The desert's vastness and cruelty were laid bare under Konoha's "stone roller offensive."
Gone were the nimble flanking maneuvers and unpredictable surprise attacks. In their place came a suffocating advance that crushed everything through sheer strength.
With Torifu Akimichi, that "heavyweight" elder, overseeing operations, Konoha's war machine seemed to become a massive, ponderous, yet utterly solid stone roller. With large troop formations as its foundation and fortified positions as its axle, it rolled slowly but steadily forward along the sprawling front, grinding everything in its path.
Every day, the green territory representing Konoha on the sand table expanded another ring, like an endlessly spreading fungal mat eating away at Sunagakure's yellow domain.
The poisons, traps, and small-scale harassment favored by Sunagakure's shinobi became far less effective against this straightforward advance backed by overwhelming force.
Konoha's shinobi followed the "stone roller" like worker ants, establishing supply points and laying out surveillance networks until the occupied territory was sealed tight.
Sunagakure's decline was like a waterskin in the desert on the verge of running dry. Even its lowest-ranking shinobi could clearly feel that crushing weight and helplessness.
Yet even a cornered beast would fight, let alone the shinobi of the sand, who lived by the philosophy of survival.
Once they had nowhere left to retreat, they would bare their poisoned fangs and launch their deadliest counterattack.
Sunagakure committed every last reserve of strength to this meat grinder.
Along the border between the Land of Wind and the Land of Fire, the chakra of two Kage-level powerhouses confronted each other from afar like opposing mountains.
Torifu Akimichi's massive frame sat firmly within the central command tent, his usual genial smile replaced by solemn gravity. His opponent was Ebizo, a Sunagakure elder equally renowned for his cunning and powerful ninjutsu, who had hurried back