Each Person's Efforts

"Whew..."

Yuzuru had tried to keep the scale of the technique under control, but he had also been honing its power... The clean cuts in the surrounding trees said it all.

Wind Release Ninjutsu really was incredibly sharp. And when he limited his attacks to single targets, the amount of chakra the techniques consumed was very low.

Just as Yuzuru had suspected, he quickly mastered several Wind Release techniques.

Ninja were all offense and little defense. An ordinary ninja was never physically tougher than a tree trunk... The Wind Release techniques Yuzuru used could slice through tree trunks with ease, which meant they could just as easily slice through a ninja's body.

The catch was actually hitting them. Everyone knew that ordinary ninja might have poor defenses, but their evasion skills were MAX; they were all as nimble as monkeys.

At that moment, Yuzuru confirmed something once again: the things he obtained from the "dungeons" could quickly be turned into combat strength of his own. He was incredibly grateful for that. He had to admit, it was precisely this that helped him adapt to the battlefield so quickly.

"That's enough for today. I've used up most of my chakra... Aside from the fact that this fighting style feels a little awkward, Wind Release really is practical."

Since Yuzuru had secretly learned some Wind Release techniques from the Shimura Clan, the fighting style he had just displayed inevitably resembled Shimura Danzo's. You could even call him "Little Danzo" without being too far off...

He would have to be careful from now on. Unless the situation became desperate, he'd better avoid using those techniques in front of Shimura Danzo.

Under normal circumstances, he could probably get away with using a few Wind Release techniques. But with the man himself watching, that was another matter.

Yuzuru's strength was improving at a decent pace, but he still wasn't capable of facing truly powerful opponents. So he hoped he could enter another dungeon before his next mission.

However, after Orochimaru's assassination attempt, the cooldown for this dungeon had doubled to two weeks. Excluding the time it took to return from the Land of Rain, Yuzuru would have to wait at least another week before the Nine-Tails' Rampage dungeon was ready again.

Would he make it in time? Yuzuru couldn't be sure.

When Yuzuru returned to the frontline camp, Torifu Akimichi had just arrived at the battlefield hospital.

Biwako Sarutobi, the person in charge of the Frontline Hospital, personally treated Torifu Akimichi's injuries. In turn, Torifu shared some intelligence with her.

"The Four-Tails and Five-Tails Jinchuriki, huh? They're certainly hard to deal with."

Hearing that the two Jinchuriki were acting together, Biwako Sarutobi also felt the situation was troublesome.

Weren't Jinchuriki supposed to be held back until things reached the point of no return? Iwagakure was actually using them aggressively instead of as a last resort for defense. This was beyond anything Konoha had expected.

"No one understands the might of the Tailed Beasts better than a few of us," Torifu Akimichi said with a sigh.

He wasn't saying this because Konoha possessed the mightiest Tailed Beast, the Nine-Tails. He had a personal reason... During Konoha and Kumogakure's alliance ceremony, the Second Hokage and Second Raikage had been attacked by the Kumogakure missing-nin Kinkaku and Ginkaku. Both had died as a result.

Kinkaku and Ginkaku had been powerful enough to overwhelm two Kage for two reasons. First, they had many subordinates, who had surrounded the two Kage as they were forming an alliance. Second, at a crucial moment, they could partially transform into the Nine-Tails.

Those two had been swallowed by the Nine-Tails, yet survived by eating its flesh... Even the First might not have dared to try that dish: Nine-Tails sashimi.

If the Second Hokage hadn't sacrificed himself, Hiruzen Sarutobi, Torifu Akimichi, and the others would never have survived.

"Torifu, don't worry too much. A Jinchuriki isn't the same as a Tailed Beast. A Tailed Beast is like a natural disaster—they have no reason. But a Jinchuriki... a Jinchuriki is just a ninja."

Biwako Sarutobi pointed out something important. Jinchuriki were incredibly powerful, but they wouldn't transform into Tailed Beasts lightly. Or rather, to maintain their reason, they couldn't fully transform.

They had to struggle against the will of the Tailed Beast inside them, which meant a Jinchuriki could never fight at one hundred percent. Using them in battle could easily harm both themselves and others. That was why Konoha considered Iwagakure's approach so extreme... Iwagakure's Jinchuriki weren't Perfect Jinchuriki.

"True. It's just that Iwagakure's recklessness is unsettling."

