Cloud Village border fortress.
Homura Mitokado raised his head to look at the towering fortress walls, falling into deep thought.
He had come to the Cloud Village battlefield in this war not to win, but to intentionally suffer defeat.
He wanted to let Cloud Village's army drive straight in and slaughter their way into the heartland of the Land of Fire.
He would use the Raikage as a blade to eliminate the various hidden threats within Konoha Village.
Both Homura Mitokado and Hiruzen Sarutobi knew very well that their current situation was precarious.
Ever since the night of the Uchiha Clan's annihilation, the clans of the four of them had been teetering on the edge of a cliff, and their destruction was merely a matter of time.
The initiation of the Uchiha Clan's annihilation meant that they had already broken the rules, and all future struggles would inevitably be without bottom lines.
The fact that the Uchiha could negotiate a peace with Konoha that night was not because they let bygones be bygones, but because the Uchiha lacked sufficient strength at the time, or rather, because the Uchiha Clan was unwilling to let their remaining members die in battle.
Naturally, Hiruzen Sarutobi and the others were unwilling to make peace, but their own strength was likewise insufficient to suppress the Uchiha.
The major ninja clans of Konoha shared a symbiotic relationship and would not stand alongside him.
Tsunade and Jiraiya did not approve of annihilating the Uchiha either.
After Wang Ming revealed his swordsmanship prowess—possessing beyond-Kage-level strength even without using the Mangekyo—Hiruzen Sarutobi could only passively choose to negotiate.
However.
Be it the Uchiha!
Or the Hokage faction!
They both understood that the peace treaty was nothing more than a useless promise.
The moment either side acquired the strength to