Naruto: From Novice to Grave

Unlike the battles fought in formation by ordinary armies, the Ninja World War did not involve a group charging into the enemy's formation. Such an attack would be easily wiped out by a large-scale ninjutsu unleashed by a group of soldiers.

Battles between ninja villages are usually fought in small squads, scattered along the long border, to block the enemy from advancing into their own country from any direction.

Reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance, infiltration and counter-infiltration, tracking and counter-tracking, hunting and counter-hunting.

This is a game of strength, mobility, and intelligence.

Ninjas are a high-speed, highly mobile profession. They work in small teams to search for any traces left by enemies, find them, and eliminate them. If they can't win a fight, they run away and find nearby teammates to cooperate with.

If a large group of ninjas is encountered, it means that the enemy is preparing to use this place as a breakthrough point. The first thing the reconnaissance team should do is not to block them, but to transmit the information back to headquarters.

Unlike the ordinary armies of the Warring States period, ninjas did not easily number in the tens or hundreds of thousands.

Ninjas can usually guard the border with just a few hundred or a thousand of them, thanks to their superhuman speed and ability to transmit intelligence.

Squads were scattered along the front lines, maintaining close contact with each other and forming layers of defense to block the enemy's advance. At the same time, they organized powerful elite squads to cross the lines of fire between the two sides and search for the enemy's hidden encampments.

Once found, either destroy it or bring back the intelligence and then gather a large force to sweep through.

This is the ninja's war mode.

If an ordinary army encountered ninjas, it would likely be wiped out by a concentrated barrage of ninja forces that would quietly converge from all directions without the enemy's knowledge.

The ordinary people who were once elite armies were powerless against the ninja forces. They could only march a few dozen kilometers a day and had to detour around mountains and rivers, but the ninjas could advance hundreds of kilometers in a day without regard to any terrain and still maintain considerable combat power.

Therefore, once the "one country, one village" system was established and ninja villages became the military force of the country, the army composed of ordinary people lost its purpose.

Since then, the rulers of the country have chosen to drastically reduce the number of troops, leaving only the necessary forces to maintain order in the towns and cities.

The surplus military funds were used to fully support the development of the country's ninja villages.

But this creates another contradiction: the rulers of the country have essentially lost control of the military, because the daimyo and the kage are only nominally subordinate to each other, but in reality, they are equal in status, and there are two daimyo in one country.

The division of supreme power often means war, but how could ordinary people possibly be a match for ninjas? Only ninjas can defeat ninjas.

The ninja village system had only been established for half a century, yet three major wars had already broken out, which to some extent masked the conflict between the state and the ninja villages.

If the ninja world remains peaceful, it's hard to believe that this distorted system can last long. Initially, the Kage were merely nominal subordinates of the Daimyo, with a cooperative relationship in reality. But who knows when the Daimyo might become the Kage's subordinate, and the ninja village might become something else entirely—the Shogunate.

From this perspective, a major war in the ninja world is actually something the daimyo would be happy to see.

Only when caught up in endless battles and hatred do ninjas forget that above them lies a powerful but politically and economically influential daimyo.

At the same time, the great war can greatly weaken the strength of the ninja villages. When they recover, they may immediately face a new great war.

This is very interesting.

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As time went by, the situation in the ninja world changed dramatically.

After the New Year, Higashino Makoto will be 7 years old, and the Ninja Academy will enter the third semester of his first year. After the spring break, when the new semester starts, he will be a second-year student.

For nearly a year, ninjas from Sunagakure and Konoha fought each other on the border between the Land of Rivers and the Land of Fire.

Countless ninjas fought bloody battles, one side desperately invading to seize wealth, the other trying to keep the enemy outside the border. The poor Land of Rivers became a battlefield, and the civilians affected suffered heavy casualties and were displaced, but no one cared about them.

There are rules in the ninja world that prohibit harming civilians, but when a chaotic battle breaks out, who cares about these rules?

As casualties on both sides continued to rise, the hatred grew deeper and deeper. Those who survived the last war carried old grudges and new hatreds, and wanted to kill all the bastards on the other side in this war.

The unfortunate Third Kazekage, the very person who ignited this conflict, has long been forgotten.

Both sides relentlessly gathered intelligence, eliminated outposts, and searched for each other's main base.

The Hidden Stone Village of the Land of Earth was waiting for an opportunity to strike. The cunning Tsuchikage, Onoki, dispatched a ninja force that crossed the Land of Birds and the Land of Rain to invade the border of the Land of Wind, ruthlessly extracting resources from the land.

On one hand, they invaded the Land of Grass, directly threatening the security of the northwestern border of the Land of Fire.

At the same time, he also infiltrated the Land of Fields, pretending to be wary of the Hidden Cloud Village, and trying to sow discord among those muscle-bound guys.

