Load! Aim! Fire!
It was a seamless, fluid motion.
Meticulously trained Hyuga shinobi unleashed terrifying combat power in that instant. With the Byakugan's penetrating vantage, every bullet was used to maximum effect—no wasted shots, no drift, each round snapping precisely into a vital point.
They were the battlefield's ultimate killers.
"This is the true purpose of the Byakugan."
Arms folded, Namikaze Mirai exhaled, satisfied. Ever since he'd learned the eye's limits and strengths, a question had gnawed at him: why waste superior long-range perception on pure close-quarters work? Pair the Byakugan with distant strikes—that was the optimal use.
After becoming Hokage, he reformed Hyuga doctrine. The Main House elders had bristled; the Main House elders in particular resisted—until several "friendly" conversations ended in reluctant agreement and full cooperation with the new training.
"Truly astonishing…" Orochimaru stood at Mirai's side, snake-slit pupils shimmering. His understanding of shinobi warfare was being rewritten in real time. "So the Byakugan can be used like this…"
"As expected of Mirai—always a step stranger than the world." he murmured, tongue wetting his lip. Some of Mirai's ideas felt like imports from another era entirely—concepts even Orochimaru had never entertained. He smirked at himself. Absurd. He shelved the thought and watched the kill zone.
Caught flat-footed by the Hyuga unit's surprise sniping, the alliance's losses mounted brutally. Many shinobi fell before they even understood what was killing them, blood seaming the grass in jagged arcs.
"Ai! Look at what you've done!" Kitsuchi rounded on the Raikage, eyes burning. He didn't call him Raikage this time. He was too furious.
A short while earlier, he'd sensed something wrong and advised sending a vanguard to probe. Ai had waved him off. If that scouting screen had gone out, how could they have walked straight into an ambush? How many Iwa lives would still be breathing?
"Damn it, Kitsuchi—this isn't the time to point fingers!" Ai snarled, voice hoarse. "If we don't organize a counterattack now, losses will only grow."
Kitsuchi ground his molars, forcing the anger down. The Raikage was right about one thing: recriminations wouldn't stop bullets.
This kind of long-range fire was unheard of. Judging by impact dispersion and cadence, the shooters were at least a kilometer out—far beyond kunai range, beyond most ninjutsu engagement envelopes. Almost nothing in the standard arsenal exceeded a hundred meters with accuracy. They had no defense doctrine for this.
Kumo shinobi, tempered by body-forging arts, were faring slightly better; their frames outclassed Iwa's. Kitsuchi had even seen a round strike Ai's chest in Lightning Release Chakra Mode, leaving only a white scuff. Ordinary Kumo took wounds and lived. For Iwa, a hit meant near-certain death—Earth-style could block lines of fire only after setup, and setup under hail was a gamble.
If this continued, Iwa's losses would be catastrophic.
"Earth Style ∙ Earth Flow Rampart!"
Hands flashed; palms slapped earth.
Rrrrmmmble— The ground surged. A massive earthen wall heaved up with a grinding roar, spanning Iwa's forward sector. Blue points hammered it, pocking the face with thumb-sized craters, but the barrier held. For the first time since the slaughter began, the Iwa line exhaled.
"What kind of attack is this? I've never seen it!"
"What a terrifying method…"
Survivors stared, shaken. In minutes, comrades had collapsed into twitching heaps, armor chewed through, blood everywhere.
"Wrap the flank. We go around." Kitsuchi ordered, voice tight. The rampart would only buy time; they needed to break contact and hit the shooters from the side or rear.
"Understood!"
An Iwa assault team formed fast, shouldering the pivot of the battle. They dove, hands blurring through signs, and disappeared beneath the soil with Earth Style ∙ Hidden Mole Jutsu —silent, focused, lethal.
They did not know this firing line was hundreds of Hyuga with Byakugan lit. To such eyes, underground wasn't concealment; it was merely a different page. Depth, angle, vector—visible.
"Hiashi-sama, the enemy seems to be trying to flank." a Hyuga whispered.
"A good tactic," replied Hyuga Hiashi, voice cool, "but useless against the Byakugan."
Hyuga Hizashi's gaze gleamed with pride. This was the difference between their clan and ordinary shinobi—renown earned, not borrowed.
"Shift priority. Eliminate the infiltrators."
"Yes!"
Barrels lifted. Sights walked off the main mass and settled along shallow tunneling vectors. Soil wasn't plate; at these depths, resistance was limited. The chakra-jacketed rounds retained killing power through loam and packed clay.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Shallower burrowers jerked in their tunnels, skulls snapped back by invisible fingers. Dark red seeped upward, flowering through the dirt.
The point element, tunneling deeper, escaped the first cull and reached their release mark. They rose, panting.
"Finally here. Flank and—"
Something was wrong.
He turned in a slow circle. No one surfaced with him.
Pik.
A blue point stitched the space between his brows. His last expression was confusion.
Behind the Earth Flow Rampart, Kitsuchi watched the horizon like a clock. According to timing, the flanking strike should already be detonating the ridge. The shooters would flinch, the line would wobble, and that would be the moment to drive the counter.
One kilometer. Two at most. At full shinobi pace, the team should have been on target long ago.
Time slid past in dragging increments.
"What's going on? Why is there still no movement?"
It made no sense. 'Less than two kilometers.' he calculated, the numbers marching with him. 'Even cautious, they should be there.'
"Damn it! What happened?"
Unease crawled through his gut like cold water. The wall still thudded with impacts; every reload cycle from the ridge above sang death. The Cloud line snarled and pushed to form counter-wedges. Bodies piled at the rampart's foot like broken barrels.
Above, Hiashi lifted two fingers. "Third volley."
Tat-tat-tat! Blue rain fell again. And in the space between heartbeats, Iwa's best plan—flank, fix, and finish—evaporated into blood-damp soil.
*****
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✓ Killed For 100 Years in Hueco Mundo, Aizen Invited Me To Soul Society!
✓ Naruto: Senmei Asahi
✓ Naruto: Uchiha's Intelligence Dealer
✓ Naruto: The Fifth Hokage Is Naruto's Uncle
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