Troop deployment... troop deployment...
Numbers... numbers... numbers! Ah! There it was!
Unable to wait any longer, Iwama pushed open the window and removed the small scroll from the Ninja Hawk's leg. With a bang, the tiny scroll returned to its original size as it opened. Iwama eagerly examined the information regarding Konoha's forces.
This scroll contained virtually all of the Land of Earth's intelligence on Konoha's military strength, including information gathered on Konoha's ninja population before the war. Iwama quickly found what he was looking for.
That was it!
Just as he thought!
No wonder! No wonder! No wonder their defenses had seemed impregnable all this time. That impregnable defense had only been an illusion!
Konoha's frontline forces accounted for only a little more than half of Konoha's ninja population. Under such intense vigilance, Konoha could have left behind, at most, an elite unit of around twenty men. No, a conservative estimate would be around thirty.
They couldn't possibly have elite units lying in ambush everywhere! What an arrangement!
They had intimidated them for more than ten days!
If I hadn't accessed this nearly classified intelligence, I'm afraid we would still have been kept in the dark!
After seeing this information, Iwama became certain that Konoha's airtight, flawless defense was nothing more than an illusion of being airtight and flawless.
At the same time, the scene from that day flashed through his mind: while anxiously pacing back and forth between two relatively important areas because he was eager for intelligence on Konoha's forces, he had seen those black-clad figures—the black-clad figures of Konoha's elite units.
Using hidden sentries to monitor our positions, they split up their remaining elite forces and coordinated them with the hidden sentries, constantly moving through important areas to create the illusion that elite troops were lying