Yanbai had been right to stay off the battlefield. With the fighting along the Land of Fire's borders locked in such a stalemate, and Yanbai getting on in years, people had plenty of theories about him.
Because Yanbai rarely ventured out, few people truly knew him.
The shinobi clans feared Yanbai because they knew him.
But most civilians had no idea what Yanbai looked like. Even if he strolled down the street, people would only assume some wealthy young lady had sneaked out for a little fun.
In everyone's minds, the First Hokage's younger sister was already elderly, just like the First Hokage's wife, Lady Mito.
Old age meant declining combat strength.
Though his deterrent power remained, this hero was past his prime.
Yanbai was merely a symbolic figure.
The other great nations had also gone to war to test the waters.
They wanted to see whether Yanbai's combat strength had declined.
They wondered whether he had stayed out of the fighting because he could no longer keep up.
Yanbai now suspected that Tobirama Senju had done it deliberately-deliberately given him two children just as the war began.
Tobirama Senju knew Yanbai very well. He must have known that Yanbai would stop running around for the sake of those two children.
That would give the Four Countries the illusion that "Princess Senju had grown old."
If Yanbai really wiped out four countries single-handedly, as Madara Uchiha once had...
How would the Four Great Nations ever dare provoke the Land of Fire again?
And if they did not provoke the Land of Fire, how could Yanbai have a legitimate excuse to fleece them...
Now, although Tsuchikage Ōnoki and Raikage A both knew that Yanbai had only grown stronger with age, the people of the shinobi world did not.
That was because