[send power stones please]
Sunagakure's "all-in" approach might have looked suicidal on paper, but from their perspective, it was the only real option.
The Wind Country was a desert wasteland. Suna was the poorest of the Five Great Villages.
Without deep logistics, they had no way to wage a long, grinding war of attrition.
So they only had one card to play:
Speed-push.
Strike fast, hit hard, decide everything in one wave.
The downside was obvious—no staying power.
But that first wave?
It really was terrifying.
Pakura, Rasa, and Chiyo weren't top-tier monsters among the Kage-class—none of them could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with legends like the First Hokage or Madara—but together, they were still three Kage-level pillars.
against the full might of Konoha, they wouldn't have been enough to tip the scales.
But that wasn't the situation.
They weren't fighting all of Konoha.
They were facing just a slice of Konoha's forces on this front.
Sitting in the command tent, Uchiha Feiyu quietly weighed the board.
If I didn't exist, how would Konoha play this?
Orochimaru is definitely not weaker than the Fourth Kazekage. But if all Rasa did was tie him up, that's already a problem.
Chiyo… Torifū is in his prime right now. With a few jōnin backing him, they could probably hold her.
But what about Pakura? Who stops her?
Then another thought cut in:
Wait. If I hadn't interfered, Pakura wouldn't even be here yet—she'd still be fighting Kirigakure.
If he hadn't meddled, Iwagakure probably wouldn't have been booted from the theater so early either. Kitsuchi certainly wouldn't be cooling his heels as a prisoner in Konoha by now. That had never happened in the original timeline.
Without him, Kikyō would likely still be locked in a three-way mess between Konoha, Suna, and Iwa.
Konoha had already spent itself battering Iwa, then lost most of its frontline medical support when the field hospital was destroyed. For months afterward, they'd been plagued by Suna's poison tactics.
Plenty of shinobi had died.
Right now, their numbers here were below 4,000.
Rank-and-file strength-wise, Suna's average edge was a little better than Konoha's.
Not by much—but enough that it mattered.
"So in the end, the key is still beating Rasa, Pakura, and Chiyo," Orochimaru said, frowning.
In great wars, ordinary shinobi were far from useless—numbers mattered. But the ones who decided how those numbers collapsed were almost always the Kage-class.
If the gap at the top was too big, the mass below could only influence the outcome of the high-end fight.
They couldn't decide it.
"The Fourth Kazekage is mine," Orochimaru said. "As for the Scorch Release user… Torifū-senpai, I'll leave her to you."
Akimichi Torifū nodded, then added dryly:
"Just make sure you assign me some jōnin to help. I've read the intel on that girl's Scorch Release—it's murder on close-range fighters. I'd rather not get boiled down into cooking oil."
Orochimaru chuckled.
"Don't worry. The Scorch Release hero is dangerous, yes—but her flaws are just as clear. She doesn't seem to be very good at defensive ninjutsu."
It was true.
In the original timeline, Pakura was one of the rare top-tier shinobi killed… by kunai.
If she'd known even a decent Earth Release, she wouldn't have ended up looking like a pincushion.
Feiyu was mulling that over when he suddenly felt Orochimaru's gaze drift his way—hesitant, weighing something.
Feiyu immediately pretended not to notice.
Yeah, no. There's no way this is anything good. What's left on the big-boss list? Chiyo, obviously.
Let Orochimaru go wrestle a Magnet Release Kazekage, let Torifū play tag with Scorch Release… and leave the wrinkled old puppet master to me, right?
Compared to dealing with her, Feiyu felt like mowing down Chunin on the main battlefield sounded way more appealing.
Even if he did kill Chiyo, what would her soul do for him?
He had zero interest in becoming a puppet master.
"Feiyu-kun," said a voice—not in the room, but in his mind. "Help me with this one. That old woman needs to be cut down at the root."
It wasn't Orochimaru.
It was Hatake Sakumo's soul.
That gave Feiyu pause.
As far as he remembered, Sakumo didn't have any particular vendetta against Chiyo. If anything, it was the other way around—Chiyo had all the reason in the world to hate him, considering White Fang had killed her son and daughter-in-law.
"I can't leave this grudge hanging over Kakashi," Sakumo said quietly. "Because I died, the hatred that should be pointed at me will naturally shift toward him."
"I'm not worried about most of them. But Chiyo is stubborn, vengeful, and a real power in Suna. For Kakashi, that kind of enemy is too dangerous."
Feiyu couldn't help thinking:
Buddy, I read the manga. No one ever showed up to take a shot at Kakashi over this. You might be overthinking things a bit.
But this was the man who was now his primary "plug-in"—his main combat overlay. Sakumo's wishes weren't something he could just brush aside.
And truth be told—
He wasn't particularly afraid of Chiyo.
White Fang was a born puppet-master killer. He and Chiyo had crossed paths several times in the past, and he'd never come out behind. If not for her slippery experience and cautious nature, she would've died to his blade long ago.
Now, with Sakumo overlaying Feiyu's body, his power was at least as strong as when he'd been alive—if not stronger.
At that point…
What was there to be afraid of?
The only real downside was that if he went after Chiyo, his "sacrifice yield" of black mist would drop a lot. There might not even be much in it for him at all.
But there would be other chances to harvest later.
If he took a hit here, it wasn't the end of the world.
"Alright, that's enough side-eye, Orochimaru-sama," Feiyu finally said. "If you keep flicking your gaze over here, I'm going to start charging rent."
He sighed.
"I'll take Chiyo."
"Oh?" Orochimaru's eyes lit up. "Feiyu-kun is unusually proactive today."
Feiyu raised a hand.
"Hold it. I have conditions."
He lifted the short blade in his hand.
This wasn't the White Fang tantō—that was Sakumo's legacy, left to Kakashi, and Feiyu hadn't touched it.
No, this was…
A knife he'd bought for two hundred ryō at a ninja tool shop.
In modern money?
About a hundred RMB.
Obviously, you didn't get "divine weapons" for a hundred yuan. This wasn't some legendary chakra-enhanced blade. It was just a standard-issue short sword made from ordinary steel, with no rare metals in sight.
Even though Feiyu's White Fang style minimized wear on the blade—cutting the gaps between matter rather than brute-forcing through it—after carving up this many enemies, the knife was covered in nicks and hairline fractures.
It looked like it might fall apart at any moment.
"So, Orochimaru-sama," Feiyu said. "Any chance you've got a decent weapon lying around? Nobody here seems to use short blades; I can't even find a decent backup."
Orochimaru blinked, then laughed.
"So that's what this was about. You should have mentioned it earlier, Feiyu-kun. As it happens, I do have a sword that should suit you quite well."
He opened his mouth—
And a long snake slithered out.
The snake glided over to Feiyu, the tip of its tail flicking. Its jaws yawned open, and from deep within—
A sword slid out, gleaming coldly in the torchlight.
"This is a type of Grass Cutter Sword," Orochimaru said lightly. "Its greatest feature is that its length can be freely extended or shortened. At its shortest, it's about the same as White Fang's blade. At its longest, it can extend twenty or thirty meters."
Grass Cutter wasn't a single weapon, but a class of blades.
Each one possessed its own unique special ability. But in terms of base quality, every Grass Cutter Sword was at least on par with a top-grade chakra weapon—
If not better.
◇ I'll drop one bonus chapter for every 10 reviews (leave a review/comment!)
◇ One bonus chapter will be released for every 100 Power Stones.
◇ Read 60 chapters ahead on P@treon: patreon.com/KageNaruto