Tsubei had been a jonin for twenty-six years.
He'd survived the First Shinobi World War as a genin, though barely. Made chunin during peacetime. Made jonin a few years after that. And now here he was, forty-nine years old, sitting in a half-collapsed outpost in Wind Country, listening to his stomach growl.
Again.
Quarter rations. They'd been on quarter rations for eight days now.
"This is such bullshit," a chunin muttered from across the room. The kid was maybe twenty-five, still had that fire in his eyes that hadn't been beaten out yet. "We're shinobi, not starving dogs. How the hell are we supposed to fight on empty stomachs like this?"
"You're not starving, so calm down," Tsubei said flatly. "Actually starving takes weeks. What you are is just hungry."
"Well, it feels pretty much the same to me right now."
"Trust me, it really doesn't."
Another chunin laughed without humor. "My wife used to complain I never came home for dinner. Guess I'm finally getting what I wanted, no dinner at all."
A few tired chuckles rippled through the group.
Tsubei didn't laugh. He was too busy calculating numbers in his head. They'd been on reduced rations for days now, and supplies were running low. Maybe they had enough to last a bit longer if they were careful. Maybe not. Either way, sitting here waiting for Konoha to raid them again wasn't an option.
"Taichou, can I say something?" A tokubetsu jonin spoke up from the corner. He was older than the complaining chunin, close to thirty, with a scar across his jaw. "I just think we need to be more careful about this. Pushing forward right now, with our supply situation the way it is... it's pretty risky."
"Risky? Are you serious?" The younger chunin turned on him immediately. "We're already going hungry sitting here in this place. What's riskier than being stuck here hungry in this dump?"
"How about dying faster?" the scarred man said evenly. "Because that's what happens when you run at the enemy on an empty stomach and an even emptier head."
"Say that again—"
"Alright, that's enough from both of you." Tsubei's voice stopped the argument before it could go further. He looked at both of them. "Neither of you is actually wrong here. We're in a bad spot, no question about it. But it's not our call to make. Command will decide what we do next, and then we'll follow whatever orders come down. That's how this works, and you both know it."
The room went quiet after that.
"Do we know what they're planning?" another jonin asked. She was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, looking about as tired as Tsubei felt.
"There's a briefing at noon," Tsubei said. "We'll find out then."
The younger chunin perked up. "Finally. We're moving out?"
"Probably."
"Good. I'd rather die fighting than waste away in this hellhole."
Tsubei wanted to tell him that dying wasn't actually the goal here. That the point was to complete the mission and come back alive. But he'd been doing this long enough to know that sometimes the mission and survival didn't go hand in hand. Sometimes you just had to pick one and hope you got lucky.
He looked around the room. Twelve shinobi, all of them dealing with the rations in their own way. Some looked tired. Some looked frustrated. A few just looked like they wanted something to do besides sit here and think about food.
This was what war did. Turned soldiers into desperate men. Made them take risks they'd never consider otherwise.
And desperate men made mistakes.
He just hoped they weren't about to make a fatal one.
....
The commander stood at the head of the table. Tsubei had known him for more than two decades, since the days when the First War had yet to turn their youth into ash. He'd had more hair then, and fewer scars. Now he only looked tired.
"Alright, listen up everyone," the commander said, placing both hands on the table. "Konoha's been hitting our supply lines hard while our main forces are engaged elsewhere. So we're going to turn around and do the same damn thing to them."
He pointed at the map spread across the table. Several locations were marked in charcoal.
"We're coordinating with River on this one. Here's how it's going to work. Our forces will move toward these Konoha outposts here, here, and here." He tapped each location. "We make it look like we're planning a real attack, and Konoha will send out interception forces to meet us, like they always do. While they're busy dealing with us, River teams will slip past the fighting and hit their supply caches instead. They'll burn everything they find, food, medical supplies, weapons, whatever. If they can see it, they destroy it."
Tsubei studied the map. It was a mirror of what Konoha had been doing to them.
Murmurs rippled through the group. Someone asked about timing. Another wanted to know which routes River would take. The intelligence officer answered each question, pointing at different marks on the map, explaining coordination signals.
"What happens when Konoha realizes it's a diversion?" someone asked.
"Then you'd better hope River finishes their job before that happens," the commander said. "And you'd better be ready to fight your way out."
"When do we move?"
"Noon today. So get your gear ready and make sure you're prepared."
"What about extraction plans?" Tsubei asked.
The commander met his eyes. "You get out however you can. The main objective here is to keep Konoha busy long enough for River to do their job and get out. After that point, it's up to you and your teams to handle yourselves."
