The Kusagakure leader of this mission, and commander of their entire special operations unit of the village, was Tenzō Araki.
His name was already whispered in the borderlands as a man who could turn even the smallest patch of grass into a graveyard.
An elite jōnin in his own right, Tenzō's specialty was Yang Release: Verdant Dominion.
This technique amplified the vitality of existing vegetation, making it grow explosively or harden into cutting blades.
The grass underfoot twisted into whip-like tendrils, tree roots bulged out of the ground like coiling serpents, and even shrubs warped into thorny barricades.
But it wasn't just control. Tenzō could vanish into that forest of living blades and emerge without warning, striking with his signature weapon: a massive, curved scythe.
Heavy, broad, yet fast in his hands, it cut through ranks of Konoha shinobi with ease.
The weapon became even deadlier when he layered his secondary jutsu on it.
With Crushing Weight (B-rank, Earth Release), he flooded his limbs with earth chakra, multiplying the striking mass of a single swing.
When combined with the scythe, the blow could cleave multiple opponents in one motion, shattering defenses and cutting through chakra-reinforced armor.
He couldn't use it repeatedly without draining himself, but even a single strike in the chaos of battle had already claimed several lives.
To refine it further, he coated the scythe's edge with chakra flow, sharpening it to a blade so keen it hummed through the air.
At times, he condensed that energy into arcs of cutting light, medium-range slashes of pure force that carved through stone and bone alike.
Nearly half of Konoha's defenders had already fallen under their advance.
Though their side boasted more jōnin overall, their numbers and Tenzō's presence tilted the balance; his wide-area suppression made their numbers meaningless.
Few dared to approach him, and fewer still returned alive.
Still, even with his ruthless momentum, there were two points of irritation gnawing at him.
The first was the Akimichi colossus, Chōza.
Towering above the battlefield, every sweep of the giant's arm scattered squads like dry leaves.
Tenzō wasn't foolish enough to clash head-on.
He bided his time, waiting for the inevitable.
That transformation demanded absurd chakra reserves, and the moment Chōza shrank back to normal size, he would be vulnerable.
Or there would be an opening even before then.
It was better for him to cause chaos among the Konoha ranks while utilizing Kusa's numbers to restrain him.
Not to face him head-on with his more close-range kind of arsenal.
That was when Tenzō would take his head.
But, not that he was afraid, as they were both vaguely there, very close to that Quasi-Kage level.
He was simply looking at the most efficient path to success for this occasion.
The second was a female shinobi in prime, soaring above on a massive ink eagle, Yukino Sumi.
Her beasts harried his men from above, raining down explosive birds and conjured monsters.
He obviously couldn't reach her, not while she maintained the sky as her fortress.
Yet, watching the drain on her chakra, he could already see the finish line.
She wouldn't last forever either. Once her reserves ran dry, she'd fall just like the rest.
For now, everything was going according to plan.
The stronghold was crumbling, Konoha's morale weakening, and no one remained who could challenge him directly.
And so, Tenzō Araki cut another Konoha chūnin down, his scythe dripping red, his gaze already fixed on the field where the Akimichi giant strained against a tide of enemies.
"Soon," he muttered, voice like a rasp of steel. "Soon, even your bulk won't save you."
Tenzō Araki always carried a simmering hatred for Konoha.
They called it an "alliance" that stretched back decades, but to him it was nothing more than domination cloaked in false friendship.
During the Second Shinobi World War, Konoha had bled Kusagakure dry, using them as fodder against Iwagakure.
Whenever Kusa tried to preserve its strength, whenever they attempted even the smallest maneuver to avoid being crushed in unwinnable battles, Konoha's answer was always the same: pressure.
They erected so-called "listening outposts" across the Land of Grass. Bases like this one, imperialist footholds planted deep into Grass's soil, invasive by their very nature, a constant reminder of who truly held the leash.
For twenty years before WW2, Konoha worked carefully, weaving spies and coercion into every crevice of Kusa's territory until open defiance became impossible.
Tenzō, now in his early forties, had seen it all firsthand. He had been one of the shinobi sent again and again into those grinding border battles.
He watched comrades die, not for Kusagakure's survival, but because Konoha demanded they throw themselves at Iwa's spears.
And when the war finally ended, when Konoha limped home bloodied and drained, Kusa was left smoldering, half-ruined, its people reduced to pawns in a game they never asked to play.
Since then, with Konoha weakened and its grip stretched thin, Kusagakure had quietly learned to resist.
The "outposts" still stood, but they no longer commanded unquestioned obedience.
Whenever Konoha barked orders, Kusa stalled, evaded, let them, and Iwa tear each other apart in the fields of Grass.
In the shadows, Kusa even kept open channels with both sides, smiling at whichever giant currently pressed closer.
But Tenzō was not satisfied. Their aging village leader, the pseudo-Kage, had grown timid, almost cowardly, content to keep Kusa neutral, content to bend his knee just enough to keep Konoha from tightening the leash again. To Tenzō, that was the path of slow suffocation.
