Located several dozen kilometers outside the "official" border of the Hidden Leaf village, a sizable landlocked lake had become the center of the ecosystem for many species living in the surrounding area. The lake wasn't a natural waterbody and was made by accident by the Second Hokage Senju Tobirama during experimentation with Water Release ninjutsu, which had altered the landscape permanently.

Initially, the area was destroyed and deemed too dangerous and unusable for any productive purposes, but in the following decades, the forces of nature assimilated the area, and a rich population of wildlife took it as their home. Since then, the area surrounding the lake was deemed as a wildlife reserve with near zero human activity.

At least, that was what everyone thought. Only a select amount of people actually knew that the supposed wildlife reserve was an operational site for the Hidden Leaf's ROOT. The site was the closest to the Hidden Leaf except for the one in the village itself, but the wildlife reserve site was the busiest due to it being the main training site for operatives and was currently the main office of the ROOT's leader Shimura Danzo.

On the lakeshore, a roofed pavilion stood. Under the roof, Danzo sat facing the lake, silently gazing at the serene scenery. The structure had no security against wildlife, but not a single animal approached despite it being so near the lake, which was the primary water source for all.

A masked shinobi fully covered in dark gray appeared just outside the pavilion with masterful stealth like a ghost incarnate. The figure kneeled and waited in silence. If it was a normal person, they wouldn't be aware of the robed shinobi's presence.

Danzo hummed from his throat, and the shinobi stood up to enter the pavilion arriving at his side.

"The parties at the northwestern border have agreed to sit at a negotiation table," said the robed ROOT operative. "They're planning to send the message to the other side in a few days."

Danzo glanced down at his hands resting on his thigh. He asked, "Do we believe they'll reach a common ground?"

"… According to sources, the pressure from the skirmishes is slowly becoming unbearable on Steam and the entire country; they want to end so they can continue on with their national affairs as normal. Due to Hidden Leaf's help, their efforts are being felt the most currently, and they wish to use their momentum as the leverage before they run out of it."

Danzo turned his head to a place on the lakeshore to see a deer step out of the woods to drink at the lake. He observed the deer's cautious approach for a moment until it dipped his head to drink water.

He returned to the robed figure and asked, "What if we provide them with the weapons and supplies they need? Perhaps even aid them by lending a couple of our experts for a few weeks. Will they still go to the negotiation table?"

"It's a temporary extension at best. If we extend the offer, they'll soon become completely dependent upon us…. Which isn't a problem in itself, but eventually, it will undoubtedly turn into diminishing returns."

Danzo had to agree. Since last year, the Land of Hot Water's Hidden Steam and the Land of Frost's Hidden Frost were engaged in a continuous series of skirmishes at the two nation's shared border.

It all started when the Land of Frost, traditionally the Land of Fire's ally, began strengthening its trade and political ties with the Land of Lightning. It wasn't a problem at the start, but the increased closeness between the two nations extended to the Hidden Frost and the Hidden Cloud.

The Hidden Frost was a Tier-II shinobi village (The Great Shinobi Villages being Tier-I villages), usually suitable for a nation similarly sized to the Land of Frost. Historically, the Hidden Frost hadn't been able to fulfill their nation's request— and thus, had to bring in external help. Due to being allies, whatever request the Hidden Frost couldn't fulfill, they passed them to Hidden Leaf. While not official, the partnership was all but exclusive. That relationship changed when Hidden Frost opened their unfulfilled request to the Hidden Cloud, reducing the Hidden Leaf's share.

Naturally, the Hidden Leaf didn't take the news positively, but they couldn't do anything to dissuade Hidden Frost from giving business to the Hidden Cloud because it was one of the terms in the deal between the Land of Frost and the Land of Lightning.

The Hidden Leaf, the only option in the Land of Frost, now had competition in the Hidden Cloud. Having competition meant that the Hidden Leaf now had to match or beat the competitive rates issued by the Hidden Cloud. In the present, it wasn't a problem as the Hidden Leaf had spent years building an image in the minds of the Land of Frost populace, but it was only a matter of time before they would slowly lose a portion of the market share to an equally competent alternative. It was a huge change in (and loss of) revenue— and the business that came from the Land of Frost was not something the Hidden Leaf could shrug off.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

However, in the end, it was only a natural result of the change in the market, and the Hidden Leaf could still take steps to keep the new player in Hidden Cloud down.

The problems began when the Hidden Frost suddenly began attacking border territories of the Land of Hot Waters.

Something to know about the Land of Hot Waters was that they were a country that was immensely popular as a tourist destination. The country relied immensely on its tourism industry, and any sort of conflict was a huge blow to its economy as it caused tourists not to choose the country. Another thing to be aware of was that despite being larger than the Land of Frost, its shinobi village, the Hidden Steam, was merely a Tier-III shinobi organization. Like the country where it resided, the Hidden Steam had strong inclinations towards pacifism. After years of reluctantly offering combat-related services, the Hidden Steam officially transitioned away from the typical shinobi missions; it prided itself as the "village that has forgotten wars." The village's shinobi now worked almost exclusively within the Land of Hot Water's borders, keeping the roads safe for tourists and performing odd-jobs for the many small settlements around the country.

