Chapter 59: Garbage Time
Because they had prepared for war in advance, Sunagakure's movements were swift.
But even so, in the early stages of the war, both Suna and Konoha fought conservatively in the Land of Rivers.
Ostensibly, they were fighting over mission contracts and trying to weaken Konoha's influence. But in reality, Suna's true mission was to destabilize the region, buying time for the Land of Wind to develop freely.
In theory, the longer this war dragged on, the better it was for Suna.
Besides, Suna never thought it could take down Konoha on its own. If they had that kind of power, they would have steamrolled the entire Shinobi World long ago.
The whole world looks down on the Land of Wind's rotten territory, so why would the Land of Wind itself be fond of it?
Unfortunately, this was like math: if you can't do it, you can't do it.
As the 'vanguard,' Suna's 'lax' fighting style was clearly just waiting for Iwagakure to enter the field.
And what a coincidence—Konoha was also waiting for Iwagakure to enter.
In fact, if any one of Suna, Iwa, or Kumo made a move, Konoha had to guard against the other two. After all, invading the Land of Fire was practically a shared global desire.
If it weren't for the fact that Kumo was in the wrong this time, and had also lost their Kage, leaving them with internal messes to clean up, Sarutobi Hiruzen—who had succeeded the Third Hokage—would have been worried about Konoha having to fight a three-front war again.
Having followed Senju Tobirama for over thirty years, he was all too familiar with Kumo's and Iwa's styles.
The Third Tsuchikage, Ōnoki, was full of martial spirit. Although his Iwagakure would never be the first to declare war, as soon as a fight broke out, it was only a matter of time before that little dwarf stuck his foot in.
Even if Iwa decided to take advantage of the situation to hit Kumo, which also had internal problems, Hiruzen couldn't afford not to prepare for a two-front war.
So, one month after Suna declared war, when Iwa also declared war on Konoha, Hiruzen's heart, though prepared, finally sank.
Konoha is located in the Land of Fire, slightly southwest of the center. It's hard to say if Senju Hashirama considered this when he chose the land, but the location was indeed advantageous for troop mobilization.
The distance to Wind, Earth, and Lightning varied, but in terms of travel time, reinforcing any of the fronts took roughly the same amount of time.
The Land of Water was the exception, but Kiri's invasions were always limited by the season. If the ocean currents were wrong, they couldn't move their army. Besides, Konoha's ally, the Land of Whirlpools, was positioned right on Kiri's most likely invasion path.
With its superior geography and strongest military, Konoha had maintained a strategy of keeping a close watch on the other three continental powers ever since Hashirama's death.
Therefore, even after Iwa joined the war, Konoha, long prepared for a multi-front conflict, held its ground. Through a tacit agreement, the three powers gradually merged the two separate battlefronts into the Land of Rain—the small nation located between Fire, Wind, and Earth.
Suna and Iwa figured they could support each other on a single front, while Konoha no longer needed to split its forces.
As for what would happen to the Land of Rain... that was not a concern for the Great Nations' shinobi.
If it were an allied nation, they might show some restraint. But without that relationship, the shinobi had no scruples.
In the Great Shinobi Wars, the ones who died the most were never the shinobi, and certainly not the civilians of the Great Nations.
That was the cruelest fact of this era.
But while the Land of Rain was a small country, Amegakure was famous, arguably holding the number one spot beneath the Five Great Villages. The man responsible for this was its leader, Hanzō of the Salamander.
With his cautious, meticulous strategies and a level of power that no one in the post-Hashirama/Madara era could confidently defeat one-on-one, Hanzō, who navigated between the Great Nations, was regarded by many as the pinnacle of what a shinobi could be. They called him the 'Demigod.'
Because of Hanzō and his Amegakure, the battlefield, which should have been Suna and Iwa versus Konoha, was split into three.
Konoha vs. Suna. Konoha vs. Ame. And Suna vs. Ame.
As for Iwa, which had only joined in to loot the burning house, they remained on the battlefield but shifted to a state of "observing from the sidelines."
"So, it ended up like this..."
Sitting on a small stool at the entrance of his tent, Hiiro Rinko stared through a crack in the flap at the deep, lead-gray sky.
The Land of Rain's sky was always gloomy, as if the entire country was shrouded in a tragic atmosphere. It rained almost constantly; a simple, overcast day like this was considered 'good weather.'
When the Sunagakure shinobi first arrived, they had trouble adapting. Many fell ill from the sudden, intense humidity.
The damp environment not only caused their dried rations to mold, but it also wet the sand, making it difficult for Sand Manipulation users to fight at full strength.
But the Puppet Masters had it even worse. Wooden structures swelling and molding, metal parts rusting, Chakra threads growing heavy with moisture... these were common sights.
Sunagakure was a desert village. Even if they waterproofed their puppets for outside missions, they weren't prepared to handle an environment like the Land of Rain, where the humidity rarely dropped below 95%.
When they first arrived, Suna's forces were beaten badly.
However, once the corresponding antidotes, drying equipment, and advanced waterproofing kits arrived, these problems were more or less solved.
As for the sand, the users just had to overcome it themselves. Even if pre-dried, it would just get wet again after a few minutes on the battlefield.
But even so, facing Ame's army, which specialized in Water Release, both Puppet and Sand Jutsu were difficult to use.
In this situation, Suna's choice was to engage in small-scale skirmishes to test the waters and wear them down.
Even if Ame was considered the strongest village after the Great Five, its military force couldn't compare. A war of attrition was advantageous to Suna, and it also fed into their follow-up strategy of "feeding the fire."
This method would certainly kill a lot of their own men, but "burning off the surplus population" was one of Suna's objectives in this war.
One's personality can be gentle, one's principles can be gentle, but in one's actions, there can be no indecision.
This was a necessary condition for a Kage, the leader of a military organization like a Hidden Village.