The Hidden Stone's invasion of the Land of Lightning and their massive battle with the Hidden Cloud could be considered one of the turning points of the Third Great Ninja War.
After this battle concluded, all nations except the Land of Wind coincidentally ceased any major movements, and Konoha's various fronts only saw sporadic skirmishes.
The Third Great Ninja War had fallen into an eerie state of calm. In truth, the premonitions and estimations of all nations were unanimous: the prolonged chaos of war was nearing its end. What followed would be the final stage of the war, where victory or defeat would be decided in one fell swoop.
Therefore, the current peace was merely the various villages accumulating power for the final clash.
The only exception was likely the Hidden Sand. While the other villages remained quiet, they attempted to seize the initiative during this period of the Hidden Stone's weakened combat strength to completely drive the enemy out of the Land of Wind.
By achieving this first, they intended to force the Hidden Stone into signing a peace treaty, thus achieving their goal of being the first to exit the Great Ninja War.
As the saying goes, "one step ahead, always ahead." The Hidden Sand was the first village dragged into the Great Ninja War. With their war potential exhausted, the things they had previously sought were no longer attainable; peace had become their sole demand.
So, for the sake of peace, they had to keep fighting.
However, the results were not as ideal as the Hidden Sand had anticipated. Their successive attacks were all repelled without success.
The Hidden Stone fought back with absolute tenacity, showing no signs of severe troop depletion on the battlefield. Despite the constant back-and-forth, the Hidden Sand gained no advantage, and in the end, they failed to break the war's stalemate.
The Hidden Sand should have sought coordinated combat operations with their ally, Konoha. Unfortunately, they didn't. The reason might have been an inadequate assessment of their own strength versus the Hidden Stone's, overestimating their combat power, or perhaps they solely pursued the goal of withdrawing from the war by themselves.
In this regard, although they didn't suffer heavy casualties, the Hidden Sand had failed once again.
As for Konoha, after three months of rest and recuperation, they were fully prepared for the war to resume.
Furthermore, moving forward, Konoha would become far more proactive, shifting all fronts entirely to an offensive posture... Everyone knew that relying solely on defense wouldn't secure a swift victory in the war.
At this moment, judging from both internal conditions and the external environment, the timing for an offensive was ripe for Konoha.
It could said that they were Ready perfectly.
The fully rested Konoha ninjas began returning to the battlefield. Looking at the overall combat strength across all fronts, the number of ninjas Konoha had deployed into the war now exceeded ten thousand.
Since it was an all-out deployment, Hagoromo couldn't possibly stay in Konoha. In fact, he was already stationed on the front lines against the Land of Water, serving as Orochimaru's subordinate for the time being.
Having just arrived at the front lines, he was currently in his tent organizing his ninja tools... or more accurately, reorganizing them.
Because before he left Konoha, Kushina had insisted (forced) on thoughtfully (beating him up) preparing his ninja tools for him, so he had to repack everything himself.
Kushina had clearly been undertaking some sort of high-level training recently, which included various high-difficulty household chores.
The realm she was striving for could be highly condensed into the phrase a good wife and loving mother.
Much like the fact that she was currently learning to cook, and could technically produce food, but the taste was something you couldn't force... the ninja tools she had packed for Hagoromo were indeed a massive, all-encompassing assortment. To put it nicely, it was comprehensive and had everything one could need; to put it bluntly, it was a chaotic mess.
Therefore, Hagoromo needed to rearrange the items in his ninja pouch according to his own habits. He put what he needed in the right places and took out what he didn't... Otherwise, what if he reached for a shuriken and pulled out a pill instead? Was he supposed to throw beans and expect them to turn into soldiers?
He genuinely didn't know whether to feel gratified or sad about this. Hagoromo had always found it hard to imagine what Kushina would look like if she actually reined in her temper, yet now she was actively attempting such a transformation.
Perhaps attempting was the wrong word; it was more like a natural progression.
Life truly is a miraculous thing.
While Hagoromo was organizing his hazardous materials and pondering the miracle of life, someone tapped lightly on the pole outside his tent.
A voice then called out from outside: "Is Jonin Kamishiro here? Orochimaru-sama's combat strategy meeting is about to begin."
"Understood, I'll be right there," Hagoromo quickly replied.
Because of his achievement in assassinating the Raikage, and more importantly, possessing the actual strength to assassinate the Raikage, combined with his nearly two years of squad leadership capability as a Chunin... Hagoromo had been officially promoted to Jonin before arriving at the front lines.
Faced with the trust of his leaders and the promotion order, Hagoromo was in no position to refuse. If a ninja with the strength to kill the Raikage couldn't even be promoted to Jonin, how was anyone else supposed to get by?
Did he want to stay permanently stuck at the Number 1 spot in B-Class, preventing anyone else from moving up to A-Class Hero?
Fortunately, while a fourteen-year-old Jonin was a bit conspicuous, it wasn't the type to draw the gaze of the entire world.
Anyway, from the very beginning, he had been doing highly conspicuous things. The state of absolute obscurity he sought had never once been achieved.
Thinking about the things he had attacked, was it even possible for him to stay completely low-profile?
Stuffing the final scroll into his pouch, Hagoromo stood up, clipped the pouch back onto his waist, and then headed toward the meeting location.
Whether in terms of personal connections or military merits, although Hagoromo was a brand-new Jonin, he was indeed a very special one. Therefore, he was qualified to attend certain high-level pre-battle meetings.
Another point was that after actually studying the Raikage's corpse, Orochimaru had become extremely interested in the Lightning Style ninjutsu capable of instantly piercing the Raikage's defense. Rumor had it that this move had even pierced the One-Tail Shukaku in the past...
Orochimaru was full of interest, but unfortunately for him, according to Hagoromo, such a powerful ninjutsu required massive chakra accumulation, resulting in a very long cooldown period. And even when the cooldown was finished, it had to be saved for crucial moments, so he couldn't just casually perform it for Uncle Snake to watch.
When Hagoromo arrived at the meeting tent, he found quite a few people had already gathered.
Looking around, there were many ninjas from prestigious clans under Orochimaru's command, such as the Uchiha and the Hyuga.
This was easy to understand. Even before earning the title of the Sannin, Orochimaru was already an incredibly famous genius ninja in Konoha. It was likely that only this caliber of ninja could subdue those arrogant Bloodline Limit clans who constantly boasted about being Konoha's Number One.
Moreover, as Orochimaru's subordinates, the more special abilities a ninja possessed, the more careful they needed to be. Otherwise, who knows when they might end up getting sliced apart by him...
Are the Uchihas and Hyugas sitting here missing any spare parts? Hagoromo thought with a touch of malice.
This was genuinely just him overthinking it. From beginning to end, Orochimaru had limited interest in the Hyuga clan's Byakugan.
As for the Uchiha and the Sharingan, he wouldn't truly start caring about them until a few years later when he encountered a five-year-old prodigy. And his obsession with the Sharingan wouldn't begin until he witnessed that boy's Mangekyo.
So up until now, Orochimaru was still relatively restrained, fighting primarily for Konoha's sake. As for exactly when his mindset shifted, that remained unknown.
After all, Uncle Snake's sharp little brain was filled with a complex web of thoughts; who could possibly untangle them all?
Once everyone had presumably arrived, Orochimaru made his appearance.
"Next, we will instigate an active offensive against the Land of Water..."
Orochimaru's hoarse voice, sounding much like Otose-baba, echoed through the room. His briefing was straightforward and cut right to the chase.
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