence of the Mizukage...

The Mist Leader acted quickly after all hell broke loose, he didn't allow Ken to sit for too long...

"Lava Release: Scorched Earth!" The Mizukage's hands were a blur as he finished the hand signs in milliseconds and punched the ground.

Immediately, the whole area around him erupted in lava, the ground cracking with dryness and the rocks boiling with anger.

The Red Dot's chair had lava rise up from all sides, covering it in seconds.

'Let's see him dodge that!'

But just as the Mizukage was getting excited, the Red Dot appeared from a puff of volcanic smoke behind him and swung his blade towards his exposed back.

The Mizukage reacted in time thankfully, turning around and trying to block the sword with a tanto of his own.

Sparks flew as the Mizukage's blade filled with chakra. The man was determined to stop the assassin's blade.

He was so fixated on the assassin's blade that he missed the fact that the assassin's arm seemed to suddenly become bulkier and became covered in thick scales...

All it took was for him to blink once...

And the next thing the Mizukage knew was that he was flying out of the destroyed camp and into the forest with a broken hilt in his hand, as well as a swollen wrist.

Ken, who stood tall in the middle of the camp flexed his scaled arm and gripped his sword with a calm smile beneath his mask.

'Things went even better than planned... Regardless of who wins, I win... Might as well have some fun with the Mizukage...'

And just like that, the Blind Monster vanished from the chaotic camp.

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Hope you enjoyed the chapters!

Anyway, I'm off now cuz I'm tired, have fun!

The story I'm shouting out this week: Who Says All Saints Need to be Good?

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