‘Hmm?’ Orochimaru, navigating the vanguard column through the dense brush, ground to a sudden halt.
Through the mystical sensory link forged by his summoning contract, he acutely perceived that a microscopic thread of his own chakra had silently vanished into nothingness.
A sharp, cunning smirk curved across his pale, sharp features.
He murmured in a raspy undertone, “How interesting.
It seems the Hidden Rain isn’t entirely populated by incompetent fools.” As the tactical proverb went: Know your enemy and know yourself, and you will never face defeat in a hundred battles.
They had penetrated deep into the strategic belly of the Land of Rain.
The tiny, snow-white snake Orochimaru had deployed wasn’t meant to assassinate or engage; its single purpose was to trail the operational intelligence vectors of the Amegakure forces.
Yet, he hadn’t anticipated that the enemy would isolate and sever his tracking mechanism this quickly.
Beside him, Jiraiya—who had finally dragged his mind out of his self-deprecating spiral regarding his own IQ—blinked open his eyes and asked in his characteristically boisterous tone, “What are you muttering about now, Orochimaru?
Who are you calling incompetent fools?” “Shut up!” Orochimaru shot him a thoroughly exasperated glare.
“You actually have the nerve to ask?
The ‘incompetent fool’ in question is you!” Logically and legally speaking…
He was the Supreme Commander of this joint operation, and Jiraiya was merely his designated Second-in-Command.
According to standard operational hierarchy, he should have been barking orders at his subordinate to handle the logistical grunt work.
Yet, throughout this entire forced march…
Orochimaru had been practically forced to play the role of an overbearing nanny, micromanaging every single tactical detail, while Jiraiya strolled along as if he were on an Academy spring picnic, completely devoid of a single professional worry!
Jiraiya blinked, pausing for a beat before bursting into a roaring laugh, pointing a finger at his teammate.
“Hah!
You fell for it!
You just admitted that an incompetent fool is talking to me!” Orochimaru: “…” Curse it…
He had actually allowed himself to be baited by this absolute idiot!
Orochimaru didn’t bother wasting another breath on the man.
He knew perfectly well that the more he intellectualized his defense, the more nonsense would spill out of Jiraiya’s mouth.
Eventually, his own tactical cognitive capacity would be dragged down to match his teammate’s baseline.
Orochimaru halted his stride completely, spinning around to face the massed Konoha vanguard marching behind them.
“Everyone, we scatter from this point forward!” Orochimaru barked out the absolute command.
“The pre-deployment operational strategy remains strictly unaltered.
Tsunade, Jiraiya, and I will move out to intercept and pin down Hanzo of the Salamander.
The rest of you will fragment into tactical cells to disrupt the Rain’s frontline defensive coordinates and sabotage their fortification layout!” He cupped his fists respectfully, his piercing gaze tracking slowly across the faces of every elite shinobi before him.
“The ultimate victory or defeat of this entire campaign rests entirely on whether we can shatter their internal logistics today, paving the way for our main army to drive deep into the Land of Rain…
I place the honor of the Leaf in your hands!” With that, Orochimaru executed a deep, formal bow.
“May fortune favor your blades, gentlemen!” The shinobi responded in a low, disciplined chorus: “May fortune favor our blades!” With those brief blessings delivered…
The hundreds of elite Leaf ninja instantly fragmented, melting into the dense rain-drenched woods like countless branching streams.
Jiraiya stood in absolute silence, watching the figures of his subordinates evaporate into the foliage.
The boisterous, mocking grin he had used to bait Orochimaru just moments prior vanished completely, replaced by a grim, heavy expression.
Orochimaru cast a side-glance at him, asking flatly, “Jiraiya, out of these eight hundred men we just sent into the fog…
how many do you calculate will return to Konoha alive?” Jiraiya’s throat bobbed heavily.
He fell silent for a long moment before offering a strained, raspy estimate, “With the specialized antidote Tsunade engineered running through their veins…
at least…
at least half should make it back, right?” Orochimaru let out a chilling, raspy chuckle, mocking his teammate’s persistent naivety.
He raised two long fingers.
“I calculate that two hundred men is the absolute ceiling.” He then smoothly added a crushing prerequisite: “And that is assuming the spirits of the First and Second Hokage are actively looking down from heaven to shield the Leaf…” Jiraiya’s tone turned incredibly muffled.
“What are you trying to say, Orochimaru?” Orochimaru locked his piercing slit-pupils onto him, his voice dropping into a register that was simultaneously detached and monumentally heavy.
