Chapter 457: Is Sunagakure Trying to Gamble the Fate of Their Nation?
As Rasa fell in battle, another, even grander battle began in the border forest of the Land of Fire.
"Are these Sunagakure ninja insane?"
Orochimaru looked at the map in his hand.
He truly had not expected that the Sunagakure ninja troops he had spent half a day searching for were actually at sea.
Judging by their movements, they seemed to be planning a direct sneak attack on the mainland of the Land of Flame.
"Are they trying to force a base trade, taking advantage of Kenichi's unwillingness to bring the war to the mainland?"
Orochimaru mused, vaguely guessing what the Sunagakure ninja were thinking.
First of all, his student Kenichi's plan had been flawless.
He had already drawn out the Kage of the other four Ninja Villages.
Now, those Ninja Villages lacked Kage-level combat power. The only remaining issue was the unknown whereabouts of each village's Tailed Beast.
Fortunately, Konoha's Nine-Tails was still in the Land of Snow, living happily as a child with his mother.
At present, the ninja troops of the other Ninja Villages had mostly halted their advance.
After all, their Kage had been drawn into battle by Kenichi, and they needed to monitor the situation. If necessary, they might even rush over to support their village's Kage.
These people could not possibly just watch their Kage die.
Because of that, Orochimaru easily found the allied ninja forces of the other three Ninja Villages.
Only Sunagakure's ninja had mysteriously disappeared after their Kazekage left, forcing Orochimaru to spend a long time searching for them.
At first, Orochimaru thought Sunagakure's ninja might have gone somewhere else, or perhaps even returned home.
Unexpectedly, the intelligence relayed by Deidara indicated that Sunagakure's ninja were advancing toward the Land of Flame.
Unless all of Sunagakure's ninja were rogue ninja who intended to completely defy the Kazekage's intentions, Orochimaru found their sudden collective action utterly incomprehensible.
Therefore, the abnormal actions of Sunagakure's ninja likely came from the Kazekage's command.
And if the Kazekage had ordered these ninja to advance en masse toward the Land of Flame, then what exactly was he planning?
"They even know how to use puppets to hide ninja underwater and avoid detection at sea."
Orochimaru licked his lips, somewhat intrigued.
Sunagakure's move struck him as very interesting.
If he were not the battlefield commander right now, he might even consider going personally to see what Sunagakure's ninja were truly thinking.
These ninja had only been discovered because Deidara, while flying in the sky, saw large shadows in the sea, sensed that something was wrong, and then figured out what Sunagakure's ninja were doing.
However, a surprise attack was only effective if it remained undetected.
Now, Sunagakure's ninja troops were already an open secret.
Under such circumstances, it would be impossible for Sunagakure to achieve their strategic objective.
"Leaving it to those two should be enough."
Orochimaru's fingers tapped the map.
Four circles had been drawn on it, indicating the current positions of the allied forces from the four Ninja Villages.
A scattered mess.
The four allied ninja forces showed no intention of cooperating. They remained widely separated.
This made Orochimaru want to laugh.
A group formed under the binding force of self-interest was indeed fragile. Before a strong wind had even blown, they had already scattered.
This situation also made it easier for Orochimaru to execute his plan to defeat these allied ninja forces one by one.
Orochimaru looked at the map.
His original target had been Iwagakure, because Iwagakure's ninja strength was relatively weaker.
However, Iwagakure was positioned between Konoha and Kumogakure's allied ninja forces. If he attacked Iwagakure's ninja, it might attract the attention of the other two Ninja Villages.
"Then..."
Orochimaru narrowed his eyes.
In this situation, to break the deadlock, he would have to...
Meanwhile, in the waters near the Land of Flame, violent explosions continuously echoed across the sea surface.
High in the sky, Deidara excitedly scattered his bombs.
"Art is an explosion! Hah! Hmm!"
Deidara let out an excited cry.
As he watched the black object below slow down under his attacks, his heart grew even more jubilant.
"This guy has such a strange ability."
