After waiting for half a day, both of the major ninja villages got reports from their teams, but to say those reports did any help would be an overstatement.
If anything, it only confused them more.
(IN IWAGAKURE)
"A path towards both Konoha and Kumogakure? Really, did those two combine their forces? How is this possible? Why would Konoha ally with them when they too had attacked them with us?"
"I don't know the reason, but it makes sense if you think about it. There is no way Konoha would pass such a big force under our noses; they must have had some help from Kumogakure."
"That and so many lightning jutsu used against our ninjas. There is no way Konoha would deploy all of their lightning users towards this attack, right?"
"All of the signs are pointing towards the involvement of Kumogakure, and to such an extent that it really feels weird. Also the number of spies the report suggests..."
The council was hard at debate over the details provided by the second team, but the debate was not like the past one at all, as all of the members had grim expressions on their faces.
The news of over a hundred of their trained ninja dying such horrible deaths was enough to dampen the mood of the council members for decades. Even though they had grown numb to death over the years after facing so many large and small wars, but even when they considered numbers, seeing it so high and considering the ninja they had lost were the elite force sent to the borders...
The whole council was filled with sorrow and confusion. The report they got didn't even start to make sense. There were some ninja who had died due to fire jutsu, some due to lightning, and for some reason, some died due to earth jutsu, and from the structure and the style of injuries on the bodies, it was clear that it was done by someone from Iwagakure.
Now everyone there present knew there may have been one or two spies in that outpost, as without that, such a complete eradication of the base where they didn't even get to send an emergency message, which shouldn't take more than a second, simply solidified the belief in their minds that some spies were able to crawl their way to the outpost. Even with their meticulous search, it was hard but not impossible.
But according to the report, tens of their ninja attacked each other. It was hard to find the actual number, but it was still above any logical reason how so many spies could have infiltrated the base.
This left one other option which was only possible because their enemy was Konoha.
"It must be the work of those Uchihas. This must be the work of their cursed eyes," the grand elder, someone as old as Onoki, said.
Like always, Onoki was sitting silently, listening to everything they were speaking while thinking quietly. Unlike everyone else, he was not that shocked about the incident at all, as he had seen Konoha at its peak, where the only reason they didn't conquer the world was because their leader was a pacifist and wanted peace. Considering that, even if Konoha had weakened considerably from that time, they were still a behemoth no other major village could target alone.
Since they had poked that behemoth, naturally he was expecting this to happen. Just the scale of the attack and the possible involvement of Kumogakure had been bugging him.
'They didn't attack the outpost we had left unattended for them, but chose the one which was important to us, like giving us a warning about the future,' Onoki thought, his eyes looking toward the mountains surrounding him. Naturally, he was upset about the deaths of his ninja, but like everyone else, he had also started to see the deaths as just numbers, as if each death started to affect him, he would have gone mad in his long career as a Kage.
"I assume everyone here understands that we can't do anything about the attack, right?" he asked. The look of shame on everyone's face was everything he needed to know.
They had gone ahead and killed the Third Raikage; there was no way Kumogakure would forget that. He was sure that they would take revenge as soon as the next ninja war starts. Heck, they might have actually teamed up with Konoha already.
So if they actually tried to retaliate, Konoha would have no choice but to attack back, and this time it would be a full-blown war. If Kumo was for sure on their side, they might have taken the risk, but in this condition, fighting Konoha one-on-one was already suicide. But with Kumo's help, they might actually lose this ninja war completely, actually becoming a minor village from a major one.
"Don't worry. There's a simple reason Konoha can act so arrogantly—they have more S-rank ninja than us. In a war, they could easily counter our forces.
But they're forgetting something. We, the Iwa ninja, have the Will of Stone. We are more united than that crumbling village, where the number of rogue shinobi keeps increasing. We will show them why we should not be underestimated.
For now, we must lay low, minimize the fallout from this attack, and then begin planning how to deal with them."
Onoki fell silent, allowing his council members to discuss their future strategy while he silently cursed the Land of Earth for failing to produce even a fraction of the talent the world had gifted Konoha.
Alas, someone was even more enraged than him in heaven.
...
Crack
A massive fist landed on the poor table, cracking it in two parts from the center, but the people in the room didn't even react to it, as they were also enraged to the same degree as the person who did this.
"Who the hell do they think they are, acting so bizarrely in front of us?" a shout came that literally shook the walls of the room.
The report Kumo got was completely different from the one Iwa got. Unlike the one from Iwa, which did nothing but confuse them further about what had happened at the outpost, the one Kumo got was clear.
There was a heavy amount of oil in the ground around the outpost, so much that it would have literally drowned the lower level of the outpost completely, and there was only one person in the world who was famous for such an attack.
"That frog-fucking bastard dared to burn my ninja to ash. Did Konoha really think of us as some minor village to act so brazenly?" The lightning started to dance around the Raikage as his rage kept going up.
"Calm down, A. The anger is not going to help in this situation," a calm voice came from Masashi, the senior advisor of Kumogakure. His calm state was almost out of place for the room.
"What do you mean 'calm down,' Elder? They have spit on our face with this, and that too in front of the whole world. How the hell can I calm down?" A shouted once again, though there was still respect in his voice for the elder when he turned toward him.
"So what other option do we have?" Masashi asked, maintaining his calm.
"Obviously Konoha has some questions to answer, and a sacrifice to make. Either I have the head of that frog-fucking bastard in front of me, or Konoha has to face the wrath of Kumogakure," Raikage shouted.
"Both of them are impossible..."