Torifu wondered if those two guys would employ such a foolish strategy.
"Time is not an issue, Hokage. Just give it your all. We will be ready to fight at any moment if anything happens."
Ōnoki offered the highest level of support he could. He couldn't promise anything else.
Torifu did not reply, merely nodding, and continued his search.
'Not here… not here… not here, not here either, here… not, not here.'
'Where on earth are they.'
Torifu meticulously searched, inch by inch, starting from the Rain Province of the Land of Fire, flipping through the entire province, but still found nothing.
He then explored the territories under the jurisdiction of the Land of Wind and the Land of Earth, and the result was the same.
He had searched every single cave in the entire Amegakure, but no trace had been found whatsoever.
'Could they be in the water?' If they were in the water, Torifu truly wouldn't be able to detect them, but it was impossible for Blaze, a guy so afraid of water, to hide in it.
Neither of them had the ability to live underwater.
So Torifu quickly dismissed the idea: 'They can't be in the sky either, so the only possibility is underground.'
Thinking of this, Torifu's hands started moving, forming a hand seal before raising his hands above his head and slowly pressing them down.
Following Torifu's movement, the Tsuchikage and the Kazekage could see the cloud mist on the outskirts of the central city starting to 'dissipate'.
"What's going on? Is the Hokage not going to continue the search?"
The Tsuchikage was also puzzled. Didn't he just say he needed time? Why was he canceling the jutsu now?
But as the two stared at the cloud mist outside for a while, they noticed something was wrong.
"Wait, no. These mists are not dissipating. They are slowly descending. The Hokage is controlling them!"
Torifu mentally praised the Kazekage for his quick judgment. Torifu intended to forcibly squeeze the cloud mist through all the cracks and gaps in the ground.
The cloud mist had already covered the entire Amegakure, and now, as long as there was the slightest fissure or void on the surface,
these mists could drill inside. Whether it was a dead end or an underground cave, they would quickly be occupied by the cloud mist.
At that time, even if Hanzō and Blaze were hiding in an underground cavern, Torifu could still find them.
However, this jutsu required far more chakra than simply releasing a perception jutsu.
Torifu now felt somewhat exhausted.
Half an hour had passed since the detection began, and Torifu's uninterrupted maintenance of the jutsu had consumed an immense amount of chakra.
This had used up nearly half of the chakra within his body.
After all, it was a jutsu covering an entire country, so a large consumption was normal.
And his consumption was not without any gains.
For instance, he discovered several mine shafts within the Rain Province of the Land of Fire, and there were quite a few in the jurisdictions of the other countries as well. He didn't mind doing a good deed.
The cloud mist was descending little by little, penetrating every crack in the ground. Torifu could sense that the mist had detected many underground caverns.
Most of these were habitats for various creatures, with no signs of human activity.
With so many caverns, a quick glance might lead to omissions, so Torifu was meticulously searching them one by one.
The Land of Fire remained stable, with nothing unusual, and neither did the Land of Wind.
But as Torifu detected the Land of Earth, he perceived a peculiar underground cavern.
The walls inside were smooth and had been treated to be waterproof and damp-proof. There were a large number of traces of life inside the cavern.
It looked like it hadn't been abandoned for very long.
This news immediately sharpened Torifu's focus. After a careful perception, he indeed found a small opening.
Squeezing through it led to another similar cavern.
There was still a small opening, but this one was extremely tiny, only about the thickness of a finger.
Torifu wasn't sure if this was created by Hanzō or his team, but this was the only clue with human traces so far, and Torifu could only follow it all the way down.
One after another, entering one and then connecting to the next.
After investigating nearly twenty caverns in this way, Torifu finally found something that excited him!
'This… this is a Salamander!'
A pitch-black Salamander, covered in warts, was coiled up and fast asleep inside the cavern.
The entire cavern was filled with its mucus and poison gas. If a person were to enter here, they would likely be instantly detected by the Salamander and swallowed whole.
But now, the cloud mist was Torifu's eyes, and this Salamander could not perceive its existence. Its skin was too thick and smooth to sense the momentary chill brought by the mist.
"Good! Excellent! I finally found them!"
Torifu suddenly spoke, giving the Kazekage and the Tsuchikage, who were chatting quietly on the side, a big fright.
But they also quickly realized that Torifu said he had finally found them!
"Hokage! Did you find the location of Hanzō and his team?"
Torifu withdrew a portion of his mental power, ensuring he could converse normally with the two.
"That's right! I discovered the presence of the Salamander in a very deep underground cavern, and the other caverns connected to this one show traces of human survival. It must be Hanzō and his team!"
This news was truly thrilling. An hour had already passed, and they finally had some results. The Kazekage was even worried that Torifu might suddenly collapse from chakra exhaustion.
In that case, they wouldn't be able to go after Blaze. Although they didn't want to admit it, they were no match for Blaze.
In the entire ninja world, the only ones capable of fighting Blaze were the two Hokage of Konoha.
"Can you actually find Hanzō and Blaze? Otherwise, if we strike rashly and they're not there, we'll only tip them off."
"Alright, I'll try."
The cloud mist successfully found a gap and entered the next cavern. There was still nothing here.
But when Torifu controlled the mist to enter the next cavern, he reduced the mist's concentration to the lowest level, making it virtually invisible to the naked eye in the dim cavern.
He also reduced the chakra contained within the mist to an extremely low level, adjusting this wisp of mist to be indistinguishable from ordinary mist before slowly entering.
As soon as he entered, Torifu immediately got what he was looking for.
A middle-aged ninja wearing a respirator was leaning against the wall, eyes closed and silent.
This person was none other than Hanzō, whom Torifu had been eagerly seeking!
He then noticed that this cavern was very spacious. At the very center, there seemed to be a raging fire burning, which the mist could not approach.
Torifu figured that must be Blaze.
The mist couldn't get close, so Torifu could only roughly determine from the outline that she seemed to be training?
It was too blurry for Torifu to guess, but finding their location was enough.