Nobody said anything after that. They all understood what that actually meant.
"Alright then. You're dismissed," the commander said, straightening up from the table.
The room cleared out. People heading to prepare, check equipment, do whatever they needed to do before a big mission.
Tsubei stayed, looking at the map.
The commander walked over. "You don't like it."
"Didn't say that."
"You're thinking it."
Tsubei shrugged. "I'm thinking we're gambling that Konoha takes the bait. If they don't, River gets caught, and we're fighting for nothing."
"They'll take it," the commander said. "Every time we've moved toward their territory, they've sent interception teams. They're not going to change tactics now."
The commander patted his shoulder and walked away toward the door.
....
The sun was high overhead when they finally moved out.
Tsubei's squad fell into formation with the others. Forty-eight in total for this group. The other two strike forces had already branched off, going their separate ways, each one about the same size, give or take a few. Everyone had synchronized their watches back at the outpost, gone over the timing, and knew what they were supposed to do.
Now it was just about execution.
They moved fast across the desert terrain, kicking up small clouds of dust. Tsubei ran near the middle of the formation, keeping pace with his breathing. He was hungry. They all were. Eight days on quarter rations did that to you. But hunger was just discomfort at the end of the day, and discomfort was something you learned to ignore pretty quickly in this line of work.
A scout dropped back from the front, landing beside the commander. They exchanged words Tsubei couldn't hear, then the scout took off again.
The commander raised his hand high. The formation began to slow down.
"Konoha forces spotted ahead," the commander called out loud enough for everyone to hear. "Looks like an interception team. We're counting approximately thirty-two nin."
Tsubei felt a slight sense of satisfaction at that. So Konoha had actually taken the bait. Good. That meant the plan was working so far.
"They're positioning themselves to intercept us," the commander continued. "Which is perfect. That's exactly what we want them to do. Keep them engaged once we make contact. Make them think we're completely serious about hitting their outposts."
The formation shifted to combat spacing, everyone spreading out with hands near their weapons. Tsubei pulled a kunai from his pouch. It felt the same as it always did. How many times had he done this? How many battles had he fought? He'd lost count years ago.
One more diversion. One more fight to keep enemy forces busy while someone else did the real work.
He'd done worse.
"Alright, let's move out," the commander ordered.
They closed the distance.
.....
The Konoha force was waiting for them among the trees. They'd spread out through the forest, using the terrain well. Whoever was commanding them knew what they were doing.
The two forces met and started killing each other. Tsubei engaged a Konoha jonin. They fought. Kunai, senbon, Fire Release countered by Wind Release. The exchange went back and forth. The jonin was fast, younger, better fed. Tsubei was slower than he used to be. Age and hunger both working against him.
The fight went back and forth. Tsubei threw shuriken during an exchange, three of them while the jonin was recovering from a blocked strike. The jonin deflected two but the third got through his guard, caught his shoulder. Not fatal, but it would slow his movements down some.
Around him, the battle unfolded the way battles always did. Metal clashing. Jutsu going off. People screaming. People dying. A Suna nin to his left took a blade to the throat and went down in a spray of blood. Someone else filled the gap and kept fighting.
Tsubei moved from one opponent to the next. His puppet did most of the heavy work, attacking from angles people didn't expect, creating openings Tsubei exploited with his kunai. It wasn't elegant. It wasn't pretty. It was just combat, same as he'd been doing for decades. Survival through repetition and experience.
The Konoha forces were good. Well-trained. Well-coordinated. But they were outnumbered, and numbers mattered in fights like this. Slowly, gradually, Suna was gaining ground.
The key to surviving fights like this was simple. Never stop moving. Stopping meant thinking, and thinking meant hesitation, and hesitation meant a kunai in the gut. Just keep the body moving, keep the momentum going, and trust the muscle memory built over decades of doing exactly this.
The fight went on. Minutes blurred together the way they always did in combat when the mind stopped tracking individual moments and slipped into one continuous stream of action. Tsubei had lost count of how many people he had fought, how many exchanges he had been part of. His arms burned from the constant impacts. His lungs felt like they were on fire, which happened when the body was pushed too hard for too long. His stomach was empty, had been empty for days, and that emptiness made everything feel heavier, like someone had tied weights to his limbs. But he kept going anyway. Because the alternative to moving was stopping, and stopping meant dying.
An explosion rocked the battlefield. Probably multiple Earth Release. The ground split open, swallowing two Suna chunin before they could react.
Tsubei saw it happen. Felt the anger spike in his chest. Two more dead. But he remembered the plan even through the exhaustion and hunger gnawing at him. Maintain the diversion. Keep Konoha engaged. Don't push too hard. Look threatening enough to hold their attention without committing to a real breakthrough.
