While the research on the Uchiha clan members was being conducted, the Sand Village and Konoha armies had already erupted into their second large-scale conflict since the opening battle.
Upon learning that Uchiha Kimu and his group had been taken by the Sand Village, the Konoha commander and his staff could not pretend they were anything other than deeply alarmed.
Understanding the gravity of the situation immediately, the commander sent word back to the village and summoned every senior leader in the army to begin planning an offensive deployment.
Konoha could no longer afford a defensive strategy. They could not buy time for the village to recover from its accumulated losses. Because every second that passed, the situation for Kimu and the surviving Uchiha clan members grew more perilous.
Minato had already pointed out that the two deceased Uchiha clan members had their eyes removed. Combined with Yuji's identity as a medical ninja of the highest caliber, it was impossible not to draw the obvious conclusion.
Regardless of the cost, they had to force the Hidden Sand Village to hand over the five survivors along with the two pairs of Uchiha eyes.
This time, both sides mobilized nearly their entire armies.
Within the borders of the Land of Rivers, the two armies met on a flat and isolated plain. There was no complex terrain to exploit, the timeframe was short, and there was limited room for elaborate tactical maneuvering. This battle was purely a head-on clash.
From above, the fighting was incredibly fierce, with explosions and battle cries shaking the air. The casualty rate in the engagement was no less than in the opening stages of the first battle, and in some sections exceeded it.
"No sign of Yuji?"
A ninja intelligence officer, fighting his way through the bloody engagement, rushed forward to relay information from the reconnaissance squad's tracking of key enemy targets. Upon learning that Yuji was absent from the battlefield, his heart pounded.
The calculation was immediately clear. This was deliberate. Using a large-scale offensive to force Yuji to withdraw from the battle, drawing out the Sand Village's main fighting force in full, and then sending Minato with members of the Hyuga clan's branch family to secretly infiltrate the Sand Village headquarters and locate the surviving Uchiha clan members.
The Hyuga clan's Byakugan would quickly lock down the Sand Village's base layout and identify where the captives were being held. Reducing the time Minato needed to spend operating inside the enemy's territory would also significantly reduce the danger he faced.
It was worth remembering that in the first battle, although Konoha had suffered heavy losses at the hands of the Sand Village, they had ultimately appeared to win.
And in recent weeks, the Sand Village's attacking squads had suffered numerous defeats against Konoha's forces. The current battlefield environment was relatively simple, open terrain in full daylight rather than complex forested ground at night.
Even without Hiruzen present, facing Konoha's assembled top-tier fighting force, the Sand Village should have been stretched to the breaking point.
And yet something was wrong.
"Quickly send a team to reinforce Minato's group."
"Yes."
The intelligence ninja fled immediately to carry out the order.
Boom.
Just as the orders finished being given on that side of the field, something appeared in the distance that stopped everyone in their tracks. The Leaf Village's army, across a wide section of the battlefield, had large numbers of soldiers being thrown violently into the air.
Many were severely wounded before they even landed.
His pupils contracted.
Suspended in midair, manipulated by an enormous volume of chakra threads, was a red-robed puppet of tremendous scale. What made his eyes widen almost involuntarily was what he saw within it. Familiar faces. Inuzuka Tsume. Yamanaka Inoichi.
These Konoha people had become members of Akasuna no Sasori's puppet army.
Operating as the Sand Village's primary combat force on this battlefield, Sasori was single-handedly driving his terrifying puppet collection through the Konoha lines, tearing open gaps for the Sand Village soldiers pressing behind him.
The scale of the devastation was immediate and severe.
Just as he stood momentarily stunned by what he was seeing, the suspended puppets transformed, their mechanisms opening and extending outward. Then, like a dark cloud releasing a torrential downpour, countless projectiles descended from above.
"Dodge!"
He shouted and leaped clear in the same instant.
Because he had already seen what was happening to the Leaf Village soldiers struck by that volley. They had lost their fighting capability almost immediately upon being hit and were falling to the ground in rapid succession.
They had been poisoned.
"Blood Doctor Yuji's blood poison!"
His expression changed drastically.
After the first battle, when the Leaf Village returned to collect the bodies of their fallen comrades, they had studied some of the remains of those who had died under Blood Release techniques.
Several bodies had been brought back to the village for examination. Therefore, the commander and his staff had developed some understanding of the highly toxic components present in Yuji's blood.
What shocked him now was the implication of what he was seeing. Yuji was not on this battlefield.
He was not present to personally control anything. And yet his pure blood, infused into Sasori's puppets, was displaying terrifying destructive power entirely on its own.
This proved that the toxicity in Yuji's blood was not a product of a Bloodline Jutsu transformation applied in the moment of use. It was a difference in his innate constitution. The poison existed in his blood naturally and persistently.
"Damn it!"
"Retreat!"
The Puppeteers following closely behind Sasori's advance looked at the devastation unfolding and shouted the order. If the Sasori puppet could carry this type of toxin, then every other puppet in the Sand Village's arsenal could very likely be carrying the same.
The Sand Village had been hiding this capability the entire time.
On the other side of the situation entirely, Minato and two members of the Hyuga clan's branch family had descended from the main battlefield area and were circling wide around the engagement, moving toward the Sand Village's military headquarters.
Minato understood the Sand Village's camp layout with a degree of familiarity that most people on Konoha's side did not possess.
He had infiltrated it before during the medicine theft operation, and had spent considerable time operating covertly in and around the Sand Village's positions in the process of locating the pharmaceutical storage.
He had developed a working knowledge of the routes, the defensive positioning, and the patrol patterns. Under his guidance, the three-person squad could reach the Sand Village's main camp by the most efficient path available while minimizing exposure to detection.
And with a Hyuga clan member among the three, any disturbance could be anticipated well in advance.
"We have arrived."
After moving for some time, the three of them settled into a concealed position in a grove of trees outside the Sand Village headquarters.
The camp was positioned on a steep slope ahead of them, a deliberately chosen location that was easy to defend and difficult to approach, with excellent visibility across the surrounding area and few natural obstructions that could hide an approaching force.
The Hyuga clan member activated the Byakugan immediately. The distinctive veins bulged around his eyes as his gaze extended through the terrain and into the hidden headquarters within.
"Found them."
Minato spoke in a low voice after a short time.
Within the Hyuga's field of vision, several familiar figures were gathered inside a canvas tent. They were motionless, as though their movements were restricted in some way. Minato relayed the location immediately.
"The medical squad's section," he said, and his expression shifted upon saying it.
That was the area Yuji personally oversaw.
"They are not unconscious and they are not in a state of impaired awareness. I can see their chakra fluctuations, but the pattern is unusual," the Hyuga member said with a frown.
Active chakra indicated the Uchiha were in some kind of alert state. Most likely their perceptions had been expanded or altered in some way.
However, this was distinctly different from what one would expect of prisoners. Five Uchiha clan members held captive under these circumstances should have been unconscious, heavily restrained, or potentially already dead.
And yet they were alive.
Whatever was happening to them, they were still alive.
"Give me a full picture of the staffing and positioning inside the headquarters."
Minato felt a distinct sense of unease upon hearing the Hyuga's report. But given the urgency of the situation, there was no time to think through every implication. Saving the Uchiha came first.
He nodded, and the Hyuga's eyes continued scanning the interior of the headquarters as he began speaking slowly and methodically.