On the cliffside, Kisame unfastened his clothes, took them off, and set them aside. Then he clicked his tongue as he watched Deidara continue flying through the sky.
He had been assigned by Orochimaru to assist Deidara on this mission.
There were no other reinforcements.
At the time, Kisame had been somewhat curious.
He had originally expected to carry out the mission with Kakuzu, but unexpectedly, he was alone and had to cooperate with a brat named Deidara, who had no reputation whatsoever.
"They're in the sea. I think you alone are enough."
However, after hearing Orochimaru's words, Kisame had no further questions.
A group of Sunagakure ninja without their Kage, and they were still at sea.
Even if that monster, the One-Tail, were released, Kisame would not be intimidated.
At sea, this was Kisame's territory.
Dealing with those useless Sunagakure ninja would be far too easy.
"It's time to let these landlubbers know what the sea is!"
With Samehada on his back, Kisame leaped down and quickly approached the slowly moving black shadow underwater.
Before long, the calm sea suddenly churned with giant waves.
A strangely shaped object floated up from the seabed to the surface, and several corpses of Sunagakure ninja drifted out with it.
"Wow, this guy is really violent."
Deidara looked at the battle below from the sky and could not help licking his lips.
His assistant's strength was truly terrifying.
But soon, Deidara noticed something wrong.
Those black shadows from under the sea had surfaced, and there were indeed some corpses of Sunagakure ninja.
But the number...
"We've been tricked."
Kisame emerged from the sea, his expression somewhat grim.
He looked angrily at the corpses in front of him, then climbed out of the water and stepped onto the heavily damaged puppet creations.
Unlike Deidara, whose combat experience was still not extensive, Kisame had once been a ninja of the Hidden Mist Village, and an ANBU at that.
He easily judged that the number of ninja corpses before him did not match the number of allied ninja that a village would dispatch.
Unless Sunagakure intended to send only a Tailed Beast and their Kazekage to increase their leverage after the war, such a small number of ninja would definitely not be enough.
Kisame's face was somewhat grim.
Although Deidara did not think as deeply, he also understood that the number here was wrong.
He quickly rode his creation toward the main base.
He needed to relay this information, then find the true location of Sunagakure's ninja.
Soon, Orochimaru, who was stationed at headquarters, received Deidara's message.
"Hehehe. I didn't expect them to be only bait."
Kakuzu let out a strange laugh.
As he spoke, he glanced at Sasori, who was sitting quietly beside him with an expressionless face.
"It seems Sunagakure's Kazekage has other plans."
Orochimaru's brows furrowed.
He was thinking about what Sunagakure's ninja intended to do.
They had gone through so much effort to hide themselves and set up bait. What exactly were they after?
Orochimaru had thought he had grasped the positions of the four Ninja Villages' forces.
But in the end, he had not.
Sunagakure seemed to be playing some new trick this time.
Orochimaru had some impression of Sunagakure, after all, they were old adversaries.
However, in Orochimaru's impression, Sunagakure did not particularly like playing tricky maneuvers.
Most of the time, they relied on puppets and poisons to fight. Their methods were somewhat underhanded, yet their fighting style was surprisingly reckless, carrying a sense of fighting with utter disregard for consequences.
It was Iwagakure that liked playing tricky maneuvers and gambling the fate of their nation.
They had once engineered the death of the Third Raikage, though that battle had also caused Iwagakure heavy losses and severely depleted their strength.
If it were Onoki, he might indeed gamble the nation's fate.
But what Orochimaru had not expected was that Sunagakure had also started playing such tricky maneuvers.
What exactly did they want to do?
Swap bases?
That was somewhat possible.
But ultimately, although parts of the Land of Wind were desert, its land area was still significant. It was unlike the Land of Water.
While the Land of Water had better land, it also had other problems.
Its land area was far smaller than the other four great nations, and it was located at sea. Many things had to be imported from other countries in the Shinobi World.
If Sunagakure deployed all its forces and forcibly occupied the Land of Water, using it as a base for survival, that would mean handing over the Land of Wind.