Others remembered too. He could see it in how they fought. Maintaining contact with Konoha forces, keeping pressure on, but not going for kills when it meant exposing themselves. So far it was working. Konoha was fully occupied with this fight, exactly where they needed to be.
Then reinforcements appeared.
Tsubei saw them coming from the north. Ten shinobi coming in. Moving at speed. One of them was in front with blonde hair and a grey flak jacket, and even from this distance he could tell this was going to be a problem.
Someone shouted "Reinforcements!" which wasn't exactly helpful since everyone could see them coming, but people announced obvious things when they were panicking.
The ten Konoha nin slammed into the battle. The blonde woman in front radiated something that set off every warning bell Tsubei had. A second later, he understood why. She punched a Suna jonin and his guard meant nothing. The force sent him flying fifteen feet. He landed hard and didn't move again.
Tsubei swore under his breath because this engagement had just escalated from "manageable difficulty" to "significantly worse."
The dynamic of the battle changed immediately. Difficult fights could be won with skill and experience and a bit of luck. Desperate fights were different, those were about survival rather than victory, about lasting long enough to extract rather than accomplishing objectives. The fresh Konoha forces pushed through the exhausted Suna nin. Energy, chakra, momentum. All the things that mattered in prolonged combat, and all the things Tsubei's side was running low on.
He found himself back-to-back with the scarred tokubetsu jonin from the briefing. They faced off against two Konoha jonin who looked entirely too fresh for Tsubei's liking.
"You know, this really isn't looking good for us right now," the tokubetsu jonin said between ragged breaths, trying to catch his wind.
"Yeah, I kind of noticed that myself," Tsubei replied, keeping his eyes on the two jonin. "What gave it away?"
One of the Konoha jonin came at him fast. Tsubei met him in the middle and they traded strikes, quick and hard, the impacts rattling through his arms. His movements were off, slower than they should have been. A blade caught his shoulder, cutting through vest and skin. Tsubei responded with Wind Release, the chakra leaving his system in a pressurized burst that forced the man to step back and gave Tsubei some breathing room.
Twenty minutes had passed since the reinforcements arrived. They had been holding on, trading ground for time. Tsubei's side was losing the fight, slowly but surely, which did not really matter because winning was not the objective. The objective was to keep Konoha here, to keep them engaged, and that part was working perfectly.
He blocked another strike, pushed his opponent back, and allowed himself a moment to think that maybe they'd actually pull this off.
Then the screaming started.
Not the normal battle screams. Something else. Panic.
A series of explosions ripped through the right flank. Tsubei felt the impacts through his feet, heard the blasts echo through the trees. He looked toward the noise. Couldn't see much through the forest cover, just movement and chaos. Suna nin pulling back, shouting something he couldn't make out. And something else coming from the east through the forest. Lots of somethings.
All of them wore black.
All of them moved the same way.
"What the hell—" the tokubetsu jonin beside him stared.
Tsubei's mind was racing. Shadow clones in these numbers meant the creator had chakra reserves far beyond normal. Most people couldn't sustain more than a few at once without exhausting themselves.
Another explosion rumbled from somewhere behind them. Then another. The pieces came together. Those explosions he'd been feeling. That wasn't ninjutsu. It was these clones. They were detonating themselves when they fought.
"Fall back!" someone screamed. "Don't engage them! They're—"
Another explosion cut off the warning.
Tsubei felt ice in his veins.
He'd heard reports about something like this. A squad had come back days ago, barely alive, telling stories about a Konoha attack on their outpost. Led by a Senju, they'd said. One of the attackers had been dressed completely in black. They'd talked about exploding clones. About their forces getting decimated.
He'd thought they were exaggerating.
They weren't.
The battlefield descended into chaos. The Suna right flank was in full retreat now, trying to get away from the clone swarm. But the clones just kept coming. Every time one was destroyed, another one appeared to take its place.
And each one that got close enough exploded with enough force to kill or maim.
A sensor nin near Tsubei suddenly went pale. "Taichou, we have a problem. More clones are coming. Dozens of them appearing from the east. They just keep spawning."
Tsubei's jaw tightened. That was bad enough.
Then the sensor's expression got worse. "And taichou... I'm also picking up what's happening in the western sector. Our forces there are getting destroyed too."
Tsubei's mind went to the western engagement immediately. That was where their other strike force had gone. The one facing the old Senju.
The commander turned sharply toward the sensor. "What exactly is happening over there? Give me details."
