A little more than 3 months had already passed, bringing the tally close to a year since Ryusei's transmigration into this world.
Half a year had passed since the Third Shinobi World War had erupted, and the world was shifting faster than even he expected.
The southern fronts had opened in full two months ago.
Against Kirigakure, the commander was none other than Fugaku Uchiha, dragging a great portion of his clan with him.
Against Sunagakure, it was Hiashi Hyūga, likewise bringing many Hyūga with him.
Two of the most prestigious clans in Konoha, deployed as shields and symbols, yet even their reputations weren't enough to tilt those battlefields.
The word filtering back to the Capital was bitter: they were barely hanging on. Neither front had collapsed, but neither had gained decisive ground either.
The Iwa front was another story. There, Jiraiya of the Sannin was carving through enemy lines with terrifying effect.
His presence alone had turned the tide, but what drew even more whispers across the nations was the rise of two names beneath him: Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki, the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki.
Their deeds had spread far beyond the battlefields. The Yellow Flash and the Crimson Storm, they were already being called.
Even Iwagakure's two living weapons, Rōshi of the Four-Tails and Han of the Five-Tails, could not reclaim momentum against them.
Minato's fast killing style and Kushina's sealing mastery left devastation in their wake.
So much so that even Ōnoki himself, the aged Tsuchikage, had been forced to personally enter the field.
Despite his age, despite the burden of his Dust Release on his weary back, he fought.
Jiraiya and Ōnoki clashed again and again, deadlocks echoing the previous war when Ōnoki had stood against Hiruzen Sarutobi himself.
Every encounter was enough to remind the world that both men still carried the weight of legends.
The northeastern front, however, painted a bleaker picture. Konoha's campaign against Kumogakure was teetering on the edge of disaster.
Kumogakure's relentless offensives, powered by their overwhelming might and ruthless discipline, pushed the Konoha forces closer and closer to collapse.
Rumors whispered that within weeks, Konoha's armies might be forced to abandon the country altogether, retreating into Fire Territory itself to hold the lines there instead.
That would not just be a tactical setback, but a humiliation written as the first of its kind.
The world was burning.
And in the shadows of these shifting fronts, Ryusei continued weaving his own path, step by step, beneath the notice of those who thought they still held the reins.
The atmosphere across Konoha's forces on the Hot Water front was suffocating. Morale had cratered.
Reports came in daily of lines buckling, units being pummeled back, and small encampments being overrun.
It wasn't a slow erosion anymore; it was a collapse waiting for the right shove.
The man most weighed down by it was Orochimaru.
He was the commander of this front, and if the tide pushed them back into the Land of Fire itself, it wouldn't just be a battlefield defeat; it would be his personal ruin.
His reputation, his Hokage candidacy, everything he had maneuvered for would sink into the mud alongside the retreating troops.
Worse still, he'd have to abandon his den here in Hot Water, the base of his research that he had built and full of infrastructure he had stocked so carefully, during the last half a year, and start everything slowly back again from nearly nothing in another location.
...
Now he sat across from Ryusei in the usual half-lit shrine where they had been meeting for months.
His voice was lower than usual, almost strained, as he admitted something uncharacteristic for him.
"I'm receiving indications that Kumogakure is preparing its largest thrust yet. They may even be aiming directly at me. If I commit too many forces here, I'll leave holes elsewhere. If I split them, they'll break through by their superiority. It's… becoming unavoidable. If I want to hold this front, I'll have to face them head-on."
Ryusei studied him quietly, almost amused at how close this sounded to venting, even complaining.
It was strange to reconcile this man with the twisted, arrogant creature he remembered from the original story.
But that Orochimaru was over a decade and a half away.
This one, outside of his slightly pale skin and slit-pupiled eyes, which looked a bit peculiar, still looked almost normal.
More than that, his demeanor was more human.
He still had to wear the mask of reason, still had to maintain the image of someone the villagers could nominate as Hokage.
Ryusei had also confirmed something in these months: Orochimaru could be reasonable once he acknowledged you as more than prey.
That had been the dynamic with Sasuke in the future, and now it was becoming theirs.
In these hidden meetings, they spoke freely, scrolls exchanged, jutsu dissected, philosophies debated, and even the political game in Konoha and the shifting warfronts across the world.
'So this is how it is,' Ryusei thought dryly as he listened. 'The monster wasn't born in a day. He's still in the chrysalis now. Not fully transformed into that physical caricature. But already very dangerous, or even more so than before.'
His thoughts wandered further, as they often did, to the larger board.
'So it really was Minato who flipped this war on its head,' he realized. 'Three out of Konoha's four fronts were failing.'
Therefore, it was probably that after Minato mastered Flying Raijin completely, he didn't just continue to humiliate Iwagakure; instead, he became a fire brigade for the entire shinobi world, for Konoha's side, appearing at collapsing fronts, turning them around, and saving commanders like Fugaku and Orochimaru, his other Hokage aspirant rivals, from total ruin.
It was no wonder that Minato then became Hokage after this war so easily.
His battlefield reputation was divine.
