Two days was neither a long time nor a short one, but it was enough for the ninja of Konoha's major and minor clans to assemble at the village entrance.
Word had also come from the Land of Fire: its forces were likewise ready to deploy, awaiting the word from Konoha. Then the two groups would join forces and "march out" together.
Hatake Sakumo summoned the heads of the major and minor clans, along with the experienced and capable jonin, to the Hokage's conference room for another meeting.
With the situation tense, Hatake Sakumo couldn't be bothered with unnecessary words. He sat down at the head of the table and got straight to the point.
"This time, I intend to lead the team myself and intercept the Land of Lightning's surprise attack at the Land of Fire's southwestern border."
He paused, sweeping his gaze over the faces around the table. "If I get the chance, I'll capture the Third Raikage's son A and the Eight-Tails Jinchuriki Killer B and bring them back alive."
The conference room fell silent for a moment. Then it erupted.
It wasn't just the clan heads and jonin-even Nara Shikata and Hyūga Hajime were stunned.
The two of them had spent the past few days helping Hatake Sakumo handle paperwork and discuss countermeasures, yet at no point had he so much as hinted that he intended to go to the front himself.
They had thought the meeting was meant to decide whom to send to intercept the Land of Lightning's surprise attack. Instead, the Lord Hokage had taken the job upon himself.
Nara Shikata spoke first, his brow furrowed into a knot.
"Lord Hokage, you absolutely mustn't! You're the pillar holding Konoha steady. How could the Hokage go to the front himself? If anything happened to you there, the village would be left leaderless, and then..."
Before he could finish, several minor clan heads chimed in, all talking over one another as they tried to dissuade him.
"That's right, Lord Hokage. Please stay and hold down the village!"
"Those brutes from the Land of Lightning can be stopped by sending a few jonin!"
Hatake Sakumo didn't wait for them to finish.
He sprang to his feet and pressed a hand downward.
The conference room fell silent at once.
He looked around, his gaze passing over every face. His voice wasn't loud, but it was clear.
"Enough. It's settled."
After a pause, he added, "In my opinion, the Land of Wind will enter the war before long. For now, you only need to focus on guarding against the Land of Wind."
"The Land of Wind is weaker overall than the other three countries, but it mustn't be underestimated. In the meantime, Tsunade and Nara Shikata will be in charge of managing the village. Make your preparations against the Land of Wind."
With that, he dismissed the meeting.
Hatake Sakumo kept Tsunade and Nara Shikata behind and gave them a few more instructions.
"Keep an eye on that boy Kakashi. Don't let him sneak off to the battlefield."
Tsunade and Shikata exchanged a glance and nodded their agreement.
Hatake Sakumo remembered something else. "Right, and there are the three children Jiraiya brought back."
"They were originally from Amegakure, so they might sneak out of the village and return there. If they ran into danger because of that, we wouldn't be able to answer to Jiraiya. Look after them and don't let them leave the village."
"Don't worry about anything else. Just let them go about their lives in the village as usual. Also, tighten the village's defenses and be on guard against spies slipping in to carry out assassinations."
After giving his instructions, Hatake Sakumo immediately left Konohagakure, leading the ninja assembled at the village entrance toward the Land of Fire's southwestern border.
With intelligence to guide him, he had a clear picture of the Land of Lightning ninja's movements.
If nothing unexpected happened, they would encounter each other near the border after two days of travel.
Hatake Sakumo led the group in a standard ninja run: arms stretched straight behind them, bodies leaning slightly forward, feet moving swiftly.
Wearing only the Fourth Hokage's haori, he ran at the very front, far ahead of the others.
Before transmigrating, he had often imitated that running posture during his chunibyo phase while watching Naruto.
But this time was different.
After transmigrating here, he had found that running this way really was a little faster than running normally.
It was hard to say what Hyūga Hajime had been thinking.
