After three long hours on the run, the Sunagakure Ninja Forces and the regular army shook off their pursuers and retreated to a nearby city to await orders. Troops were still stationed there to defend it, and the terrain would help them hold the enemy off for a while. Of course, they would probably have to abandon it before long, because the Land of Wind no longer had the strength to protect it.
The territory they had annexed seemed to have been theirs for only a fleeting moment. Everyone looked utterly dejected. They had thought they would finally settle the war this time, only to suffer such a crushing defeat.
According to a rough count, the Land of Wind's elite samurai army had been almost completely wiped out, and most of the survivors no longer formed organized units. Sunagakure Ninja Village had also suffered devastating losses. Excluding those missing, dead, or captured, the Sunagakure Ninja Forces had fewer than three hundred men left. More importantly, they had lost their strongest ninja.
Leaving the others aside, Chiyo had lost more than half of the Ten Puppets of Chikamatsu. Even with the blueprints, rebuilding them would take considerable time. Her strength would be greatly diminished in the meantime—an enormous loss for a puppeteer.
Ebizo, the leader of Sunagakure Ninja Village, was in even worse shape. He had only escaped with his life because it had been Kagami Uchiha's first time using the immensely draining Yomotsu: Corpse Demon through his Mangekyō Sharingan, and he had managed to sustain it for just two seconds.
Even so, the apparition of the Death God had devoured most of the soul in Ebizo's left arm and part of his body. As a result, his left arm had lost all sensation. He could neither move it normally nor