Yet, Ryusei frowned inwardly, which only made his later failure more glaring.
With that kind of otherworldly, almost impossible, perfect acclaim, he still allowed himself to remain Hiruzen's puppet afterward?
'Some people,' Ryusei mused, 'are simply unfit for power. They don't understand it. Minato probably thought of it as a milestone, a responsibility, a way to protect the village. But people like Hiruzen, Danzo, Orochimaru— they understood it as raw leverage, a blade you wield. They were cutthroat, merciless. Minato? He didn't even see the game being played.'
Ryusei's eyes flicked back to Orochimaru, who was still speaking through his teeth about Kumo's movements. He smirked faintly.
'Maybe,' he thought, 'this front collapsing is exactly what's supposed to happen. History is only history if no one rewrites it.'
Orochimaru's words trailed off about the Raikage's expected strike, and then, gradually, his tone shifted. The probing began.
"Ryusei-kun," he said, almost casually, though his eyes sharpened, "I've been hearing whispers. That Tsunade has fully recovered her strength… is it true? And if so, could she be persuaded to lend that strength here?"
Ryusei stilled. So this was the real reason for the meeting.
Orochimaru's voice remained silky, but the intent beneath it was clear. "Even if I can hold the Raikage himself when he arrives, his two sons… that is another matter. Both are already counted among Kumogakure's highest elites. If they are allowed free rein on the battlefield, they'll carve through our forces unopposed."
Ryusei leaned back slightly, expression unreadable. He understood perfectly well what Orochimaru was asking. He gave a faint shrug.
"I wouldn't know. Even if she has regained her power, it will only be proven in battle. She hasn't fought seriously in nearly a decade. Throwing her straight into super-fights like that could be more of a liability than an advantage."
Orochimaru's lips curled in a thin, cold smile, seeing through the dodge. "Negotiating, are we?"
His gaze bored into Ryusei's as he finally cut straight to the point. "What do you want in return for convincing Tsunade? Convincing her to help me contain the Raikage's sons?"
Inside, Orochimaru already measured his own hand. The last six months had elevated him. He was confident now—confident that if the Third Raikage came, he could stand against him.
He felt he had reached that level at last: the rarefied space where Onoki, Hiruzen, and the Raikage themselves existed.
His raw strength didn't match the Raikage's overwhelming power, but his arsenal, his deception, his versatility—he believed it was enough.
He had run long enough. He hungered for payback, to erase the humiliations of being chased and forced into hiding across this cursed front.
But even if he could hold the father, it would mean nothing if the sons weren't contained. And if Kumo's superior numbers, their surging morale, weren't blunted, then the line would still snap.
"That's not all," Orochimaru added smoothly, voice lowering.
"I want Tsunade to personally provide chakra through Katsuyu's divisions. The smaller clones… scattered among our wounded. It would bolster morale and extend our strength against Kumo's numbers. If our forces see me and Tsunade together, two of the Sannin, pushing back three Kage-class elites while their wounds knit and their stamina returns in ways they thought impossible… the tide could turn. Not just to hold the line. To push them back. Perhaps even force them from Hot Water entirely."
His pale hand flexed once, then stilled. "Such a victory would not only preserve this front. It would be the greatest merit achieved by Konoha in this war so far."
Then his eyes, hungry and unblinking, locked on Ryusei. "So. What do you want?"
The admission came harder than his tone suggested, but the silence stretched enough to reveal it.
"I've already sent word to Tsunade," Orochimaru said finally, a faint sneer tugging at the edge of his mouth.
"She ignored me. Completely. You know as well as I do—if anyone in this world can persuade her now, it is you."
For a moment, the shrine was silent but for the distant drip of water. Orochimaru had laid himself bare more than he ever would before anyone else.
To Ryusei, it was almost amusing. The monster who would one day terrify the world, sitting across from him now, forced to admit that a boy barely into his teens was his only hope.
However, it was also obvious why. Ryusei knew that Kumogakure had always held stronger firepower on this front.
Not only because Konoha was the only village forced to face all four great powers at once, but also because Kumo was the second strongest, and Hiruzen deliberately funneled more support to the northwest front against Iwa, clearly aimed at suppressing Orochimaru.
No wonder Orochimaru was under such strain.
For six months, the only reason this front hadn't already collapsed was Orochimaru's use of underhanded tactics, the spy networks he had access to seeded inside Kumo and Yugakure, and the Root operations he directed.
But now the reckoning had arrived.
Kumo had finally ground Konoha's numbers down enough to open a potential blind spot, giving them a chance to launch their first serious piercing attack, probably personally led by their Raikage, judging by their culture.
What they didn't know was that Orochimaru had intelligence of their move.
He just couldn't pinpoint the exact vector.
So he made the most logical choice: he reinforced his central command, which would be the most likely target eventually, even if he didn't know how and through where exactly, so this is why he focused so much on Tsunade too.
It would be like a giant battle of elites from both sides. Without the central done, the whole front would unravel, and Konoha would be forced to retreat in humiliation, his research lost.