Yes, Iwa had been an enemy once. Yes, there were grudges. But to him, they were preferable to Konoha's hypocrisy. At least Iwa made no pretense about being conquerors. And Iwa, too, hated Konoha enough to see Kusa as a valuable ally rather than a disposable pawn.
Tenzō had already begun to act on that belief. As commander of Kusagakure's special operations unit, their secret answer to Konoha's ANBU, he was second only to the old leader in influence and authority.
His word carried weight in the shadows, and his strength in battle made him untouchable.
He had established covert ties with Iwagakure's Anbu, striking deals beneath the surface of diplomacy.
The plan was simple, brutal, and effective.
First, he would purge Konoha's invasive outposts from the Grass soil, with as many loyal troops he had personally in the village, as possible, one by one, with crushing speed, under the guise of "raids" or "accidents" until Konoha's network crumbled.
Iwa could not afford to be seen starting the next great war themselves; public opinion, even in their own Land of Earth, mattered.
So Tenzō and his black-masked Kusagakure operatives would be the hand that struck, the deniable blade, without giving Konoha any public opinion leverage in the world.
Once Konoha's grip loosened and its troops bled in the borderlands, Iwa would lend its support.
Together, they would topple the senile old leader of Kusagakure, exposing him as a collaborator with Konoha.
With Iwa's shinobi backing his own loyalists, Tenzō would take the seat of power, claiming he acted to preserve Kusa's independence and future.
After that, the path was clear. With Kusa under his command and Iwa at his side, they would expand their influence, swallowing the smaller countries one by one.
The Grass Daimyō could protest all he liked; his words would be meaningless if the shinobi held the real power.
Rain was already fractured, ruled by warlords, and riddled with strife.
The Land of Grass could rise as the strongest of the smaller villages, elevated above all others, and this time not as a pawn of Konoha, but as an equal partner with Iwa.
And Tenzō Araki would be its leader.
In truth, the greatest difference between the so-called "smaller" hidden villages and the Big Five had been carved into the system since the very beginning.
When Konoha first rose as the world's first true shinobi superpower, Hashirama Senju and his brother Tobirama forced a structure onto the world.
They divided and sold the tailed beasts, distributed them to the other emerging powers, and established the first Kage Conference. In doing so, five villages rose above all others: Konoha, Iwa, Kiri, Kumo, and Suna.
These were not chosen at random. Each was already positioned at the heart of a broad and resource-rich territory, with natural defenses, fertile lands, deep-rooted clans, and entire bloodline legacies to solidify their strength.
Over time, their natural environments fostered specialized affinities: Kumo with lightning across its storm-wracked mountains, Kiri with water in its endless mists, Iwa with earth across its stone cliffs, Suna with wind in its deserts, and Konoha balanced with all five due to its lush and fertile heartland.
But when those borders were drawn, they weren't absolute.
If the Big Five had expanded outward and locked all their borders tightly, they would have rubbed directly against one another, guaranteeing endless wars.
The Senju brothers understood that.
To avoid perpetual conflict between titans, they carved out autonomy for the smaller nations, buffer states wedged between the giants.
That was how villages like Kusa, Taki, and Ame came into being. They were never meant to be equals.
They were meant to be pawns, proxies, a ring of buffers around the Big Five so the great powers could avoid clashing head-on.
The First Shinobi World War proved as much; it wasn't fought directly between the great nations, but as a proxy struggle waged over influence in these buffer zones.
From that very origin, smaller villages carried a built-in weakness. They lacked the economic hegemony of the great powers. In the Land of Fire, for example, no noble, merchant, or daimyo could dare contract shinobi from another village; Konoha's shadow would fall instantly, and the punishment would be absolute.
The same was true across the territories of the other four great nations.
But in the smaller countries? There was no such guarantee.
The daimyō of Grass, or Rain, or Waterfall could send for Konoha or Iwa shinobi if they offered better service.
The smaller villages could do nothing to stop it. They bled clients, bled ryo, and watched their own missions be stolen out from under them.
It was economic domination as much as military. A stranglehold written into the system from the very start.
Tenzō Araki knew this well. He had lived it.
He had watched nobles in his own country skip over Kusa shinobi to buy missions from Konoha instead, because the big villages could always enforce obedience, always retaliate with overwhelming force.
The only way out, the only path to survival, was to emulate the Big Five.
If Kusa could rise, seize influence, and enforce its own economic power, then it could start breaking the chains of its position as a pawn.
That was why Tenzō already looked beyond this battle.
Once he replaced the old, cowardly leader and took the seat of power, his reign would begin not by serving Konoha, but by carving out autonomy the way the Big Five had done.
He would steal missions, contracts, and influence from the other small villages, clawing his way up through raw results.
Rain was already fractured, half-swallowed by civil war. Ame shinobi could be picked off or absorbed piecemeal.
Takigakure, though neutral, would not be able to resist once Iwa claimed dominance over it; then Kusa, tied with Iwa, would naturally exert its shadow over Taki as well.
And when that happened, Kusagakure would stand not as a pawn, but as a predator. A sixth power in all but name.
It would mark the beginning of his reign.