The combat model Kirigakure shinobi were most familiar with was still individual killing.
They had never imagined being hit by such dense, relentless bombardment.
The blast winds from the explosions blew away the thick mist, but even heavier smoke and dust blanketed the entire village. Sunlight was completely blocked out. The Kirigakure shinobi inside the village were plunged into darkness, able to see only the red glow cast by burning houses. The swaying, flickering firelight looked like hellfire.
Their eardrums had been torn by the shockwaves. They could barely hear anything, yet an incomprehensible ringing still shrieked endlessly in their ears.
The Kirigakure shinobi felt as though they had already fallen into hell.
Because they had no experience fighting hard battles, because Kirigakure's power structure was fragmented, and because the overly brutal Bloody Mist policy had left their shinobi badly lacking in resilience, they broke.
When Uchiha Yoru directed the Tiger Unit's second round of bombardment, they collapsed completely.
The Kirigakure shinobi inside the village fled in utter chaos. There was no layered cover, no Hidden Mist support, no organized withdrawal at all.
The moment Uchiha Yoru judged that they were no longer retreating as a force but simply running for their lives, he immediately ordered the Tiger Unit to pursue and inflict the greatest possible casualties.
He himself took the lead and charged straight at the fleeing Kirigakure shinobi, his target the Kirigakure jonin hidden among them.
That man was a sly one.
On the surface, he looked miserable—rolling, scrambling, clothes torn and filthy—but the chakra inside his body was stable and surging, even maintained right at the edge of boiling over. He could unleash a lethal ninjutsu at any second.
It was obvious that the Kirigakure jonin Uchiha Yoru had picked out was no fool.
His tactical command ability might have been average, but in battle he was absolutely a veteran. He could suppress his chakra with practiced skill, control the tempo of his ninjutsu preparation, and at any moment deliver a fatal counterblow to an attacker.
But Uchiha Yoru was naturally different from ordinary shinobi.
With his strength, taking down a Kirigakure jonin was no problem at all.
The real problem was that this battle would unfold in full view of everyone—right in front of the hundred-plus Uchiha shinobi of the Tiger Unit.
Which meant that after this fight, the battle style Uchiha Yoru could publicly display would be fixed. It would become part of his open identity.
Uchiha Yoru hesitated slightly.
He now commanded a bit too many powers. It was genuinely hard to decide which ones he should use in order to appear strong enough, but not too outrageous.
[Sharingan, Fire Release, genjutsu, plus taijutsu should be enough... probably.]
As Uchiha Yoru rapidly closed the distance, the Kirigakure jonin locked onto him as his target.
The moment the two of them were only eight meters apart, the Kirigakure jonin suddenly turned and unleashed the ninjutsu he had been preparing for some time.
Water Release: Water Consecutive Bullets
Chakra gathered in the jonin's hands, and from between his palms he fired a stream of cannonball-like water bullets straight at Uchiha Yoru.
The jonin was highly skilled. He wasn't firing directly in pursuit of Uchiha Yoru's body, but rather spreading the water bullets evenly around him, using them to cover every possible path of evasion.
At a glance, Uchiha Yoru was swallowed by the barrage. The violent impacts pierced through his chunin flak jacket, punched through his body, and sprayed out a burst of glaring blood.
The moment the Kirigakure jonin saw the blood, he knew something was wrong.
He turned and fled without hesitation.
But before he could even take more than a step, a single finger pressed against his forehead, and that finger sent him flipping backward.
The force transmitted through that fingertip was absurd. The Kirigakure jonin had no way to resist it. The violent impact to his head nearly snapped his neck, and the heavy concussion sent a wave of nausea surging up through him.
Uchiha Yoru dropped the jonin with a single finger, then sneered.
"You think the ninjutsu you prepared was hidden well? How laughable. In front of these eyes of mine, no one can play tricks."
The Kirigakure jonin understood instantly.
What his water bullets had struck was only a genjutsu-created illusion.
The enemy's taijutsu was even more terrifying, and he had been beaten down without the slightest power to retaliate.
He understood now that he had run into someone far beyond his level.
There was no chance he would be getting back alive.
Since that was the case, he stopped hiding his intent.
