"Argh-!"
The Raikage's scream echoed around the deep crater.
The agony of his severed arm had completely distorted his voice. It sounded like a saw blade scraping against sheet metal.
Several medical-nin jumped into the crater. They scrambled to spray the smooth stump with hemostatic spray.
White foam mixed with blood and ran into the mud, hissing as it burned.
The Uchiha Jōkan followed them down, carrying a black rubber chain as thick as an arm.
They paid no mind to whether the Raikage lived or died.
The chain went around his neck, then wound tightly around his remaining left arm and torso, twisting them together.
One Jōkan slipped in a puddle of blood and stumbled.
He cursed, drove his knee into the Raikage's severed right shoulder, and pulled the clasp shut with both hands.
The Raikage's eyes rolled back. He spat another mouthful of bloody foam from the pain, his whole body convulsing.
Four Jōkan grabbed the other end of the chain.
They hauled the former black iron tower out of the mud like a dead dog.
The chain left a wide trail of mud across the dry ground, flattening a swath of dead grass.
They headed straight for the armored transport vehicle in the rear.
On the plain.
The more than three thousand surviving Kumogakure troops watched.
Silence. Dead silence.
"Clang."
A Ninja Blade fell from someone's hand and struck a rock.
That sharp sound was the final drop that broke the dam.
Dozens of burly Kumogakure men in the front rank went weak at the knees and collapsed, clutching their bald heads as they burst into tears.
Dodai, the military strategist, lay facedown in the muddy water, his one eye vacant.
The Raikage had lost.
Kumogakure's king had lost an arm and been dragged away like a dog. The Strongest Shield they had been so proud of had become a joke.
They couldn't fight this battle anymore.
The crowd in the rear erupted.
Some tore the Forehead Protectors from their foreheads and turned to run.
Heavy bamboo armor was stripped off and thrown all over the ground. They trampled one another, wailing for their mothers and fathers.
Their army collapsed like a landslide. Thousands fled wildly toward the Land of Lightning like ants from a disturbed nest.
Shu Shiraishi stood at the edge of the crater.
His black vest clung to his skin. The blood had dried, leaving it uncomfortably sticky.
He rested the black blade on his right shoulder.
"Lord Hokage, they're running," Kagami Uchiha said as he walked over, the red flag still in his hand.
"Running?"
Shu Shiraishi took out a cigarette case, pulled one out, and put it between his lips. He struck a match.
The flame lit up half his face.
"I didn't say stop." He blew out a cloud of gray-white smoke.
Kagami froze for a moment.
"Keep them alive." Shu Shiraishi pointed ahead with the fingers holding his cigarette. "Break their legs."
Kagami spun around.
He brought the red pennant down hard.
"All troops, charge! Machine-gun battalion, advance!"
Three hundred Chakra Maxim heavy machine guns were carried out of the trenches.
The gunners held their weapons by the barrel guards, while the assistant gunners behind them carried heavy ammunition boxes on their shoulders.
Orochimaru's ten Chakra Mecha erupted in a deafening roar once more.
"Hiss-"
Scalding steam burst out. Broad metal tracks crushed the sandbags at the edge of the trenches, spilling fine sand everywhere.
The torrent of steel rolled forward.
The five-meter-tall mecha took heavy strides, charging at the front.
The heavy machine guns followed, tongues of flame spitting once more.
"Rat-tat-tat-tat!"
This time, they weren't aiming at chests.
Blue Chakra bullets swept low across the ground.
The fleeing Kumogakure ninja fell in swaths into the wild grass like cut wheat.
Their lower leg bones were shattered, fragments of bone and blood flying everywhere.
Screams rang out across the plain.
Some turned and tried to throw Kunai.
The Kunai struck the mecha's blue-gray armor without leaving so much as a white mark, then bounced away into the mud.
A mecha's massive mechanical arm swept across.
Three Kumogakure ninja were sent flying along with a tree. Their lumbar spines snapped on the spot, their bodies folding in two in midair.
This wasn't war at all.
It was a highly efficient, one-sided slaughter.
The steel machines rampaged across the plain, grinding those who tried to resist into the earth.
There was no suspense. No turning the tables.
There was only the monotonous sound of gunfire and breaking bones.
Half an hour later.
The gunfire stopped. The roar of the mecha also faded to a low hum.
The plain was a mess.
The air was thick with the acrid smell of gun smoke.
A thick layer of golden Chakra crystal bullet casings covered the ground, crunching under boots.
Deep track marks crisscrossed the ground, churning up turf and mud.
Thousands of Kumogakure prisoners with broken legs lay wailing in pools of blood.
On Konoha's side.
Hundreds of gunners holding machine guns panted heavily. Aside from their shoulders being bruised by the recoil-
Zero casualties.
No one had died. Not one had even scraped their skin.
Shu Shiraishi walked over to a wrecked Kumogakure supply wagon.
Its axle was broken, leaving the bed tilted at an angle.
He climbed up the wooden boards and stood at the highest point.
The autumn wind dispersed the gun smoke.
Below, the Konoha Ninja looked up at the man in the bloodstained vest.
"Take a good look."
Shu Shiraishi's voice carried across the plain.
"This is the power of industry."
He flicked his cigarette butt into the muddy water at his feet.
It gave a faint hiss.
"Thirty years of training in Taijutsu can't match a steel plate made by a machine tool."
"Twenty years of training in Ninjutsu can't match a blind heavy machine gun."
"The age of Kunai and Shuriken," Shu Shiraishi said, sweeping his gaze over the crowd, "is over."
He spread his arms.
"The old era's ninja village model has been completely abolished today."
"Konoha crushed Kumogakure. Tomorrow, it'll be Iwagakure, Sunagakure, and Kirigakure."
The Konoha Ninja below felt their blood boil as they listened.
They had wiped out five thousand elite troops without a single casualty and captured the Raikage alive.
Even if the First Hokage had still been alive, he couldn't have achieved a victory like this.
Kagami Uchiha dropped to one knee and slammed his right fist against his heart.
"Konoha Heavy Industries! Invincible!"
Hundreds of gunners knelt after him and roared in unison.
"Invincible!"
Their roar made the bullet casings on the ground tremble.
The battlefield cleanup began.
The Uchiha Jōkan used thick hemp ropes to tie the Kumogakure prisoners with broken legs into lines.
They pulled them toward Konoha like sheep.
Shu Shiraishi climbed down from the supply wagon.
The logistics officer, Shikahei Nara, came running over.
He held a thick ledger in his hands, with an abacus tucked under his arm.
He was running so fast that the abacus beads rattled wildly.
"L-Lord Hokage."
Shikahei came to a stop and swallowed, his face full of worry.
He placed the abacus on the ledger and moved the beads a couple of times. One wooden bead got stuck. He picked at it irritably, but it wouldn't budge.
"We've counted them. We captured more than thirty-eight hundred alive."
Shikahei looked up, his forehead covered in sweat.
"That's too many. The village has been building infrastructure these past few months, and our food reserves were already short."
"Over three thousand mouths. Even if we gave them nothing but thin porridge every day, they'd eat Konoha out of house and home."
He glanced at the prisoners of war wailing nearby.
He lowered his voice and asked fearfully.
"Why don't we... kill them all?"
Shu Shiraishi stopped.
He turned his head and glanced at Shikahei.
His gaze then fell on the more than three thousand strong men bound up like rice dumplings.
He gave a cold laugh.
"Kill them?"
Shu Shiraishi brushed the dirt from his hands.
"That would be too wasteful."