"It's the same thing that's happening here, sir. Clones everywhere. They're appearing in that sector too, all over the place. I'm reading multiple contacts, and the numbers just keep growing."
"Can you trace where they're actually coming from?" the commander asked, his frustration showing. "We need to find the original."
The sensor hesitated, concentrating. "I'll try, but there are so many of them..."
The ground shook beneath their feet. More explosions from the right flank.
Tsubei's squad was being pushed back toward the center. The Konoha forces were pressing their advantage hard, using the clone chaos to systematically break apart Suna's formation piece by piece.
This wasn't just a battle anymore. This was turning into a complete massacre.
"Regroup!" the commander shouted, but his voice was drowned out by another series of explosions.
Tsubei saw them clearly now. The clones were dressed entirely in black, and they all shared the same face. Young face—thirteen, fourteen years old. Black hair, black eyes. What made Tsubei's skin crawl was the expression. They were smiling. All of them. The same eerie smile while they turned themselves into bombs.
One of them caught his gaze and the smile grew.
Then it used Shunshin, flickering out of sight and reappearing sixty feet away in the middle of two Suna nin.
The tactics became clear to Tsubei even as he didn't want to think about them. Shadow Clones for overwhelming numbers. Explosive clones to make each one a threat. Shunshin to close distance before anyone could react. Individually, these were standard shinobi techniques. Combined like this, they turned the battlefield into a minefield where every enemy could be anywhere and explode at any moment.
"Listen up! Do not engage in close combat with them!" Tsubei shouted over the noise. "Those shinobi in black are the ones from the reports! They're using exploding clones! Do not let them get close to you!"
His squad heard him. Information spread fast in combat situations when that information meant the difference between living and dying. People paid attention to survival tips.
Shinobi started pulling back, adjusting their tactics to accommodate the new threat assessment. Senbon went out in clusters. Kunai came down in volleys rather than individual throws. Wind Release swept across the battlefield, visible arcs of compressed air slicing through flesh from a safe distance.
It worked, to a degree. The exploding clones were less effective when kept at range. A simple tactical solution to a tactical problem. Identify the enemy's kill range and operate outside it.
But tactical adjustments had consequences. In this case, the consequence was ground. Suna was losing it, fast. Pulling back to maintain range meant giving up position, and giving up position meant losing battlefield control.
The clones kept pressing forward. They didn't seem concerned about taking hits, which made sense since Shadow clones were expendable by design, temporary constructs meant to be destroyed. Getting hit by kunai or senbon wasn't a deterrent when destruction was already part of the tactical equation. One clone went down, two more appeared to replace it. Simple mathematics of overwhelming numbers.
Tsubei threw three kunai at a clone that was getting too close to one of his chunin. All three connected. Clean hits. The clone exploded anyway, because of course it did. That was what these things did. The chunin ended up in the blast radius despite Tsubei's attempt to stop it. He went down screaming, which meant he was still alive, but also hurt badly enough to scream about it.
Tsubei's kunai-holding hand dropped slightly to his side.
This was impossible. How did you fight someone who could be in fifty places at once? Someone who turned every clone into a potential bomb? Someone who didn't care about losses because none of them were real?
A clone appeared beside Tsubei. His body reacted before his mind processed it, kunai driving toward the clone's throat—
The clone's hand shot up and caught his wrist.
Then it smiled and said, "Sleep well."
The clone's other hand blurred and suddenly there was a gleaming blade. Tsubei's body reacted on instinct, pulling back, twisting, and freeing his arm. The blade came at him fast, multiple strikes in the span of a heartbeat. Tsubei's kunai met the first one, deflected it. The second came from a different angle. He blocked. Third strike aimed low. He moved his leg. Fourth, fifth, sixth—the exchanges blurred together into a storm of sparks and steel, every collision biting up his forearms. Sweat ran into his eyes. He blinked it away. The clone kept pressing, kept attacking, and he kept blocking because the alternative was getting cut.
His arms burned. His lungs screamed. The clone showed no sign of slowing down, no sign of fatigue. Then he saw an opening, a small one, barely there, and took it. Their weapons clashed hard, sending sparks between them. He used that contact to push off and threw himself backward, creating space. Five feet, then ten.
The clone didn't chase him. Just stood there with that same smile on its face. Tsubei was breathing hard, trying to get air back into his lungs. His kunai was still gripped in his hand. He kept his eyes on the clone. His heart was hammering. He could hear it pounding.
....
[Shinji POV]
He stumbled back from me, kunai still in his hand.
I blinked and watched the old Suna jonin catch his breath. He was old, forty-something, maybe older. His face was lined with scars and exhaustion. His breathing was rough, sweat dripping down his face.
