Ninja wars are fundamentally different from the massed formations of ordinary armies.
Shinobi do not gather into dense ranks to charge head-on—doing so would only make them perfect targets for large-scale Ninjutsu, where a single coordinated technique could wipe out an entire area.
Instead, wars between Ninja Villages are fought through countless small squads scattered along long border lines, sealing off every possible avenue of advance.
Reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance.
Infiltration and counter-infiltration.
Tracking and counter-tracking.
Hunting and counter-hunting.
This is a war of strength, mobility, and intelligence.
Ninjas are a profession defined by speed and freedom of movement.
Operating in squads, they investigate every trace left behind by the enemy, locate them, and eliminate them.
If victory is impossible, they retreat immediately and seek coordination with nearby allies.
If a squad encounters a large enemy force, it means the opponent intends to use that area as a breakthrough point.
In such cases, the first priority is not to block them, but to transmit intelligence back to headquarters as quickly as possible.
Ninjas are nothing like the massive human armies of the Sengoku era, which often numbered in the tens or hundreds of thousands.
A border can be defended by only a few hundred or a few thousand Ninja, relying on movement speeds far beyond ordinary humans and on rapid, efficient information transmission.
Squads are distributed across the front lines, maintaining constant contact to form layered defensive networks that restrict enemy movement.
At the same time, elite strike teams with overwhelming strength are dispatched behind enemy lines to search for hidden base camps.
Once discovered, those camps are either destroyed outright or reported so that a concentrated force can be assembled to sweep through them.
This is the Ninja way of war.
If a conventional army of ordinary people were to encounter Ninja units, they would likely be annihilated without ever understanding what happened—quietly surrounded and erased by coordinated strikes from all directions.
Even the most elite human armies of the past had no means to resist the Ninja. They could march only dozens of kilometers a day, constrained by terrain and supply lines, while Ninja could travel hundreds of kilometers in a single day, regardless of geography, all while maintaining full combat capability.
Thus, once the one-country-one-Village system was established and Ninja Villages became the true military forces of their nations, conventional armies lost their reason for existence.
From that point on, the Daimyō—the rulers of nations—greatly reduced their standing armies, retaining only enough troops to maintain public order in cities and towns.
The surplus military funds were instead poured into supporting their respective Ninja Villages.
But this gave rise to a new contradiction.
In practice, the ruler of the nation lost control over military power. Though the Daimyō and the Kage were nominally in a subordinate relationship, in reality their status was equal.
A single country now had two kings.
And when supreme power is divided, conflict is inevitable.
Yet how could ordinary people contend with Ninja? Only Ninja could fight Ninja.
The Ninja Village system had existed for less than half a century, yet three great wars had already erupted.
To a degree, these wars masked the deeper conflict between the nation and the Village.
If the Ninja World were ever to enjoy prolonged peace, it was difficult to imagine how long such a distorted system could endure.
Originally, the Kage was only a partner to the Daimyō—but given enough time, the balance could easily reverse.
The Daimyō might become the subordinate, and the Ninja Village could evolve into a new form of rule altogether—a Shogunate in all but name.
Viewed from this angle, the wars of the Ninja World were not entirely unwelcome to the Daimyō.
As long as Ninja remained trapped in endless cycles of bloodshed and hatred, they would overlook the truth that above them stood a ruler with little personal strength, yet absolute political and economic authority.
At the same time, large-scale wars steadily drained the power of the Ninja Villages. And just as they began to recover, another war would erupt.
A fascinating—and terrifying—cycle.
---
As time passed, the situation across the Ninja World continued to shift violently.
After the New Year, Shin turned seven years old, and the Ninja Academy entered the third semester of its first year.
Once spring break ended and the new term began, he would officially become a second-year student.
During this nearly one-year span, the Hidden Sand Village and Konoha Village were locked in a brutal struggle along the borders of the Land of Rivers and the Land of Fire.
Countless Ninja clashed in blood-soaked battles. One side sought invasion and plunder; the other fought to keep the enemy beyond its borders.
The impoverished Land of Rivers became the battlefield, and its civilians suffered death, displacement, and ruin—yet no one cared.
The Ninja World had rules forbidding harm to civilians, but once chaos took hold, such rules became meaningless.
Casualties mounted on both sides, and hatred deepened.
Survivors of the previous war carried old grudges into the new one, piling fresh hatred atop ancient resentment, each side desperate to wipe out the "bastards" across the line.
The original trigger—the disappearance of the Third Kazekage—had long since faded from memory.
Both sides relentlessly gathered intelligence, destroyed outposts, and searched for the enemy's main encampments.
Meanwhile, Iwagakure of the Land of Earth waited patiently.
The cunning Tsuchikage, Ōnoki, dispatched Ninja units through the Land of Birds and the Land of Rain, invading the borders of the Land of Wind and squeezing out profits wherever possible.
At the same time, Iwagakure pushed into the Land of Grass, directly threatening the northwestern frontier of the Land of Fire.
They also advanced into the Land of Rice Fields, acting under the pretense of checking Hidden Cloud Village movements—keeping those muscle-headed shinobi "contained."
