Outbreak of War

Ebizo and the other elders agreed to Chiyo's proposal to launch the war.

"What about Lord Third Kazekage's situation? Are we just going to let him die in vain like this?"

"Why don't we directly announce the news that the Kazekage was assassinated by Konoha Anbu, and stir up the villagers' hatred toward Konoha to support our war?"

The Third Kazekage had just died, and some people were already planning to make a fuss over his death.

"If we do that, won't the lack of a Kazekage cause panic among others?" an elder asked with some concern.

"Then we'll just choose another Kazekage!" Chiyo decided decisively.

"I propose Jōnin Pakura to serve as the Fourth Kazekage!"

"I propose Lord Rasa to serve as the Kazekage!"

In the thirty-ninth year of Konoha, the Third Kazekage went missing, and Sunagakure's publicly announced narrative was that Konoha had mobilized the White Fang and the Three Ninja to jointly assassinate him.

With Chiyo's support, Rasa successfully ascended to the position of the Fourth Kazekage and declared war on Konoha in the name of the Fourth Kazekage.

The Third Ninja War thus abruptly broke out...

Land of Fire, Konohagakure.

Orochimaru was using the Three Snake Sisters to help research the nature of natural energy.

The very next moment, however, he received an emergency recall order from Konoha.

Sunagakure had already gathered a large force of ninja to launch an invasion into the western border of the Land of Fire, and the garrison ninja had suffered heavy casualties.

Orochimaru had successfully been promoted to captain of Konoha's Jonin Commander last year, and he now needed to return to assist the Third Hokage in holding a jonin meeting.

Clearly, this jonin meeting was meant to discuss the response strategy for this incident.

However, several elders should have already held a private minor meeting and coordinated their stances.

It was worth mentioning that Orochimaru had been promoted, and so had Hatake Sakumo.

Hatake Sakumo had also successfully taken office as the Anbu Chief last year, though the authority of the Anbu was held by the deputy chief of the Anbu, the Third's eldest son, Asuma Sarutobi.

Orochimaru returned to Konoha and, by order of the Hokage, summoned all jonin currently in the village to a meeting.

"Judging by Sunagakure's current rate of advance, they will likely push forward to Kikyo Castle within a week. Once Kikyo Castle falls, the borders of the Land of Fire will be left without natural defenses.

At that point, Sunagakure can directly launch attacks on most of the towns in the western Land of Fire! There are many economic hubs there, and if they are captured by Sunagakure, the Daimyo will likely issue a direct reprimand."

Mitokado Homura sat upright in his seat, introducing the situation to the more than one hundred jonin present.

The Third Hokage was uncharacteristically not smoking, and he said with a stern expression:

"The urgent priority is twofold: first, to assemble the ninja forces, and second, to appoint a commander to lead the ninja forces. Do any of you have recommendations?"

"Isn't Lady Tsunade here? To deal with Suna's poisons, especially Chiyo's poison, only Lady Tsunade can break it!"

Hiruzen Sarutobi shook his head, indicating that Tsunade was indeed not in the village at the moment.

"What about Lord White Fang?"

The person who spoke was a jonin from a minor ninja clan.

This clan had historically maintained relatively close ties with the Hatake Clan.

"Wouldn't Lord Orochimaru be better? His attainments in medical ninjutsu are also very high, so he might just be able to crack Chiyo's poison."

The speaker was the current head of the Medical Department.

The Medical Department had been created by Tsunade, and initially she herself had served as its head, but after three months she found there were too many chores and resigned.

Because Tsunade currently could not look at blood, many rather tricky injuries were handled by Orochimaru.

After acquiring Tsunade's medical ninjutsu, Orochimaru's proficiency had reached a relatively high standard.

The assembled jonin whispered among themselves. With Tsunade and Jiraiya absent, the most likely candidates for commander were the White Fang and Orochimaru; but if Orochimaru truly possessed considerable skill in medical ninjutsu, even if he couldn't crack Chiyo's poison, he could still greatly increase survival rates.

Following a show of hands among the jonin and the final decision by the Hokage, Konoha appointed Orochimaru as the commander of the western front, to lead a ninja force to the western border of the Land of Fire and block Sunagakure's advance.

That very day, Orochimaru set out with three thousand Konoha ninja, hurrying day and night toward the border.

Orochimaru did not arrive at the front lines immediately; doing so would mean he had to fight, leaving him no time to handle other matters.

As the supreme commander, he needed to hold down the center while gathering information so as to analyze the current situation.

Meanwhile, the fast and powerful Shikun Mitarashi and Minato Namikaze were assigned by him to the reconnaissance unit to scout the surroundings.

And it was they who rescued a Konoha squad that had been surrounded by Sunagakure.

This squad was quite ordinary, consisting of a chunin captain leading three genin.

If they hadn't been ordinary, they wouldn't have been dispatched to the border in the first place.

They had run into a four-man team consisting entirely of chunin.

In fact, this standard four-man team had already suffered casualties by the time Minato discovered them, with one genin dead.

When they were rescued back, the chunin captain had also sustained very serious injuries and was poisoned.

Fortunately, there was a Flying Thunder God Mark of Minato's in the camp, which allowed him to be sent back in time and treated personally by Orochimaru.

The man was saved, but one of his legs had already been amputated.

This chunin's leg had been struck by a Suna poison needle, and he had stubbornly endured enormous pressure to hold back two enemy chunin; the fierce battle had only accelerated the flow of his blood, quickening the erosion of the poison.

The remaining two were stalled by the genin under his command.

If his leg hadn't been amputated promptly, before the poison could even be cured, it would have continued to spread toward his heart.

In that case, even Orochimaru would have been powerless, and only Tsunade could have relied on her supreme chakra control skills to forcibly extract these toxins from the body.

Fortunately, however, a portion of this poison had already been extracted by Orochimaru to serve as a specimen, and he would develop the antidote as soon as possible.

By then, Konoha ninja at least wouldn't be harmed by this poison.

According to the intelligence brought back by this chunin, at the start, the enemy had split into three routes led respectively by Chiyo, Rasa, and Pakura, with each leading a team to simultaneously launch attacks on Konoha's various garrison bases along the border. Judging by their routes, they intended to complete a rendezvous at Kikyo Castle.

Only, either the reconnaissance teams had detected the arrival of Konoha's forces, or spies within the village had passed along the news; in any case, the enemy had already completed their convergence ahead of schedule.

This meant the upcoming battle would be very difficult to fight, because Orochimaru had to face three Kage-level figures simultaneously.

Chiyo went without saying-she was an old opponent, and her strength, not yet having slipped from its peak, was definitely not weak among Kage-level individuals, though it was uncertain whether the loss of one hand would have any impact on her strength.

Pakura and Rasa both counted as having reached the Kage-level standard.

Pakura possessed distinct characteristics; holding the Scorch Release Kekkei Genkai, her offensive power was quite prominent among Kage-level fighters, though other aspects might be relatively mediocre.

Although Rasa's battle record was rather embarrassing, being chosen as the Fourth Kazekage meant he naturally had a few tricks up his sleeve.

His Magnet Release depended on the quantity of gold dust he carried on his person; if there was sufficient gold dust, he could turn the surrounding environment into his home turf, possessing large-scale lethality and crowd-control capabilities just like the Third Kazekage.

Shikun Mitarashi possessed decent strength on his own side, but if the surroundings were entirely filled with Rasa's gold dust, no matter where he teleported, he would face all-angle attacks from Rasa.

And once the Flying Thunder God was removed, he only possessed elite jōnin standards and couldn't withstand a few blows.