"Are we still chasing?"
No one answered.
A jōnin from the Land of Lightning gritted his teeth and ford hand seals.
"Lightning Release: Wave of Inspiration!"
Several serpents of lightning burst across the forest floor, shooting straight toward Chizumi's feet, clearly trying to force him to move so the people on both sides could pincer him.
But Chizumi didn't retreat at all.
He stomped down, and chakra erupted in an instant. The whole stretch of ground seed to be forcibly flattened, and the incoming lightning froze for a split second. The next instant, a white light even more dazzling than Lightning Release burst from his palm.
It wasn't Chidori.
It was more like lightning and fire compressed together into a single line.
The Lightning Release ninja in front only saw white flash before him. His whole body was blasted backward as though he had been pierced straight through from the front, and the two people behind him were thrown over by the aftershock.
"Retreat!"
No one knew who shouted first.
The remaining pursuers finally realized that if they kept chasing like this, forget holding the enemy down—they might not even make it back alive.
But the mont they retreated, Chizumi stopped chasing.
He simply turned, his figure flickered, and he vanished completely into the depths of the forest.
By the ti the pursuers reacted and tried to sense him, tried to search for tracks, there was already nothing ahead.
The trees were still trees. The wind was still wind.
It was as though that man had never appeared at all.
"Where is he?!"
"His chakra reaction disappeared!"
"How could it vanish that fast?!"
"Sensory squad! Where's the sensory squad?!"
"We can't lock onto him! The whole area is full of residual chakra and explosion marks. We can't tell which trail is real!"
In the chaos, soone panted heavily and looked toward the burning valley farther away, his eyes filled with both rage and fear.
anwhile, the Konoha group had already regrouped outside a distant forest line according to their planned route.
The moon had shifted west.
One by one, everyone landed in a hidden mountain hollow and reported in.
"Shikamaru. Fine."
"Kiba and Akamaru. Both here."
"Shino. Unhard."
"Neji. No issues."
"Tenzō. Chakra consumption is heavy, but it won't affect movent."
"Genma. Alive."
"Raidō. Alive. Also brought back two new kunai."
Kakashi was the last to land. He lazily raised a hand.
"I'm alive too."
Everyone's eyes naturally turned toward the last spot.
Almost in the next instant, Chizumi dropped lightly from the shadow of the trees above.
There was blood on him.
But it wasn't his.
"Everyone's here," he said.
Everyone let out a breath of relief at the sa ti.
Kiba couldn't help speaking in a low, excited voice.
"That explosion felt amazing! I saw those guys' faces turn green!"
Shikamaru sat down on a rock and let out a long breath.
"You'd better conserve so strength. They're definitely going to be hunting us like mad after this."
"Let them hunt."
"The problem is, we're not stopping at just this one place, are we?"
As Shikamaru said that, he looked at Chizumi.
The others also raised their heads.
Chizumi glanced over them, his voice as calm as if he were talking about what to eat after dawn.
"No."
"This was only the first."
That short sentence silenced everyone who had just relaxed.
Kakashi, however, smiled.
"I knew it."
Kiba's eyes widened.
"We're doing this again?"
"Of course we are," Shikamaru said, rubbing his forehead. "Otherwise, what's the point of pulling off a job like this? Blowing up one storehouse is enough to hurt them, sure, but not enough to completely stop their whole plan."
Chizumi nodded.
"One storehouse will only throw them into disorder."
"Two or three will make them truly stop."
Neji looked up.
"When do we hit the next one?"
"Not before dawn."
Chizumi looked toward the eastern sky, where the first faint whiteness was beginning to appear.
"Let the news spread first."
Kakashi leaned against a tree trunk.
"You want them to spread the panic themselves?"
"Yes."
"That does save us trouble."
Hearing that, Shikamaru couldn't help smiling a little.
"I'm starting to feel a little sorry for those three daimyo."
Kiba looked at him strangely.
"You feel sorry for them?"
"Not for them as people," Shikamaru said with a yawn. "For their brains. They finally managed to assemble such a huge force, but before they even entered the Land of Fire, we broke one of their legs. Once word of this spreads, what do you think the people below them—people who weren't all that obedient to begin with—will think?"
Shino replied calmly, "They will wonder whether their own food supplies might be blown up next."
Tenzō said quietly, "They will wonder whether they are dying for soone else."
Neji added, "They will wonder whether Konoha has already reached their rear, and whether the Land of Fire border ahead has even bigger ambushes waiting."
One by one, they followed the thought through.
The more they spoke, the more clearly they understood that the aning of this night went far beyond blowing up a single storehouse.