That exchange just now had been White Fang's style. Well, White Fang's style filtered through my interpretation of it, which I'd picked up by watching him train when he didn't know I was watching. "Stole" made it sound worse than it was. "Learned" was probably more accurate. Though "learned without permission" fell somewhere between the two, semantically speaking. The point was, it worked. Whatever Sakumo Hatake did with a blade that made him legendary, I'd managed to borrow enough of it to push this old jonin to his limit in a few seconds.
"Long-range only!" he shouted again. "Don't let him get close to you! Stay back!"
Good advice. Wouldn't save them, but good advice.
One of my clones in the distance was chasing down a Suna jonin. The chase turned into a Shunshin battle. Clone flickered closer, jonin flickered away. Tree to tree through the forest. Every time the clone closed distance with Shunshin, the jonin just used it right back and created more space. The bigger issue was all the support fire. Shuriken came at the clone from three angles, kunai from above, and a Daitoppa forced it to dodge sideways.
The clone was smaller than most of the people it was fighting. Thirteen-year-old body versus full-grown adults. That meant less reach, less weight, less raw physical advantage. Add in the constant stream of long-range attacks from every Suna nin who'd heard the warning about not engaging in close combat, and my clone just couldn't close the gap. Every time it got close, the jonin would Shunshin away and the cycle would start over.
I watched the clone dodge a couple kunai, then an Earth jutsu. More shuriken were coming at it from another angle. The clone looked at the jonin getting farther away, looked at the incoming projectiles, and made a decision. It stopped running and blew itself up.
The explosion went off. The jonin had already Shunshin'd away twice by then, each flicker putting more distance between him and the blast. He survived. Didn't look hurt at all.
Well, that was a problem.
The clone had done everything right. Chased the target, dodged attacks, and when those shuriken were about to hit and kill it anyway, detonated before it got destroyed. Last chance to do something useful. And the jonin just Shunshin'd away. Twice. Problem was speed. My clones were fast, but not fast enough when the enemy could teleport and everyone was throwing weapons to keep them at range. If the clones couldn't catch anyone, the explosions were useless.
I needed better mobility.
Something to work on later.
Right now I had other problems.
The old jonin launched Wind Release. I jumped sideways to a tree, pressure ripping through the space I'd just left. My hands were already moving through signs.
Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu.
Fire erupted from my mouth. The fireball lit up the forest, huge and hot, forcing the old oōnin to dodge sideways. He rolled behind a tree trunk, then came back up throwing three shuriken at me. I knocked them aside with my kunai, and they clattered to the ground. The old jonin's attention shifted to the battlefield after that, his eyes moving quickly, scanning everything, trying to get a read on the situation.
His eyes tracked the clones. Watched them closing in, chasing down his men, detonating when they got close enough. Then his eyes came back to me. I was standing there, not moving to close distance with anyone, not showing any signs of exploding. Just watching.
I saw it click in his head.
His expression changed. Eyes went wide for half a second.
Then he started sprinting. Straight at me.
"He's the original!" he shouted. "The one standing still is the original!"
I raised my eyebrows. "Not too stupid, at least."
Movement behind me meant someone thought they were being smart. They weren't. I turned, tanto already drawn. His sword met mine, then met it again, kept meeting it in rapid succession until it stopped mattering because my blade was in him. Somewhere vital, I felt it happen through the handle. The chunin's expression changed. So did his anatomy. I yanked the blade out and he came apart on the way down.
Didn't have time to appreciate the view.
The old jonin was still coming at me, moving fast through the trees. I jumped sideways to another trunk, then another, zigzagging through the forest to put distance between us. Three trees, four, five.
There was a bird perched on a branch nearby. Just sitting there like birds do.
Then it went off. KA-THOOM. Loud. Hot. The trees didn't like it much.
I'd already used Shunshin twice more, putting even more distance between me and the blast zone, but I still felt the pressure wave when it hit. The old jonin had tried to Shunshin away at the last second, I saw him flicker, but the blast was already expanding. Caught him mid-movement and sent him flying backward like someone had tied a rope to his chest and yanked. He hit a tree trunk hard enough that I heard the impact over the fading explosion noise.
Another jonin had been trying to sneak up on me from the side. Past tense on that. The explosion caught him full force. What was left of him landed in pieces. Some parts hit trees. Some parts hit the ground. I didn't look too closely at which parts were which.
The old jonin dropped to the ground after bouncing off the tree. Didn't get back up immediately.
I didn't look at the old jonin. Just let one of my clones move in to finish it. The clone was maybe eighty feet away when another Suna nin appeared out of nowhere, grabbed the old man, threw him over his shoulder, and bolted.
