The Leaf Village army pursued the Sand Village as it withdrew and advanced into the Land of Rivers. However, they did not penetrate too deeply into the Land of Rivers’ territory.
They were not certain whether the Sand Village had prepared traps further in, or whether the retreat was intentionally designed to lure them into unfavorable ground.
Therefore, after pursuing for a sufficient distance to confirm that the Sand Village had completely withdrawn from the border and temporarily posed no imdiate threat to the Land of Fire, the entire Leaf Village army halted and pulled back.
By this point, a silvery white light had appeared on the horizon. Dawn was approaching.
The two armies had fought through the entire night. Although the duration was relatively short, the intensity had been extre.
In terms of tactical deploynt, the Leaf Village’s use of concentrated short-range pressure had fundantally pushed toward ending things quickly rather than allowing a prolonged war of attrition to develop.
Yuji understood clearly that to extract maximum advantage against Konoha, he had needed to strike hard with everything available in the imdiate aftermath of the battle’s opening, taking advantage of Konoha’s montarily weakened defenses and disrupted coordination to profit as much as possible.
As ti passed and the number of personnel on the battlefield began declining on both sides, the situation would inevitably grow more complicated. Only then would Konoha’s true depth of strength begin to fully reveal itself.
The initial tactical arrangent had been simple in its logic. If Konoha discovered even a single dical outpost, the Sand Village would imdiately retreat without hesitation.
dical treatnt was simultaneously their greatest advantage and their most critical weak point. Given Konoha’s military strength and battlefield capability, the enemy was perfectly capable of exploiting that weakness once they identified it.
Therefore, the Sand Village could not afford to give them the chance. Stop when the opportunity is right. Take what has been gained and withdraw.
After the first major engagent with Konoha officially concluded, Shimizu imdiately began conducting a thorough assessnt and statistical analysis of the entire army’s condition.
Yuji, for his part, set aside the battlefield entirely and transford himself from a combat ninja killing enemies to a dical ninja treating the sick and injured.
He mobilized the entire dical corps embedded in the army and entered a completely different mode of work. The shift was entirely smooth. His identity reversed with practiced ease.
The army established positions within the borders of the Land of Rivers. They would not be the only ones. The Leaf Village army would undoubtedly push forward and establish their own positions within the Land of Rivers near the Land of Fire border.
Under these circumstances, the Land of Rivers would inevitably beco the strategic buffer zone between the two great ninja villages.
The smaller nation was fundantally unable to intervene in what was unfolding within its borders. Political negotiations would be largely aningless in this situation.
By the ti Yuji finally managed so rest, it was already evening.
He left the dical battalion’s camp and went directly to Shimizu’s tent. Upon entering, he found several surviving military leaders already gathered and in discussion.
"How does it stand?" the others asked, mid-conversation.
"We suffered considerable losses. But the Leaf Village is in worse shape," Shimizu said, his expression carrying a degree of excitent beneath the exhaustion.
He relayed a series of encouraging pieces of information gathered from the battlefield, assembling them into a summary. After further analysis, the conclusion regarding their current position relative to the Leaf Village was clear.
The results of this first battle against Konoha had exceeded expectations by a significant margin.
"If we hadn’t moved quickly to expand the battlefield and disperse Konoha’s main force when we did, given the situation at that point, our casualty count by the ti we withdrew would likely have doubled," Shimizu said.
His eyes were tired but bright. "I knew clearly that this victory depended on both fortune and a more carefully prepared tactical arrangent than anything we had managed before."
Shimizu was a veteran of the Second Great Ninja War, having fought alongside the Third Kazekage and others against Konoha. It was no exaggeration to say that even during the previous war, the Sand Village had never faced Konoha from a position like this one.
Their eyes carried sothing like the light of genuine achievent.
Although from the outside, it appeared they had been repelled by Konoha and driven back. But they had won what they had actually co to win.
