The four hundred Uzishiogakure shinobi marched towards the Land of Grass with determination in their eyes.
Another six hundred shinobi joined them from Konoha led by Tobirama.
These six hundred Leaf shinobi had shinobi from various shinobi clans including Uchiha, Hyuga, Aburama, Sarutobi, Yamanaka, Nara, Akimichi, and Senju.
Both the village forces have decided to use the Hozuki castle as their base which was being rebuilt with Earth jutsus. It was no longer impregnable like before but at least it was better than a temporary camp made out of tents.
Besides, with the help of Uzumaki seals, they made sure that there were barriers to alert them of any assassins or spies trying to pass through their camp. There were also senteries towers that were left intact from the previous battles which also came in handy.
All the prisoners had been escorted back to the village in where they were considered as criminals.
No villages tried to use this opportunity to attack either Konoha or Uzushiogakure when some of their elite forces were away on the battlefield. Everyone feared the God of Shinobi Hashirama who was still in Konoha and the first Fuinjutsu Grandmaster Ashira Uzumaki who was still in Uzushiogakure. Even without them both villages still had tens of thousands of their shinobi still in their villages.
The shinobi of the hidden grass village were going to protect the towns and cities in their country. If they participate in this battle more of their manpower would die and they would never be able to recover. Thus only Leaf and Uzushiogakure would be protecting the borders.
They have to defend against the hidden stone from one side and the hidden waterfall who wanted to take their revenge on losing the tailed beast and also for Uzushiogakure 'stealing' Kakazu from them.
But that was not all, they were letting the hidden mist shinobi as well as the hidden cloud shinobi enter their village from which they would launch their combined assault to get their hands on the land of grass. Land of Rain was an ally to Konoha and thus did not participate for a small piece of Land knowing that they would be bullied by the other greater villages even if they win the battle.
Suna has decided not to take part in the war as expected. They were using a wait-and-see approach. If they feel like they could steal a piece of fertile land then they would ally with others. Otherwise, they were looking to watch the show from the sidelines. They still placed some troops on their border to prevent illegal entry by other countries shinobi.
A total of 2500 shinobi were dispatched from all the three great villages combined and another two hundred from the hidden waterfall country. Kumo though only send 300 of their men. Unknown to everyone, they were focusing their forces on the land of frost.
These number of shinobi might look less when each village has more than 50000 shinobi but no village wanted to go full throatal because if Hashirama lost his tolerance towards them then their village would cease to exit.
Also, It might look like the total troops of less than 1000 of Konoha and Uzu might not be enough to defend the land of grass but the quality of these shinobi was much greater than any other village. Almost everyone was either a Kekkei genkai user or had a clan secret technique.
Just looking at the Uzushiogakure forces, one could tell how difficult the battle would be for the invading villages.
More than half of the Uzushiogakure army was made up of Uzumaki clansmen.
The Uzumaki shinobi were known to be a menace on the battlefield for a reason. They were the best supports in any team.
With their large chakra reserves, Uzumaki could use strong ninjutsu. They would last much longer in a battle of attrition since they have much more chakra than a normal shinobi.
Their fuinjutsu mastery is very important on a battlefield and could turn the tides in a battle. They could create traps to ambush enemies, create barriers to protect themselves from ambush until backup arrives, etc.
Then there was the Healing branch of the Uzumaki clan that could heal shinobi from the brink of death by just letting the injured take a bite of them.
Then there is the sensor branch of the Uzumaki clan who have the best sensory jutsu in the world.
If that was not enough, the Uzumaki have a much stronger physique comparable to the Senju clans which also makes their Taijutsu strong.
Then there were the other kekkei genkai clans in Uzushiogakure that made the rest of the army. Chinoike clan and Kurama clan gave them the best genjuysu users whose only notable weaknesses were other Dojutsus which belonged to their allies.
Eizen and Yuki clan's kekkei genkais gave them the deadly jutsus and unpredictability.
But this is not to say that the other villages lacked in terms of Kekkei genkais. They too had dangerous kekkei genkasi but their number was less than Konoha and Uzushiogakure.
"The scouts have returned. The enemy forces are preparing to launch their assaults starting tomorrow." Kato lazily said to his friends before he went to sleep. It was only afternoon but Kaito did not know when he would get a peaceful nap after today.
"So it begins" Yoriichi mumbled while polishing Muramasa.
------A/N----
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