A piercing air raid siren rang throughout the factory grounds.
Red warning lights flashed wildly. Beams swept back and forth, casting red light across Shu Shiraishi's face.
His hand fell open.
The Chakra heavy machine gun that had just come off the production line dropped.
Clang!
The hundred-kilogram cast-iron gun body slammed onto the iron table, pinning a tattered, oil-stained rag beneath it.
Shu paid it no mind.
He turned and strode toward the command room outside the factory building, his army boots crunching over scrap metal on the floor.
The command room was on the ground floor of the communications tower.
Its solid wooden door stood ajar. Hurried footsteps and the rustling of papers came from inside.
Shu kicked the door open.
The door slammed into the plaster wall with a dull bang, knocking off a chunk of plaster.
Everyone in the room froze. Several Genin carrying files hurriedly stood straight against the wall, their hands pressed tightly to their trouser seams.
Shu walked to the long table, pulled out a folding iron chair, and sat down.
"Report." Shu tapped the tabletop.
Yamanaka Fūshin turned from the radar monitoring console.
Sweat had soaked his hair, and a wet lock clung to his forehead.
Fūshin hurried over and accidentally kicked a cable duct on the floor with his right foot.
He stumbled forward, nearly sending the parchment in his hand flying.
Without stopping to straighten his clothes, he slapped the parchment down in front of Shu with both hands. Two drops of his sweat stained the paper.
"Lord Hokage, the border radar network lit up." Fūshin's throat was dry, and he swallowed loudly.
"Kumogakure."
"The Third Raikage is leading them himself. Five thousand elite ninja!"
Fūshin pressed a finger against the map on the parchment, its tip turning white.
"They've already crossed the Land of Lightning's border and are driving into the Land of Fire at full speed from the northeast!"
An Anbu member responsible for intelligence analysis stepped forward.
"Kumogakure's intelligence is badly out of date," the Anbu member reported with head lowered.
"They think the village is still in turmoil because of the purge of the leadership."
"They believe more than half our leadership is dead or wounded and our forces are depleted. They want to use this chance to tear through our defenses and strike right at Konoha's gates."
Several Jonin from the conventional forces stood in the command room.
When they heard about the five thousand elites and the Third Raikage, their breathing turned ragged.
A Jonin with a full beard gripped the edge of the table with both hands, the veins standing out on their backs.
"Lord Hokage! That's the Third Raikage!" The bearded Jonin slapped the table in alarm. "He's a monster who can take on a Tailed Beast alone, and he's got five thousand main-force troops with him."
He gritted his teeth, grinding them audibly.
"We need to quickly draw Jonin from all the major clans and form a suicide squad to hold them off!"
"Right! Send in all the Earth Release and Fire Style squads! Hold them at the border in close combat!" another long-faced Jonin shouted, spraying spit across the tabletop.
Shu didn't answer.
He reached into his jacket pocket, took out a cigarette, and put it between his lips. Then he struck a match and lit it.
He took a deep drag and blew gray-white smoke straight into the bearded Jonin's face.
The bearded Jonin turned his head away, choking, and covered his mouth as he coughed twice.
"Close combat?"
Shu snapped the burnt matchstick and casually tossed it on the floor.
He scoffed.
"Send flesh-and-blood men to fight five thousand enemies with blades? A charge with cold weapons?"
Shu tapped the tabletop with the fingers holding his cigarette.
"That's just courting death."
The rebuke left the Jonin red-faced, their necks swelling, but under the Hokage's pressure, none of them dared talk back.
Shu stood up. His chair slid backward, screeching shrilly across the floor.
"Don't send a single regular ninja."
"Keep them all in the factory. Those tending boilers will tend boilers, and those tightening screws will tighten screws."
He went to the wall and tore down the Land of Fire's border defense map.
One corner of the map ripped.
"Go notify Kagami Uchiha." Shu slapped the map onto the table with the cigarette between his lips.
"Have him bring the newly formed Heavy Machine Gun Battalion."
"Take those three hundred Maxims."
Shu looked at Fūshin.
"Bring out Orochimaru's mech unit too. Power up all ten prototypes."
"Send them to the first line of defense."
Shu scored a deep line across the map with his fingernail, tearing the paper.