Iwagakure's tactics were growing more and more deranged, throwing the Shinobi World War beyond all reason. Torifu Akimichi was deeply concerned.

Biwako Sarutobi shook her head. Some things could only be handled as they came, so she let the topic drop and asked about something else.

"How did you find leading this team? Any promising talent?"

"Not bad. The Special Jonin in the group has pretty much reached her limit, but she still has room to grow into a well-rounded Jonin."

Kairi Omori had the potential to become a Jonin, but it would be difficult for her to go any further. She would likely end up at the lower end of the Jonin ranks.

"There's also a Uchiha Chunin. She's a little impulsive, and extremely aggressive on the battlefield. A typical Uchiha... She has a lot more potential."

The Uchiha were unpredictable; no one could easily define them. It was entirely possible to go from a fool to the final villain.

"As for the remaining civilian Genin, he's quite good. He was an unexpected bonus from this mission... This Genin is exceptionally skilled at the Body Flicker Technique."

"We ran into two Iwagakure Elite Jonin. With his teammates' support, he used the Body Flicker Technique to close in on the enemy, then broke through their defenses with some kind of hand-seal-less technique. In the blink of an eye, he took out one of the Iwagakure Jonin, opening up room for the whole squad to retreat."

There was a reason Torifu Akimichi had chosen to lead an unstable team instead of taking along a perfectly good Ino-Shika-Cho squad... He wanted to quickly train ninja who could adapt to the battlefield and hold their own in a fight.

If he could produce a top-tier talent, all the better.

This approach—replacing training with real combat and taking ninja on dangerous missions—was obviously a little like forcing seedlings to grow faster. One careless mistake could lead to heavy casualties.

But with the battlefield situation so dire, Torifu Akimichi had no choice but to take the risk.

Any ninja who survived the brutal missions Torifu Akimichi took part in was bound to grow... Yuzuru's performance on this mission had certainly been an unexpected bonus. He was no ordinary Genin.

"A Genin took down an Iwagakure Jonin? He really is talented."

"Mm. After they've completed a few more missions with me, I can assign them to other squads as core members."

Torifu Akimichi's way of training talent was pretty extreme too.

"After twenty years without a major war, who could have imagined that Konoha would have grown this weak? We've lost the sharpness we once had on the battlefield..."

As a ninja who had lived through the eras of the First and Second Hokage, Torifu Akimichi was naturally dissatisfied with Konoha's current position in the war... More precisely, he found it hard to accept Konoha's mediocrity.

There was something he hadn't considered: Konoha's poor battlefield performance could be summed up with a simple saying... A weak soldier makes for a weak army; a weak general makes for a weak force.

Konoha had no spearhead to ignite the fighting spirit of its ninja.

"You can't put it that way. Our ninja need time to move on from the peace of the past and readjust to the brutality of war."

"Over the past twenty years, Konoha hasn't stagnated, much less regressed. The village has kept developing and improving, building up the foundation to fight and survive. It just needs time for that foundation to be converted into real strength on the battlefield."

It did take time to turn the potential for war into the ability to wage war. For one thing, Konoha had the strongest economy among the Five Great Shinobi Countries. Konoha could throw money at its problems.

Since the war began, the number of Konoha ninja had been growing rapidly.

"Hiruzen... Is that what Lord Hokage said?"

"Yes, those were Hiruzen's words."

"So Lord Hokage believes this war won't end anytime soon, then?"

"The Shinobi World's conflicts have been building for twenty years. If they could still be resolved so easily at this point, this war would never have broken out."

Unlike Iwagakure, which had gone all out from the very beginning, Konoha had prepared for a long war early on. Compared to winning a prolonged war, temporary gains and losses were nothing.

As it turned out, the Third Hokage's judgment was right. The Second and Third Shinobi World Wars were, at their core, a single war.

After the Second Shinobi World War broke out, the carnage was so severe that all the countries involved were stunned. Unable to accept such staggering casualties all at once, the nations gradually laid down their arms after the war had dragged on for more than a year.

But the Second Shinobi World War had never ended with a peace treaty. After a brief intermission, the Third Shinobi World War broke out right afterward.

The great shinobi villages had neither exhausted their capacity for war nor achieved their strategic goals. That left them with only one path...

Fight. Keep fighting until they'd beaten each other's brains to a pulp.