The Great War

Smoke signals rose everywhere, and blood stained the earth red.

A blazing sun hung high in the sky. Battle cries shook the mountains and split the rocks, surging straight into the heavens.

Before Konoha's main camp, Sand Ninja surged forward like a sea of waves, crashing thunderously against the camp walls.

After days of probing, the Sand Ninja commander had launched an all-out assault on Konoha's main camp.

For this, the two Kage Level fighters Chiyo and Ebizo had secretly arrived at the front lines.

They were there to catch Konoha completely off guard.

After more than two months of infiltration, sneaking in, and fighting over positions, the Sand Ninja had cleared every obstacle around Konoha's main camp.

They had achieved their objective.

Sunagakure held the advantage in both the number of ninja and Kage Level fighters.

With Konoha's frontline camp stripped of its last geographical advantage, the scales of war had already tipped toward the Sand Ninja.

Sunagakure needed a victory—a proper, decisive victory to silence the dissenters in the village.

With the right time, place, and people all in position, the Sand Ninja launched their all-out assault.

As Chiyo put it, even a lion used all its strength to hunt a rabbit. The Sand Ninja should simply crush their way through, giving Orochimaru no chance to exploit.

Her words proved true.

Without the steady advances of the past, how could they have achieved such a victory today?

A unified army's operations differed from one-on-one fights between ninja. They demanded far greater teamwork.

A wall of fire swept down on the Sand Ninja forces, a blazing inferno hundreds of meters wide. Its searing heat claimed lives with every passing moment.

Nearly a hundred Sand Ninja performed a combination technique, Water Release: Water Wall, successfully stopping one of Konoha's attacks.

On the battlefield, individuals counted for almost nothing. Clashes between groups using combined techniques were the norm.

A Sand Ninja had just finished performing an Earth Release technique when an enemy's Great Fireball came crashing down on him.

With several thousand degrees of heat right in front of him, he could even smell his hair scorching.

A veteran of countless battles, he managed to perform a defensive technique in the final second before the attack hit.

Then a sharp pain tore through him, and he knew no more.

What he couldn't see was that behind the Great Fireball Technique,

three more Great Fireballs followed.

His defense crumpled like paper. The string of fireballs reduced him to ash in an instant.

"The camp's breached!"

"The camp's breached!"

Excited cries spread through every corner of the battlefield like a virus.

Amid the rumble of explosions, a towering figure on Konoha's camp wall was blasted apart.

The Sand Ninja vanguard blew three breaches in the camp wall in one go.

The troops behind them caught up, and the Sand Ninja surged through the openings into Konoha's main camp.

Hikaru Inuzuka's partner, Benimaru, had already fallen in battle, and he himself was gravely wounded.

When a messenger found him, he agreed without hesitation to stay behind and die with the camp.

His childhood friend Benimaru had gone ahead of him. Now it was his turn to live up to the Will of Fire.

Watching the Sand Ninja pour through the breach like a tide, Hikaru Inuzuka performed the last technique of his life.

Like someone swimming against the current, he faced the oncoming wave—

And plunged straight into it.

Blood spattered his body, his face, even his mouth. It tasted awful.

A little metallic.

There were many who swam against the current. Most dragged their battered bodies forward, then disappeared beneath the enemy's unrelenting assault.

"Boom!"

Summoning Technique.

A giant snake more than fifty meters tall appeared in the middle of the camp.

Standing atop its head was Orochimaru, the commander Konoha had assigned to the Sand Ninja front.

"Orochimaru, I hope you've prepared an offering."

"Heh! Manda, today you can eat your fill—as long as you're strong enough to manage it."

Orochimaru dealt with the Summoned Beast beneath his feet while keeping his eyes on the two people opposite him.

One was a young man with red hair and black eyes, standing at the same height as Orochimaru, supported by Gold Dust.

He was most likely Rasa, the Magnet Release user who had recently become famous in Sunagakure.

According to the intelligence, he was a leading contender to become the Fourth Kazekage, so Orochimaru gave him an extra glance.

The other one—

Was old woman Chiyo, renowned as a top-tier Puppet master.

Chiyo rode a Puppet into the air and joined Rasa in pinning down Orochimaru.

The three rose into the sky, leaving the fighting on the ground behind.

"Orochimaru, you've lost! Have you thought about how you'll explain this to your teacher?"

Faced with Chiyo's taunt, Orochimaru suddenly felt bored.

The ninja's fighting, their hateful stares, their ambitions for power—all manner of desires were now tightly intertwined.

Yet none of it interested Orochimaru in the slightest. It was less enjoyable than conducting an experiment.

"How dull."

Orochimaru muttered in annoyance.

"Manda, attack!"

No longer interested in playing along with the Sand Ninja, Orochimaru wanted only to put an end to what he saw as a farce.

"Roar!"

Manda's enormous body came crashing down like the sky itself collapsing.

Faced with an unstoppable beast, the Sand Ninja below felt as if they'd fallen into an icy pit. They wanted to move—but their legs refused to obey.

It was fear rooted deep in their genes.

Magnet Release: Gold Dust Coffin Binding!

At the critical moment, Rasa used Gold Dust to hold Manda back for a moment.

Chiyo hurriedly retreated. Nine figures shot up from below, all attacking Orochimaru atop Manda's head.