My clone took off after them.
Then more clones started appearing. They came out from deeper in the forest, dozens of them flooding into the battlefield. Suna nin saw them coming and started running. The ones who weren't running were the ones already dead or too injured to move.
The Konoha forces were staring. I caught a few jonin looking at the clone swarm with expressions that said they were trying to process what they were seeing. A chunin doing this. Making Suna run like their lives depended on it, which to be fair, their lives did depend on it. One of the jonin shook his head. I couldn't tell if he was in disbelief or actually impressed by what he was seeing.
I raised my hand to my ear. Green gathered around my palm as I started fixing the damage from standing too close to my own explosion. My ear was ringing. The eardrum had taken some abuse. Fixable, but annoying.
While I worked on that, my attention shifted to the other engagement. The western sector where the old Senju was handling things. I couldn't see it from here, obviously. But I'd sent clones there too, and those clones had been dispelling periodically to give me updates.
Same situation over there. Clones causing chaos. Suna forces retreating or dying. The problem was the same problem I had here. Active combat meant enemies and allies were mixed together, close quarters, no clear separation. If I just started detonating clones randomly, I'd kill Konoha nin along with Suna nin. Friendly fire wasn't exactly friendly.
So the clones had to be careful. Selective. Only detonate when there was a clear target without Konoha people in the blast radius.
Which meant that the Suna nin who weren't running away had already figured that little detail out. They were deliberately staying close to Konoha forces whenever possible, basically using them as human shields against the explosions.
I would've done the exact same thing if I were in their position, to be honest. But that didn't make it any less irritating for me to deal with from this side though.
Probably more engagements happening elsewhere too. Other places where Konoha was fighting Suna and River. That's how wars worked. Multiple fronts. Coordinated attacks. Lots of simultaneous violence spread across a wide area. But I didn't have intel on those locations. Chunin didn't get the full strategic overview. That information stayed with the elite jonin and above, people who had access to actual war rooms and tactical planning sessions. I just got told where to go and what to do when I got there. Meant I couldn't send clone support to other sectors even if I wanted to. Can't help people when you don't know where they are or what they're doing. Strategic limitations were annoying but unavoidable.
I shrugged and turned my attention back to what I could actually see.
Which was a chase. The battle had become a chase. Suna running, everyone else pursuing. I followed behind the clone swarm. They were chasing Suna forces through the forest, and the Konoha nin were right there with them, everyone moving fast through the trees. Bodies were scattered on the ground where we'd passed. The trees hadn't fared much better, half of them splintered or on fire.
Couldn't see Tsunade from where I was. Too many trees, too much distance, too much chaos in between. But my clones had been popping throughout the fight, feeding me their memories, and yeah, Tsunade was in the thick of it. Moving among the Konoha nin, throwing punches that sent Suna shinobi flying like they'd been hit by a battering ram.
The chase continued through the forest. Suna running, Konoha pursuing, my clones scattered among them. Then Tsunade spoke up. Well, spoke up was probably the wrong term. Shouted was more accurate. Everyone stopped to listen.
"Stop! Let them go!"
The Konoha forces slowed. Stopped. Watched as the remaining Suna nin disappeared into Wind Country territory.
I stopped too, standing on a tree branch. Around me, Konoha nin were catching their breath. Some were checking injuries. Others were just standing there, processing what had happened.
Then I heard it.
"What a monster," someone muttered. A chunin, maybe twenty feet away. His eyes were on my clones, the ones still standing around the battlefield. His ears were red for some reason.
Another jonin nearby shook his head. "A chunin. A damn chunin did all that."
"Did you see how many clones he made? I counted at least fifty before I stopped counting."
"My ears are still ringing."
"Mine too. That explosion near the eastern flank nearly took my head off."
My lips twitched. I wasn't sure if they were praising me or cursing my existence. Maybe both. Probably both, actually. The explosions had been effective but not exactly subtle, and judging by how many of them were touching their ears or wincing at loud sounds, the friendly forces had definitely felt the effects too.
I caught one jonin staring at me. When our eyes met, he mouthed something that looked like either "thank you" or "fuck you."
Honestly could've been either.
....
Meanwhile, at the outpost, one of Shinji's clones stood under a tree. It was big and old, dropped leaves pretty regularly. Good for what he was trying to do.
He was holding a cheap tanto he'd bought from a blacksmith. The price had been suspiciously low, which meant this was either a great deal or the blade was garbage quality. Using it would tell him which.
A leaf detached from a branch above. Started its slow drift down.
