Looking at his unresponsive leader, Baki stood with a stunned expression. He was in such disbelief that he let his guard down completely, a fact that didn't miss Fujin's watchful gaze. However, Fujin didn't make a move.

Baki was going through an intense internal turmoil. Just a few months ago, Sunagakure's top leadership were high in morale after having made a deal with Orochimaru to deal Konoha a massive blow. Their preparations progressed smoothly.

However, ever since the second round of the Chunin Exams, nothing seemed to be going their way. The slaughter Fujin unleashed just a minute into their attack made him realize the severity of the situation. And now, their leader, their last hope, the man who was supposed to turn things around in their favor, was already dead. And, his killer was none other than their ally!

Baki muttered in shock and disbelief, "How did this happen? When was Lord Rasa killed? No way! Did Orochi…"

Baki was no fool. He connected the dots very easily and understood. He knew that Rasa had gone to meet Orochimaru a few days ago. According to the discussion in their council, the war should've been postponed unless Orochimaru had made some excellent arrangements.

Yet, Rasa suddenly acted in a very different manner after meeting with Orochimaru. He went from caution to going all out to crushing Konoha! The council was baffled and wanted a proper explanation, but they didn't get any as Rasa never returned to Suna.

Ultimately, the council had no choice but to follow their leader's orders. None of them imagined that he'd be killed by Orochimaru so secretly. They didn't even have that thought. Yet, Baki was seeing the worst-case scenario happening for his village! A scenario that no ninja in Suna imagined!

Seeing Baki standing in shock, the remaining Suna ninjas understood that Fujin wasn't lying. Their morale dropped immediately. Genma flickered behind Baki and asked with a chuckle, "Do you still want to fight?"

Baki didn't reply. He retrieved a kunai and launched it into the sky. The kunai exploded, releasing red smoke and a strange noise. In an instant, every Suna ninja in and around the arena heard the voice and looked in the direction of the explosion.

Their pupils dilated as soon as they saw the smoke. Without a single word, every Suna ninja stopped fighting and retreated! They only kept an eye on possible attacks from Konoha ninjas while they left the battlefield! Leading them was none other than Baki.

The Konoha ninjas chased for a few seconds but stopped, realizing that Suna ninjas had no intention of stopping. For a moment, most of the battles ceased.

Of course, that didn't mean that the Suna ninjas were happy. Instead, terrified questions were heard throughout their forces.

"Why are we retreating?"

"Don't tell me! Is what he said true? Is Lord Rasa dead?"

"No, how can that be! Baki! What happened? Didn't you get a close look at Kazekage-sama?"

With a grim expression on his face, Baki answered, "Kazekage-sama is dead. Orochimaru reanimated him like the White Fang and others. That bloody snake betrayed us!"

Silence spread among the ranks of Suna ninjas. None of them could believe what they heard. Nearly every Suna ninja turned their heads to glance towards the barrier one last time. As soon as they did, their eyes widened and pupils dilated!

Standing facing Rasa, Hoka glanced at Fujin and thought, 'He's even more incredible now. He has always been strong, smart and cunning, but I never imagined that his ability to scheme is so strong. I now understand why Lord Hokage got him on the council.

Even though he looks unstoppable, his chakra reserves must have taken a big hit. He killed over 300 Suna and Oto ninjas, before eliminating the Kekkei Genkai users and dealing with the reanimated ninjas. In addition, he also left Shadow Clones to watch over the sealed ninjas.

Even though he does a great job at hiding his chakra reserves, they must have taken a massive hit. According to my estimates, he should only have around a quarter of his chakra left. Fighting against the Fourth Kazekage in this state would've been extremely difficult, especially considering that he seems content with just defending the barrier. We wouldn't have been able to help Lord Hokage.

However, with just a few words, he forced nearly 300 Suna ninjas to retreat. Without them here, our forces are freed up. Everyone can gang up on the barrier and destroy it. This war is ov..! What the…???'

Hoka's analysis was on point. Fujin's chakra reserves had dropped seriously low. It was why he used such a tactic to force the Suna ninjas to retreat. Instead of killing Baki, he made Baki withdraw the hundreds of Suna ninjas. Of course, there was one other factor as well. Along with Rasa, Fujin sensed one more disturbance with his Space Time Sensing Technique.

Just at the moment when the Suna ninjas turned their heads to see their fallen Kage, black particles appeared around the barrier along with the gold particles. Standing next to Rasa was the Third Kazekage! Orochimaru had initially held him back, hoping that the Suna ninjas keep fighting. But, there was no longer any need to do that.

Fujin saw a massive amount of gold and iron dust rush towards him and Hoka. Hoka immediately concentrated chakra on his feet while Fujin thought, 'It looks like I'll have to use that trick after all… Sigh, this is disappointing. I hope that I can resolve this issue soon…'

Fujin bit his right thumb. At the same time, the Shadow Clone in his compounds dispelled, sending back all chakra to Fujin. Fujin, who barely had over 25% of his chakra remaining, suddenly recovered his chakra reserves to 80% of its maximum capacity!

Before the war began, Fujin had thought a lot as to what arrangements Orochimaru would make for him. While he couldn't guess who Orochimaru would recruit to deal with him, he expected an intense conflict. As such, he left no stone unturned in ensuring that he was as prepared as a ninja could be.

A day before the finals began, he ate a soldier pill and immediately created a Shadow Clone containing 85% of his chakra. As the day progressed, he created a couple more as soon as his chakra reserves recovered. While there were several reasons to do so, which was evident by the roles played by his clone in the war, one of Fujin's main intentions was to have chakra batteries in case he ran low.

Of course, even if a Shadow Clone didn't fight, the mere act of maintaining it consumed the clone's chakra. Hence, his clones stayed inside the meditation room, meditating to slow down the rate at which they consumed their chakra. A few hours before the finals began, two of them left for the arena while his first clone stayed back and eventually ended up killing the giant snakes and the ninjas who followed them.

Even though he didn't consume any chakra in that battle, sustaining himself for over a day cost him nearly a third of his chakra. Even so, the chakra he provided to Fujin was more than enough to turn around any battle!

'Summoning jutsu!'

Smoke clouds appeared around Fujin as he slammed his hand on the ground. It didn't remain for long as a 20-meter-tall behemoth appeared from the smoke! A loud jagged roar echoed through the arena as intense winds hit the gold and iron dust, sending it back at an even faster speed.

Once again, everyone's eyes turned towards Fujin. To everyone's surprise, he was standing on the head of a gigantic and menacing Sabertooth!

Hoka, who retreated right before Fujin slammed his hand on the ground, thought, 'Such a massive and powerful summon! Since when did Fujin have such a summon?'

Similar questions ran through the minds of the Konoha ninjas. Konoha was famous for having ninjas with strong summons. Be it Hiruzen or the Sannins, all of their summons were extremely famous throughout the world. And now, they saw another summon who didn't lose to any of them.

Of course, none of them questioned where he had got the summon from. Instead, they were just pleased.

"Incredible! I didn't even know he had a summon!"

"As expected of Councilman Fujin! Only someone like him can have such a strong summon!"

The retreating Suna ninjas noticed the massive summon as well and their mood dropped further. Baki thought, 'Even if Gaara had stuck to the plan, I don't think it'd have made much of a difference. Even if Orochimaru hadn't backstabbed us, this entire campaign was destined to be a disaster!'

Fujin ignored everyone's gazes and said, "Ryu, it's time for a rampage!"