A rock crumbled under Ren’s boot.
He didn’t feel it.
His mind was tracing lines on a map that didn’t exist, connecting three armies, two Kage, and one crumbling city.
He straightened and looked at the three faces waiting for his verdict.
Tsunade’s knuckles were white where she gripped her medical pouch.
Orochimaru’s stillness was reptilian, absorbing everything.
Jiraiya’s jaw worked, chewing on a grudge against the old woman who’d stolen his victory.
“Our strength: sixteen hundred,” Ren said.
“Onoki’s: a thousand.
Chiyo’s: five hundred.”
Silence.
The wind carried the distant, metallic scent of rust from Amegakure’s gutters.
“We can’t handle both,” he continued.
“Lady Tsunade, Lord Orochimaru, and Lord Jiraiya together can stall one Kage-level opponent.
Maybe.
The other two won’t stand idle while we’re locked in a stalemate.
They’ll pounce.”
Tsunade’s throat tightened.
She hated the word ‘stall.’ Orochimaru’s tongue clicked once against his teeth.
Acknowledgment.
Jiraiya spat.
“So the key’s the South Gate.
We hit it?”
Ren shook his head.
“If you were Hanzo of the Salamander, which force would you attack?
Five hundred under Chiyo, a thousand under Onoki, or sixteen hundred of us, positioned opposite the Iwa-nin who you know won’t move?”
“Chiyo,” Jiraiya said, the answer obvious and bitter.
“Exactly.
Strength, and the fact that we and the Iwa forces are balancing each other.
Hanzo will hit the South Gate.
But our problem isn’t Hanzo.” Ren paused, letting the puzzle settle into their minds.
“Our problem is the thousand stone-nin watching us from the north.”
Tsunade’s eyes narrowed.
“If we clash with them, the losses…”
“We don’t clash,” Ren said, a smile touching his lips.
Orochimaru’s pupils dilated.
Understanding bloomed cold and sharp in his mind.
“The Hidden Cloud Village.”
Ren nodded.
“Onoki is here.
That means the Hidden Cloud currently lacks a strong leader on their border.
Given the Third Raikage’s personality… if he knew the Tsuchikage was away from his village, he wouldn’t stay quiet.”
The logic was brutal and simple.
Cloud and Stone were oil and water.
Cloud’s bandit-nature would see an absent Kage as an open gate.
Orochimaru’s chuckle was a dry rustle.
“A borrowed blade.
Commander, your tactics are… efficient.
I admire them.” The word ‘admire’ carried the weight of a collector evaluating a new specimen.
Tsunade and Jiraiya exchanged a glance—a silent admission of being two steps behind.
Tsunade’s gaze returned to Ren, studying the calm certainty in his posture.
There was a magnetism to it, a pull she couldn’t name.
Ren turned to Jiraiya.
“Lord Jiraiya.
Your network of… friends.
They’re good at spreading news, right?”
Jiraiya straightened, pride flushing his cheeks.
“They’re everywhere.
If you mean getting a message somewhere fast, half a day.
To Cloud?
Less.”
“Send the message.
One line only: ‘Tsuchikage Onoki is in the Land of Rain.’ Nothing else.”
Jiraiya vanished, a blur of purpose.
Orochimaru watched Ren.
“Congratulations, Commander, on the imminent capture of Amegakure.”
Ren shook his head.
“The credit belongs to Lady Tsunade.
This was her strategic vision.
I am merely her confidant.”
Orochimaru froze for a second, then remembered the name he wasn’t allowed to use—the one the clan elders had given this late-blooming, supposedly feeble Uchiha. Find the original chapter at NovelPing.
He sighed, a sound like steam escaping.
The old men’s fears were so tedious.
Tsunade frowned, but the reason clicked into place—political armor.
She accepted the lie, but her thumb traced a rough stitch on her pouch.
The meeting dissolved into silence, each carrying their own calculations away.
The next day, in the Hidden Cloud Village, the Third Raikage A drove a kunai into a training post with a crack that split the wood.
He laughed, a sound that shook dust from the rafters.
He summoned his commanders.
“Gather three thousand.
We march on Iwagakure.”
On the southern battlefield, poison mist met puppet wood.
Hanzo’s salamander vomited purple gas over the Sand lines.
Chiyo’s voice cut through the haze—”Antidotes now!”—and her Ten Puppets of Chikamatsu formed a spinning wall against Hanzo’s twin blades.
The dance was brutal, elegant, and utterly consuming.
The east and north gates remained frozen, Konoha and Iwa watching each other through the lens of shared hesitation.
Then a Konoha scout, breathless, brought news to Ren’s tent: a single messenger, moving like a hunted thing, had sprinted from the north straight into Onoki’s camp.
Ren’s smile didn’t touch his eyes.
“Scout again.”
He thought, Cloud moves fast.
A is a man who sees an opening and charges through it.
At the north gate, Onoki’s rage was a physical tremor.
A piece of shale in his hand powdered into dust.
“Those Cloud bandits!
Filthy, opportunistic soldiers!” His guard, Akatsuchi, waited, a mountain of silent concern.
Onoki’s face hardened into the mask of the Tsuchikage.
“What do we do?
We defend.
The Third Raikage can fight a Tailed Beast bare-handed.
With no Jinchuriki deployed, he is effectively invincible.
If I stay here, Iwagakure burns.” He shook his head, the tactical mystery of who leaked his location pushed aside by survival.
“Orders.
Rear guard becomes vanguard.
Full speed home.”
He activated his Light-Weight Rock Technique, rising onto a floating stone slab.
As he sped north toward his village, he cast one last look over his shoulder at the rain-soaked silhouette of Amegakure.
The sigh he left hanging in the wet air was not for the city, but for the war he had just been forced to abandon.