From the moment the Uchiha and Senju supported Uzushiogakure, the other great villages realized their leisurely haggling session was over.
What followed was a diplomatic marathon that would have broken lesser men.
For one entire, agonizing week, representatives from Kumo, Iwa, Kiri, and Suna locked themselves in a windowless room.
They met daily for a minimum of five soul-crushing hours, with some sessions stretching past fifteen, fueled by nothing but argument.
The air was a toxic mix of sweat, suspicion, and the unspoken image of Uzushiogakure's legendary treasures: everything from the secret to their divine ramen broth to the terrifying scrolls containing their tailed-beast sealing techniques.
In the end, they managed to hammer out a pact, a flimsy thing held together by spit and avarice. Every signature was signed with one eye on the document and the other firmly fixed on the spoils to come.
On the misty shores of Kirigakure, Mizura felt like a predator.
"Good," he rumbled, the sound like grinding stones. "Very, very good."
Before him, the beach was no longer made of sand. It was a living, breathing sea of shinobi. His own village had sent a tidal wave of four thousand fighters. The other three villages had each contributed over two thousand more.
A quick mental calculation was all it took—they had over double the forces Uzushiogakure could possibly field. And that was just the beginning.
Reinforcements were on standby, ready to swell their numbers to a staggering twenty thousand if needed.
A heady sense of invincibility washed over him. With so many ninja, and with him, Mizura, fighting in his element—the water—how could they lose? The Uzumaki would be annihilated.
And if the dice rolled in his favor… perhaps even the legendary Senju and Uchiha would fall. He would be the slayer of gods, the man who washed away the shame of his village's past defeat at the hands of Tsunade, the God of Shinobi's granddaughter.
His name would be etched into history in blood and glory.
His reverie was broken by a sharp, no-nonsense voice. "Mizura-sama. When do we depart?"
He turned to see E, the Third Raikage's trusted subordinate, a mountain of muscle and impatience with skin like polished obsidian.
Behind him, the Kumo-nin stood with crackling, pent-up energy. Mizura, feeling magnanimous in his moment of triumph, resisted the urge to flex his own power.
There would be time for that.
"We leave at first light," he declared, his voice carrying over the assembled army. "But tonight! Tonight, I have ordered a banquet fit for the conquerors you are! Eat! Drink! Be merry! For starting tomorrow, I want to see an army of warriors hungry not for food, but for victory!"
...
...
...
"BWAHAHA! AHAHAHA! HAHAHA!"
The sound that ripped from Azula's throat was less a laugh and more a weapon of mass psychological disruption.
"Stop, stop, I'm begging you," she gasped, waving a hand vaguely at the grim-faced messenger. "You're telling me… they're coming for us with ten thousand ninja? Did they get a bulk discount?"
Mugetsu, who looked like he'd just swallowed a particularly sour lemon, did not share her amusement.
"Azula-dono," he said, his voice dripping with the kind of patience one uses on a delirious child, "this is the combined first wave from the four great villages. They are balanced, skilled, and led by the Mizukage himself. And it's just the first wave. Intelligence suggests the final number could possibly surpass thirty thousand."
Azula's manic giggles subsided into a dangerous, sparkling smile. "Thirty thousand? Oh, good. I was worried we wouldn't get enough people to train my clansmen."
"The Mizukage? So what?" Tsunade snorted, cracking her knuckles with a sound like crumbling mountains. "I already rearranged his face once when he had backup. Sure, I needed a little pick-me-up from Sakumo and Azula afterwards, but the point stands!"
"Precisely!" Azula chirped, her eyes gleaming with unholy light. "Let's review. Top-tier fighters? We have them. In a one-on-one, any one of us—Father, Mito, Tsunade, or myself—could turn the Mizukage into a regrettable life choice."
And their numbers? From Azula's point of view, it just means Mito's Tailed Beast Bombs get better mileage. In the face of a Bijuu-powered tantrum, all men are created equally dead.
