Mission

Time waited for no one. Slowly but surely, the world of the Hokage passed into another new year.

This year was as peaceful as ever. Lords everywhere, regardless of their size, continued stockpiling provisions, expanding their armies, and encouraging production. The ninja of every village continued building up their strength, hoping to make their ranks of jonin a little larger before the end of this ten-year period. The people of every nation continued living their lives as usual. They were the most open-minded about it all. If the sky fell, the tall ones would hold it up. The only benefit the age of ninja nations had brought them was that no one abused the common people anymore. To ordinary people, a defeat by those above merely meant they might have to move house. In a world where national consciousness was still in its infancy, that was not much of a problem.

Of course, there had always been those who were too unlucky and died after being caught up in war, but there was no need to mention them.

Over the course of the year, Konoha, now wearing an entirely new face, had flourished tremendously. Putting aside the explosive growth in Konoha's jonin strength after the Senju Clan and Uchiha Clan returned, Kagetsu Qi's return had also formally established the three-armed structure of the Shadow Division, the Guard Division, and the Anbu. Konoha's alliance network grew ever larger as well. Although Sunagakure had dissolved its offensive and defensive alliance with Konoha due to the Hiiragi Clan's return, cooperation between the nobles of the Lands of Wind and Fire seemed not to have ceased. Both Sunagakure and Konoha pretended not to notice. That mentality was not hard to understand—after all, their great enemies at the national level were both in the north.