Hanzo’s fortress gates opened with a groan that carried across the flat, damp earth.
Tsunade watched the dark tide of Rain shinobi spill out, a muscle in her jaw tightening.
She didn’t wait for them to form ranks.
Her hand shot up, a single sharp gesture.
“Fall back.
Now.”
The green signal flare tore a silent streak across the grey sky.
The Senju line melted away from their forward position, a practiced, fluid retreat that left nothing but churned mud and empty air.
The Rain ninja surged forward, their angry shouts swallowed by the sudden density of the woods.
Then the forest screamed.
It started with the sharp snap of a tripwire, followed by the chain-reaction cough of explosive tags.
Wood splintered.
Earth erupted.
A rain of poisoned spikes whispered down from the canopy.
The agonized cries that followed weren’t the clean shouts of battle; they were wet, ragged things, cut short.
Tsunade, standing a hundred yards back on a low ridge, felt the vibrations through her boots.
Hanzo of the Salamander emerged from the tree line, his cloak singed.
He stared at her, eyes twin pools of crimson fury across the distance.
Tsunade met his gaze and didn’t blink.
She didn’t advance a step.
The enemy advances, we retreat.
The words were Ren’s, delivered over a sand table two nights prior with the calm certainty of a man reading the weather.
Camp where they can’t.
Harass until they’re tired.
Attack where they’re weak.
Pursue only when they break.
Hanzo’s chakra flared, a sickly, potent green aura that made the air taste of poison and iron.
He coiled, ready to become a blur of vengeance.
A second signal arrow whistled into the sky—this one from the south.
Then another from the north.
The sounds of distant combat, muffled but distinct, rolled over the fields.
Shouts.
The crump of explosions against stone.
Hanzo froze. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
His head snapped toward the silhouette of Amegakure.
The green aura around him flickered, died.
He understood.
The bloodlust drained from his posture, replaced by a rigid, furious comprehension.
“Back!” he roared, the word tearing from his throat.
“To the castle!
Now!”
The Rain forces disengaged, a stumbling, bloody rush back toward their walls.
Tsunade watched them go.
She raised her hand again.
A red flare answered the green.
In the command tent, Ren’s fingers rested on the edge of the sand table.
Three small flags stood in the mud: one for Tsunade, one for Jiraiya, one for Orochimaru.
The air smelled of damp canvas and pine resin from the brazier.
The scout knelt before him, breathless.
“He’s withdrawn.
The fortress gates are sealed.
Our casualties are under two hundred.
Theirs… estimated at eight hundred or more.”
Ren didn’t open his eyes.
He’d heard the red flare’s distant pop.
“The diversion worked.
He’s turtling up.”
Uchiha Kiyoshi stood by the tent flap, his face a mask of controlled shock.
A four-to-one casualty ratio.
In all his years, through the tail end of the Warring States and now this war, he’d never seen such a thing.
He looked at the young man sitting in the commander’s chair—the clan’s supposed late-bloomer, the one they’d whispered about—and felt something old and stubborn crack inside his chest.
“Commander,” Kiyoshi began, his voice uncharacteristically thick.
Ren opened one eye.
“Stop looking at me like I’ve grown a second head, Kiyoshi.
The hard part starts now.” He leaned forward, beckoning the older jonin closer.
He whispered a series of instructions, his voice low and matter-of-fact.
Kiyoshi’s eyes widened.
His mouth opened, then shut.
A faint, horrified blush crept up his neck.
“You can’t be serious.
“Undignified?” Ren supplied, leaning back.
“It’s efficient.
Sun Tzu said it best: the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.
I’d just like to subdue them without our people dying.
Now go.
Don’t keep Lady Tsunade waiting.”
Kiyoshi stared at him for another second, the admiration in his heart now warring with profound disbelief.
He bowed sharply and vanished from the tent.
Alone, Ren finally looked at the scout still kneeling.
“You can stand up.
The report goes to the Hokage.
Casualty estimates only.
Don’t mention the next phase.”
The scout rose, his eyes still bright with fervor.
“Yes, sir!”
When he was gone, Ren looked down at the sand table, at the tiny flag representing Hanzo, trapped in its fortress of mud.
He reached out and very gently tipped it over.
Outside, Tsunade received Uchiha Kiyoshi at the edge of the camp.
The veteran Uchiha approached, saluted, and delivered his message in a strained, formal tone.
As he spoke, Tsunade’s initial frown of concentration melted away.
Her lips pressed together.
A strange, choked sound escaped her—not a laugh, not a cough.
She turned her face toward Amegakure’s scarred walls, her shoulders shaking silently for a full five seconds.
When she turned back, her eyes were bright with something fierce and approving.
“Tell him,” she said, her voice steady despite the gleam in her gaze, “that it’s utterly shameless.” She paused.
“And that it’s brilliant.
Make it happen.”
Kiyoshi bowed again, deeper this time.
As he straightened, he caught the expression on the faces of Tsunade’s nearby aides—confusion, curiosity.
They hadn’t heard the plan.
He pitied Hanzo of the Salamander.
The man had prepared for a sword fight.
Ren was about to hand him a spoon and tell him to dig his own grave.