First Division

Assembled as the alliance prepared for the Fourth Shinobi World War, the First Division was a battalion of the Allied Shinobi Forces led by Darui of Kumogakure. It also carried the title Mid-Range Battle Division. Its thousands of ninja and samurai were geared toward combat at intermediate distances, and Shikamaru Nara notes in the anime that its ranks favoured practitioners of bukijutsu. The anime further breaks it into three elemental subgroups devoted to fire, water and earth techniques.

On mobilisation the division took up the western shoreline of the Land of Lightning, fortifying the beachhead and lining the cliffs in anticipation of an assault. White Zetsu Army clones and a host of reincarnated shinobi soon rose out of the sea, and Darui opened with his Lightning Release: Black Panther to fry dozens of the Zetsu. The rest of the battalion joined in, showering the advancing clones with kunai and grappling those that broke through, with Hiashi Hyūga pulled into a duel against his late brother Hizashi, Chōza Akimichi enlarging himself to face the likes of Dan and Asuma Sarutobi, and Kakuzu hunting down members with his Earth Grudge Fear.

Darui confronted the Gold and Silver Brothers, wielders of several Treasured Tools of the Sage of Six Paths, and though Samui and Atsui were both swallowed into the Benihisago, their capture let Darui learn how the artefacts functioned. Seizing the Benihisago and the Shichiseiken, he sealed Ginkaku, which enraged Kinkaku into a six-tailed transformation that tore through the division and levelled much of the field. The Fourth Raikage, having foreseen trouble, sent the Kohaku no Jōhei to Darui along with reinforcements drawn from the Second, Fourth and Fifth Divisions, and Formation Ino-Shika-Chō combined with Darui to seal Kinkaku into the pot. The alliance then turned on the remaining reincarnated fighters, with Chōji Akimichi growing gigantic to subdue his old teacher Asuma so the Sealing Team could bind him, while Chōza caught Dan and Kitsuchi cleared out the last Zetsu. Come nightfall, Tobi arrived and summoned the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, which flung the Akimichi aside and killed many allies before Tobi made off with the Benihisago and the Kohaku no Jōhei and withdrew the statue. The division later drew kunai circles to expose hidden White Zetsu among them, waiting on Naruto to single out the impostors, and once it had annihilated its opponents it joined the wider forces against the Ten-Tails under Madara and Obito Uchiha.