His eldest son, Hyuga Hiashi, had followed Jiraiya to the Land of Fire's western border some time ago to repel the Kirigakure Ninja from the Land of Water.
Yet among the Hyuga Clan members accompanying Hatake Sakumo to the southwestern border this time was his younger son, Hizashi Hyuga.
Besides the Hyuga Clan, every other major and minor clan in the village had contributed members. Hatake Sakumo had also selected one-third of the Uchiha Clan to accompany him.
Hatake Sakumo's thinking was simple: he would use this battle to show that third of the Uchiha Clan the Fourth Hokage's strength.
That way, he wouldn't have to deal with the Uchiha Clan after the war was over.
He would show them what strength was, and what it meant to fear it!
Leading the Uchiha Clan was Uchiha Arashi, Uchiha Fugaku's second uncle and the current Uchiha Clan Head's younger brother.
He was forty-five years old.
This was none other than the Uchiha elder who had reported to Hiruzen Sarutobi that Hatake Sakumo had injured members of the Konoha Military Police Force.
Hatake Sakumo simply didn't know about it.
Uchiha Arashi felt somewhat awkward.
Ever since learning that Hatake Sakumo was to become the Fourth Hokage, he had been on edge. After all, he was the one who had lodged the complaint. Would the Hokage come after him for it?
But after Hatake Sakumo became Hokage, he never gave him any trouble. Arashi didn't know whether the Hokage was magnanimous or simply didn't know about the incident.
During the journey, Uchiha Arashi noticed that the Lord Hokage hadn't so much as given him an extra glance. He breathed a sigh of relief: as long as he didn't make things difficult for him, all was well.
After half a day's travel, the elite ninja from Konohagakure joined up with the ninja stationed in the Land of Fire.
The two forces gathered into one large group and, led by Hatake Sakumo, headed in great numbers toward the Land of Fire's southwestern border.
After another day and a half of travel, Hatake Sakumo and his group encountered the Land of Lightning's forces in the woods at the Land of Fire's southwestern border.
Leading the opposing force were none other than A and his brother Killer B.
A froze for a moment when he saw who had come to meet them.
He had never expected the person sent by the Land of Fire to be the Fourth Hokage, Hatake Sakumo.
As the Third Raikage's son and Kumogakure's "crown prince," A had naturally seen plenty of intelligence reports.
He knew this "Konoha White Fang," whose name had shaken the Shinobi World during the Second Shinobi World War, and he also knew that the man had taken over as Konoha's Fourth Hokage.
Back when Kumogakure's leaders held their meeting, they had all assumed the same thing:
Hatake Sakumo would certainly stay in the village and oversee the overall situation. Like the former Third, Hiruzen Sarutobi, he couldn't possibly take the field in person as he had during the Second Shinobi World War.
It wasn't just Kumogakure. In fact, the other three great nations and the Three Great Shinobi Villages had all thought the same.
After Konohagakure lost the Third Hokage and that "shadow," Shimura Danzō, the "Konoha White Fang," once one of Konoha's top combatants, had to stay behind to hold down the village.
That would leave Konohagakure considerably weakened. That was why they had all, independently, dared to come looking for trouble with the Land of Fire.
But now...
A looked at the white-haired figure standing at the very front, and the more he thought about it, the more wrong it seemed.
He had just led his team into these woods. Another dozen minutes of travel and they would have crossed the Land of Fire's border and launched a surprise attack.
Yet before they had even made it halfway through the woods, someone had blocked their path.
He cursed inwardly. You're the fucking Fourth Hokage. Why aren't you staying in the village? What are you doing on the front lines?
A, as expected of the Third Raikage's son and the future Fourth Raikage, was a brute too.
He wasn't intimidated by his opponent's fearsome reputation. Instead, he grew even more fired up.
He had long wanted to test the strength of these "legendary figures" of the previous generation. Now that he had run into one, it was the perfect chance to teach him a lesson!
Killer B was still young, and he had no idea how many thoughts had gone through his big brother's head.
