White Zetsu had been charging the lines for a full day and night.
The rain was still falling, as if it meant to wash this rotten patch of the Land of Rivers straight into the sea.
Chairman Quan stood beneath a hastily erected rain shelter, the cigar in his hand dampened nearly to extinction by the moisture. He spat, flicked the cigar butt into a mud pit, and turned to the chief of staff behind him.
"How much is left?"
The chief of staff was an old brother who had followed him for ten years. His face was as white as a freshly plastered wall. "Twenty percent of the shells remain. Thirty heavy machine-gun barrels have been scrapped. As for rifle ammunition... if we don't conserve it, it'll last until tomorrow morning at most."
Chairman Quan raised an eyebrow and reached up to straighten the discipline clasp on his collar. He did it leisurely, as though he were about to attend a daimyo's banquet rather than stand beside a trench reeking of corpses.
"What are you panicking for?" He pulled an exquisite ivory comb from his pocket and carefully combed his few sparse strands of hair back while facing half a broken mirror hanging from one of the shelter's posts. "Konoha's convoy is already on the way."
"But Chairman, the brothers at the front are all saying Konoha plans to use us as expendable pawns..."
"Bullshit." Chairman Quan cursed, put away his comb, and walked into the rain.
The trenches were full of sludge, mixed with the stench of blood and excrement. The soldiers huddled in the corners with their guns in their arms, their eyes vacant. It was the numbness that came after killing themselves red-eyed, as well as an instinctive fear of death. Seeing that figure in a