Ninja warfare differs fundamentally from the massed formations and frontal clashes of ordinary armies. Ninja do not gather together to charge head-on at the enemy, because doing so would make them easy targets for large-scale ninjutsu jointly cast by groups, capable of wiping them out in a single sweep.
Battles between ninja villages are generally conducted in small squads, dispersed along long stretches of border lines, blocking enemy forces attempting to advance into the country from any direction.
Reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance, infiltration and counter-infiltration, tracking and counter-tracking, hunting and counter-hunting.
This is a contest of strength, mobility, and intelligence.
Ninjas are a high-speed, highly mobile profession. Operating in squads, they investigate every trace left behind by the enemy, locate them and eliminate them. If they cannot win, they retreat and seek out nearby allies to cooperate.
If a large concentration of ninjas is encountered, it means the enemy intends to use this area as a breakthrough point. In such cases, the reconnaissance squad's first priority is not to block the enemy, but to transmit the intelligence back to headquarters.
Ninjas are unlike the ordinary human armies of the Warring States era, which often numbered tens or even hundreds of thousands.
Ninjas can usually defend an entire border with forces numbering only in the hundreds or thousands, relying on movement speeds far surpassing those of ordinary people and on highly efficient intelligence transmission.
Squad after squad is scattered along the battle line, maintaining close coordination with one another to form layered defensive lines that impede the enemy's advance. At the same time, elite squads of exceptional strength are organized to cross beyond the front lines of engagement, searching for the enemy's concealed encampments.
Once such a camp is found, they either look for an opportunity to destroy it or bring back the intelligence, gather the main force, and launch a direct advance to crush it.
This is the ninja mode of warfare.
If an ordinary army were to encounter ninjas, it would very likely be quietly surrounded and annihilated by converging ninja squads from all directions before it even realized what was happening.
In the past, even elite conventional armies stood no chance against ninja forces. In a single day, they might only be able to march several dozen kilometers, detouring around mountains and rivers. Ninjas, by contrast, can advance several hundred kilometers in a single day while ignoring terrain entirely, all while retaining considerable combat effectiveness.
So, once the one-country–one-village system was established, and the ninja villages became the military power of their respective countries, armies composed of ordinary people lost the meaning of their existence.
From that point on, the feudal lords who ruled the countries would choose to drastically cut the size of their armies, leaving only the necessary forces to maintain public order in towns and cities.
The surplus military budget would then be used to fully support the development of the country's ninja village.
But this created another contradiction: in practice, the country's ruler lost control over military force, because the relationship between the feudal lord and the Kage was only nominally one of subordination, while the reality was that their status was equal—two "kings" had appeared within a single country.
The division of supreme authority often meant war, but how could ordinary people be a match for ninjas? Only ninjas could deal with ninjas.
It had been only half a century since the ninja village system was established, and yet three great wars had already broken out; to some extent, this masked the contradiction between the countries and the ninja villages.
If the ninja world remained at peace, it would be hard to believe such a malformed system could last for long. At the beginning, the Kage was only the feudal lord's nominal subordinate; in essence, it was a cooperative relationship. But who knows when the feudal lord might become the Kage's subordinate—and the ninja village would become something else entirely: a shogunate.
From this angle, the great wars of the ninja world were actually something the feudal lords were happy to see.
Only by being trapped in endless fighting and hatred would ninjas ignore the fact that above their heads there was actually a feudal lord who had little real strength yet held political and economic power.
At the same time, great wars could drastically reduce the strength of the ninja villages; and when they recovered once again, they might immediately have to face a new great war.
That makes it quite interesting.
...
As time passed, the situation in the ninja world shifted and changed dramatically.
After the New Year, Higashino Makoto turned seven, and the ninja academy entered the third term of first year. After spring break, when the new term began, he would be a second-year student.
Over this nearly one-year period, the ninjas of Sunagakure and Konohagakure fought and killed each other along the border between the Land of Rivers and the Land of Fire.
Countless ninjas fought bathed in blood. One side did everything it could to invade and seize wealth; the other wanted to block the enemy outside its national border. The unfortunate Land of Rivers became the battlefield—its civilians suffered severe casualties and were forced to flee, yet no one cared about them.
There are rules in the ninja world forbidding harm to civilians—but once chaotic battles erupt, who still cares about such things?
Casualties on both sides continued to rise, hatred piling ever higher. Those who had survived the previous great war now carried old grudges layered with new ones, all wanting to slaughter every last bastard on the opposing side in this war.
The pitiful Third Kazekage, who had served as the original fuse, had long since been forgotten.
Both sides ceaselessly gathered intelligence, uprooted outposts, and searched for the location of the other's main headquarters.
Iwagakure of the Land of Earth moved at an opportune moment. The seasoned Tsuchikage, Ōnoki, dispatched ninja forces—sending them through the Land of Birds and the Land of Rain to infiltrate the borders of the Land of Wind, where they frantically squeezed out profits.
At the same time, they also pushed into the Land of Grass, directly threatening the security of the Land of Fire's northwestern border.
