Cloud Village border.
Homura Mitokado, the Konoha advisor, led Konoha's main army into a massive battle against the Cloud Village's forces here.
The battle had been bizarre from the very beginning.
Even Shikaku Nara, hailed as Konoha's greatest tactician, could not make sense of where the battle was heading.
Homura charged recklessly across the battlefield, yet he always managed to achieve unimaginable results.
In the face of victory after victory, as clever as Shikaku was, he could never have guessed that the real order Homura had received was not to win battles and repel Raikage A's Cloud army, but to intentionally lose, lure the Cloud forces to strike deep into the heartland of the Land of Fire, and conveniently weaken the power of Konoha's major clans all at once.
Homura paced back and forth inside his command tent with a troubled look on his face, pondering how to successfully complete the mission Hiruzen Sarutobi had given him.
That Raikage only looks like a brute; he's completely cowardly. I've even watered down my efforts to this extent, and he still can't break through, Homura cursed angrily in his heart.
Homura had initially thought that throwing a battle would be extremely simple, so he completely ignored conventional strategies and went straight for a decisive battle the moment they met, leading the entire army to throw the match. To his surprise, this abnormal behavior terrified the Cloud army into fleeing in panic. This allowed Homura to accidentally achieve a feat of routing the enemy that neither Hiruzen nor Danzo had ever managed.
After reflecting on this painful lesson, he realized that he had appeared too valiant and too confident, which made the Cloud army afraid to face him head-on and forced them to retreat back to the border of the Land of Fire.