His goal was simple: to force Sunagakure to fight Konoha with all its might, thereby weakening Konoha.

As for whether Sunagakure will retreat and turn back to attack them, haha, impossible. Don't they understand sunk costs? They've already invested so much time and lives in Konoha; they won't be willing to retreat until it's all over.

He wouldn't have allowed Onoki to directly invade the Land of Fire before this.

But once Konoha is weakened, he believes the warlike Kumogakure Black Barbarians will not let this opportunity pass, and that will be his chance.

As for Kirigakure, Onoki didn't include them in his calculations. It would be better if they were together, but it wouldn't matter if they didn't participate. He didn't expect anything from them anyway. Who knew how much those infighting lunatics had damaged the village, or even whether they had the power to invade the Land of Fire?

Faced with the threat from Iwagakure, Sunagakure was indeed anxious. Although the Land of Wind was the largest of the five great nations in terms of land area, it was also the poorest. Its territory was mostly desert, and apart from some oases, the economically developed major cities and arable land were almost all in the north. It was absolutely crucial that nothing went wrong there.

Then, Sunagakure, eager to end the war with Konoha, fell right into the trap set by Orochimaru, Konoha's western front commander.

The ruthless Orochimaru had an extremely keen sense of war. When he learned about the arrangements of Iwagakure through some channels, he immediately realized that his opportunity had come.

He used some ninjas and wounded soldiers as a sacrifice to successfully transmit false information to the enemy, leading Sunagakure to conclude that Konoha's main base was located at Kikyo Mountain on the border.

There is indeed a headquarters there, but it's a trap that's hard to tell if it's real or fake.

When Sunagakure gathered a large force and pushed forward, they were surrounded by Konoha and suffered heavy casualties, with only a small number of troops managing to escape.

This battle completely thwarted Sunagakure's attack on Konoha and eliminated the threat on the western front.

Seeing that there was no way to turn the tide, Sunagakure decisively backed down and sent out a signal to sue for peace. At the same time, it mobilized forces within the village to head north to resist the attack from Iwagakure.

Konoha secured the first victory, with Orochimaru playing a crucial role.

However, the Third Hokage was very dissatisfied with this, because his apprentice Orochimaru used his own village's comrades as bait. Although he won, most of the ninjas and wounded who attracted the Sand Village's firepower fell at the foot of Mount Kikyo.

This is absolutely not in accordance with the Will of Fire.

Danzo Shimura scoffed at this, thinking that his good friend had become senile. He wanted to end the war with Sunagakure as soon as possible and eliminate their manpower to the greatest extent possible, but how could that be possible without paying a price?

Yes, it was he who provided Orochimaru with the information about Iwagakure.

After all, although the Dark Lord of the Ninja World is a bit wicked and has a dark personality, his intelligence gathering ability is still top-notch.

Orochimaru also expressed his dissatisfaction with his teacher in his heart. The old man was really confused. He had traded a small price for victory and preserved the strength of the main force. It was clearly a very worthwhile thing to do.

A merciful general cannot command an army. As the commander of the western front, he had to be responsible for the lives of everyone.

If the war is allowed to continue and the fighting with Sunagakure continues, even more ninjas will die. If the fighting continues for another year or two, how many troops will be left on the western front?

Despite having performed a great service, all I received in return was a reprimand from the teacher.

Can the Will of Fire bring victory? Can the Will of Fire bring those fallen comrades back to life?

Suddenly, at one moment, Orochimaru stood on Mount Kikyo, looking down at the busy ninja forces below, and felt that it was all meaningless.

It was so boring. I should never have come. I should have just let that idiot Jiraiya take my place.

This victory is not as interesting as a small technological breakthrough in the laboratory.

Disheartened, Orochimaru no longer focused on the war and, following his teacher's instructions, quickly reached an alliance agreement with Sunagakure and released the prisoners.

Let them go back and fight Iwagakure to the death; he'll continue researching his immortality technique.

The situation on the western front suddenly became more relaxed. After the Sand Village left, the Konoha ninjas began to clean up the mess.

Inside a tent at the foot of Kikyo Mountain, several young children were huddled together, the oldest being seven or eight years old and the youngest only two or three.

These were all collected by Konoha ninjas. Some were from the Land of Fire, and some were from the Land of Rivers. Their parents and families had all died in the war between Sunagakure and Konoha.

Beside this group of children, a tiny little one stood there alone, like a stray dog ​​separated from its pack, its eyes filled with confusion, unable to see the world clearly.

After a while, several adults came in and distributed food to them.

One of them, a young, beautiful blonde woman wearing glasses and a shrine maiden's outfit, noticed the lonely child.

After asking her some questions, she put her glasses on the child's face and gently stroked his silver-white hair.