The cleanup phase of the battle took about three days.
All things considered, Konoha came out on top. Mist's foothold in the Land of Fire had been wiped out, and the advantage they'd gained through their surprise attack on Konoha's scouts was now completely erased.
Konoha's front line pushed forward once again, all the way back to the coastline, where they began preparing a new defensive line. Given the scale of Konoha's forces this time around, there was no way Mist could ever replicate the success of their previous surprise attack.
When Mist launched their next assault, it would certainly involve thousands of troops operating in full coordination—it definitely wouldn't be smaller in scale than Mist's previous operation.
As the war progressed, alternating victories and defeats were normal. In order to secure wins and prevent losses, both sides naturally escalated their efforts, causing each battle to grow increasingly larger… until further escalation became impossible.
Increasing the number of ninja on the front lines to pursue victory eventually meant that "defeat" would become an unacceptable outcome. And when that point arrived, the war would end.
But if left to develop naturally, this process would take far too long—something Haseo wasn't willing to wait five or ten years for.
At present, Mist's defeat could only be considered a minor setback. Although suffering loss at the front significantly impacted morale and expectations for future operations, even if the entire Mist force invading Konoha were annihilated, for a major ninja village, such a loss wouldn't constitute a devastating blow.
Moreover, achieving complete annihilation of the enemy was essentially impossible.
Three days later, the "cleaning up" phase of the war ended, then came real cleanup work.
Those injured on Konoha's side had received medical treatment immediately. Then everyone started retrieving the bodies of fallen comrades from the battlefield. As for the enemy corpses, aside from a small portion used for dissection and research to extract deeper intelligence or for other experimental purposes, most were burned directly.
Then their ashes were scattered into the sea… No hatred lay behind this act—this was just the Konoha ninja's so-called *"light of humanity"*:
*May the endless waves carry these fallen enemies' ashes back to their homeland, the Land of Water.*
Though nobody ever really paid attention to the direction the seasonal ocean currents flowed this time of year. As for whatever got eaten by fish along the way, well, that couldn't really be helped—that was just part of the toll exacted along the way.
In short, disease prevention made battlefield cleanup a job that couldn't be ignored.
Occasionally, live prisoners—along with the Mist documents seized by Haseo—were sent back to Konoha. What to do with them—and the documents—was up to the village now. Frontline command had moved on.
Terrain reorganization was also a massive undertaking. Don't forget what Konoha's large squads of ninja did at the beginning of the battle.
While some Konoha ninja were busy with these labor tasks, the headquarters and camps had already relocated near the coastline, and post-battle summary meetings began accordingly.
"...Overall, we achieved our preset operational objectives. According to preliminary statistics just obtained, our casualty ratio against the enemy during this operation was even slightly lower than one to three—which means this battle was a major victory for us." Uzumaki Shikou summarized the recently concluded battle.
This result should have been satisfying to just about everyone.
The primary objective had always been rooting out Mist's foothold within the Land of Fire; this was an absolute requirement. Accomplishing that meant victory, otherwise it would have been defeat.
Minimizing damage on our side was only secondary priority—in fact, heavy sacrifices on Konoha's part would've been justified if that ensured mission success.
Thanks to some unconventional tactics, however, Konoha suffered far fewer casualties than expected on the Eastern Front, with total losses amounting to merely one-third of the enemy's… meaning every fallen Konoha ninja had taken three Mist shinobi down with them.
If having each ninja take on three enemies already seemed incredible, how could anyone expect them all to handle *seven* at once?
Presenting such results, even the usually cautious Third Hokage had no objections toward this aggressive strategy.
Haseo nodded with evident satisfaction, yet he still felt the need to downplay it with words. "Well, it was a fairly normal outcome after all. Our ninjas fought bravely, and professionals like Hatake, whose blade had become legendary on the battlefield."
That tone was bordering on insufferable—practically asking to be punched—but what Haseo said wasn't entirely without merit. After all, Konoha had essentially enjoyed favorable circumstances in this fight, so naturally the data looked impressive.
"The results are satisfying," he continued, "but while battle analysis is one thing, we still cannot relax our vigilance moving forward... First, there's an issue we should clarify roughly: when will Mist launch their next attack?"
Counterattacks from Mist were certainly coming—only the timing remained uncertain. Did anyone really believe that a great ninja village like Mist would simply retreat into hiding after getting beaten up by Konoha?
That thought would be overly wishful thinking.
After all, during this war Mist had initiated hostilities—they had been aggressively pursuing an offensive strategy. They wouldn't abruptly abandon long-established wartime strategies merely due to a little setback. Otherwise, why would they have attacked Konoha in the first place?
An enemy that keeps flipping strategies back and forth, a nation that doesn't even understand its own position or goals—such an opponent isn't even worth our attention.
"We can't pinpoint the exact time," Uzumaki Shikou replied. "But considering standard procedures following defeats—battlefield data analysis, personnel regrouping, supply reorganization, secrecy considerations, new decision-making processes, and so on—we believe their next large-scale assault won't occur earlier than three months from now."
"So under normal circumstances, we'll at least have a three-month window of relative safety?"
"Three months," Haseo thought to himself, considering this a very tight timeframe... He could only hope his "Mr. Spy" would achieve results within this period.
"Yes, sir, regarding the scale of the enemy's new offensive, opinions are divided.
On one hand, some believe the scale of Mist's attack won't be substantial—about equal to ours. After all, fundamentally speaking, Mist's objective in attacking Konoha has always been gradual erosion and weakening of Konoha's overall strength.
On the other hand, some argue that since Mist previously suffered defeat, their next operation will at least carry intentions of 'redeeming their honor.' To ensure victory, they'll likely deploy forces twice the size of ours..."
Konoha.
While Haseo and others discussed how to respond to Mist's movements, naturally the Third Hokage had already received reports from the Eastern Front earlier.
Overall, the results were extremely satisfying—but... for some unknown reason, the more he read the intelligence reports from the Eastern Front, the worse his headache became.
Firstly, the Third had only just managed public opinion within Konoha, guiding general perceptions of Haseo toward something beneficial to himself while remaining harmless to Haseo personally.
But right after this favorable perception barely formed several days ago, Haseo returned having landed a major victory for Konoha.
How to put it...?
What were those people who'd lately enjoyed criticizing the "Eastern Front Commander" supposed to do with their pride now? Wasn't all the work he'd recently done becoming useless?
Couldn't Haseo just lie low for once?
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