Raizen called the clan to assemble again. The courtyard filled with Amamiya shinobi—faces weathered, hands twitching toward kunai, murmurs threading the air like a bad fever. He sat at the head of the meeting, the makeshift seat feeling too large, too exposed.
"In the last hours a rumor has spread through camp," Raizen said slowly, eyes sweeping the circle. "They say Patriarch Amamiya Gen was slain during the raid on Kaguya supplies."
Panic bloomed. Voices rose, questions scattered like startled birds.
"Silence!"
Raizen's voice cut through them like a blade. The camp quieted; men and women looked at him, waiting.
"If the Kaguya truly killed Patriarch Gen, why haven't they shown his head?" Raizen asked. "If they wanted to crush us, they'd parade it. They would make sure every Amamiya saw it and broke. The fact that they didn't—means one of two things. Either the patriarch escaped and is hiding, wounded; or they are keeping him for some reason we cannot yet see."
The idea pricked at the crowd. Fear loosened its grip by a hair. Reason, however small, was better than certain doom.
"Anyone who spreads panic or falsehoods will answer for it," Raizen added, flat and without mercy. "We cannot afford to crack."
A brief, brittle calm slid over the clan. Then the lookouts came running—faces pale, breath ragged.
"Kaguya troops are on the move! They're pushing toward our camp!"
For a moment Raizen let the world tilt. First the patriarch's disappearance; now this. The Kaguya smelled a collapse and came to fan the flames. Good. Let them come.
"All shinobi—prepare for battle!" he barked. "This is our home, our families, our names. If you're a coward, go hide. If you want to protect your people, follow me and bleed with me."
The words hit a nerve. Men who minutes ago had looked ready to break stood straighter. The desperate kind of courage—raw, messy, true—began to spread. Raizen felt it like a hot tide under his boots.
Reports arrived in fragments: two hundred Kaguya heading west, one hundred pressing the east, large forces moving at the front. The camp split and relays sprinted to their positions.
"Amamiya Tian," Raizen ordered, "take two hundred and support the west. Hold that flank at all costs."
"Yes!" Tian replied, already turning to marshal the men.
"Amamiya Cheng — you lead a hundred east. Don't let the east fall before the front collapses."
Cheng bowed and vanished into a run. Raizen turned to Amamiya Tou and the rest, placing the remaining fighters where they'd do the most good.
"Listen," he said to the gathered few left in the gate. "Kaguya come to bury us. If we give them roots, we survive. If we crumble, the name Amamiya dies. We don't run. We hold the line."
A roar went up and they surged out of the gate like a tide. Dust and war-calls churned; the plain ahead was a map of sweat and helmet steel. Kaguya banners rippled on one side, Amamiya standards on the other. More than seven hundred Kaguya were converging; the Amamiya held fewer—but they held heart.
Raizen reached the center of the plain and looked across at the Kaguya front. The enemy outnumbered them, yes—but numbers don't fight will. He let his gaze pass over his clan: tired faces, grim smiles, a few young hands still shaking. He felt the old, bitter hunger under his ribs—the one that had kept him alive through worse.
"This fight decides whether our line stands," Raizen muttered, mostly to himself. "Win or die here."
He raised his hand. The Amamiya answered with a sound like a charge of iron. They met the Kaguya with a single unified scream, and the front line clashed.
Blades flashed. Chakra snapped and mingled—basic wind shuriken, earth shields, bursts of fire. The plain turned into a thousand short battles, each a knife's edge. Kaguya fought like men who'd been told they were the future—brutal, loud, and precise. Amamiya fought like those with everything to lose: messy, determined, vicious when cornered.
Raizen moved through the mêlée like a ghost of a dozen men, ducking bone-splintered blades, answering with quick, savage jutsu. He took hits he shouldn't have and kept moving. Every time he skipped away, a comrade found time to breathe. Every time he struck, a Kaguya faltered.
The fight that began as a possible rout became a grinding standoff. For every yard the Kaguya clawed forward, the Amamiya answered. For every scream of fear, there was a cry of defiance.
Above the din, Raizen's thoughts were quiet and sharp. He knew this battle wouldn't win the war. But it could buy a sliver of time, steady the shaken, and prove that the Amamiya didn't break when their back hit the ground.
And if he needed to—if it came down to it—he had a weapon they didn't expect. He tasted that white-light promise at the back of his throat and swallowed it down, saving it for whichever moment would change everything.
For now, the plain was a single truth: steel, chakra, and will. One side would fall before night. One side would hold. Raizen tightened his grip and met the next wave.
...
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