An Immature Plan

The ground was littered with enormous craters. At the center of the deepest one, the earth had even melted into a bizarre glassy substance, radiating scorching heat waves and violent residual chakra.

The rock walls had been torn open with countless savage wounds, while vast piles of collapsed rubble filled the eye.

Severed limbs, shattered puppet parts, twisted ninja tools, and dark red, sticky bloodstains were all mixed together, smeared across every inch of scorched earth.

Dozens of corpses lay twisted in death, their hollow necks telling a silent tale of terror.

Charred marks outlined human silhouettes, silently recounting the horror of instantaneous annihilation.

This was what a real battlefield looked like.

Corpses carpeted the ground, and blood flowed like rivers!

"Th-this... what exactly...?"

A young Chunin had gone deathly pale. His stomach churned violently, and he barely managed to suppress the urge to vomit.

"Where's Captain Ran?"

Tekka was the first to snap out of his shock. His anxious gaze swept across the mountain of corpses and sea of blood like two enormous searchlights.

"Over there!"

Inasui's sharp eyes spotted him first, pointing toward a relatively open area in the center of the canyon, though it too was soaked in blood.

A figure wearing a damaged Konoha jonin vest lay there!

His signature messy black hair had fallen across his forehead, obscuring part of his face.

Most alarming of all, he lay there silently, as though every trace of life had left him, completely motionless.

Not far from his body lay Chahachiro's head, its face frozen in terror and disbelief as it stared wide-eyed at the gloomy sky.

The blood at the severed wound where his head had separated from his body had already half-congealed.

"Captain Ran!"

Tekka's eyes nearly split apart. He was the first to rush over, completely ignoring the sticky blood beneath his feet.

He rushed to Uchiha Ran's side, dropped to one knee, and tremblingly reached out to check his breathing.

Inasui and the other Chunin swiftly gathered around them, forming a defensive perimeter. Yet their gazes remained fixed on Uchiha Ran on the ground, filled with shock and grief.

At last, Tekka's fingers felt an extremely faint yet undeniably warm breath brush past them.

"Captain Ran is alive! He's breathing!"

Tekka's voice trembled with overwhelming joy and lingering fear as he immediately and carefully placed his hand against Uchiha Ran's carotid artery to confirm his heartbeat.

Inasui quickly crouched down as well and began examining him with practiced movements.

"His pulse is weak, but relatively stable... There are too many potentially fatal external injuries... His chakra fluctuations are extremely chaotic and weak. It looks like... severe chakra exhaustion."

His brows drew tight as his gaze swept over the horrific battlefield before returning to the unconscious Uchiha Ran. His eyes were filled with immense confusion and alarm.

"Exhaustion? Forget that for now! Hurry and get Captain Ran back!"

Tekka raised his voice.

"Quick! A stretcher!"

Tekka's voice cracked with anxiety. He did not dare move Uchiha Ran's body carelessly.

Several quick-witted Chunin immediately cut down some relatively sturdy nearby branches, rapidly tying them together with the ropes and tough cloth they carried to make a simple stretcher.

They carefully lifted the unconscious Uchiha Ran onto it.

Uchiha Daosui remained fairly calm and abruptly looked up.

"All personnel, heed my order! Abandon the battlefield cleanup for now! Form a defensive formation immediately! Keep the stretcher at the center and retreat toward the main camp at full speed!"

"Tekka, you're responsible for sensing and clearing the way ahead! Everyone else, stay alert for movement from all directions! Kill anyone who tries to stop us!"

"Got it!"

"Yes!"

The Chunin answered in unison, their voices carrying a hint of solemnity.

Compared to remaining on this blood-soaked battlefield, escorting Uchiha Ran was practically effortless.

Ten minutes after they escorted the severely wounded Uchiha Ran away.

Thirty-six Sand ninja clad in Sunagakure uniforms emerged from a cave entrance. Every one of them had vacant eyes, with the image of a Three-Bladed Scythe Sharingan reflected in their pupils.

And standing before them was none other than Uchiha Ran... or rather, his Shadow Clone Technique.

"Seriously, does the original have some kind of weird fetish? He deliberately pretended to be badly injured, then made me keep using the Sharingan to control these thirty-odd people all the way to that Akina Mountain. How am I supposed to control them from that far away?!"

Uchiha Ran's Shadow Clone Technique, hereafter referred to as Shadow Ran, stood at the cave entrance. Looking at the thirty-six vacant-eyed Sand ninja before him, each with the Three-Bladed Scythe Sharingan pattern branded deep in their pupils, he could not help rubbing his forehead with a sigh.

"The original... definitely has masochistic tendencies!"

Shadow Ran muttered in complaint, his tone full of helplessness.

"He could've just killed them all and saved himself the trouble, but he insisted on playing some Ember Plan and even made his serious injuries look so convincing!

He recalled that final, perilous moment in the canyon.

The scar-faced jonin's desperate counterattack had indeed exceeded expectations, and more than a dozen equally fearless Sand ninja elites had joined in.

They abandoned all defense, converting all their chakra and life force into attacks, enough to even break through Uchiha Ran's Susanoo.

Of course, the final outcome was obvious. Those who had launched the desperate counterattack had all gone to the Pure Land.

Only those several dozen Sand ninja who had completely lost the will to fight, slumped limply on the ground, remained.

Kill them? It would have been effortless.

But a thought flashed through his mind.

These frightened fools might... still have some other use.

So, forcing himself to use the last of his mental energy and the little Mangekyō Sharingan power he had left, he planted a powerful, shallow mental domination mark bearing the imprint of a Three-Bladed Scythe Sharingan.

This mark could temporarily suppress their will to resist, making them obey simple orders like walking corpses.

But it could not last long, and might fail if the targets fiercely resisted mentally or encountered powerful external interference.

He had actually learned this from Madara and that filial son Obito. Unfortunately, he did not possess Madara's ocular power, which could directly control the Third Mizukage over the long term.

Nor did he have Obito's ability to control both a jinchuriki and a tailed beast at once.

After all, without Hashirama Cells or Indra's Chakra, he did not dare use his Mangekyō Sharingan carelessly.

"Stand up."

Uchiha Ran's voice carried unquestionable authority.

The thirty-six Sand ninja rose stiffly like marionettes, staring blankly at him.

With difficulty, he formed hand seals with both hands, creating the Shadow Clone Technique before him, Shadow Ran, and gave the order.

"Follow my shadow clone to the designated location. Hide yourselves and await further orders."

After doing all this, Uchiha Ran felt waves of darkness closing in on his vision. His mental energy and chakra were completely depleted.

He staggered, then used a kunai to cut several wounds of varying depth across nonfatal parts of his body. He deliberately messed up his hair and clothes, smearing them with dust and blood that had splashed from Chahachiro nearby.

Finally, forcing himself onward, he walked to that relatively open, bloodstained area at the center of the battlefield while calculating the timing.