It was Chiyo's signature technique—

White Secret Technique: Chikamatsu Ten Puppets!

Shikaku Nara raced through the forest. He had already left Konoha's main camp far behind, and soon he would be out of the mountain range.

His two teammates, Choza Akimichi and Inoichi Yamanaka, followed close behind.

Together, they were this generation's Ino-Shika-Cho.

The three had grown up together and were as close as brothers. Their teamwork in battle was equally seamless.

They were only High Ninja, but with their clan techniques combined, they wouldn't easily lose even against a Kage Level fighter.

Yet this elite fighting force hadn't appeared on the main battlefield.

Trees whipped past them one after another. All three had suffered some injuries.

Clearly, the battle before this hadn't been easy either.

"Inoichi, how far away are the pursuers?"

As the eyes of Ino-Shika-Cho, Inoichi Yamanaka was also highly skilled in Sensory Ninjutsu.

While leaping through the trees, he pressed his index and middle fingers together against his forehead. After only a few breaths, he answered.

"The pursuers are about eight hundred meters behind us. They're right on our heels."

Shikaku Nara nodded. He sprang onto a branch, released Chakra beneath his feet, and shot toward his next foothold.

As they fled, Inoichi Yamanaka reported the enemy's position from time to time.

Shikaku Nara led the team, keeping the Sand Ninja pursuers roughly a thousand meters behind them.

"Shikaku, what's the mission this time? Can't you tell us yet?"

Choza Akimichi's voice was naturally warm and steady. Just hearing him speak made it clear he was a reliable teammate.

Shikaku furrowed his brow without thinking, as if remembering something unpleasant.

"Don't ask. You'll regret it once you know."

Choza obediently fell silent. He trusted Shikaku's intelligence completely.

If Shikaku was doing this, he must have had his reasons.

Inoichi was puzzled too, but he only glanced at Shikaku.

Seeing his troubled expression, Inoichi decided not to press him.

Ten minutes later, the three passed the last tree. The view suddenly opened up before them.

A vast stretch of grassland extended all the way to the horizon.

They burst out of the forest, leaving the frontline battlefield behind.

The enemy was still after them, and they didn't have much time.

As soon as the three appeared, the ninja team assigned to meet them hurried over.

Shikaku wasted no words. He nodded to the person waiting for them and gave the final order.

Ten seconds.

Explosions thundered one after another, shaking the heavens.

As flames rose in the forest with the blasts, they ignited the entire woodland in an instant. The fire quickly spread deeper into the dense forest.

This wasn't a natural disaster. Combustible materials had to have been prepared in the forest beforehand; otherwise, the wildfire wouldn't have spread so quickly.

Shikaku seemed to be waiting for something. His gaze fixed on a distant point.

The secret plan had been underway for a long time. Now it was time to close the net.

They didn't have to wait long.

A sun suddenly rose from the highest peak of a distant ridge.

Shikaku narrowed his eyes to a sliver. He knew that wasn't the sun.

It was the effect of more than a hundred thousand Explosive Tags going off at once.

A huge, mushroom-shaped cloud rose above the ridge. Even from more than ten kilometers away, the sight still hurt his eyes.

The mushroom cloud hung silently in the sky.

Four words suddenly surfaced in Shikaku Nara's mind.

The greatest sound is silent!

"Boom!"

Sure enough, the earth-shaking roar of the explosion reached them only after a while.

Their eardrums rang. A moment later, a fierce wind slammed into them, flattening the wild grass beneath their feet.

The wind howled past their ears. Their hair streamed wildly behind them, and the gale furrowed their faces.

The roar, the wind, the mushroom cloud—the explosion had struck the main camp Konoha had established at the front.

Choza Akimichi stared in shock toward the ridge and murmured to himself.

"Was it mutual destruction?" Then he immediately shook his head. "No!"

The word trap came to mind, and his expression turned solemn.

Suddenly,

He turned to Shikaku and asked in a trembling voice:

"Who... who was it? Who stayed behind as bait?"

Shikaku remained silent, his clenched fist tightening and then loosening.

He kept recalling what Orochimaru had once told him.

"Shikaku, why do fish bite the hook? Only because of the bait."

"This is war. People die in war!"

Shikaku couldn't argue with Orochimaru's words, but he couldn't bring himself to explain them to his two dear friends.

His silence was an answer.

Likewise, he couldn't say Orochimaru was wrong. On the contrary, the plan had successfully held back the Sand Ninja offensive.

It had also bought them the time and space they needed to maneuver in the battles to come.

Judging by the results alone, Orochimaru was undoubtedly an outstanding commander.

But it felt as if a great stone weighed on Shikaku's heart. He couldn't force the heavy breath in his chest out.

Eight hundred people. Eight hundred ninja, all fearless warriors who believed in the Will of Fire.

It was the first time in Konoha's history they had suffered such enormous losses. He didn't know whether what he'd done was right or wrong.

Among the dead were not only the wounded, but also the ninja who had volunteered to stay behind for the village.

And even...

He had personally given the order to send six teams deep behind enemy lines to cut off the Sand Ninja's supplies.

Then, without letting on, he had allowed the Sand Ninja spies to obtain this information.

He had only meant to mislead the enemy, making them believe Orochimaru would hold out in the camp, still trying to find a way to break through.

It was just that this time, the bait had been far too costly.