And if they're stupid enough to try the same? To bomb Uzushiogakure? Oh, she hopes they do. She's been dying to beta-test Phase Two of her Flying Raijin. It involves turning their own annihilation back on them.
From the shadows, a voice like grinding gravel cut through the confidence. Old Murasake, who had seen more bloodshed than most clans had ancestors, shifted his weight.
"War is not a ledger of power levels," he croaked. "I have watched mighty clans be wiped from the earth by 'weaker' ones. Victory is the only truth."
"You defeated the Mizukage once. What if next time your tea is laced with a neurotoxin that makes you hallucinate your own organs trying to escape? Would you be so confident then? Do you think they will grant you the courtesy of a fair fight?"
Tajima gave a slow, deliberate nod. "The old man isn't wrong. The shinobi world's favorite thing is watching the 'weaker' opponent win through sheer, bloody-minded spite. A shift in mentality is all it takes to turn a battle. A moment of doubt. A single, perfect betrayal."
He had absolute faith in their combined might. The Senju's vitality, the Uzumaki's fuinjutsu, the Uchiha's ocular hax—it was a recipe for turning armies into abstract art.
He knew they could gut this first wave.
But the blithe, almost gleeful arrogance of the two powerhouses in the room made his veteran soul itch. They saw war as a game they were destined to win. They hadn't yet learned that sometimes, the game cheats.
Azula simply sighed. They were all buzzing about like angry hornets, while she was mentally preparing for a kaiju attack.
Her mental Rolodex of enemies featured Madara, a man who treated the entire Shinobi Alliance as a mildly challenging warm-up, and the Otsutsuki, a family of celestial gourmands who considered planets to be delicious food.
This? This little skirmish was less of a war and more of a scheduled playdate she'd been prepping over a decade for. It was hard not to be patronizing.
The only person in the room not suffering from a catastrophic perspective failure was Mito.
Having one foot in the future and the other in the blood-soaked soil of the Warring States Era, she was the designated translator for this circus.
She understood Azula's bone-deep confidence and where it came from. She also understood Murasake's tension, born of watching clans get erased by people they'd underestimated.
It was the eternal clash between someone who's ready to fight a dragon and someone who's been bitten by a particularly nasty badger.
"The issue," she spoke, her voice effortlessly commanding the room, "is not whether they are a threat, or if we're being arrogant. The issue is how we choose to 'welcome' them. We are here to plan. And since there are so many of us with... varied thresholds for acceptable force, only a plan we all approve will pass."
It was so reasonable it was almost boring. Everyone nodded, momentarily pacified.
Shinki, who had been so quiet, finally spoke. "Our primary goal should be to delay their arrival and, ideally, gift them with as many casualties as possible."
In a perfect world, he'd have preferred they all spontaneously developed an allergy to water and sank, but he was a pragmatist.
Ninja could run on water, and with their numbers, they were basically a walking, chakra-enhanced bridge.
The one thing he was grateful for in this situation was Azula's mastery of the Flying Raijin. It was the ultimate hit-and-run technique, perfect for saying 'hello' with a fireball and then vanishing before the enemy could even say 'ow.'
Murasake's eyes glinted with a familiar, homicidal glimmer. "I concur. We must make their approach a waking nightmare. I propose a... welcoming committee: Tajima, Mito, Azula, Tsunade, Mugetsu, and myself."
He painted a beautiful picture with his words: the six of them standing on the waves, ready to turn the ocean red. "We inflict maximum suffering, and then Azula whisks us away before they can even process their losses."
All eyes swiveled to Azula, the designated teleportation taxi. Could her technique handle six powerful individuals at once?
She shrugged a shoulder with an insulting degree of nonchalance. "I could teleport this whole castle if I felt like it. Six of you is very light."
A slow, wicked smile spread across Tajima Uchiha's face. It was the kind of smile that made babies cry and small animals hide.
"Excellent," he purred. "When they arrive tomorrow, I do hope they enjoy their welcoming gift."
(END OF THE CHAPTER)
I slept too much