He rolled back to his feet and was just about to say something, but what greeted him was a sea of scarlet eyes.
He froze.
"Sharingan! So many Sharingan—you're Uchiha!"
In the next instant, his gaze landed on the three tomoe in Uchiha Yoru's eyes, and he was frightened out of his mind.
"Three-tomoe Sharingan! An Uchiha jonin!? ...Wait."
The Kirigakure jonin raised a trembling hand and pointed at Uchiha Yoru.
"Why are you wearing a chunin flak jacket? Why don't any of you have the Uchiha clan crest?"
"So idiots like you would rush right in."
Uchiha Yoru laughed coldly.
"If we'd shown the Uchiha crest from the start, would you really have attacked so aggressively and charged straight into Kubota Village?"
The Kirigakure jonin didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
Everyone already knew the answer.
If he had known these enemies were Uchiha shinobi, then of course he would never have stormed straight into Kubota Village. He would have immediately changed direction, linked up with the nearest friendly squad, formed a larger battle group, and pulled back at once.
As long as he could bring that intelligence back, he likely would not have been punished.
The commanders might even have considered him prudent and assigned him enough shinobi to gather at least five hundred men before attacking the Uchiha.
At this point in time, the reputation of the Sharingan was enormous—nothing like the period after the Uchiha clan was wiped out. Right now, the name Uchiha stood for the strongest shinobi clan in the world, and its power to intimidate was very real.
That was why Uchiha Yoru had given the order for the Tiger Unit to conceal the Uchiha clan crest, and to refrain from activating their Sharingan before battle.
Only that way could they lure in a smaller force of enemies and give these battlefield novices one relatively manageable chance to test themselves in real combat.
Although, for some reason, the number of Kirigakure shinobi sent out had been twice what Uchiha Yoru had expected, it was still far less than the five-fold force Kirigakure would normally gather to fight Uchiha shinobi.
The Kirigakure jonin saw the self-satisfied expression on Uchiha Yoru's face and felt rage explode inside him.
He raised his chakra once more, deciding that even if he had to die, he would die attacking.
With a death wish in his heart, the jonin detonated the chakra within his own body, using the rupture of his meridians and the destruction of his future chakra circulation—and life itself—as the price to cast a ninjutsu without hand seals.
But he was still too slow.
Even without seals, chakra still needed time to gather and move.
To Uchiha Yoru's three-tomoe Sharingan, it was all nothing more than slow motion.
He even recognized the technique in advance from the pattern of chakra gathering.
It was Water Release: Water Iron Cannon Technique—a technique that, under normal conditions, required the Hydrification Technique as a prerequisite. It specialized in armor penetration and piercing power, and had tremendous lethality.
To see through it in advance, simulate the movement, then move later but arrive first—this was the true copying-eye ability of the three-tomoe Sharingan.
But Uchiha Yoru could not use Water Release.
So he wasn't about to pull off the same kind of trick Hatake Kakashi might, copying the enemy's ninjutsu and meeting it head-on with an identical attack.
What he used instead was a ninjutsu he had freely developed himself.
Pure Fire Release chakra formed a restrained structure around both his fists, turning them into blazing flame-wreathed gauntlets.
Before the Kirigakure jonin could trigger his technique—before he could even raise his fingers into the shape of a water pistol—Uchiha Yoru's fist struck first.
The jonin felt a wave of heat roll over him. Everything in his vision began to warp. A scalding crimson fist, like a blazing meteor, slammed straight toward his face.
Instinctively, he tried to dodge.
Only then did he realize that somehow, at some unknown moment, his body had stopped moving.
He immediately understood—some kind of genjutsu.
He must have fallen into it the moment their eyes met, the instant he saw those three-tomoe Sharingan.
The Kirigakure jonin felt thoroughly wronged.
If this had been a normal battle, he would naturally have been doubly cautious against Uchiha shinobi. He would never have given them a chance to make direct eye contact.
Any shinobi knew it was difficult to fight without ever looking at the enemy's eyes.
To fight while actively avoiding another person's gaze was harder still.
But none of that was as dangerous as letting yourself look directly into a three-tomoe Sharingan.
That was a truth passed down since the Warring States period, built atop endless lives and corpses.
