The Sand Ninja who had ventured deep behind enemy lines to carry out a sabotage mission knew they had to stay on high alert at all times, ready for any countermeasures Konoha might take.
Anyone entrusted with a military operation of this caliber was bound to be thoroughly professional. They would never make the mistake of underestimating their enemy at a critical moment.
But caution and focus, like "high and low" or "long and short," were relative states. They could not exist on their own.
The invaders had overcome countless hardships to cross the border. Though they routinely assigned a third of their forces to guard duty, rotating through three shifts a day to keep the camp secure, it was hard to say they hadn't been careful.
Yet the strategy of luring the enemy into a trap had, from the very outset, gone beyond anything their mission planners had anticipated...
The Third Hokage's early measures of patience and concession had also led them to misjudge Konoha's resolve to fight!
And so, through meticulous planning and the deployment of a far greater force, Konoha had turned the Sand Ninja's "nervous vigilance" into "careless negligence"!
...The scouts had marked every visible and hidden post, turning them into one by one into false assurances that the area was under surveillance!
The modified ninja tools Erina had provided had also seized the initiative with three rounds of long-range bombardment that defied all expectations, completely disrupting the Sand Ninja's carefully laid plans!
—The timing, the location, the people.
Every factor that could affect the course of battle had unfolded according to Konoha's design, then exploded all at once just before the final moment!
At a critical juncture like this, when they'd already dropped their pants and were only one last thrust from the finish, even if the Sand Ninja—who'd failed to ambush their prey and become prey themselves—couldn't get out of trouble, then not even the gods could save them...
No matter how formidable the Sand Ninja elite were, they had still fallen behind in this life-or-death contest!
And as everyone knew,
in a tactical contest between top-tier fighters, even a single mistake could prove fatal.
Besides, since Nara Motonari had meticulously laid out his plans and decided to break the silence by striking first, he had surely prepared for every eventuality!
Sure enough, as orders passed down the chain of command, the Sand Ninja were still reeling from the relentless bombardment, unable to decide whether to hold their ground or break through and retreat, when the vanguard had already crossed the rubble of Rock-Pipit City and started making their move.
"Kill every enemy! Leave no survivors!"
The advantage was ours, and the orders were clear.
The Konoha Ninja who entered the city first attacked as ordered. They hurled Shuriken and Kunai at the Sand Ninja, who had no time to find cover, while also tossing palm-sized, makeshift clay jars around the burning camp in Rock-Pipit City.
How could such fragile clay containers withstand that kind of treatment?
As the jars shattered, a pungent, pale-yellow smoke immediately put the Sand Ninja on high alert!
The masked enemy ninja at the front reacted swiftly, forming Hand Seals. A powerful Wind Release Ninjutsu swept up the smoke into a twisting dragon and sent it surging toward Nara Motonari and the others behind him!
The mighty whirlwind kicked up sand and dust, snapping every tree and blade of grass in its path.
But Nara Motonari had been ready. Before the Wind Release Ninjutsu could reach them, the two teammates beside him, both skilled in defensive techniques, had already pressed their hands to the ground and channeled the chakra they had prepared into the soil.
"Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!"
In an instant, an earthen wall nearly four meters high burst from the ground!
For agile ninjas, a makeshift barrier like this couldn't divide the battlefield completely, but it did stop the deadly wind blades from reaching them.
At the same time, a dazzling flash bomb burst into light behind the earthen wall!
It not only shattered the gloom of the night, already stirred by the fires, but also used the wall they'd just raised to block the enemy's advance to cast an even deeper shadow directly ahead.
The shadow rapidly stretched with the light. Under the influence of the Nara Clan's secret technique, it transformed into a thick, powerful serpent and lunged at the scattered Sand Ninja!
At last, the killing intent Nara Motonari had been building became clear.
...The fame of Ino-Shika-Cho had spread throughout the Shinobi World since the Warring States period. In the last great war, they had served as one of Konoha's main pillars, leaving a deep impression on ninjas from other villages.
Now, when the Sand Ninja who had just used Wind Release saw the black shadow rapidly spreading, his expression changed dramatically!
Knowing he absolutely couldn't let himself enter the enemy's secret technique range, he leaped backward again and again, trying to evade the attack...
But the shadow serpent pressed relentlessly forward, splitting into dozens of branches along the way. Like iron chains as thick as fingers, they continued across the ground, attacking the Sand Ninja scattered throughout the ruined city all at once!
The terrain left the Sand Ninja with very little room to dodge.
As the shadow chains closed in on their targets, the masked Sand Ninja formed Hand Seals once more, trying to imitate the Konoha Ninja and use Earth Release to stop Nara Motonari's technique.
But just as the chakra in his various tenketsu gathered in his palms, a sudden wave of dizziness struck his mind.
"Earth Release: Earth... cough, cough, cough... What's... happening...?"
The fog in his mind had yet to clear, but numbness had already begun creeping through his limbs.
Before he could even realize it, the shadows that had been as thin as iron chains abruptly transformed into an enormous ink-black flower, blotting out the sky!
—In the Sand Ninja's eyes, the flower's claw-like petals opened upside down like paper umbrellas, then scattered like bamboo strips. At the end of every cluster, layers of jagged hands sprouted, enough to make anyone shudder...
The Sand Ninja caught in the technique shuddered, then immediately realized he'd been affected by genjutsu!
Though he had spent years on the front lines and had no idea how he'd been caught, his battle instincts drove him to save himself at once!
He immediately disrupted the flow of chakra inside his body, trying to counteract the illusion.
But in the few seconds he wasted, the Nara Clan's secret technique had already followed up with another strike, locking onto all six Sand Ninja closest to the earthen wall.
Once the shadow technique had been unleashed, those Sand Ninja were little more than sitting ducks on the battlefield, with no chance of survival...
"Shadow Secret Technique: Manjusaka..."
"Shadow Neck-Binding Technique..."
Teacher Motonari murmured the incantations, and a merciless one-two strike reaped the battlefield!
Shadows emerged from the chests of all six men and clamped around their throats, then twisted sharply, snapping their necks.
They died without ever understanding that the yellow smoke released from the clay jars had been nothing more than a diversion deliberately created by Nara Motonari.
The real mechanism was the thin wires connecting the shards of the clay jars to the arms of the other Konoha Ninja!
That was why the Sand Ninja had let their guard down after using Wind Release to disperse the smoke. It gave Nara Motonari, concealed behind the earthen wall, the chance to use the wires' shadows as a medium and unleash his self-created, triggered genjutsu on a massive scale!
As a result, the enemy immediately misjudged the state of the battle.
Anyone who came near the shadows cast by the wires while dodging would immediately see a magnificent Spider Lily Illusion swaying before their eyes. Their fated deaths bloomed along with it...
Looking back at how the battle had unfolded, the well-trained Sand Ninja had been too busy fending off Konoha's fierce attacks from the moment the bombardment began. They had died on the battlefield without ever getting the chance to use their own equally astonishing methods.
Once again, the truth of the ninja's high attack and fragile defense had been proven. The balance between the two sides had also tipped irreversibly because of the plans laid before the battle!
The remaining Sand Ninja knew they could no longer fight.
So, after a sharp whistle, the invaders scattered and fled, beginning a desperate escape with almost no chance of survival!
At the same time, Teacher Motonari, having spent some of his chakra, promptly gave a tactical hand signal.
Every Konoha Ninja except him split into temporary pairs and pursued the fleeing enemy in different directions!
They would become grim reapers, escorting the cornered Sand Ninja to the end of their lives...
Before you continue