What they had destroyed was food and supplies.
But what they had truly set alight was the nerve inside the allied army's heart.
And reality unfolded exactly that way.
At daybreak, the first group of guards and officials who had escaped carried the news to several nearby allied camps.
At first, so people didn't believe it.
"The main supply depot was blown up? What kind of joke is that?"
"Weren't there more than two hundred people guarding it last night?"
"Konoha's people reached all the way here? Are you insane, or am I?"
But when group after group returned covered in ash and the sll of blood, when more red signals kept rising from the rear depot area, and when the people truly sent to investigate returned with ninja hounds and sensory teams, everyone had no choice but to accept one fact.
The supply depot was really gone.
And it wasn't a small loss.
It was practically total destruction.
By the ti the news was sent upward to the temporary command camp where the three daimyo were gathered, even the air seed to turn hot all at once.
The Lightning Daimyo smashed the teacup in his hand onto the ground.
"Say that again!"
The ssenger ninja kneeling on the ground was sweating across his forehead, his voice trembling.
"The western forward supply depot was attacked by Konoha ninja last night. The main grain storehouse, soldier-pill storehouse, dicine storehouse, and ninja-tool storehouse all caught fire and exploded. At present… at present, only a very small amount of supplies from the edges were recovered…"
"What about the attackers?! Did you catch them?!"
"The pursuit teams moved out, but the enemy split up and withdrew in advance…"
Bang!
The desk shook violently from a palm strike.
The Wind Daimyo's expression was terrifyingly dark.
"Useless trash! You guarded a supply depot like that and still let them escape without losing anyone?!"
The Earth Daimyo's cheek twitched violently, his voice filled with barely suppressed anxiety.
"That batch of grain was ant for next month's forward push! Without it, how are the later supply lines supposed to connect? What are the gathered frontline troops supposed to eat?"
Several officials responsible for coordinating supplies knelt on the ground, not daring to breathe loudly.
Finally, an older secretary spoke in a trembling voice.
"My lords… if it were only grain, perhaps we could urgently move more from the rear. But we also lost a great number of soldier pills, ninja tools, and dical supplies. In particular, several mixed units that had already moved closer to the front were relying on that relay point for resupply… If we advance according to the original plan now, there will likely be… disorder on the road."
The Lightning Daimyo snapped his head toward him.
"You an we can't advance?"
The secretary lowered his head even further.
"At least… in the short term, it is not advisable to force an advance."
"Not advisable?"
The Lightning Daimyo almost laughed from anger.
"We assembled a three-nation allied force this large. We already spread the word of our montum. And now you're telling it's not advisable to advance?!"
No one dared answer.
Because everyone knew the biggest problem now was no longer face.
It was stomachs.
The more people there were, the more important food beca.
Especially since this allied army was not truly a disciplined force with a mature supply system.
There were too many irregulars, too many mixed intentions. Many people had only been dragged in by promises of "at to eat after we invade the Land of Fire." Once food was cut off, dicine reduced, and soldier pills gone, the first to fall into chaos would not be the elite core troops of the three nations. It would be the temporary outer units.
They would steal. They would flee. They would complain. They would suspect.
They might even bla each other, saying soone failed to guard the depot, soone leaked intelligence, soone deliberately frad soone else.
The Wind Daimyo clenched his teeth hard, his expression ugly.
"Those Konoha people… are we sure it was only a small team?"
The ssenger ninja lowered his head.
"Judging from the traces at the site and the pursuit reports, there really weren't many of them. Sowhere between a dozen and twenty."
"A dozen…"
The Lightning Daimyo murmured the number, and his face grew even worse.
A dozen people had dared sneak in, blow an entire supply depot into ruins, and retreat unhard.
Once this spread, what would the already unstable people below think?
They wouldn't think, "The enemy only sent a dozen people."
They would only think: Konoha can already hit our rear like this. Will there be a second place? A third? Will we wake up one day to find the supply wagons beside us blown up too? Will our rear supplies be cut off while we march toward the Land of Fire?
That was the truly fatal part.
The Earth Daimyo's expression turned ashen, and he finally squeezed out a sentence through his teeth.
"Send the order."
"...The plan to attack the Land of Fire in one month is postponed."
The mont he said it, the command tent fell so silent it was suffocating.
Even the wind seed to pause.
The Lightning Daimyo whipped his head around.
"What did you say?!"
"I said postpone!"
The Earth Daimyo was furious too.
"Do you want thirty thousand people marching forward on empty stomachs? Or do you want them to enter the Land of Fire before they've even eaten enough soldier pills, then collapse into infighting halfway there?!"