Shunshin brought him right next to it, his tanto already leaving the sheath. The first cut completed the draw, slicing the leaf in half as the blade came out. Then the blade moved again. Again. Diagonal from upper left. Reverse from lower right. Straight down. Horizontal. The movements blurred together but he tracked each one in his head because that was the point of this exercise. Know exactly what you're doing. No guessing.
The leaf was still falling. He was still cutting.
His mind counted. Twelve. Thirteen. Somewhere around fourteen the angles started repeating because there were only so many ways to cut something. Fifteen. Sixteen.
The leaf landed. In pieces. Sixteen pieces, to be exact.
Same result as yesterday. And the day before that. And every other time he'd tried this. Sixteen cuts was where it ended. Not seventeen. Not eighteen. Always exactly sixteen.
White Fang could do better. The clone had seen it. Well, seen it from a distance while hiding behind other things because directly asking to watch would've required admitting he was interested in learning from him, and that conversation seemed awkward. Watching from far away was easier. Less social interaction involved.
White Fang had cut a leaf more than twenty times. Maybe thirty. Hard to count from that distance, but definitely more than twenty. Made it look effortless, which was the problem with watching people who were actually good at things.
The clone was reaching for another leaf when something caught his attention. Someone was behind him, and his neck prickled with that uncomfortable sensation of being targeted. The feeling wasn't friendly.
His body moved before his brain finished the thought. Tanto left the sheath, his body turned, and the blade went for a neck. He tracked the motion. Saw the draw complete. Saw the edge moving toward the target.
Metal met his blade with a grinding sound. It hit something that wasn't flesh. Wrong feel. Wrong sound. Chain, his mind supplied. The texture was all wrong for skin and bone.
Huh.
The clone stopped frowning at the small chip in his tanto's edge and started looking at his target instead. River headband. The guy was holding a kusarifundo, the chain still moving from blocking the strike. There was blood on his face. Running down from his cheek in a thin line.
So the slash had landed. Sort of. It had hit the cheek when the clone had been aiming for the neck. Those were different targets. Related, sure. Same general area. But one was instantly lethal and the other was just painful and embarrassing. Like ordering a bowl of ramen and getting a single noodle. Technically you got ramen, but not really.
Which meant this guy had actually blocked the strike. With a chain weapon. While being surprised.
The clone's grip tightened on his tanto.
Blocking an iai draw with a chain weapon required serious skill. Timing had to be perfect. Most people couldn't do it. Most people would've died. This guy had managed to intercept a tanto mid-draw with a kusarifundo, which was impressive enough that the clone felt obligated to acknowledge it. Silently. Because saying "nice block" out loud after trying to kill someone felt weird, even for him.
He said it anyway. "Nice block."
...
Meanwhile, another clone was at the hospital treating a wounded shinobi. Nothing life-threatening. Just minor injuries that needed some Mystical Palm and attention to make sure they healed correctly. Routine work. Someone had to do it, even if it wasn't particularly interesting. Honestly, it was pretty dull.
Then something exploded. The sound carried through the building and the walls shook from the impact.
The clone dropped what he was doing and ran. Straight toward the stairs. That's where the sound had come from, and sound like that meant problems.
He saw them before he reached the bottom floor. Two medic-nin holding their ground against three River shinobi. The medic-nin looked tired, defensive, protecting someone lying on the ground behind them. Injured, from the looks of it. The hospital wall behind them had a massive hole in it. Burning. Fire spreading along the wooden frame.
The clone didn't slow down. Still running, he formed the seal. Two more clones appeared beside him, all moving at full speed.
They saw each other at the same time. Too close, too sudden, too late to think.
The three River-nin were already mid-stride when the clones hit the corridor like a gust of pressure. In a single second, the air turned to chaos. Metal hissed, sandals scraped against tile, and chakra clashed with chakra. The two medics froze, not from fear, but from that brief disbelief that came when the war outside suddenly crashed into the hospital. Their hands hung mid-seal before instinct took over. Then they turned away, dragging the injured man back, green light already flickering between their palms. A sensible choice. They focused on keeping their comrade alive while the clones kept the fight contained.
The River-nin weren't weak. They didn't move fast for show. They moved fast because that was how they survived. One threw a kunai. Not to hit. To feel distance. The other two moved the moment the blades left his fingers.
The first clone slipped past the knife's wake and met the lead River-nin halfway. Elbow, deflect, knee, pivot. The man's guard rose high, caught the strike, countered with a low sweep that nearly took the clone's legs. The second clone blurred in from the right, bare-handed, redirecting the sweep into the wall. Impact spider-webbed plaster.
