The Sorrow of Iwagakure

Land of Earth battlefield.

In the bizarre forest Orochimaru had created, Watanabe Asahi, who had already been promoted to Elite Jonin, was leading a three-man Jonin squad through the trees, searching for traces of those revived by Impure World Reincarnation.

Ever since the capture unit had been almost completely wiped out last time, Ōnoki had made new adjustments to this plan. This time, the minimum standard for entering the forest to fight was Jonin!

And Jonin with an official title at that!

One should not underestimate that prefix. Generally speaking, so-called Jonin-level strength referred purely to direct combat power comparable to a Jonin's. With that alone, one was qualified to be called Jonin-level.

But that was only in terms of strength, and quite a few people met that requirement, especially in the major ninja villages.

It was like the original Twelve Young Rookies. In the early stages, it was stated more than once that they possessed Jonin-level combat strength, and many Jonin were not even their match.

However, even under those circumstances, at the start of Shippuden in the original work, only a few of them had been promoted to Jonin and obtained the title. From this, the gap between the two could be seen.

Every village's official Jonin roster was limited, but the number of people with Jonin-level strength was certainly greater than that. Therefore, it could also be said that those who possessed the title of Jonin were the elites among Jonin.

The reason Ōnoki placed such importance on this was that the blow from some time ago had truly been too severe. They had been nearly wiped out!

One had to know, those had not been small fry. They were a unit from their village with outstanding strength and near-perfect coordination. Even the weakest among them were