Although doing so would make it difficult for Kenichi to conquer the Land of Wind, since the Land of Wind was close to the other three great nations, it would still be a disadvantage for Sunagakure.
So what exactly did Sunagakure want to do?
But now, it was impossible to keep searching for traces of Sunagakure's ninja here.
Orochimaru decided to take a two-pronged approach.
On one hand, they would search for Sunagakure's ninja.
On the other hand, they would execute his recent plan to defeat the allied ninja forces of the other three Ninja Villages separately, paving the way for his disciple's future strategy.
"Then Sasori, you take fifty jonin and three hundred chunin to the target location."
Orochimaru looked at Sasori as he spoke.
To achieve his plan, he needed Sasori's cooperation.
Sasori nodded, having no objections.
"And the others..."
Orochimaru continued arranging tactics.
This time, he would also go to the front.
The main base was some distance from the three battlefields. If an unexpected situation arose, it would be difficult to provide support in time.
Because of that, Orochimaru planned to move to the front, allowing him to provide timely support if problems occurred.
After all, no matter how well a plan was conceived, other problems could easily arise.
Plans were always subject to change, and enemies would not necessarily act strictly according to one's plan.
For a time, the ninja forces of the Land of Flame and the members of the Akatsuki Organization scattered, disappearing into the dense forests of the Land of Fire.
Boom!
With a loud explosion, Iwagakure's ninja turned their heads in shock, looking toward the direction of the blast.
A giant monster stood there.
"What... what is that?"
Kitsuchi stared in astonishment at the huge creation before him.
It looked humanoid, yet it was unlike a normal person.
And was it not a little too large?
The nearby trees looked so small beside this thing that they did not even reach its knees.
"Enemy attack!"
However, Kitsuchi instantly reacted.
Whatever this thing was, it clearly was not here to help them.
In an instant, countless ninjutsu flew toward the giant monster.
But immediately afterward, Iwagakure's ninja discovered that behind this giant monster, a large group of ninja were also attacking them.
"Enemy attack!"
A sharp cry tore through Iwagakure's ninja camp.
"There's movement over there."
At Konoha's gathering point, Shikaku frowned and looked into the distance.
That was Iwagakure's ninja gathering point.
After Tsunade had been drawn away by Kenichi, Konoha's ninja had also actively explored outward, then located Kumogakure's ninja and Iwagakure's ninja.
So Shikaku easily determined that the disturbance came from Iwagakure's direction.
"Do they need support? At this point, the only ones likely to launch an attack are the ninja occupying the Land of Water."
Inoichi looked at his old friend.
The Fifth Hokage had her battlefield, but Konoha's ninja also had their own battlefield.
"I think something's wrong."
Shikaku rubbed his temples.
"We know Iwagakure's position. They're between us and Kumogakure. If I were the commander of the Land of Water's army, I wouldn't attack Iwagakure, because that would easily provoke a reaction from both us and Kumogakure."
Shikaku narrowed his eyes.
Kenichi was the Land of Water's known card. He should still be fighting Tsunade right now. He certainly would not be the commander of the Land of Water's army.
So who was commanding the Land of Water's forces now?
Without needing to think much, a name appeared in Shikaku's mind.
Orochimaru.
After all, Orochimaru was Kenichi's teacher. He had also commanded large-scale wars for Konoha before. Moreover, his strength was immense, making him qualified to serve as a battlefield commander.
But if Orochimaru was the commander, then it was even less likely for him to do this.
"Could it be a feint?"
Inoichi also agreed inwardly.
If he were the commander, he absolutely would not attack the obvious Iwagakure.
Would it not be better to attack Sunagakure instead?
The Sunagakure ninja army's current location was unknown. They seemed to have hidden themselves.
The ninja Konoha had sent to search for them had not found any trace yet.
"Then who do you think they want to attack?"
Shikaku looked at the map.
The only thing currently uncertain was the location of the Land of Water's ninja forces.
"I..."
Inoichi was not very sure either.
But in the next second, a deafening sound echoed through the forest.
.....
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