Onoki was annoyed, he had been waiting for almost half an hour.
His patience was starting to wear thin, his back hurt from this uncomfortable chair, why did those Kumo idiots always have to be late?
His two guards, Akatsuchi and Kongō were standing by the door, guarding it carefully.
It opened with a click.
"You're late." Onoki said without preamble, turning around to look at the person who entered.
A young woman wearing a long grey coat stood in the doorway, she bowed politely.
"Please accept my apologies, I encountered an issue on the way here." She responded formally, ignoring Onoki's grumbling as she stepped fully into the room. "I am Samui."
Ah yes, he remembered reading about this one in the Bingo Book, a Jonin that specialized in Kenjutsu and assassination.
She closed the door behind her and sat down across from him, silent and polite, waiting for him to speak first.
"So, why did the brat want this meeting?" He asked bluntly. "If it's something stupid, I'm leaving."
Samui showed no reaction to his words, she simply answered.
"The Raikage wishes to discuss Konoha's recent meetings with The Order," She explained. "The speed and secrecy of the destruction of Otogakure has led him to believe they possess significant power."
Onoki hummed thoughtfully.
He had similar thoughts as well, even now, weeks later, Iwagakure Intelligence was struggling to find information on what was now called 'The Short War'.
And because Wave was mostly irrelevant before The Order suddenly popped up, they had few spies there, the basics were easy to find, The Order employed Chakra wielding fighters and were allied with the Crows, even if Iwa's own Summons insisted that the Crow Clan was dead.
But they had remarkably little information about The Order's actual fighting force, their numbers, abilities, or anything of significance.
Besides a reasonable assumption that they likely focused on Water Release due to Zabuza Momochi being one of the people in charge, but it was just an assumption.
"And what would he like me to do about that?" Onoki asked challengingly. "If I had any more information than Kumo, I wouldn't share it with you."
Samui remained calm, Onoki hated dealing with the cold types, they were so annoying sometimes.
"Kirigakure is on the precipice of a Civil War, according to our latest reports." She ignored his words. "The Raikage believes that it would be possible to encourage Kirigakure to attack The Order, there are many voices in Kiri calling for war, as an attempt to quell the unrest."
Oh, he sees what they're going for now, clever.
"I see..." He mused thoughtfully. "The reason Kirigakure hasn't actually started a war is because they don't have a reasonable target, Suna being the weakest, but the terrain would make it an almost impossible offensive for Kiri."
Samui nodded, confirming his theory.
"If Kirigakure could be convinced to attack Wave, no matter what happens next, we would benefit from it." Samui continued. "If Kirigakure wins, The Order will be removed as a threat and Wave will fall under their control, if they lose, we gain valuable information on The Order's strength and abilities."
"Either way, both sides will be weakened." Onoki continued with a slight smile. "And even if Konoha has allied itself with them, that only means more of our enemies fighting each other."
"The worst-case scenario is that Wave and Konoha are allied and win with a decisive victory, but even then, we can pressure Konoha politically to prevent them from expanding." Samui concluded.
Onoki considered this, it was risky, pushing two nations towards war was always dangerous because it could very easily blow up in your face.
But Kiri was already heading towards a war, either with an actual enemy or internally, so it would be quite easy to push them in the right direction.
"That's fine and all," Onoki started. "But what does it have to do with me? Kumo has never needed Iwa's permission to manipulate people."
He already had an inkling of what Kumo wanted, he had been doing this job for decades after all.
Samui straightened in her seat and met his eyes.
"Kumo has two requests, since speed is a priority, we would want Iwa's spies in Kiri to cooperate with our own, pushing Kiri closer to war will be difficult if an alliance gets in the way." She explained calmly. "Secondly, we wish to fake border skirmishes between Iwa and Kumo in order to convince Kiri that both our Villages are distracted and unable to intervene."
That was about what he expected, guess that Ay brat wasn't as stupid as he looked.
"Where would the border skirmishes happen?" He asked, leaning back in his chair, he hadn't explicitly agreed yet, but this plan was solid enough, it was unlikely he'd turn them down.
"The Kazangoku islands chain, they have no military value, but the majority are claimed by us, them being deep in the sea would also obscure the scale of the conflicts, the Land of Iron's neutrality would never allow any nation to use their ports, so investigating would be difficult." Samui responded instantly.
"And..."
He and Samui talked long into the night, discussing the specifics of this plan.
By morning, they had come to an agreement.
***
Obito was staring at the sea of acid in front of him with slight confusion.
In the middle of the sea was the Six-Tails, floating in the ocean, slowly leaking acid into it.
It was smaller than it should be, but that was understandable, it had only reformed recently after all.
But it was also... dead?
"Hello?" He called out warily.
The Six-Tails didn't move or react at all.
Obito took out his war fan and carefully poked it, ready to defend himself.
Nothing happened, so he kept poking it.
He used a simple Wind Release Jutsu and launched it with his fan.
It impacted the Six-Tails.
And besides its flesh jiggling from the impact, nothing happened.
It was completely unresponsive.
He was supremely confused.
This wasn't how he expected this to go, when he had received reports of a fishing town having trouble with acid slowly but surely killing all the fish nearby, he figured that the Six-Tails was starting to reform, and after killing the Shinobi sent to investigate, he came over to capture it.
But... it was just lying there, not reacting at all.
He looked at it for another minute, trying to see if it would react, or just continue floating there.
This presented a problem he didn't know he would be having, he could not touch the Six-Tails due to it leaking acid everywhere, and while it wasn't completely full-grown yet, it was still huge enough that he couldn't move it himself.
Did he just temporarily seal it into himself? That would be unpleasant, both sealing a Tailed Beast inside himself and then unsealing it later.
He had already received a taste of how painful it is to absorb the corrosive Chakra of Tailed Beasts.
Does he use his Animal Path to summon it back to the base?
That would mean he would have to go back to the White Zetsu imbued with that Path and take it back, which would be annoying.
He was faced by a problem he had not considered before.
The logistics of transporting a giant acid slug.
Classic Mistake.