Time flew, and the years slipped by.
A shocking piece of news shattered the peace of the shinobi world: Sunagakure's Third Kazekage had gone missing.
Who was the Third Kazekage? He was an immensely powerful fighter, a master of Magnet Release Ninjutsu who could command vast clouds of iron sand in battle.
Yet this very man, one of the strongest in the shinobi world, had suddenly vanished.
Panic spread through Sunagakure, like a pack of beasts that had lost its leader.
The village immediately splintered into several factions, while Elder Chiyo, who should have stepped forward to take charge and prevent chaos, could not say a word.
That was because her grandson had disappeared along with the Third Kazekage: Sasori, Sunagakure's genius Puppeteer, who possessed extraordinary combat prowess at just fifteen years old.
With Sasori and the Kazekage vanishing at the same time, it was hard not to suspect a connection.
Though few believed Sasori could have killed or defeated the Kazekage alone, they could not rule out the possibility that he had conspired with Ninjas from an enemy village.
As Sasori's grandmother, Elder Chiyo naturally found herself ostracized.
To stabilize the situation, Ninjas from Sunagakure left the village in droves to search for traces of their Kazekage.
The Ninjas from Sunagakure appeared in the territories of other Ninja villages, immediately shattering that false peace.
Using the Ninjas from Sunagakure as a pretext, trouble began brewing both between nations and within them.
All the unresolved problems left over from the previous shinobi world war began to erupt.
Civil wars, invasions, raids—one crisis after another broke out.
The Land of Grass, a branch of the Chiba Commerce Association.
Tetsuya sat in his office, poring over the latest intelligence.
"So it's finally begun. The Third Shinobi World War."
Tetsuya sipped his tea