His objective was simple: force the Hidden Sand Village to commit everything it had and decide the war with Konoha in a single, decisive clash—thereby achieving the true goal of weakening Konoha itself.
As for whether Sunagakure would withdraw its troops and turn back to confront him—ha, impossible. The sunk-cost fallacy was already in full effect.
They had poured too much time, manpower, and blood into the war against Konoha. Retreating without a conclusion was something they would never accept.
Before this point, Ōnoki had no intention of invading the Land of Fire directly either.
But once Konoha showed signs of exhaustion, he was confident that the warlike black barbarians of Kumogakure would not miss such an opportunity.
When that happened, his moment would finally arrive.
As for the Hidden Mist Village, Ōnoki did not even count them as a factor. It would be convenient if they joined, but it hardly mattered if they did not.
He never placed his hopes on them to begin with.
No one knew how badly those lunatics—who loved internal slaughter more than foreign war—had already crippled their own Village.
Whether they even possessed the strength to invade the Land of Fire was questionable.
Facing pressure from Iwagakure, Sunagakure naturally grew anxious.
Although the Land of Wind possessed the largest territory among the Five Great Nations, it was also the poorest.
Most of its land was barren desert. Aside from a few oases, nearly all of its arable land and economically developed cities were concentrated in the north.
Nothing could be allowed to go wrong there.
Thus, desperate to end the war with Konoha as quickly as possible, Sunagakure walked straight into the massive trap laid by Konoha's western-front commander—Orochimaru.
The ruthless Orochimaru possessed an instinct for war that bordered on the monstrous. Upon learning of Iwagakure's deployments through certain channels, he immediately sensed the opportunity.
At the cost of a portion of his own Ninja and wounded soldiers, he successfully fed Sunagakure false intelligence, leading them to conclude that Konoha's main camp was located at Mount Kikyo along the border.
There was indeed a base camp there—but it was a carefully crafted decoy, indiscernible from the real thing.
When Sunagakure finally committed a heavy force and launched their full assault, they were swiftly surrounded and annihilated by Konoha's forces.
The result was catastrophic casualties, with only a small number of units managing to escape.
This single battle completely shattered Sunagakure's offensive momentum and resolved the threat on the western front.
Recognizing that the situation was beyond recovery, the Hidden Sand Village decisively admitted defeat.
They sent signals for peace while simultaneously mobilizing their remaining forces to the north to resist Iwagakure's invasion.
Konoha had secured its first major victory. And Orochimaru was the one who had contributed the most.
However, the Third Hokage was deeply dissatisfied. His student had used Konoha's own comrades as bait.
Although victory had been achieved, the majority of the Ninja and wounded soldiers who drew Sunagakure's attention had fallen at the foot of Mount Kikyo.
This, in Hiruzen's eyes, was a clear violation of the will of fire.
Danzo scoffed at this reaction. His old friend had grown senile.
If one wanted to end the war with Sunagakure as quickly as possible and cripple their effective strength, how could it be done without paying a price?
Besides, the intelligence regarding Iwagakure had been provided by him in the first place.
After all, while the so-called Darkness of the Ninja World was indeed ruthless and unsavory, his intelligence network was unquestionably first-rate.
Orochimaru, meanwhile, felt his own dissatisfaction simmering beneath the surface.
His teacher was hopelessly muddled. Exchanging a small price for a decisive victory while preserving the core strength of the main force was clearly a profitable trade.
A compassionate man could not command an army.
As the Western Front commander, he had to be responsible for the lives of all his subordinates.
If the war had continued in a prolonged stalemate against Sunagakure, even more Ninja would have died.
Had the fighting dragged on for another year or two, how much of the western force would have survived?
He had clearly earned a great merit—yet all he received was rebuke.
Could the will of fire bring victory? Could the will of fire resurrect the dead?
At a certain moment, standing atop Mount Kikyo and gazing down at the bustling Ninja units below, Orochimaru suddenly felt that everything before him was meaningless.
Dull. Tasteless.
If he had known it would be like this, he should never have come. He should have let that idiot Jiraiya take command instead.
This victory was far less interesting than even a minor technical breakthrough in his laboratory.
Dispirited, Orochimaru withdrew his focus from the war. Following his teacher's wishes, he swiftly concluded an alliance with Sunagakure and released the prisoners.
Let them return north and fight Iwagakure to the death.
He would rather devote himself to researching immortality.
With Sunagakure's withdrawal, the western front abruptly became quiet. Konoha Ninja began the grim task of cleaning up the aftermath.
Inside a tent at the foot of Mount Kikyo, several young children huddled together. The older ones were seven or eight years old; the younger ones were barely two or three.
These were orphans gathered by Konoha Ninja along the way—children from the Land of Fire and the Land of Rivers alike. Their parents and families had all perished in the war between Sunagakure and Konoha.
Beside the group stood a tiny figure alone, like a stray pup separated from the pack. His eyes were filled with confusion, unable to properly focus on the world around him.
After some time, several adults entered the tent and distributed food.
One of them—a young, beautiful blonde woman wearing glasses and dressed in shrine-maiden robes—noticed the solitary child.
She stepped forward, gently asked a few questions, then placed her own glasses onto the child's face and softly stroked his silver-white hair.