"You have no power here, Aoto," Onoki said, still smug, as he was sure he could knock Konoha down a notch because of what had just happened.
"SHUT UP! You are no saint. One more word, and I will reveal all your dirty tricks out in the open," Aoto said. This made Onoki's eyes narrow, and his eyebrows form a V shape.
"What revelation are you talking about? Iwagakure has been upright all its life..."
"Your village killed the Third Raikage by sending 10,000 shinobi to just kill him. So don't come at me with words of being upright," Aoto roared, and those words finally sealed Onoki's mouth.
"I don't care what you think, nor do I care how you want to politicize this matter to gain some kind of moral high ground. What will you gain by speaking about this? All Konoha will lose is some face in the international community, but I will make sure to reveal all your secrets to the world."
"What secrets? We don't have any secrets, and we did what we needed to do to safeguard our village," Onoki justified the death of 10,000 shinobi instantly.
"Really?" Aoto said as he opened a small portal near him and pulled out a huge file. He then forwarded the file to Onoki. The Hokage and even the shinobi of Iwagakure were curious about what Aoto had just forwarded. They wanted to take a peek, but Onoki closed it almost instantly after opening the file.
It took a second to wipe the smug look off his face as sweat started dripping. He almost instantly used Particle Style to dismantle the file, making it vanish forever.
"Don't sweat it. I have multiple copies of where that came from."
Onoki wasn't having it and pointed both of his palms at Aoto as his Particle Style jutsu came to light. The Hokage had enough and lunged at Onoki to stop him.
"STOP!" Aoto shouted at Hiruzen to stop making any such move as he could see Onoki hadn't launched an attack on him yet. Aoto could see the thought process of Onoki at the moment. The files that Onoki had just seen were enough to start a war again, but this time, the war would involve them being taken as the sole enemy. All the small villages and the three major villages would come for their blood if the proofs and the photos of the files ever came out in the open.
He had never felt so scared for his village in his life. And killing Aoto was the only option he had. But he also knew that if he did it, he might not return alive and there was a high chance he would be killed.
There were different possibilities that could happen, and he just didn't know what to do.
"Aoto, he wants to kill you," Hiruzen said, beyond angry for being told to stop again. Like Onoki, he also didn't want to make this move as it would mean a full-blown war, and that was the reason he was a bit relieved that Aoto told him to stop and also because Onoki didn't make the move.
But his thought process was clear. A scratch on Aoto and he would declare war. He didn't know what Aoto had in the files, but he could already guess that it was incriminating enough to bury Iwagakure. Onoki was a smart old man, so his response was enough to understand the gravity of the situation.
"Old man... I will not reveal what I have, if you decide to stop antagonizing me and Konoha. Your village has improved a lot due to the business we did. You want to bury all of this because you thought about accusing us of harboring Orochimaru and using him against you?" Aoto said. This made Onoki calm down a lot, and he looked straight with cold eyes and gritted teeth at Aoto.
"I want to talk with Aoto alone," Onoki said.
"Absolutely not."
"Are you nuts? We will never allow this."
"Hokage-sama, let's go to war against these scumbags. We can easily provide safety to Aoto-kun."
"You dare, you old man."
Each of the Konoha shinobi flipped out and were ready to fight, including Hiruzen himself.
"We will talk alone," Aoto actually instantly agreed.
"You can't, Aoto... This is dangerous..."
"..."
Everyone started to protest, but Aoto just looked at Hiruzen, and he seemed to understand that Aoto had already made up his mind. He didn't say any other words and just left. The other shinobi were confused, and after much fidgeting, they too left. They were angry that Aoto even let someone like Onoki talk alone.
One that just threatened him. But they also had trust in Hiruzen. Onoki, meanwhile, looked at the shinobi and told them to leave him alone. Like the shinobi of Konoha, they too protested at the beginning only to be shut down fast.
Soon there was nobody in the forest around, leaving Onoki and Aoto alone. He didn't speak, but Aoto just waved his hand and the mirror dimension opened. He indicated Onoki to come inside as Aoto vanished into the mirror dimension.
Onoki found it odd but followed Aoto. He had enough faith in his ability no matter what kind of weird jutsu this was. It was probably a kekkai genkai of ice, in Onoki's mind, but the moment he stepped in, he knew that this was something he couldn't even imagine.
"What is this place?"
"We call it the mirror dimension. Used mostly to capture individuals and spy," Aoto said.
"That is how you have those pictures and reports?" Onoki was fuming with anger when he asked that.
"We don't have that much free time to spy on an old skeleton like you. Someone gave up your information, and that too for free," Aoto said.
"Who?" Onoki demanded to know.
"It was free, but it wouldn't be ethical on my part to disclose that. Coming back to the point, what do you want to talk about?" Aoto asked.
"I want you to remove those files, and Iwagakure would enter into a peace agreement with Konoha," Onoki said.
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Read 50 chapters ahead on my p@treon.com/thelightedghost