On Hill No. 2 stood Uchiha Ren, on Hill No. 3 was Obito Uchiha , and on Hill No. 4 was Orochimaru, along with the one thousand reinforcements he had brought.
It was obvious that if the Allied Shinobi Forces wanted to break through, their best option would be Hill No. 1.
"Simply chasing them will only inflict limited damage…"
After observing the battlefield for a while, Shikaku Nara shook his head slightly and murmured to himself.
He pulled out the map he carried with him and spread it open. Soon, his gaze locked onto a specific location.
The Land of Grass — Tenchi Bridge.
Konoha's strategic objective in this war had originally been simple: defend Kikyō Mountain, drive the Three-Village Alliance out of the Land of Fire, and minimize damage to the country.
If that were all, then Konoha's forces only needed to cling tightly to the enemy's retreating army and chase them all the way out of the Land of Fire, never giving them time to reorganize.
But now, Konoha had already gained the upper hand in this war.
What Shikaku wanted was no longer limited to merely driving them away.
This time, he intended to make the allied forces suffer a devastating blow—enough to secure at least ten years of peace for Konoha.
Moreover, once the war ended, the villages would inevitably return to the negotiating table.
Even for the sake of gaining absolute initiative in those negotiations, Konoha needed to tear a piece of flesh from the Three-Village Alliance.
As for how to do that—
The best outcome would naturally be to annihilate all ten thousand allied shinobi.
Even if that proved impossible, they had to at least wipe out the forces of one entire village.
After a moment of contemplation, Shikaku ultimately set his sights on Iwagakure.
Sunagakure was impoverished. Having only recently emerged from the Third Shinobi World War, the losses they had already suffered were enough to seriously weaken them.
Although Kumogakure was stronger overall than Sunagakure, they had already taken heavy losses against Konoha before the Battle of Kikyō Mountain.
After this battle, they too would likely lie low for a while.
Only Iwagakure, under the long-term leadership of the Third Tsuchikage Ōnoki, still possessed formidable strength and had suffered the least losses during the Third Shinobi World War.
Only by devouring the entire five thousand–man Iwagakure army could Konoha truly cripple them and maintain its dominance.
At this moment, Shikaku had already formed a preliminary plan.
And the key to that plan lay at Tenchi Bridge in the Land of Grass.
The battle to annihilate the Iwagakure army could not take place within the Land of Fire.
Even if only small groups of enemy shinobi escaped, they could still cause massive destruction to the cities of the Land of Fire.
Therefore, the battlefield had to be outside the Land of Fire's borders.
Among the smaller nations bordering the Land of Fire, the Land of Grass was the closest to Kikyō Mountain and also shared a border with Iwagakure.
The Iwagakure army was therefore most likely to retreat in that direction.
Once they entered the Land of Grass, they would soon encounter a massive canyon blocking their path.
And Tenchi Bridge was the only route they could take to cross it.
After reaching his decision, Shikaku turned to Inoichi Yamanaka .
"Inoichi, notify Chōza—the plan has changed."
"Have him try to hold back the fleeing allied forces, but release them in controlled waves."
"In addition, inform Uchiha Ren, Obito Uchiha , and Orochimaru—their priority is to kill the shinobi of Sunagakure and Kumogakure first."
"As for the Iwagakure shinobi, they can be left alone for the time being."
Inoichi nodded without hesitation and began relaying Shikaku's orders through his Mind Transmission Technique.
Shikaku then turned toward a communications squad shinobi who had been waiting nearby.
"Contact the village."
"Tell them to immediately inform Jiraiya."
"Have Jiraiya mobilize five hundred shinobi at once and send them to Tenchi Bridge in the Land of Grass to cut off the retreat route of the Iwagakure army."
The communications shinobi nodded.
He wrote Shikaku's orders onto a scroll and then performed a Summoning Technique, summoning a ninken (ninja hound).
After handing the scroll to the dog, he immediately dismissed the summoning.
At the communications headquarters in Konoha, another shinobi would summon the same ninja hound, retrieve the message, and deliver the intelligence to the village.
The rest now depended on how quickly the village responded.
Shikaku then turned his attention back to the battlefield.
The Allied surprise force, after leaving part of their troops behind to delay Konoha's counterattack, had indeed rushed toward Hill No. 1—just as Shikaku predicted.
However, just as their vanguard reached the foot of Hill No. 1—
Two additional forces suddenly charged out from Hill No. 2 and Hill No. 3, rushing respectively toward Hill No. 4 and Hill No. 1.
Under the leadership of Uchiha Ren and Obito Uchiha , the Konoha defenders on Hills 2 and 3 had already annihilated most of the invading allied forces, leaving only a few scattered squads that managed to escape.
Although Orochimaru had reinforced Hill No. 4, the allied forces there had gathered a large number of elite shinobi, so they were still resisting fiercely.
Now that Obito Uchiha was leading the forces from Hill No. 3 toward Hill No. 4, the battle there would likely end soon.
The fighting on Hill No. 1 had been at a stalemate.
But with the reinforcement of the allied surprise force, Konoha's defensive line was suddenly torn open, allowing many allied shinobi to break through and escape the battlefield.
Only when Uchiha Ren arrived with reinforcements from Hill No. 2 did the situation stabilize.
Following Shikaku's orders, they began targeting Sunagakure and Kumogakure shinobi, while deliberately allowing Iwagakure shinobi to escape in batches.
The outcome was already decided.
Seeing this, Shikaku finally let out a long breath of relief.
Several hours later—
As the last enemy on Hill No. 1 was killed, the Defense of Kikyō Mountain Fortress finally came to an end.
In this battle, due to Konoha's focused targeting, the one thousand–plus shinobi of Kumogakure were nearly wiped out.
Only a few dozen Kumogakure shinobi managed to flee in panic, carrying the heavily injured Fourth Raikage, A, whose whereabouts were now unknown.
Meanwhile, Sunagakure's four thousand troops also suffered devastating losses under Konoha's concentrated attacks.
Only slightly over one thousand managed to escape.
The Fourth Kazekage Rasa was gravely wounded, his life and death uncertain.
Under the leadership of Elder Chiyo, the surviving forces fled toward the Land of Rivers.
As for Iwagakure, their situation was somewhat better—though not by much.
Of their five thousand troops, more than half were killed or wounded.
The Four-Tails jinchūriki and Five-Tails jinchūriki were both killed in battle.
Their commander, Kitsuchi, was severely injured, his fate unknown.
Even the surviving retreating shinobi had been split into scattered groups, fleeing toward the Land of Grass.
After the battle, the ten thousand–strong allied army had been reduced to only around four thousand survivors.
Konoha could be said to have achieved a complete victory.
However—
Konoha's losses were also severe.
Out of the 6,500 defending shinobi, more than 2,000 were killed in action, with several hundred more critically wounded.
Almost everyone else carried injuries.
Only about 3,000 shinobi still retained combat capability.
And the war…
was not over yet.
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