The third River-nin wove signs and a wall of fog erupted from his back. But the clones didn't let them have it. They advanced through the mist before it settled, their silhouettes carving through the white blur like ghosts that refused to stay in one piece long enough to be hit.
It stopped being a fight and became pressure—speed crushed into seconds, choices reduced to muscle.
The clones adjusted without thinking. Angles, trajectories, lines of intent. They could feel where the River-nin wanted to move before the men decided to move there.
When one River-nin feinted back, the nearest clone mirrored his stance a half-beat ahead, killing the exit. Another clone's hand brushed the man's wrist, not a grab, just an anchor point. Momentum folded. A twist. A shoulder met a wall with the sound of bone thinking twice about its structure.
Still, the River-nin didn't break.
The trio recovered as trained killers should, fanning out with blades drawn. They circled, their coordination tight enough to drown lesser opponents in it. The clones felt it, the difference in weight, the edge of discipline that came from real wars. Shinji's body remembered that rhythm. His mind, spread across three copies, processed it faster than fear could form.
Then the tempo shifted.
The clones pressed forward, cutting off escape angles, forcing the River-nin toward the support beams, the same beams the first man had used for cover seconds ago.
One clone slipped between two incoming kunai, palm-heel to the jaw, ducked a counter slash, drove a kick into the third man's knee. Pop. Pain.
The River-nin retaliated together, two blades crossing like scissors at neck height. The clone bent backward just enough, felt the steel whisper past his throat, and caught both wrists mid-arc. Stillness caught them both, thin as a held breath.
Then the second clone appeared behind them.
Tanto went in straight through the gap under the jaw. The blade knew where to go because medical knowledge was good for two things. Putting people back together and taking them apart. Same anatomical information, opposite purposes. The cut went through windpipe and jugular simultaneously. Both vital. Both severed. The math worked out to dead.
Blood sprayed out, most of it hitting the white hospital walls. That was going to stain. The cleaning staff wouldn't be happy about it.
The medic-nin flinched at the sound, just for a second, then returned to healing like machines.
One of the remaining River-nin glanced at his comrade's corpse, then at the clones. "This is a bad idea. We should just stick to the plan and go."
The other River-nin's face twisted. Rage, grief, something between the two. His teammate was dead. Butchered right in front of him.
He saw red and lunged.
The first River-nin hesitated for half a second, then followed. No choice now. Couldn't leave his partner to die alone.
...
In Tsunade's office, a different clone closed the book he'd been reading. Medical stuff. Dense medical stuff that required actual concentration to understand, which was why the explosion sound was annoying. He'd been in the middle of an interesting section too. Well, interesting by medical textbook standards, which was a pretty low bar for interesting, but still.
He got up, walked over to the window, and jumped. Windows made decent doors when you were in a hurry.
He hit the next roof over. Didn't slow down. Climbed straight to the top of the hospital, then vaulted to the neighboring building. Then another. Then another after that. Each jump got him closer to the tallest structure the outpost had. Vantage point. That's what he needed. He couldn't assess a situation properly from ground level. Too many obstructions, too little visibility. Height solved that problem.
From the top, he looked toward where the River forces should be approaching from. Couldn't see any engagement out there. No fighting visible beyond the outpost walls. Which meant Konoha had intercepted them further out, stopped them before they could reach the perimeter.
But some had gotten through anyway. The clone spotted movement inside the outpost. Five or six River-nin scattered through the area. Could be more he wasn't seeing yet, but that's what he counted so far.
The clone frowned. What were they after?
These guys weren't leaving. That was what caught his attention. Their main force got intercepted outside, probably taking heavy casualties, and only a handful managed to slip into the outpost. Normal tactical response would be to retreat, regroup, live to fight another day. But they weren't doing that. They were still moving through the outpost with purpose.
Which meant they had a mission. Something specific they needed to accomplish. Important enough that losing most of their force wasn't a reason to abort. So what was worth that kind of commitment?
Possibilities ran through his head. Could be several things. Medical resources, command infrastructure, key personnel. But all of those were defended. Hard targets. Difficult to hit with just six people unless you had a really good plan or really bad judgment.
Then it clicked.
He'd heard people talking a few days ago. Overheard it, technically, while passing by a group of jonin discussing recent operations. They'd been talking about how Suna and River had ramped up their activity. Aggressive raids. Desperate tactics. All because Konoha had been hitting their supply lines hard. Burning their food stores. Destroying their equipment caches.
Those missions had been the original's work, actually. Shinji's work. Which meant, technically, this situation was kind of the original's fault. He'd kicked the hornet's nest, and now the hornets were kicking back.
The clone's eyes went straight to the storage buildings.
They were evening the playing field.