"Once they're there, they won't need to form ranks or dig traps."
"Have the Earth Release ninja dig a few trenches and set up the machine guns."
He stubbed out his cigarette on the iron table, scattering sparks.
"I'll make sure those Kumogakure barbarians can't even touch a brick in our village."
Five minutes later.
Outside the No. 1 Arsenal.
Kagami Uchiha received the order.
His short work clothes were soaked with sweat, and his Three-Tomoe Sharingan spun wildly.
"Urban Management Brigade! Machine Gun Battalion! Fall in!" Kagami bellowed at the top of his lungs.
More than three hundred Uchiha ninja threw down their overseers' whips.
They rushed into the ammunition depot.
Working in pairs, the ninja carried the heavy barrels and mounts of the hundred-kilogram Chakra Maxim heavy machine guns outside.
The heavy cast iron knocked together, producing a series of piercing clangs.
Crates of Chakra crystal bullets were loaded onto flatbed carts.
These Uchiha, who had awakened their eyes, felt no fear of war.
They roughly tossed the machine guns onto the carts. Some were so excited they bit their lips bloody.
Behind the machine tool workshop.
Orochimaru stood on a raised platform in a filthy white lab coat.
He held a large red megaphone.
"Power on! Start up all units!" Orochimaru shouted, his voice cracking.
Ten blue-gray Chakra mechs stood five meters tall.
Beneath the glass covers on their chests, ghostly blue reactors lit up simultaneously.
Blue light illuminated half the factory grounds.
Thick exhaust valves blasted out scalding, high-pressure steam, and white mist instantly engulfed the mechs' steel feet.
The cockpit hatches slammed shut.
The ten steel monsters strode forward, their heavy mechanical feet pounding the stone road.
The ground shook violently, sending plaster pattering down from the factory walls.
The steel torrent set out along Konoha's streets.
The plains on the Land of Fire's border.
The terrain was open, and dead autumn grass grew knee-high, bent to one side by the wind.
The sky was gloomy, letting no sunlight through.
A huge yellow cloud of dust rose on the distant horizon.
Kumogakure's five-thousand-strong army formed a dense, dark mass.
It looked like a great pool of ink spreading across the ground.
They were all rugged men, wearing white armor on one side of their bodies.
They held gleaming Ninja Blades and Kunai.
The marching footsteps of thousands made the pebbles on the ground bounce.
Killing intent mingled with the stench of sweat and hung over the plains.
At the very front of the column.
The Third Raikage strode forward on foot, his figure like a moving iron tower.
Blue lightning darted like little snakes across his black skin.
The lightning crackled through the air with explosive snaps, giving off a strong smell of ozone.
The strategist Dodai followed at the Raikage's side.
Dodai raised a hand against the windblown sand and squinted ahead.
It was too quiet.
Since crossing the border, they hadn't encountered a single hidden Konoha sentry. There had been no Explosive Tag traps and no patrols, either.
"Lord Raikage." Dodai swallowed dryly.
"Something's not right. Konoha couldn't have gone without any warning at all. Could there be an ambush?"
The Third Raikage snorted coldly.
A puff of white vapor shot from his broad nostrils, carrying electric sparks.
"An ambush?" The Raikage clenched his right hand into a fist, his knuckles cracking.
"Konoha's leaders killed each other off long ago. What kind of ambush could a bunch of brats set?"
He stopped.
The five-thousand-strong army halted with him, its footsteps cutting off abruptly. Only the sound of wind sweeping through the dead grass remained on the plains.
The Raikage looked ahead.
On the plains before them.
There was no Konoha army.
Only a few long trenches had been dug incongruously into the flat, dead grassland.
Yellow earth had been turned up outside them and piled into long mounds half a meter high.
The trenches were silent, with not a soul in sight.
The Third Raikage glanced at the crude trenches.
He planted both hands on his thick waist.
His chest heaved, and he burst into a roar of coarse laughter.
The laughter rolled across the plains like crashing thunder.
It made Dodai's eardrums ache.
"Has Konoha run out of people?"
The Third Raikage raised his thick right arm, lightning coiling around it.
His short, thick finger pointed straight at the trenches ahead.
His thick lips spread, revealing gleaming white teeth.
"They're defending themselves with a few mud pits?"