The Hidden Steam wasn't nearly equipped to face an assault from the Hidden Frost and, after a while, lost some of the Land of Hot Water's border territory to the Land of Frost.

The Land of Hot Waters had to turn to the Land of Fire for help. The Daimyos of the two nations met and conversed, and after their diplomatic talks, Fire Daimyo decreed the Hidden Leaf to aid the Land of Hot Waters. The Hidden Leaf were getting paid for their services and thus had no problem sending their shinobi for the war effort.

And while it wasn't known to the public, the leaders knew Hidden Cloud backed Hidden Frost.

But now, the Land of Hot Waters didn't think the war was worth the effort as it was hurting the country more than anticipated and wanted to settle the conflict by offering trade concessions to the Land of Frost. They had even asked the Fire Daimyo to act as the enforcer for the peace agreement, who had agreed. If the deal was inked, then if Land of Frost broke the agreement, the Fire Daimyo would pull back aid and roll back trade relationships with Land of Frost which would hurt the smaller cold, snow-covered country a lot— Land of Frost imported a lot of their food from the Land of Fire.

"And Lord Hokage seems to be in agreement with the course of action," Danzo commented. According to Hiruzen, if the Hidden Steam itself didn't want to fight, then Hidden Leaf had no reason to be on foreign land, fighting in a conflict that was not theirs.

However, Danzo knew what was truly going on.

Hidden Frost was simply a puppet. The true creator of the "war" was Hidden Cloud, who wanted to break the connection between the Land of Frost and the Land of Fire, so the Land of Lightning could step in and take the Land of Fire's place.

If the negotiations went through, then the Land of Fire would be put in an "adversarial" position against the Land of Frost. It would be like the Land of Fire was saying: "Do as we say, or else…."

The Land of Frost, of course, couldn't afford that. Not only was the Land of Fire their paramount trade partner. But that was only until they found someone to replace the Land of Fire— and they just would happen to have a perfect, willing party in the Land of Lightning and the Hidden Cloud. They would completely replace the Land of Fire and Hidden Leaf until the Land of Frost didn't have to worry about offending the Land of Fire.

And the Land of Fire and the Hidden Leaf couldn't do anything about the situation. They couldn't go and be like: "Be friends with us, or we will burn you to the ground."

That wasn't Hiruzen's style, thought Danzo— if it was him, he could've done things differently.

Alas, Danzo wasn't the Hokage.

If the Land of Frost were lost to the Land of Lightning, then the Hidden Cloud would be able to extend its military line closer to the Land of Fire by an entire nation. Moreover, the Land of Hot Waters with the Hidden Steam was worse than a sieve.

If the dynamic changed, the Land of Lightning would be closer to the Land of Fire than ever.

That was something Danzo couldn't let happen.

"It seems it's time to use the investment we made earlier," said Danzo, gazing at the robbed figure. "Where are the survivors of the Land of Frost incident right now?"

The figure stayed silent for a moment before answering. "Chunin Umino Iruka is an academy teacher. Genin Aburame Susumu is out of the village for clan purposes. Genin Takuma is currently serving in the Leaf Military Police Force."

Danzo hummed. He had lost a clan member in the Land of Frost incident. He knew lives would be lost, or else the investment would've been a failure— but he had expected his clan members to survive. It was a true pity.

"Who was the one to identify that there was a party other than the Land of Frost among the attackers," asked Danzo. They had planted clues for the survivors to come to that conclusion— it was good that someone had picked it up. If they had missed it, the ROOT would have had to implement the backup, which was so much more difficult to pull off.

"Genin Takuma."

Danzo hummed. "It's time," he said. "Prepare the new intel report..."

The official investigation had only been able to find out that the other party was Hidden Cloud because of the equipment that had been recovered, but the report Danzo was about to give was going to have the names of the shinobi, the higher-ups who had ordered the attack in both Hidden Cloud and Hidden Frost— all of it backed-up by official documents…. All of it was manipulated by ROOT as an investment.

He was going to keep the Hidden Leaf in the war. For the sake of the safety of the village and nation.

"Yes, sir," said the robbed figure and disappeared the next moment.

Danzo stood up from his seat, ready to leave. He looked to the place where the deer had been drinking water.

The deer was long gone.

Standing in its place was a black-clothed figure with long hair growing to the back.

— the figure wore an orange mask.

This wasn't a ROOT operative.

Danzo went on alert because none of his hidden guards had moved. They hadn't alerted him or come out of the shadows to protect him. He could sense them around him, but he didn't know if they simply hadn't noticed the figure or if they'd been taken out.

The figure turned toward Danzo, who noticed that the mask only had one eye hole.

And then he saw the red glow through the eye hole.