But not one of these Konoha shinobi had shown the Uchiha crest.
Who could have imagined that the proud Uchiha clan would stoop so low as to hide their identities?
And after his men had captured the village, they had immediately been hit by an all-out attack from a group of supposedly genin-level Konoha shinobi. Their morale had shattered, forcing them to flee the village, only to be hunted down in pieces.
Shocked beyond belief, Jin had never once thought these enemies were Uchiha.
And so he had failed to remember that deadly anti-Uchiha rule:
When fighting Uchiha shinobi, you must never look into their Sharingan!
The way to break an Uchiha's three-tomoe Sharingan was with two people—one acting as bait, and the other striking from behind.
When fighting Uchiha shinobi, be careful—
Recalling all the rules about fighting Uchiha, the Kirigakure jonin helplessly closed his eyes and waited for death.
Uchiha Yoru did not let him off just because he had shut his eyes.
The flaming fist smashed into the jonin's chest, leaving a deep fist mark sunken into his body.
In the span of a single second, Uchiha Yoru struck him nine times.
The barrage was so dense that the sounds of broken bone and bodily impact merged together into one. When it was over, nine fist marks more than ten centimeters deep had been stamped into the jonin's body.
Jin lost consciousness in that instant. He had been beaten into a dead faint.
But the next moment, the searing heat and agony rising from deep inside his body dragged him back awake.
The nine fist prints began to glow.
His eyes, ears, and mouth also began to glow.
It was as though a steel-smelting furnace had been lit inside his body. A dull red light, astonishing heat, and faint white smoke all began pouring from every opening in him.
The Kirigakure jonin Jin no longer had the strength to struggle.
He dropped to his knees in agony, trying to throw his head back and scream—
but what burst from his mouth was golden-white fire.
Then his skin began cracking apart inch by inch.
Golden flames burst from the fissures. His body twisted under the heat, helplessly writhing as more and more fire erupted outward from within, until he looked like a bonfire in human form.
The golden-white flames carried terrifying heat. Every shinobi had to circle far around them. The grass on the ground dried instantly under the heat, then caught fire.
Through the shimmering, distorted air of rising heat, and through the roaring flames, everyone watched that body little by little burn down into ash.
So that wasn't a furnace.
It was an incinerator.
Uchiha Yoru looked helplessly at his own fist and understood the name of the technique:
Fire Release: Incineration Fist
Among the fleeing Kirigakure shinobi, Jonin Jin was the first to die.
The others only lived a little longer—perhaps another three minutes or so—before the Tiger Unit annihilated every last one of the Kirigakure attackers.
There were no prisoners.
...
Roughly ten minutes after the first battle at Kubota Village ended, the Kirigakure high command exploded into chaos.
The first jonin to escape alive had brought back terrible news.
The attacking force had been completely wiped out.
"How is that possible? How could 300 elite shinobi be exterminated by 100 genin?"
Kaguya Ren stared at the jonin in front of him and roared, "You're the only one who survived the attack on Kubota Village. Speak! Did you betray us!?"
Faced with the roar of one of the three giants of the Kirigakure army, the jonin remained calm and answered, "Every one of them died. I saw it all from a distance with my own eyes."
"And I did not betray anyone."
Then he looked directly at Kaguya Ren and added, word for word,
"At least... not yet."
Kaguya Ren instantly flew into a rage.
"You—!"
He started spewing crude abuse in a rising storm of foul language, hurling the same vicious insults over and over.
But he didn't actually charge over and hit the man.
Even he understood that this was a crucial moment.
They really couldn't afford disorder now.
The failure of the Kubota Village assault had already dealt a severe blow to the entire Kirigakure campaign.
Across the whole front line there were more than forty attack points in total. Kubota wasn't the only place where they had failed.
But failures at those other positions didn't matter much.
As long as neighboring points were captured, Konoha's defense line could still be torn apart. If the Konoha shinobi holding those positions failed to fall back, they would simply be surrounded by Kirigakure.
Only Kubota was different.
That hill, no more than a few meters high, nevertheless defined a large enough battle area to make independent defense possible.
