On the battlefield!
The Fourth Raikage wore a complicated expression. Faced with Kakashi's question, he did not answer.
He knew that now that Iwagakure had been conquered by Konoha, the Land of Lightning and Kumogakure had become the greatest obstacle on Konoha's path to unifying the Shinobi World.
The Fourth Raikage knew that this war with Kirigakure had merely been an appetizer. Within two days at most, Konoha would directly send troops into the Land of Lightning, and Kumogakure would then have to face Konoha's assault head-on.
If Konoha had sent troops against Kumogakure before, the Fourth Raikage might not only have felt no fear—he might even have been excited. After all, in his view, Kumogakure's strength was no weaker than Konoha's.
But now, that thought would never again enter his mind.
Konoha's overall strength now far surpassed that of the other ninja villages. The Fourth Raikage even felt that even if Kirigakure had not allied itself with Konoha and had instead stood on the same side as them—
—and if they had also brought Sunagakure into the alliance, then even the combined power of Kumogakure, Kirigakure, Sunagakure, and Iwagakure might not necessarily be able to contend against Konoha as it was now.
Although the four villages combined had a vast number of ninja, nearly seventy thousand in total—
—the Fourth Raikage had only recently realized something: once a ninja became powerful to a certain extent, the advantage of numbers ceased to exist.
Just as one jonin could withstand the attacks of more than a dozen genin, and a Kage-level expert could withstand the attacks of dozens of jonin—
—once a person possessed power beyond the Kage level, their strength had undergone a qualitative transformation compared to ordinary ninja. This meant that ordinary ninja could no longer inflict any harm