"That's enough." Senju Chen said.
"There are still forty seconds until the flare burns out." Hiraga stared at the screen.
"Four hundred meters, directly above Fourth Regiment. Three rounds."
"Chakra Cannon preheating completed. Air explosion, no fragments."
"Hit."
There is no fire.
Fourth Regiment's camp, three inaudible "pressures" fell.
Tsuchirai felt like a ball of cotton was stuffed in his ears, and someone pressed down on his chest, and he sat down on the ground. Then he saw the tents in the entire camp turned up - like someone opening up the pages of a book, row by row, and the canvas flapped in the air. The camp flag was broken in the middle, and the flagpole was stuck in the soil and shook three times before falling over. The grain pile fell apart and the rice bags rolled down a slope.
More than a hundred people sat on the ground, covering their ears.
"Ah?"
"Where is the enemy?"
"I can't hear you?"
"Enemy attack!"
"Enemy attack!"
The camp was overturned, but everyone looked around and couldn't see an enemy.
What the hell is going on?
No one was bleeding. No one was missing an arm. No body was left.
Tsuchirai touched his face, his chest, and his legs. They were all there.
He knelt and raised his head.
The light from the flare has just burned out.
The sky was completely black and there was nothing. There were no enemies, no traces of Ninjutsu, and there was no direction to hate.
He just knelt and stared for a long time.
Later, this young man returned to Iwagakure and had to tell this story every time he met people. He couldn't tell what those three blows were. He only said, "Konoha is so scary. You can't even see anyone on the battlefield, but they want to kill you, and you don't even know where to die."
"Step three."
"Eagle Claw Gorge The blasting team is in place." Hiraga said, "The grain truck has passed the second whistle. At three quarters, there are nine people, Chunin two. The blasting point: three hundred behind the truck, four hundred in front of the truck. Countdown to twenty."
"Fifteen."
The iron door was pushed open.
"Report!" Wu's man rolled down the stairs and half-knelt, "Top of the cliff! A man appeared on the top of the west cliff, smoothing Forehead Protector, Hand Seals--Water Release! There is a diversion channel under his feet, and the water level of the dam upstream of the canyon is rising!"
Hiraga's fingers were frozen on the keyboard.
One second was enough for him to finish the calculation: blasting, cliff collapse, canyon sealing, and the water from upstream pouring in at the same moment. The grain truck overturned in the water, and the nine food-protecting ninjas were pressed under the rocks and soaked.
After dawn, there will be nine corpses on Daimyo of the Land of Earth's table.
Konoha's "no knowledge" was invalidated on the spot.
"Twelve."
"Minister!" Hiraga's voice trembled, "Do you want to stop--"
"No abort."
"But-"
Wu had already stood up. "I'll go up and I can cut off his water diversion in eight seconds."
"When you go up there, there will be corpses." Senju Chen said.
He didn't take a step forward. He pressed his palms on the edge of the sand table and stared at the narrow ditch Eagle Claw Gorge.
"Ten."
"Change the delay." Senju Chen said, "In the future."
Four words.
"How far forward!"
"Four hundred."
Hiraga's hand smashed on the keyboard. "Move back four hundred-fuze reset, five seconds!"
"Three."
"Two."
"One."
The cliffs on both sides of the canyon opened at the same time four hundred meters behind the original position.
The sound came from the ground. The rocks were not blown away, but were slippery - the entire cliff wall was sitting down, with layers of stone stacked on top of each other, cutting the canyon in the middle. The landslide belt was piled up and over the cliffside, sealing the newly dug water diversion channel on the west side and the ledge below the channel into the outside of the stone.
The water in the upper reaches hit the new rock wall, turned back to the lower place, and overflowed outward, without a drop entering the canyon.
The grain truck overturned on the side of the road. Nine ninjas protecting the grain were alive.
Daybreak.
The dust slowly sank in the cold air. Nine people sat in a row, leaning against the overturned shaft, and no one said anything. Someone kept his hand on Kunai, holding it for two hours, but did not pull it out - because there were no enemies.
Iwagakure Five camps: not a body, not a piece of metal, not a word.
Three hours later, Land of Earth headquarters.
"Check! Check for me, who did it!" After hearing the news, Ōnoki was so angry that his beard stood up.
"...Lord Tsuchikage, there is no enemy figure."
"Land of Fire is at the border!"
"No trace of Konoha was found either."
"What about the grain road? The cliff is within our Land of Earth territory. What did Konoha say?"
"Konoha only replied with four words."
"Which four words."
"I don't know about this."
"You don't know this, who else but them!!!" Ōnoki slapped down the table, splitting it in half from the middle, and the inkstone, map, and the organization books of the five regiments all fell to the ground.
The old man stood among the papers on the floor, his chest heaving for a long time.
But this time there was no flaw in what Konoha did, leaving him with no direction to accuse him.
Konoha command post.
Hiraga pulled out a screenshot of the top of the cliff and fixed it on the three seconds before the blast. The picture was very dark and grainy. A figure squatted on the rock platform with his hands in seals. Forehead Protector had a flat front with not a single scratch.
In the second frame, a landslide occurs and dust covers the screen.
In the third frame, the dust dispersed, the ledge was on the outside of the stone, and the people were gone.
"Run away." Wu said.
"He's not here to fight." Senju Chen stared at the ledge, "He's here to press evidence of guilt on us."
No one answered the call at the command post.
"He knows the breaking point," Wu said.
"He knew the blasting point and our observation height." Senju Chen moved the screen back one frame, "So he picked that ledge. It was the only place in the whole canyon that we had not photographed once in nineteen days."
The iron door opened and the people from the recycling team came in.
"Minister Chen. The rock platform outside the blasting point was cleared, and seven metal fragments were recovered. Six of them were released this time, and the numbers have been verified."
"As for the seventh one..."
The man stretched out his hand.
It was an object that had been stepped into the mud, about the size of a fingernail, with wet soil still attached to the edge. It was not a Kunai fragment, a Forehead Protector ballast, or a part found on any ninja tool.
It is a thin piece with a few copper wires as thin as hair, running at right angles, and three solder beads are lit at the corners.
Hiraga looked at it for two seconds, and his face turned pale.
"Minister... this is..."
Senju Chen Pinched it up and turned it half a circle towards the light tube.
He put the broken corner back into his palm and clasped his fingers lightly.
"It seems that there are people in our Konoha who don't want to solve the problem peacefully!!!"