One day, a Uchiha squad was trapped by the enemy inside a village.
It had started as a chance encounter, but neither side had expected their forces to keep gathering until, in the blink of an eye, the battle had escalated beyond the danger threshold.
The incident immediately alarmed Corps Commander Uchiha Shinya.
BAM! He slammed his hand down on the table, and the Corps Commander's roar rang throughout the camp. "Of course we're going to rescue them! I, Uchiha Shinya, will never abandon a single clan member!"
Only after hearing the rousing cheers did he beckon discreetly, pulling an intelligence operative close to ask in a hushed voice, "Has Fūma Eiichirō arrived?"
"Uh, we've heard that he's on his way to the scene."
"Damn it, this has gotten out of hand."
After dismissing the poor messenger, the Corps Commander leaned back in his chair and quietly considered how to resolve the situation.
At this point, the cause no longer mattered.
Even if one of his men had gone and messed with Fūma Eiichirō's mother, this sudden encounter was still a fight they had to take.
Worst comes to worst, afterward I'll send someone to propose to his mother. Heh heh heh.
Thinking of the amusing possibilities, the Corps Commander couldn't help chuckling to himself.
The Western Army Corps now sprang into action like a war machine.
Apart from those left behind to guard the base, the rest of the clan members would head to the battlefield with him to face an old rival they hadn't seen in a long time.
Unfortunately, Sosuke was on the list of those staying behind.
With the situation so urgent, there was no time for him to seek out the Corps Commander for a proper discussion. In the end, the boy could only watch helplessly as the main force set off to claim its share of the spoils.
"Ugh. They get to feast, while I can't even get a sip of soup."
They made staying behind at the base sound respectable, but in reality, it meant being left completely idle. The place was in the middle of nowhere; what idiot would come looking for trouble here?
Who knew that Uchiha Shū, standing beside him, would murmur, "Maybe the enemy's planning to wipe out our base."
"Pah! Don't jinx it!"
Sosuke had figured it out: his subordinate was a bona fide jinx.
Good things never came true, but bad ones did. It was as if this guy's words carried some kind of curse. Hopefully, no one would actually show up now.
At that moment, in a mountain ravine a hundred miles from the camp,
"Is the information reliable?"
"We've confirmed it. Thirty minutes ago, Uchiha Shinya personally led his troops out. Less than a tenth of the enemy's forces remain in their camp."
"Good! Brothers, this is our chance to make a name for ourselves!"
From beginning to end, this encounter had been a trap set by the Fūma Clan.
Their aim was to completely eliminate the Uchiha's frontline base.
It was a two-pronged operation. Fūma Eiichirō would personally engage the enemy in the village, while the reserve forces in the rear would charge straight for the heart of the enemy's territory and wipe out their base.
To prepare for this day, Fūma Eiichirō had personally sent letters to several major clans, explaining the stakes.
Unfortunately, few had answered. Many feared the Uchiha would settle scores afterward.
Only the Shimura Clan had given a firm response. They had even sent skilled clan members to reinforce them, though naturally, they wouldn't admit to it publicly.
"That's enough." Fūma Masaki looked at the silent group beside him and smiled coldly.
How could he not know that the Shimura Clan wanted them to bear the Uchiha's wrath?
But they didn't understand that the Fūma Clan had long since lost any chance of reconciliation with those people. They were bound to fight to the death sooner or later, so why not use this chance to drag more people into the fray?
You want to stay out of it?
What a joke. When the Uchiha came back for revenge, he would make sure the Shimura Clan got dragged into it. The Sarutobi Clan behind them wouldn't escape either.
Good fortune didn't have to be shared, but when disaster struck, everyone had to face it together.
As for whether they could withstand the Uchiha's furious retaliation, the man wasn't worried in the slightest. With three clans joining forces, even those Red Eyes wouldn't come away unscathed.
Besides, did they really think the Senju of the Forest were pushovers?!
Senju Butsuma was a man of great ambition and ability. He would surely seize the opportunity to launch a counterattack. Then the Uchiha would be caught between two enemies.
By then, the Uzumaki would land on the northern shore, and Ino-Shika-Cho would join the fight in response. Those people would be nothing more than fish on a chopping board.
"The Uchiha's destruction begins with today's surprise attack."
A hundred kilometers was nothing to shinobi with incredible speed. At a full sprint, the two sides would clash in just three minutes.
Taking a deep breath, Fūma Masaki led the charge toward the enemy camp.
"You jinx!"
A minute earlier, the camp's alarm had suddenly sounded.
The Sensory Division reported that a force of more than fifty men was rushing toward the camp.
After receiving the news, Sosuke could only glare at his companion as he climbed to the top of the earthen wall to look into the distance.
To defend against powerful enemies, shinobi built earthen walls around their camps to prevent their forces from being hit by ninjutsu without warning.
Now that an enemy attack had been reported, shinobi skilled in Earth Release were already reinforcing the walls.
To attack, the enemy would have to climb over the earthen wall, which stood more than thirty meters high.
As they did, the Uchiha would target them with precision strikes, thinning their ranks and narrowing the objective gap in strength between the two sides.
"We're outnumbered two to one. This won't be an easy fight," Sosuke sighed.
Having enemies to fight was a good thing; he wouldn't have to worry about where his Points came from. But he had never wanted a battle to take place inside the camp.
The medical area in the rear housed a large number of wounded, and there were far too many of them. If the front line fell, the consequences would be unthinkable.
This was no longer a question of Points. No matter what, he couldn't let the enemy get past this wall today.
"The enemy's launching a surprise attack on the camp, so they must have prepared thoroughly. We might not be able to hold them off," Uchiha Shū's voice drifted to him on the wind.
"..." Sosuke glanced at him, the corner of his mouth twitching. He wanted to kick the guy off the wall.
But then he reconsidered. There was some truth to what he said. The enemy was coming in force, and one wall might not be enough to stop them.
With that in mind, Sosuke hurriedly called for people to help set traps on the wall. If the enemy tried to climb over, the Explosive Tags stuck to it would give them a nasty surprise.
"They're here." Feeling the tremors in the distance, Sosuke quickly scrambled to the top of the earthen wall.
Then he saw two enormous waves of ninjutsu colliding in the sky.
Wind fed the flames, and the flames rode the wind. The enemy had unleashed a terrifying, army-scale ninjutsu attack.
"Evacuate!!!"
BOOM!
Under the enemy's fire, the wall—more than thirty meters high—suddenly collapsed on a massive scale.
"Damn it." Sosuke drove a Kunai with a metal wire tied to its end into the wall. Using the pull of the wire, he forced himself to adjust his position and plant both feet against the side of the wall again.
He'd managed to avoid falling to his death.
But not everyone had reactions as quick as his.
Watching clan members plummet from dozens of meters up, Sosuke's face darkened, and the Tomoe pattern on his neck began to writhe.
Before long, Black Markings spread across his entire body.
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