“My point is…
if you want the number of survivors to rise by even a fraction, you cannot afford to hesitate when the blades are drawn.” “I know you have an inherent aversion to taking lives.
But this is war—a brutal, zero-sum game where one side must bleed out for the other to breathe.” “Every single minute we manage to tie down Hanzo of the Salamander and his elite Anbu guards is another minute that grants our men out there a sliver of hope to survive.” He reached into his vest, retrieving a small, plump, snow-white Katsuyu slug as he continued, “Furthermore…
you certainly wouldn’t want the old man, or Danzo and those other council elders, riding your neck with an official inquiry once the dust settles, would you?” Jiraiya let out a long, sweeping sigh.
He lowered his head, whispering in a gruff, disciplined voice, “Don’t worry, Orochimaru.
I’m not that brainless.
I know exactly what’s at stake here.” He clamped his jaw shut, the flickering resolve deep within his chest hardening into an unshakeable pillar of absolute certainty.
The Child of the Prophecy…
For the ultimate peace of the shinobi world…
The cryptic words delivered by the Great Toad Sage deep within Mount Myoboku flashed vividly across his mind.
Orochimaru didn’t waste any more words.
He knelt down, addressing the tiny slug in a respectful murmur, “Lady Katsuyu, if you please.
Activate the Reverse Summoning Jutsu to bring Tsunade to our coordinates.” The plump slug replied in an incredibly gentle, melodic voice that sounded like a young child: “Please don’t be so formal, Lord Orochimaru.
This is exactly what I am here for.” As the intricate geometric formula of the Reverse Summoning Jutsu bled rapidly across the forest floor…
Boom!
A massive cloud of white smoke erupted.
Out from the veil of smoke stepped a young, vibrant kunoichi with her blonde hair tied back into twin low ponytails.
She wore a light green short-sleeved haori over a fitted black mesh armor vest, her wrists wrapped tightly in crimson guard tape.
Her posture radiated an immense, kinetic momentum, her entire presence pulsing with an indomitable fighting spirit.
Perched upon her shoulder was a massive version of Katsuyu, easily several times larger than the one Orochimaru had held.
“Have we officially crossed into the Land of Rain?” Tsunade slammed her fists together in front of her chest, a sharp, clean crack echoing from her knuckles.
Her voice carried a heavy, authoritative resonance.
“You’ve really kept me waiting long enough!” “Do you require a moment to stabilize your chakra, Tsunade?” Orochimaru offered considerately.
“Engineering a mass-production antidote for the entire vanguard must have severely drained your mental reserves.” Because speed was the lifeblood of this surprise blitzkrieg…
Konoha’s strike force had divided their operational deployment.
Orochimaru and Jiraiya took the elite advance guard to infiltrate the border silently, while Tsunade remained at the staging ground until the final hour, dedicating every drop of her medical chakra to refining the toxin counters.
Only after the vanguard had secured a foothold did they utilize the Reverse Summoning to pull her directly to the front.
“No need!
My chakra pathways are perfectly stable.
Let’s move out immediately!” Tsunade waved her hand dismissively, an aggressive smirk playing on her lips.
“I’ve been dying to test the mettle of this ‘Demigod of the Shinobi World’ myself.
I can’t wait a second longer!” Orochimaru nodded in satisfaction.
Compared to a loose cannon like Jiraiya, Tsunade was an unshakeable pillar of absolute reliability—assuming there wasn’t a gambling table within a five-mile radius.
“In that case…” He turned his gaze toward the northeastern quadrant of the dense canopy, his tone dripping with lethal intent.
“Target locked: Hanzo of the Salamander.
Deploy!” “So…
Konoha is the one blinking first?” Receiving the battlefield telemetry delivered by Ayane and the others, Captain Night Raven began pacing frantically back and forth across the clearing of their camp, his eyes gleaming with undisguised excitement.
The intelligence had already been transcribed and transmitted back to Amegakure’s supreme headquarters via Raven’s personal summoning beast just moments ago.
Although a counter-directive had yet to slide back across the link, Raven could already smell the intoxicating aroma of military prestige and promotion.
This sudden crisis was acting like pure fuel to his already roaring desire to establish a legendary name for himself on the battlefield.
If he hadn’t known his squad members for less than a week, he would have literally started chanting, “Brothers, our ticket to the top has arrived!” out loud.
Of course, he still had to maintain his elite, detached Anbu persona.
Raven scoffed aggressively, “The regular frontline patrol units are utterly worthless!
How the hell did they allow a vanguard force of that magnitude to penetrate this deep into our defensive grid without raising an alarm?!” “Captain, based on the intel parameters, Konoha has only deployed roughly eight hundred shinobi for this specific intrusion,” Woodpecker noted calmly.
