The earth and sky were vast and boundless, the clear blue sky washed clean, without a single patch of white cloud across the ten-thousand-li expanse.
On the ground, Konoha shinobi wearing green flak jackets and brown-skinned Kumogakure shinobi were locked in fierce, bloody combat.
Every single minute, lives withered away.
Ping--!
A Kumogakure shinobi with a darker skin tone swept his longsword horizontally, parrying several kunai flying toward him, then spun around to slash at the Konoha shinobi attacking from right in front of him, forcibly interrupting the hand signs for the ninjutsu the Konoha shinobi was in the midst of launching.
Ping--!
The kunai in the Konoha shinobi's hand blocked the striking tool of the Kumo ninja, an expression of extreme strain instantly surfacing on his face.
Chirrup--!
Atop the Kumo ninja's blade, silver, tyrannical lightning suddenly flared, snapping the Konoha shinobi's kunai in an instant and cleaving the Konoha shinobi in two with a single stroke.
The shinobi dispatched by Konoha for this expedition were primarily centered around four major clans: the Sarutobi, the Shimura, the Utatane, and the Mitokado.
Because the former Hokage was Hiruzen Sarutobi, it gave these four clans an extremely special standing within Konoha—a status akin to nobility, where they enjoyed Konoha's finest resources and an environment far safer than that of any other shinobi.
Civilian shinobi had to risk their lives to accumulate military merits just to exchange for a ninjutsu scroll, yet for the shinobi of the four clans, such scrolls could be acquired with ease.
They, the four clans, enjoyed the absolute best treatment in Konoha.
Alas,
the "Naruto World" really was a place where royalty, nobility, generals, and ministers were born to their stations!
The four major clans possessed no special bloodline limits; even though they obtained Konoha's best resources