If that hill couldn't be taken, then Kirigakure's supply route would have to make a wide detour. The risks of continuing the offensive would be magnified beyond measure.
As long as Orochimaru still had a brain, he would absolutely move reinforcements into that hill and strengthen its ability to launch counterattacks, using it to constantly raid and harass Kirigakure's rear.
That would force Kirigakure to commit more and more shinobi to surrounding and containing the position. Their front-line striking power would grow weaker and weaker, until they no longer had the strength to take Tangquan City.
If Kubota Village could hold under all circumstances, then that one hill in the middle of the line could effectively serve the role of over half the defense front by itself.
Which meant Kirigakure had to immediately gather enough force to seize this key point as quickly as possible.
But that was also the question causing Hozuki Sakuyuki the greatest headache.
Who would go?
Kirigakure's political structure was badly outdated. The independence of its shinobi clans far exceeded that of Konoha. Aside from the Mizukage, the Ninja Academy, and the Mizukage's Anbu, the village was basically just a league of clans—and the Mizukage was little more than the leader of that league.
That political structure extended directly into the military.
Kirigakure units were still organized by clan. Even individual squads were composed almost entirely of shinobi from a single clan, at most with a few attached shinobi from smaller allied families.
If an entire shinobi unit was wiped out, that meant the clan behind it was effectively finished. Within days, its name could disappear from Kirigakure altogether.
And with the Konoha force at Kubota Village proving so vicious—able to completely exterminate a Kirigakure force three times its size—what clan would willingly drag out its family capital and gamble it all against such a savage enemy?
Hozuki Sakuyuki went around the room asking nearly everyone present.
No one wanted the mission.
In the end, he shook his head helplessly.
"It looks like we'll have no choice but to pull men evenly from every house. One squad from each family. Gather five hundred men…"
"No!"
The sole surviving jonin interrupted him.
Then he said very seriously, "Even if you gather the force that way, a thousand men still won't be enough to defeat that Konoha force."
The entire command room was stunned.
Voices rose up at once to challenge him.
"What nonsense are you talking about?"
"You're saying five times their numbers still won't win? What kind of monstrous army would that make them? Are all those Konoha shinobi jonin?"
The jonin shook his head.
"They were all dressed like genin. Their strength was great, yes, but at most only some of them were chunin. As for jonin, there should be some—but definitely not many."
"Then what are you afraid of? In the end they only have a hundred men. No—after that fight, they must have taken losses too. They probably have fewer than—"
"No losses."
"..."
"I'm saying the enemy took no losses."
"When Jonin Jin died, I counted the Konoha force from a distance."
"One hundred and two."
"Not one missing."
"..."
Rei's willow-like brows drew together as he said darkly, "This is bad."
Even Kaguya Ren stopped roaring. He sat down again with a dark face and looked at the other two commanders.
"It looks like in the end, only the three of our forces can go."
Hozuki Sakuyuki nodded and sighed.
"Sigh. It has to be us."
"Only our three clans have enough depth to bear the risk of several failed assaults."
Rei then asked, "So who attacks first?"
The question was broad, but his eyes were fixed tightly on Kaguya Ren.
The meaning was obvious:
You're always shouting that you'll fight this one, challenge that one, that only the toughest enemies are worthy of the Kaguya clan.
Now that a real hard bone has appeared, do your words still count for anything?
True to the battle-mad spirit of the Kaguya clan, Kaguya Ren threw back his head and laughed.
Then he rose to his feet and pointed toward one of the Kaguya among the crowd.
"Gaiji—you go."
"Let the shinobi world witness the strength of the Kaguya clan. Let everyone know that we, the Kaguya, are the number one shinobi clan in the world, and that Shikotsumyaku is the strongest bloodline limit in existence."
That Kaguya shinobi, dressed in the most archetypal Kaguya style, stepped forward and quietly answered,
"Yes."
His voice was calm, but in his pale green eyes gleamed a battle lust so close to madness that every shinobi who met his gaze felt a jolt in their heart.
Madness.
Love of battle.
Power.
Those were the defining marks of Kaguya shinobi—even more so than their uniform archaic way of dress.
The moment it became known that the Kaguya clan's own force would take responsibility for the next assault, the entire Kirigakure command felt relieved.
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