Crouching Dragon and Fledgling Phoenix!

"Sister Kano is really quite a nice person."

Watching Momonoki Kano's graceful figure leave the tent, Hyuga Bin sighed inwardly.

After coming to the world of Naruto for so many years, most of the people he had met were "good people."

Of course, Hyuga Bin did not let his thoughts wander over the "anything you need" Momonoki Kano had mentioned.

His body was only nine years old, so he would not think about things he could not do.

Anyone whose thoughts wandered should go face a wall and reflect on themselves!

After setting up the simple bed, Hyuga Bin lay down and began to rest.

He had traveled continuously for two days to reach the front lines. Although his body did not feel particularly exhausted, his mind was inevitably weary, and he wanted to slack off and rest for a while.

Meanwhile, the rest of the camp was making intense preparations.

The overall commander of the front lines against the Sand Ninja this time was Orochimaru, one of Konoha's Sannin.

Orochimaru was in his early thirties this year, at the peak age for a shinobi and at the height of his prestige.

Ever since Hatake Sakumo's previous "mission incident," no one in Konoha had been able to suppress Orochimaru's popularity.

Calls for Orochimaru to become the Fourth Hokage were growing louder and louder.

However, Third Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen had recently been hesitating over whether to put forward Orochimaru as the Fourth Hokage.

Orochimaru was Sarutobi Hiruzen's favorite disciple, and in Hiruzen's original plans, becoming the Fourth Hokage had practically been a certainty for him.

But over the past few years, Orochimaru seemed to have become even more cold-blooded than before and had somewhat slipped beyond Hiruzen's control, making him question whether Orochimaru was truly suitable to become the Fourth Hokage.

And that was what gave the rising star Namikaze Minato an opportunity.

Thanks to his dazzling performance in the Third Shinobi World War, Namikaze Minato would narrowly defeat Orochimaru in the selection for Fourth Hokage and become Konoha's new Hokage.

Of course, that was all part of the original plot and still lay in the future.

The deputy overall commander on the front lines this time was the current head of the Nara Clan, Nara Shikayama.

At this time, Nara Shikamaru's father, Nara Shikaku, was still an elite jonin under twenty years old. It would be several more years before he replaced his father Nara Shikayama as head of the Nara Clan.

This time, aside from Nara Shikayama serving as deputy commander, the Nara Clan had also sent out Nara Shikajo and Nara Shikato, the two most intelligent members of the clan.

The two could be considered the Crouching Dragon and Fledgling Phoenix of the Three Kingdoms era.

Besides that, more than one-third of Konoha's shinobi had gathered at this front line.

For this battle, Konoha was determined to hit Sunagakure hard.

Over the following month, Hyuga Bin attended several meetings. Aside from treating the wounded, he spent all his time training in ninjutsu alone.

Whenever he had free time, he occasionally worried about Hyuga Masayuki.

Hyuga Masayuki was a character whose name had never even appeared once in the original work. Even with jonin-level strength, he was still nothing special on the front lines and could die at any moment.

Uchiha Obito and Nohara Rin were following Namikaze Minato, so for the time being, there was no need to worry about them being in danger.

As for himself, he was even safer. Medical shinobi did not need to fight on the front lines.

Even so, Hyuga Bin still hoped the war would end sooner rather than drag on for four years like in the original work. He wanted to go home early.

In the original work, the decisive battle that sealed Konoha's victory in its war against Sunagakure was the Battle of Kikyo Mountain in Konoha's forty-sixth year.

But this time, Hyuga Bin had changed history, preventing Hatake Sakumo from committing suicide. After Third Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen "visited his mansion three times," Sakumo chose to return to service and head to the front lines, participating in this war against Sunagakure as an ordinary ANBU shinobi.

With Hatake Sakumo's formidable individual strength, Hyuga Bin felt that Konoha might be able to end the battle early.

After all, Hatake Sakumo, Konoha's White Fang, had not earned his reputation for nothing. He was a beast who could solo Kabuto's parents without taking a scratch.

Even if Chiyo, already over fifty, entered the battle wielding the Secret Puppet Technique: Ten Puppets, she might not necessarily be Hatake Sakumo's match.

It was also after that month that Sunagakure's first probing attack arrived.

In addition to routinely sending intelligence-gathering squads to investigate Konoha's front-line information, the Sand Ninja dispatched several elite squads skilled in concealment to infiltrate Konoha's defenses, intending to ambush and eliminate a small portion of Konoha's shinobi while also disgusting Konoha.

What Sunagakure had not expected was that Konoha's "Crouching Dragon and Fledgling Phoenix," Nara Shikajo and Nara Shikato, had long anticipated this move from the Sand Ninja. They directly arranged for White Fang Hatake Sakumo to guard the first line of defense as an ordinary shinobi.

These hunting squads from Sunagakure were slaughtered by Hatake Sakumo until they fell apart completely.

Some weaker chunin saw only a flash of white light before becoming souls beneath Hatake Sakumo's blade.

Hatake Sakumo was simply too fast!

Another week later, Iwagakure and Kumogakure declared war on Konoha at the same time.

Before Sunagakure had started the war against Konoha, it had already made verbal agreements with Kumogakure and Iwagakure to divide the spoils together.

Otherwise, how could Sunagakure, with fewer than three-fifths as many shinobi as Konoha, have dared challenge the strongest Konoha alone?

And this was exactly what Iwagakure and Kumogakure wanted.

Konoha possessed the greatest overall strength among the Five Great Ninja Villages, and the Land of Fire had the most abundant resources. Aside from Sunagakure, which sought to turn its internal conflicts outward, Kumogakure and Iwagakure had long been eyeing Konoha greedily, wanting a share of its benefits.

To that end, Kumogakure and Iwagakure proactively sent large numbers of shinobi to the front lines.

Of course, they did not launch attacks against Konoha. They merely confronted it.

After all, killing a thousand enemies meant losing eight hundred of your own.

Kumogakure and Iwagakure intended to force Konoha to deploy a large number of shinobi to its borders, then sit back and wait for Konoha and Sunagakure to clash and drain each other's strength.

When the right moment came, they would deliver Konoha a thunderous blow and force it to surrender!

And Iwagakure and Kumogakure achieved their goal. Faced with fighting on three fronts, even Konoha, which possessed the greatest quantity and quality of shinobi among the Five Great Ninja Villages, found itself stretched thin after dispersing its forces.

Konoha had no choice but to transfer some of the shinobi originally stationed on the front lines against Sunagakure to the fronts against Iwagakure and Kumogakure.

Among them were three figures capable of influencing the course of the war: White Fang Hatake Sakumo, and the "Crouching Dragon and Fledgling Phoenix," Nara Shikajo and Nara Shikato.

Furthermore, due to the lack of commanders across the three fronts, even Pot King Shimura Danzo, the "Shadow of the Shinobi," who had already lost one arm, was sent to shine on the battlefield against Iwagakure.

Third Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen remained in Konoha.

At all times, as the Hokage, he needed to remain in Konoha, strategizing and controlling the overall situation.