Forced Fruit Isn't Sweet, but It Quenches Your Thirst

Hokage World!

The Fourth Great Ninja War had officially begun!

The shinobi of the five great nations of Wind, Fire, Earth, Lightning, and Water, along with the samurai of the Land of Iron and the scattered smaller shinobi villages across the Shinobi World, had gathered nearly all of the Shinobi World's military strength to form an Allied Shinobi Forces army of eighty thousand.

The numbers might have been inflated, but that was how it had to be announced publicly. Intelligence indicated that the mass-produced White Zetsu numbered around one hundred thousand. If the Allied Shinobi Forces could not even scrape together eighty thousand men, it would be far too damaging to morale.

Fortunately, the Allied command headquarters still had some sense of shame. Though they had padded the numbers, they had not filled the ranks with useless bodies. Otherwise, if they had truly lost their minds and counted the logistics personnel as well, they could have claimed to field an army of two hundred thousand.

Those eighty thousand shinobi represented all the strength of the Shinobi World. If they lost, the Shinobi World would not get a second chance. Thus, Allied command attached enormous importance to formulating strategy and tactics. Though everyone knew the situation on the battlefield could change in an instant and their plans might never be used, headquarters still stayed awake day and night preparing a vast number of contingency plans.

According to intelligence from the reconnaissance units, the hundred-thousand-strong White Zetsu army was primarily concentrated between the Land of Fire and the Land of Lightning—in the Land of Fields and the Land of Hot Water. In other words, the Fourth Great Ninja War would erupt within the borders of those two nations!

Small combat units specializing in sensing, reconnaissance, and intelligence headed to the battlefield first.