The Wind Daimyo closed his eyes and also said in a low voice, "We can't move now. At least… not until the rear supplies are replenished and the storage points along the route are rebuilt."
The Lightning Daimyo's chest rose and fell several tis, but in the end, he couldn't refute it.
Because no matter how unwilling he was, he knew they were right.
The plan stopped.
And while the three daimyo gritted their teeth and had no choice but to press pause, the news had already spread through camps and small-country outposts as if it had grown legs.
"Did you hear? Konoha blew up the supply depot behind us last night!"
"Seriously? That place was still far from the Land of Fire!"
"How could it not be true? My cousin was escorting carts over there. He said the whole valley was burning red, and when people chased after the attackers, they didn't even catch a shadow!"
"Damn it, do we still have enough food here?"
"Who knows? All I know is the forward advance date is probably getting pushed back."
"Pushed back? Why?"
"Use your brain. The food's gone. What are we advancing with?"
"Didn't they say Konoha only sent a dozen people?"
"If a dozen people can take down a major depot, what about next ti? Can you guarantee a dozen more won't co to the camp next to yours while you're asleep?"
"...Shit."
At first, these discussions were only whispers, but they quickly turned into waves of unrest.
In particular, the ninja from small countries and hired samurai looked uglier than anyone when they heard "the plan is postponed."
They had been pulled in by high pay and promises of future profit.
Now the battle hadn't even started, the rear had already exploded, nobody knew whether the food was enough, and the plan was delayed. How could anyone feel at ease?
Between the tents, complaints and curses ran from morning until dusk.
And the people responsible for all of this had already vanished completely.
The mountain wind swept through the northern forest line of the Land of Fire at the coldest hour before dawn, making the treetops tremble.
The returning team didn't take the official road, nor did they cut straight through the line with the densest border sentries. Instead, they followed the route Chizumi had marked in advance, circling back between two stretches of tall forest and a dried riverbed.
True dawn had not yet arrived. The forest held only a gray-white glimr of light. Birdcalls occasionally ca from afar, while nearby the only sounds were the soft crunch of feet over fallen leaves and branches.
Kiba sneezed and rubbed his nose.
"This damn weather. Hot enough to sweat at night, then cold enough to feel like snow before dawn."
Akamaru crouched on his shoulder, ears twitching, and let out a low whine in agreent.
Shikamaru walked beside him with obvious fatigue under his eyes, too lazy to even raise his voice.
"You still have energy to complain. ans you weren't tired enough last night."
"Who says I wasn't tired enough?" Kiba glared at him. "I took down several guys last night."
"How many guys you took down isn't important."
Shikamaru lifted a hand and brushed aside a thin branch blocking the path. "What matters is that when we get back, don't stand in front of the Hokage Building and shout, 'I took down several guys last night,' or Miss Shizune will throw you out first."
Kiba froze, then half his face darkened.
"I'm not that stupid."
Kakashi, walking ahead, heard that and smiled with curved eyes.
"That's debatable."
Kiba was just about to retort when Neji landed lightly from a branch ahead.
"Two thousand tres ahead. Konoha Anbu patrol."
Chizumi looked up.
"Recognize them?"
"Yes. They're ours."
"Then we won't detour. Go straight through."
The group moved forward a little farther, and sure enough, they soon saw two figures wearing animal masks drop down from above. At first, they instinctively took guarded stances, but when they saw who was at the front, both of them paused slightly.
One of them said in a low voice, "Lord Chizumi."
Chizumi nodded.
"How is the village?"
The Anbu quickly replied, "Order is normal.
Starting in the latter half of last night, Lady Hokage received reports that fires had broken out in the western rear. The intelligence division has been verifying them through the night. As for your side—"
He stopped briefly, his gaze sweeping over Shikamaru, Kiba, Neji, Shino, Kakashi, and the others behind Chizumi.
"Everyone returned?"
"Everyone returned," Kakashi answered lazily.
"Alive."
The other Anbu visibly relaxed.
"Lady Hokage had us watch these routes. Once your group returned, we were to report
imdiately."
Chizumi said, "Go report."
"Yes."
The two Anbu vanished in a flash, and the forest quickly returned to its earlier quiet.
Farther ahead, Konoha's outline finally erged bit by bit.
The tall walls. The roof ridges half-hidden in the sea of trees. The morning mist that had not yet fully dispersed. And the calm, silent lines of the Hokage Rock under the pale dawn sky.
Kiba couldn't help grinning.
Reviews
All reviews (0)