"The Iwagakure shinobi are here!"
"Hold the line! Everyone hold the line!"
"As long as we defend this position for half an hour, that's enough!"
Behind the defensive fortifications at Tenchi Bridge, the commander of the Konoha Border Defense Forces wiped the sweat from his forehead as he stared at the rapidly approaching figures emerging from the forest.
His shout echoed across the battlefield.
The Konoha shinobi in the defensive positions immediately heightened their focus to the limit.
Whether this war would end in victory or defeat depended on them.
Soon, over a thousand Iwagakure shinobi burst out of the forest.
Their expressions were ferocious as they roared and charged straight toward the Konoha defenses.
Before the two sides were even thirty meters apart—
A storm of kunai, senbon, and shuriken filled the sky, shooting toward the opposing formation.
Mixed among them were numerous burning explosive tags.
However, after several battles and without receiving any resupply, the Iwagakure shinobi were clearly running low on ninja tools.
Their barrage quickly weakened.
Within moments, the Konoha defenders' counterattack completely suppressed their projectile fire.
Yet despite suffering heavy casualties, the Iwa shinobi didn't slow down at all.
Instead—
They accelerated their charge.
Every single one of them understood the situation perfectly.
Behind them were several Konoha pursuit squads closing in.
They had no retreat.
Retreat meant death.
Their only path to survival lay ahead—
Tenchi Bridge, behind the Konoha defensive line.
So they had only one choice.
Forward.
The distance of several dozen meters vanished in an instant.
After paying a terrible price in casualties, the Iwagakure shinobi finally slammed into the Konoha defensive formation.
Close combat erupted.
Steel clashed. Blood sprayed.
The battlefield instantly turned into a brutal meat grinder.
Fifteen minutes later—
Both sides were fighting like madmen.
Of the four hundred Konoha defenders, more than half had already been killed or injured.
The Iwagakure forces had suffered nearly double those losses.
The ground was soaked red with blood.
Severed limbs and lifeless bodies were scattered everywhere.
It was a horrifying scene.
Earlier, the Konoha commander had misjudged the battlefield situation.
He had deployed the defenses too broadly, building layered defensive rings centered around Tenchi Bridge, planning to delay the enemy through successive defensive lines.
But he hadn't expected the Iwagakure shinobi to attack in such a reckless and chaotic charge, ignoring casualties completely.
They crashed into the defenses immediately, turning the battle into a brutal melee.
If things continued like this, the Iwa shinobi wouldn't give them the opportunity to conduct organized layered resistance.
All it would take was one breach in the defense line, and the entire Iwagakure army would flood through like a tidal wave.
"Shrink the defensive perimeter!"
"Fall back in order to the second defensive line!"
"Don't let a single Iwagakure shinobi cross the bridge!"
The Konoha commander struck back an approaching enemy with a powerful blow before quickly retreating while shouting orders.
At that moment, a Konoha shinobi suddenly shouted a warning.
"Captain!"
"Some Iwa shinobi are coming around the cliffs on both sides!"
The commander turned his head and saw the situation clearly.
Several Iwagakure shinobi had leapt down into the canyon and were running along the sheer cliffs, chakra attached to their feet as they raced toward the rear of Konoha's defenses.
To ordinary people, such cliffs would be impassable.
But to shinobi—
They might as well be flat ground.
The commander immediately responded.
"Don't panic!"
"Execute Emergency Plan No. 2!"
"Cross the bridge!"
Tenchi Bridge itself was a narrow structure only wide enough for a dozen people to pass side by side.
By retreating across the bridge and shrinking their defensive line, the Konoha forces could exploit the terrain to neutralize the enemy's numerical advantage.
At the same time, the high ground would give them a decisive advantage against any Iwa shinobi attempting to attack from the cliffs.
The Konoha commander had already anticipated such a possibility.
He waved his arm and led the retreat across the bridge.
On the far side of Tenchi Bridge, another defensive position had already been prepared.
And this one—
Was their strongest defensive line.
For most shinobi, crossing the canyon—nearly one hundred meters wide—was not easy.
The fastest method was naturally crossing Tenchi Bridge.
The alternative was to descend along the cliffs into the canyon, cross the raging river below, and then climb up the opposite cliff.
But that method was far slower and extremely dangerous.
If attacked during the crossing, the shinobi would be almost completely exposed and unable to dodge effectively.
For the Konoha defenders—
That was their greatest advantage.
As expected, once the defensive perimeter shrank behind the bridge, the Iwagakure assault immediately weakened.
At any given moment, only dozens of Iwa shinobi could attack simultaneously.
The others, blocked by their own comrades, could only wait until the front fighters died before moving forward to replace them.
Even though they were desperate to break through, the terrain itself prevented them from doing so.
At that moment—
A signal flare suddenly shot into the sky behind the Iwagakure army.
The signal meant only one thing.
All four Konoha pursuit squads had arrived.
From the rear of the Iwagakure formation, over a thousand Konoha shinobi surged forward like a flood.
The morale of the Konoha defenders instantly skyrocketed.
The Iwagakure forces, however, fell into complete despair.
With Uchiha Ren, Obito Uchiha , Minato Namikaze, and Orochimaru—four Kage-level fighters—leading the charge, the hastily assembled Iwagakure defensive line collapsed almost instantly.
The remaining several hundred Iwa shinobi were reduced to nothing more than—
Lambs awaiting slaughter.
Less than half an hour later—
With a single strike from Minato Namikaze, the final Iwagakure shinobi was killed instantly.
The battle was over.
The war had come to its conclusion.
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