He opened his mouth and started rapping:
"Yo! White-haired guy over there, you fool!"
"Wearing a Hokage's haori, you fool!"
"Coming all the way to the front yourself, you fool!"
"Remember, I'm the great Killer B! The strongest Eight-Tails Jinchuriki in the Shinobi World!"
"Hokage or not, today you'll see what the A-B Combo can do, you fool! You idiot!"
Killer B rapped with gusto, both eyes shining behind his sunglasses as his lips moved at breakneck speed, his rhythm impeccable.
Hatake Sakumo watched him, his face nearly turning black.
Before transmigrating, when he had watched the anime, he had found Killer B... pretty amusing.
But now that he was actually hearing him rap... for some reason, a feeling of disgust and irritation rose in him.
He suppressed his anger and called out to Uchiha Arashi in the group.
"Uchiha Arashi!"
"Got anyone among your clan who talks a lot and knows how to curse? Pick one out and have him trash-talk that bastard!"
When Uchiha Arashi first heard his name, he thought the Hokage had finally decided to make things difficult for him and send him out for a one-on-one "champion's duel."
His heart tightened at once, but when he heard what followed, the breath he had been holding eased out.
So that was all.
Anything else might have made him nervous. But if he wanted the Uchiha Clan to trash-talk someone, there was no problem.
He immediately pointed out the person among the Uchiha clansmen he had brought who normally talked the most and called him forward.
The clansman he named was Uchiha Retsu, a young Uchiha in his early twenties. He was known throughout the clan for his sharp tongue and talked more than anyone else.
Uchiha Arashi waved him forward and barked irritably, "What are you standing around for? The Lord Hokage has spoken. Get up there and trash-talk that bastard!"
With an order from both a clan elder and the Lord Hokage, Uchiha Retsu perked up as if he'd been injected with chicken blood, his eyes lighting up.
This was no joke...
The Uchiha Clan normally acted high and mighty in the village, looking down their noses even at the ninja clans of their own village.
Now that they were facing "barbarians" from outside Konohagakure, their arrogance knew even fewer bounds.
As soon as Uchiha Retsu stepped forward, he opened his mouth and went into full trash-talking mode at A and Killer B.
He first sized the two men up, then raised his voice and shouted:
"Well, well, who do we have here? A pair of dark-skinned barbarians from Kumogakure!"
"Why don't you look in a mirror? You look like you rolled out of a coal pile! And you're wearing sunglasses to look cool, you..."
After laying into Killer B, Uchiha Retsu turned to A beside him.
"And you, big brother, your muscles are bulging all over like a lump of meat. One look and anyone can tell you're a brainless brute!"
"Every Raikage Kumogakure has ever had was a brute, a brainless idiot who only knew how to show off his muscles! Your Raikage were brutes and idiots, and you, big brother, are an even bigger brute and idiot."
"Remember this: every person in your village is an idiot for a day, and an idiot for life!"
Watching from the side, Hatake Sakumo nearly lost his composure.
Man, were you called Duanmu Yan in your last life?
If he hadn't needed to maintain his image, he would have burst out laughing on the spot.
It had to be said, the Uchiha Clan really was ruthless. They "hit hard" inside the village, and were even more wildly arrogant outside it!
Uchiha Retsu's words were like a red-hot iron skewer, stabbing straight into A's heart.
In A's heart, his father, the Third Raikage, was the strongest Raikage of all time and the person he admired most in his life.
Not only because he was his father, but because the Third Raikage truly was the strongest Raikage of all time.
Yet today, some nameless youngster who had appeared out of nowhere dared to say such things...
He couldn't swallow that insult.
A's face darkened inch by inch.
"You're asking for death!"
The moment the words left his mouth, lightning burst over his body with a sharp crackle.
The lightning covered his entire body like armor, snapping and crackling as it scorched the earth beneath his feet black...
He activated Lightning Release Chakra Mode in an instant!