Remaining as unshakeable as an old hound, the seasoned veteran refused to be swept up in the Captain’s hype, offering a clinical, logical breakdown: “Eight hundred troops is fundamentally insufficient to force a decisive strategic breakthrough across the entire border.
Therefore, this force is likely an elite vanguard designed to destabilize our lines and open a breach for their main army.” Night Raven let out a series of cold, arrogant sneers.
“Konoha is getting entirely too arrogant!
They honestly think a measly force of eight hundred men has the teeth to cross the river and raid our primary encampments?
They aren’t afraid we’ll open our jaws and swallow them whole?!” As a reincarnator who possessed absolute clarity regarding the historical trajectory of this war…
Ayane realized she had to step in and plant a seed of caution before this nepotism hire got them all killed.
“What if Konoha has deployed a contingent of top-tier powerhouses specifically engineered to tie down and neutralize Lord Hanzo?” “Preposterous!
Lord Hanzo is completely invincible under heaven!” Raven’s voice shifted into a register of pure, fanatical devotion.
“Let alone a puny force of eight hundred generic ninja…” His tone practically dripped with unhinged hubris.
“…Even if Hiruzen Sarutobi—the so-called ‘Professor’ and Strongest Hokage—showed up alongside the White Fang Sakumo Hatake, backed by the supreme heads of the Uchiha and Hyuga clans…
even if they all charged at once, they wouldn’t stand a ghost of a chance against Lord Hanzo!” Wow…
does Hanzo himself even know he’s supposed to be that overpowered?
Ayane thought, staring deadpan at her Captain.
Little bro, I think you’ve been eating way too many wild hallucinogenic mushrooms in this rain.
“However…” Raven’s tone pivoted slightly, adjusting his posture.
“…Swan, your perspective isn’t entirely without tactical merit.
As elite Anbu operatives, we must systematically calculate every statistical anomaly.
Under these parameters, our absolute priority should be to immediately redeploy to Lord Hanzo’s side, shielding him from any minor annoyances…” Ayane sneered internally beneath her mask.
Shield him from annoyances?
You just want to sprint straight to the CEO’s office while the company is in a crisis so you can get a promotion, you transparent climber.
Woodpecker desperately tried to reign in the Captain’s reckless ambition, his voice tight with growing anxiety.
“Captain, securing Lord Hanzo’s perimeter is undeniably paramount.
But the enemy vanguard has already penetrated our sector.
If the local Reconnaissance units break under the pressure, our entire western flank will go completely dark.
Becoming blind at a juncture like this would be catastrophic for our main army’s counter-offensive…” Night Raven’s brow furrowed tightly behind his mask.
It was true; Woodpecker’s logistical breakdown was impossible to argue against.
Right at that exact millisecond, a rustle echoed from the canopy as his summoning bird descended, a tiny classified scroll strapped to its leg containing the fresh mandate from Amegakure high command.
The parchment contained exactly four ink characters: [HOLD THE LINE.] The command perfectly synchronized with Woodpecker’s logical assessment.
Seeing the official decree, Night Raven didn’t hesitate for another second.
He barked out the operational directive: “Standard protocols apply!
We divide our forces into two cells!
I will take three operatives and sprint directly to the primary encampment to reinforce Lord Hanzo’s personal guard.
The remaining three will stay behind, integrating with the local Reconnaissance network to systematically hunt down and liquidate any Leaf infiltrators breaching this sector!” Raven’s gaze swept across the circle of masked faces.
“Who deploys with me, and who holds the line?” It was glarely obvious to everyone present that sprinting to Hanzo’s side—surrounded by the massive, heavily fortified main army—was vastly safer than staying behind to play hide-and-seek with Konoha’s elite assassination squads in a dark forest.
Yet, Woodpecker was the very first to raise his hand, his voice steady and completely devoid of hesitation.
“Captain, I will stay behind.” Ayane calculated her options in a flash.
Given my current physical baseline, if I march onto the battlefield where the Sannin and Hanzo are throwing down multi-story summoning beasts, what am I going to do?
Play the role of a hyper-realistic spectator who gets vaporized by the collateral damage?
She smoothly raised her hand.
“Captain, I will remain to secure the sector as well.” Eagle looked back and forth between her two veteran teammates, her mind completely blank for a second.
But seeing that her ‘bestie’ Swan had already raised her hand, the short girl could only awkwardly lift her own arm, muttering in a slightly wavering voice, “I…
I guess I’m staying too!”