After hearing about Konoha's crushing defeat on the front line, Obito and the others were all in low spirits and soon drifted off in different directions.
As for Uchiha Feiyu, he returned to Root, planning to find his discount teacher and ask him a few questions—he had a feeling that he'd be heading back to the battlefield very soon.
Yes, the battlefield meant more spoils, more chances to "open the shop" with his blood pool… but neither Iwa-nin nor Kumo-nin were anything like the Sand fodder they'd just faced.
Even among Kage-levels, there were massive gaps in strength. Take Rasa, for example—his tricks were miles behind the Third Raikage or the Third Tsuchikage. And the overall power of those two villages far surpassed the already weakened Sunagakure.
Put it this way: although every Great Ninja War tended to start with Sand making the first move, they were eternally just supporting cast. Mist mostly came along to make background noise. The real leads on the war stage were always Konoha, Iwagakure, and Kumogakure.
Naturally, that also meant whenever Konoha clashed with Rock and Cloud, the casualties were always the worst, and the crises the most frequent.
If it weren't for the fact that Iwa and Kumo were also blood enemies with each other—and for the fact that Ōnoki, the Third Tsuchikage, was a world-class schemer with zero credibility—then even if those two villages did join forces, their 1 + 1 would come out to less than 2. Otherwise, Konoha probably wouldn't have even survived the last Great Ninja War.
When Feiyu got back to Root, he found Orochimaru right away. Today, Orochimaru wasn't in the lab dissecting anything—he was in a combat flak jacket, quietly preparing his gear.
At the moment, he was holding a white cloth, carefully wiping down the Kusanagi Sword. When he saw Feiyu walk in, a faint smile appeared on his face.
"Judging by your expression, you've heard something too?"
"I bumped into an old classmate on the way—the Hokage's kid, Asuma—and yeah, I picked up a few rumors… sounds like Konoha took a big loss against Kumo?"
"'Big loss' doesn't even begin to cover it. We practically lost our underwear."
Orochimaru's tone was calm, but the words were merciless.
"The Third Raikage personally took the field, and he brought his son A—the one already recognized as the next, Fourth Raikage—plus the Eight-Tails' jinchūriki, that next-generation B…"
"Three Kage-class powerhouses together. It's a miracle anyone survived. We were lucky that the one guarding the Cloud front was Jiraiya's student—the one who's mastered the Flying Thunder God. If it had been anyone else—me, Jiraiya, even the old man himself—we probably would've died there."
"Even with Jiraiya's disciple Namikaze Minato using Flying Thunder God to escape, Konoha's forces on the Cloud front were basically annihilated. He only managed to teleport out with a little more than ten survivors."
"So this time… Konoha didn't just lose three thousand shinobi. It was almost total destruction. More than four thousand ninja on that entire front—barely a dozen made it back."
"So brutal… Has Kumo gone insane? Did they just abandon their own village? Aren't they worried Iwa will come around and stab them in the backside?"
In previous wars, whenever Rock and Cloud fought Konoha, they'd always leave at least one Kage-level back home as a guard, the same way the Third Hokage never left the village.
Sarutobi Hiruzen had a mountain of flaws and had slowly shifted from "shinobi" into "politician." But no one could say he was afraid of battle. At this level, there simply weren't any Kage who feared death.
The reason he didn't go to the front line had many layers, but the biggest was simple: Konoha was fighting on four sides. If the Hokage left the village, it'd be far too easy for another hidden village to slip in and wipe out the nest.
Kumogakure wasn't in as central a position as Konoha—no "battlefield crossroads"—but because of their aggressive, greedy, and violent foreign policy, they'd built grudges with basically everyone.
Especially Iwagakure—that was a straight-up blood feud. In theory, even if Kumo wanted to fight Konoha, they'd still leave enough power behind to keep an eye on Iwa.
That's why Feiyu felt something was off. Was Cloud just… not worried about their home base anymore?
"I don't know the exact reasons," Orochimaru replied slowly, "but clearly, Kumo and Iwa have reached some level of mutual trust. I've no idea how Ōnoki managed to talk those muscle-brained Cloud shinobi into it."
He slid the Kusanagi back into a giant snake's mouth, then raised his hand. Nine thin silver snakes crawled out of his wrist, coiling together into a strange yet beautiful Silver Serpent Sword.
While Orochimaru was checking the blade, Feiyu frowned, the unease in his chest growing.
He remembered that in the original timeline, late in the Third Great Ninja War, Konoha had already been teetering. And then Iwagakure pulled a stunt: they suddenly attacked the Cloud forces led by the Third Raikage.
Cloud never imagined Rock would betray them so quickly—but Iwa also didn't expect the Third Raikage to be that hard to kill.
In a three-day, three-night battle, Iwa lost tens of thousands of shinobi, and Cloud lost its strongest Raikage. Neither side really profited, but that bloody collision bought a nearly exhausted Konoha some breathing room.
You could say that was the real turning point of the Third Great Ninja War in the original story. Everything that came after—the skirmishes between A and the "Yellow Flash," even the battle at Kannabi Bridge—was basically fallout from that one strategic shift.
And for the Third Raikage to single-handedly block ten thousand Rock ninja for three days and nights… Even if he hadn't seen Iwa's betrayal coming, he was clearly prepared for them.
But this time, the Third Raikage had emptied his village and brought nearly everything he had to Konoha's front.
That was completely different from how the original war played out.
There was only one explanation:
Uchiha Feiyu's butterfly effect.
Feiyu tried to reason out how the line had deviated, but no matter how he thought, he couldn't find a solid answer.
So he dropped it and turned to the next, more pressing question—
Could Konoha even withstand this sudden full-force assault from Kumo?
Jiraiya had to keep holding the Iwa front and couldn't be in two places at once. He might even need reinforcements; joining the Cloud battle was out of the question.
That left, on Konoha's visible roster, only: the Third Hokage, the Yellow Flash, Orochimaru, Feiyu himself… and maybe Shimura Danzō as "half a card," if you squinted.
On paper, it looked like Konoha could still field a stronger lineup.
But in an actual fight? That was a different story.
Right now, the strongest force in Konoha was probably the Third Hokage—still not completely out of his prime. The so-called "Strongest Hokage." But against the actual strongest Raikage, Feiyu didn't think his odds were great.
And that was Feiyu already trying to be generous to him. If he judged solely by what the manga had shown, the Third Hokage was more likely to get beaten like a drum.
As for the rest of the heavy hitters, outside of the Yellow Flash… Danzō, Orochimaru, and Feiyu himself all had their own agendas.
Maybe Orochimaru would put in a little extra effort.
Feiyu? If things started going south, he'd be the first one to grease the soles of his feet and vanish.
And Danzō… who knew what kind of chaos he'd stir up behind the scenes.
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