They even planted forces in the Land of Rice Fields, putting on a show of guarding against Kumogakure, deliberately giving those muscle-brained brutes something to worry about.
His objective was simple: force Sunagakure to commit all its strength to a decisive clash with Konoha, thereby weakening Konoha Village.
As for whether Sunagakure would withdraw and turn around to fight him—ha, impossible. Ever heard of sunk costs? They had already poured so much time and so many lives into fighting Konoha that retreating without a conclusion would be unbearable.
Before that point, Ōnoki himself would never directly invade the Land of Fire.
But once Konoha was weakened, he believed the warlike barbarians of Kumo would not miss such an opportunity. When that time came, his own chance would arrive.
As for Kirigakure, Ōnoki did not factor them in at all. If they joined, all the better; if they did not, it hardly mattered. He did not count on them anyway—who knew to what extent those madmen who loved internal strife had already mutilated their own village, or whether they even had the strength to invade the Land of Fire.
Faced with the threat from Iwagakure, Sunagakure indeed panicked. Although the Land of Wind was the largest of the Five Great Countries by territory, it was also the poorest. Its land was basically all desert; aside from a few oases, almost all economically developed cities and arable land lay in the north. That area absolutely could not afford any mishaps.
Then, eager to bring the war with Konoha to an end, Sunagakure fell neatly into the massive trap laid by Orochimaru, Konoha's western front commander.
Orochimaru was ruthlessly sharp in his instincts for war. After learning of Iwa's deployments through certain channels, he immediately realized that his opportunity had arrived.
At the cost of a portion of ninjas and wounded personnel, he successfully fed false intelligence to the enemy, leading Suna to judge that Konoha's main headquarters was located at Kikyō Pass on the border.
There was indeed a base there—but it was a trap whose true and false aspects were impossible to distinguish.
When Suna massed its main forces and pushed forward, they were surrounded by Konoha in a classic encirclement. The result was devastating casualties, with only a small number of units managing to escape.
This battle completely shattered Suna's offensive against Konoha and resolved the threat on the western front.
Seeing that the situation was beyond recovery, Sunagakure decisively backed down, sending out signals to seek peace. At the same time, it mobilized forces within the village to head north and resist Iwa's advance.
Konoha secured an initial victory, and Orochimaru's contributions were paramount.
However, the Third Hokage was deeply dissatisfied with this outcome. His disciple Orochimaru had used comrades from his own village as bait. Although victory was achieved, the vast majority of the ninjas and wounded who had drawn Suna's firepower fell beneath Kikyō Pass.
This was absolutely incompatible with the Will of Fire.
Shimura Danzō scoffed at this. His old friend had truly grown muddle-headed—if one wanted to end the war with Suna as quickly as possible and maximize the destruction of their effective forces, how could that be done without paying a price?
Yes—the intelligence regarding Iwagakure was provided by him.
After all, the so-called "Darkness of the Ninja World" might be ruthless and morally bleak, but his capabilities in intelligence work were unquestionably first-rate.
Orochimaru, for his part, was equally dissatisfied with his sensei in his own heart. The old man was truly confused—trading a small price for victory, while also preserving the vitality of the main force, was clearly an excellent deal.
Mercy does not command troops. As the commander of the western front, he had to be responsible for everyone's lives.
If the war were allowed to drag on and the fighting with Suna continued, even more ninjas would die. If it went on for another year or two, how many would the western front forces have left?
He had clearly rendered great service, yet what he received in return was his sensei's reproach.
Could the Will of Fire bring victory? Could the Will of Fire bring those dead comrades back to life?
At some moment, Orochimaru stood atop Kikyo Pass, looking down at the busy ninja forces below, and felt that all of this was utterly meaningless.
It was dull and tasteless. He should never have come in the first place—letting that idiot Jiraiya take over would have been better.
This victory was far less interesting than even a small technical breakthrough in the laboratory.
Disheartened, Orochimaru no longer put his mind on the war. Following his sensei's wishes, he quickly reached an alliance agreement with Suna and released the prisoners.
Let them go back and fight Iwa to the death. He would continue researching his own technique of immortality instead.
The situation on the western front suddenly became calm. After Suna withdrew, Konoha's ninjas began cleaning up the aftermath.
Inside a tent beneath Kikyo Pass, many young children were huddled together. The older ones were seven or eight years old; the youngest were only two or three.
All of them had been gathered up by Konoha's ninjas along the way—some from the Land of Fire, others from the Land of Rivers. Their parents and families had all died in the war between Suna and Konoha.
Beside this group of children, a tiny figure stood alone, like a stray wild puppy separated from the pack, eyes filled with confusion, unable to make sense of this world.
After a while, several adults came in and distributed food to them.
One of them—a young, beautiful blonde woman wearing glasses and dressed in Miko robes—noticed the solitary child.
After asking a few questions, she placed her own glasses on the child's face, then gently stroked his silvery-white hair.
---
I will post some extra Chapters in Patreon, you can check it out. >> patreon.com/TitoVillar
---