By the time Konoha received the battle report, there was already one other village that knew war was coming.
The Hidden Cloud Village.
Their intelligence had come directly from the Hidden Sand Village, which had communicated its intention to attack Konoha.
As for the Hidden Cloud Village itself, although the scouting routes for infiltrating the Land of Fire were not ideal, entering the Land of Rivers presented no particular difficulty.
Inside the mansion, the Third Raikage stood by the window, his two-meter frame casting a shadow across the room as he looked out at the village's striking landscape of peaks rising like a forest.
Listening to his subordinate's report, his voice was heavy and filled with natural dominance.
"Tell Bart and the others to increase their speed and launch the attack on the Land of Fire first. They want to strike before the Hokage can send reinforcements to the other side."
"Yes!"
His subordinates obeyed immediately and went to carry out the order.
After learning that the Sand Village was highly likely to attack the Land of Fire, the Raikage had already moved his troops toward the region. He had wanted to see whether the Sand Village would actually follow through.
If they did, the Cloud Village could act simultaneously, catching Konoha off guard on multiple fronts. If the Sand Village turned out to be feigning the attack and simply trying to use the Cloud Village to ignite the Great Ninja War on their behalf, the Raikage naturally would not allow himself to be manipulated that way.
Because he truly did intend to start this Great Ninja War. But on his own terms.
The war had been a calculated move from the beginning, and the first target the Raikage had originally wanted to strike was not Konoha but the Sand Village.
The plan had been to attack Sunagakure while it was leaderless and vulnerable, to add insult to injury at the worst possible moment. The target was clear: the Sand Village's pharmaceutical resources, including the intelligence and factory blueprints related to production.
Once obtained, the Cloud Village could simply copy the product without conducting their own research. Their village lacked talent in that specific field. Direct imitation was far more efficient than independent development.
But now the Sand Village had pulled this move, and the Raikage had no choice but to revise his thinking.
The last Great Ninja War. The Hidden Cloud Village's defeat to Konoha had weighed on the Raikage ever since, a wound that had never fully closed.
Although they had received early warning of the Sand Village's intentions, the Hidden Cloud Village had no inclination whatsoever to share that warning with Konoha. They could not allow Konoha to avoid such a blow.
"Father." Inside the room, the Raikage's son pushed off the wall he had been leaning against, arms uncrossed, and looked at the Raikage with a measured expression. "We have no intention of confronting the Land of Fire at this time."
"Attack." The Third Raikage's dark eyes went cold. "Does the Sand Village on the other side still intend to make their move?"
His son continued. "The current situation, although it presents an opportunity to strike Konoha, also puts the Sand Village at a rare point of weakness. Although they struck first and won an early victory, the Sand Village is also likely to become embroiled in a prolonged conflict.
With their village's manpower and military strength, after fighting Konoha they will most likely have no capacity left to worry about threats to their own territory. Just like that."
Hearing his son's assessment, the Raikage's eyes turned icy.
A powerful chakra burst from his body, surging around him in a visible current. His imposing figure radiated force and arrogance in equal measure. Combined with his long golden hair, he resembled a ferocious lion gathering itself before a strike.
"In this Great Ninja War," he said, "the Hidden Cloud Village will not only complete our territorial expansion and settle the regrets left over from the previous war. We will make our opponents recognize, once and for all, that the Hidden Cloud Village is the strongest."
The Raikage's sharp gaze did not turn toward his son. He kept his back to him.
"I am entrusting this to you. Do not let me down."
"Yes, father."
The Hidden Cloud Village had no intention of abandoning its designs on the Sand Village. They wanted everything.
Within the Land of Fire, Yuji led a squad of sensory ninja to begin clearing out the last remaining Konoha defenses.
With his eyes active and coordinating with the other sensory ninja in the squad, the remaining Konoha forces had no means of effective resistance.
They could not even conceal themselves and spy on movements from a distance. The precision of his detection matched the precision of his close-range combat. He located and eliminated one Konoha soldier after another in systematic sequence.
Then, moving into the plains beyond the forest, several villages and towns within the territory were struck one after another, inflicting visible damage and loss on the Land of Fire.
These losses were not directed at Konoha's military forces specifically. They were a form of political pressure, because they would enrage the Land of Fire's Daimyo.
And a Daimyo enraged by his own territory being damaged would direct that anger at the forces responsible for defending it, which meant Konoha's military would face dissatisfaction from above at the exact moment it was trying to respond to a war on multiple fronts.
Furthermore, once the main Leaf Village army left their positions on the battlefield, they were highly likely to form connections with the local population or use these places as strategic supply points and transit stations, making them even more vulnerable to disruption.
His goal was simply to minimize the enemy's ability to threaten the Sand Village's position as much as possible.
Then, under the established plan, the main Sand Village army began moving according to its assigned objectives. As for Yuji and Sasori, they followed the route intended to intercept the Leaf Village's reinforcements and headed inland.
By early the next morning, along a main road within the Land of Fire, the two of them were concealed in a mountain forest beside a different route.
This road was wide and served as one of the crucial junctions connecting the Land of Fire to the Land of Rivers. The main Leaf Village army, wanting to reach the battlefield as quickly as possible, could not afford to take hidden wilderness paths. They would naturally use the main road. The vanguard units sent ahead by the Leaf Village would do the same.
Time was of the essence for Konoha. Every minute gained could reduce the damage being inflicted on their territory and forces. Even during the most intense periods of the Second Great Ninja War, Konoha had never been invaded this deeply by an enemy army.
This was not a single infiltrating squad or a small vanguard unit. This was an entire army. The situation was genuinely serious.
"Yuji, the traps are all set."
Under a tree, Yuji was leaning against the trunk, using his clairvoyance to scan toward the far end of the road. A dark figure flashed past and appeared beside him. It was Tsuruichi, the Sand Village Jonin serving as the ambush squad leader.
"Good," Yuji nodded.
Tsuruichi glanced at Sasori standing nearby, hesitated briefly, then said, "Do we really not need more people? Just the two of you, even if the Leaf Village vanguard isn't large in number, their strength will certainly not be inferior. What if something goes wrong?"
"Don't worry," Yuji said. "Too many people would easily expose our position. And even if Sasori and I cannot defeat them, we can simply disengage and abandon the encounter."
"That works too, I suppose."
"Exactly."
Tsuruichi nodded. "Be careful!"
With that, he immediately departed.
Only Yuji and Sasori remained, hidden in the low-lying mountains and forest bordering the road.
Hours passed. During that time, occasional travelers and merchant caravans moved along the main road. These ordinary people were completely unaware of the danger surrounding them, seemingly still drifting in the quiet exhaustion that the previous period of relative peace had produced.
From a certain perspective, this actually demonstrated how successful the Sand Village's opening strike had been. Konoha had not yet had time to react, nor had they had time to take appropriate protective measures within the Land of Fire's interior borders.
Without either of them noticing how much time had passed, it was already past noon. The sun still hung high overhead and the air was dry and warm. Yuji's pupils shifted very slightly, and he gave a quiet warning to Sasori beside him.
....
BOnsu @100 PS
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