The candidate recommended by Director Yamada relieved the Hokage's urgent predicament, and the strategic policy of replacing the "Spirit Body Transfer Technique" with the "Great Collective" was thus adopted as a matter of course.
Although Danzo himself had considerable objections to this decision, Uchiha Yuan, having already achieved his goal, clearly had no interest in continuing to maintain their fragile alliance.
As the two conspirators, now thoroughly sick of each other, quickly went their separate ways, the Sarutobi Clan and the Yamada Faction soon gained an overwhelming advantage within the decision-making ranks. Through official certification, this provision was formally put into practice.
Thus, the first "immortality crisis" came to an end. Having squandered quite a few political points, Konoha began focusing once more on the raging war between north and south.
After several days of forced marching, the Uchiha Clan, which had set out earlier, successfully reached the Red Pine Ridge stronghold. The Third Mother Nest Fleet, led by the passed-over Orochimaru, also formally advanced northwest.
In addition, after two years of balancing work and rest under Director Yamada, White Fang completed his recuperation and led an elite special operations unit directly under the Residency Training Center's command to reinforce the northwest.
Judging from the numbers alone, Konoha's forces assigned to defend Red Pine Ridge were not only quite ample. More importantly, despite incorporating forces from the Uchiha, the Hokage Faction, the Yamada Faction, and other groups, the army's command structure still had a clear chain of authority. There was none of the bizarre infighting that had occurred during Soji's first expedition...
Unfortunately, even with so much good news in its favor, the Battle of Red Pine Ridge did not proceed smoothly or end in immediate victory.
At its root, there were no more than two major reasons.
First, the