Even as they felt the satisfaction of it, the Leaf Village’s display of powerful combat strength and tactical skill had made every person in the room quietly aware of what they were truly up against.
Especially the newer Sand Village mbers entering this level of warfare for the first ti, experiencing Konoha’s military depth firsthand. This would deepen their understanding of the war ahead and sharpen their awareness of how turbulent and cruel the ninja world actually was.
"Going head-to-head with the Leaf Village in a direct sustained confrontation would be unwise," Yuji said in a low voice. "This kind of tactic can only be used once. After this battle, the Third Hokage will certainly analyze our fighting style and military intelligence in detail."
"What follows is a long ga of chess. That is the real key to determining who wins in the end."
After that, he and the others began a full-scale strategic planning exercise. They identified the shortcomings the army had shown during the battle and laid out contingency plans for the next engagent if conflict broke out again.
They also took stock of the current state of the command structure compared to before the war began.
The military’s managent ranks were sowhat depleted. Several had perished in battle during the night.
At the sa ti, the Sand Village was conducting its post-battle review, working to identify and address every weakness the army had revealed on the battlefield.
On the Konoha side, the sa process was underway.
A group of high-ranking military officers sat together in their tents, led by Hiruzen. However, compared to the Sand Village’s gathering, the atmosphere here was notably more somber, carrying a quiet undercurrent of grief.
Because once the casualty count had been fully tallied, the numbers far exceeded what anyone had imagined going in.
Now, with finally enough ti to analyze the Sand Village’s actions and battlefield arrangents step by step, the Konoha military’s senior officers had arrived at a clearer understanding of why they had taken such a severe beating.
By every conventional asure, Konoha should have held the advantage. Superior military deploynt, higher overall combat team level, and the Hokage himself on the field. And yet.
"To state it simply, the reason the Sand Village was able to inflict such heavy damage on us cos down to two things. The first is this."
The senior Leaf Village ninja spoke each word with deliberate precision.
"Their tactics were ticulously planned and executed. But it goes beyond just tactical execution and coordination, and beyond pre-battle strategic deploynt. The enemy also made an accurate psychological assessnt of how our forces would respond to their movents.
After the Sand Village changed its formation and attempted to expand the battlefield, our course of action should not have been to pursue them or allow ourselves to be drawn by their tactics.
Instead, we should first have cleared the battlefield of any remaining Sand Village units or those lacking sufficient mobility, and established control over certain core areas along the border before doing anything else."
He paused and looked around the tent. No one responded.
He continued.
"The second point is the Sand Village’s dical capabilities. Starting with their pharmaceutical resources. Our injured ninja can rely on a handful of common dicines such as the Blood Clotting Pill.
The enemy, facing different categories of injuries across different combat situations, has far more options available for self-treatnt and recovery.
Their dical ninja numbers are also higher than ours. Beyond that, we discovered unique dical equipnt concealed within one of their bases that we have never encountered before.
The Sand Village’s entire battlefield dical system has a value and effect that goes well beyond what we previously understood as pharmaceutical resources alone. This kind of systemic advantage cannot be countered by targeting any single component of it."
He finished.
"These are the two points we must focus on and devise plans around before the next engagent. Everything else follows from there."
"Yes."
Hiruzen nodded after hearing the full assessnt.
Losing was losing. A war that had spread across the entire ninja world would not resolve itself in a day or two. Falling once and learning from it was simply part of the process.
Being able to recognize the enemy’s true capabilities before the whole ninja world descended completely into chaos was, in a practical sense, a useful outco. It would also accelerate the growth of their village’s ninja on the battlefield.
"The Hidden Sand Village now appears to be quite different from what it was," Hiruzen said in a low voice. "The entire foundation of what makes the Sand Village dangerous in this campaign cos down to two points. One is their dical system. The other is the mind commanding the battlefield."
He paused.
"If we can neutralize these two points, everything else becos manageable."
...
Bonus @200 PS
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