After a quiet night, Hanyu's squad wrapped up their rest early the next morning and hurried on. They traveled another day and a half without incident, arriving at the frontline command post before the deadline.
The great nations, at the height of their military power, tolerated the existence of weaker countries and small hidden villages for two reasons. On the one hand, borders and territories were shaped by history and geography. On the other, the great nations deliberately maintained them as buffer zones between themselves.
Otherwise, once the system of one village and one country had been established, the small nations would have had only one fate: to be steamrolled and devoured by the great powers.
So far, preserving small nations along the borders had proven to be the right decision. No matter how fiercely the current Shinobi World War raged, the main battlefields had always been in these buffer zones, within the territories of small nations.
That had been true not only in the First Shinobi World War, but in the wars that followed as well... Certainly, villages like Konoha suffered heavy losses in every war, but the small nations caught between the Land of Fire, the Land of Wind, and the Land of Earth always suffered worse.
This was not even about accusing Konoha of deliberately throwing its weight around. The logic was simple: when faced with the choice of fighting a war in your own country or someone else's, anyone would choose the latter.
So, although the shinobi suffered severe casualties, production and other facilities within the great nations were spared irreparable damage. That allowed the war to drag on longer, and afterward the great nations and their hidden villages could recover quickly.
Compared with countries like the Land of Whirlpools and the Land of Fields, the Land of Rivers, where Hanyu and the others were now, was not actually that small. Yet it had no ability to resist in the Shinobi World War, because there was no hidden village in the country.
Konoha had roughly four thousand shinobi deployed in the Land of Rivers. To maintain a balance with Konoha, Sand Village needed at least as many shinobi, so the country was already packed with them.
Hanyu had always thought it looked rather stupid to have shinobi bunch up together. Small, mobile squads were what made shinobi distinctive. Mass deployments and large-scale assaults should have been the domain of samurai, not shinobi. Were shinobi supposed to line up and charge while shouting slogans?
But at this point, no single village or nation could decide how forces were deployed or how battles were fought. With the war having reached this stage, both sides had no choice but to concentrate their strength and strike.
The kind of "unconventional shinobi" warfare Hanyu imagined, where small-scale battles alone decided victory or defeat, had only existed in the chaotic era before hidden villages were founded. Once shinobi formed villages, their strength became far greater than it had been in the days of clan warfare, and the scale of battle naturally spiraled out of control.
Of course, even with so many troops packed into the area, shinobi battles had not entirely lost their distinctive character... Both hidden villages had deployed large forces in the Land of Rivers, but neither side would commit all its strength at once unless it came to a decisive, strategic battle.
Most of the fighting between Sand Village and Konoha still consisted of scattered clashes between small units. Both sides patiently tried to wear the other down, little by little... In short, the war had entered a strategic stalemate.
After Hanyu's squad arrived and reported to the frontline command post, they were sent out again only a few hours later, just as he had expected.
Before the Hokage arrived, Kagami Uchiha was Konoha's commander in chief. Back in the village, Sanshao could order Kagami Uchiha around, and Hanyu often saw him. But that would never happen here. For now, Hanyu was not even qualified to meet him.
After completing the report, Hanyu returned to his teammates with their assignment. He unfolded the mission map he had just received and pointed to a small area on it. "The reconnaissance squad in this area completely lost contact earlier. Headquarters believes they've been killed, and now we need to take their place."
Though the report used the word "believes," both headquarters and Hanyu knew that the squad was dead... In a place like this, if a shinobi's scheduled check-in failed to reach headquarters on time, they were presumed dead.
"How long ago did they lose contact?" Nara Nagisa asked.
"Seven hours." Hanyu relayed the information he had received from headquarters. Shinobi on the front line usually checked in every six hours. In an emergency, they would send a special signal. But the squad they were replacing had sent neither a signal nor a scheduled report, so the most likely explanation was that the enemy had silently wiped them out.
"What's our mission, then? Attack or defend?" Nara asked again.
"Defend. We're to guard that area. If a small Sand Village unit infiltrates, eliminate them. If a medium-sized or larger enemy force invades, alert headquarters at once," Hanyu said. When he had received the assignment, he had specifically asked whether they should look for the missing squad or investigate how they died. That idea had been rejected outright.
Shinobi died here every day. Headquarters had neither the time to investigate each death nor the resources to recover their remains.
"The assignment lasts five days. We won't be relieved until then. If we haven't received orders to rotate out after a week, we're allowed to withdraw on our own... Any questions about the mission?"
"None." The three squad members shook their heads together. Hanyu had explained the assignment clearly enough.
"Good. Now we'll set our formation. Since this is a defensive mission, I want us spread out to maintain a clear field of vision and avoid being wiped out at once. We'll use a basic T-shaped formation. Nara and I will take the front and deal with the first attack. Renjuro will be ten meters behind us, scouting and relaying information between the front and rear. Chichiwa will be another twenty meters behind Renjuro. You need to maintain enough height and visibility, and be ready to support us at any time... Keep in mind, we'll be spread far apart, so you have to stay well hidden. If the enemy attacks from behind, we'll have a hard time getting back to you."
"Any objections to the formation?"
Once again, everyone shook their heads.
It was hard to believe that both the people arranging the tactics and those listening to them were only fourteen years old. They were too calm, too cold. Everyone knew shinobi weren't killing machines, yet they kept pushing themselves to become more like them.
Even with the battlefield ahead of him, Hanyu's thoughts remained clear, and he spoke with unusual precision and brevity... His first battle formation could never break him psychologically.
Hanyu fully understood the mission he had been given: they could die, but they had to get the information back before they did. That was why he had chosen a spread-out formation. Chichiwa was in the most danger. She was effectively cut off from the others. If they faced an overwhelming enemy up front, she was their last guarantee of getting the information back. But if the enemy attacked from behind or the flank, she would be killed instantly.
"Then check your equipment and supplies..."
"Everything in order? Move out!"
Hanyu and his teammates checked their gear again: ninja tools, protective equipment, military rations, medicine, as well as the scrolls and special signal flares they used to relay information.
Once they had confirmed that everything was in order, they raced toward their mission objective.
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