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15 Advanced Chapters @ patreon.com/aizenDuchiha0
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The Raikage's office was quiet that morning too quiet for a building where messengers usually ran in and out every few minutes. The 3rd Raikage sat at his desk, one hand resting on a half-unrolled map of the continent. His eyes were sharp, but his shoulders were heavy with the weight of years of conflict.
In the corner, Ay leaned against the wall, arms crossed, impatience rolling off him like heat. It has been 2 months and we are still not participating. Killer B was slouched on the long sofa, tapping his fingers in a steady rhythm, mouthing rhymes he hadn't spoken aloud yet. Aya sat beside him with Kaien in her lap, the boy now eight months old, healthy, and far too observant for his age.
Renga was reading through a thick stack of reports, standing as always his back perfectly straight.
Then the runner arrived.
A chūnin in travel-stained gear bowed sharply and handed the scroll to Renga. He scanned it quickly, eyes narrowing.
"From our waterfall agents, Lord Raikage," she said, moving forward to place the message on his desk.
The Raikage broke the seal, eyes darting over the coded script. His lips pulled into the faintest smirk. "At last," he muttered. "The opportunity we have waited for."
--
Two months earlier, Konoha had invested heavily in reinforcing their warfront against Iwa. The constant skirmishes in the Land of Grass had bled both sides dry. The fighting was slow, costly, and brutal neither village could afford a decisive loss.
Expecting a strike from Kumo that never came, Konoha had pulled nearly a quarter of its forces stationed in the Hidden Hot Water Village to reinforce the Land of Grass. Those shinobi were now on the move three hundred trained shinobi, slipping through the continent along a stealth route.
They couldn't travel directly from the Land of Hot Water to the Land of Grass the terrain was too mountainous, too slow. Instead, they'd gone north-west, into an unclaimed country. Passing near what would one day become the Sound Village, they skirted around contested valleys, aiming to enter the Land of Grass from the east.
But nothing that large could move completely unseen.
Kumo's spies in the Land of Waterfalls had spotted them three days ago. And now the news was here.
The 3rd Raikage's voice cut through the silence. "Three hundred Konoha shinobi, exposed. Their base in the Land of Hot Water is weakened numbers cut by a quarter. This is the moment."
Ay stepped forward without hesitation. "Then we move. A battalion, eight hundred shinobi, strike hard, take the base, cut their supply lines. We can finally recover from the Second War's losses."
The Raikage nodded once, already reaching for another map. "Agreed. We mobilize at once. Ay, you will lead—"
"Wait," a small voice piped up.
--
Everyone turned.
Kaien was leaning forward in Aya's lap, one small hand gripping a folded map he'd somehow taken from the table when no one was looking. His face was serious not the blank curiosity of a baby, but the focused concentration of someone thinking.
He ignored Aya's soft, "Kaien, what are you doing?" and began to speak.
"If a lot of people go… bad people see them," Kaien said slowly, the words clear but still touched with that round softness of baby speech. "Bad people… they tell other bad people. Then bad people know we're coming."
Ay raised an eyebrow. Killer B grinned, leaning in to hear better.
"So…" Kaien's tiny finger jabbed at a spot on the map, far from the marked enemy route. "We… make them look here." He pointed again, far from the Konoha column. "With strong people, like wahhh!"—he threw both arms up for emphasis, as though mimicking a surprise attack—"And then… when they all go look… we bring lots more people… and wahhh again!"
For a second, no one moved. Aya blinked at her son. Ay's brows had risen slightly, just enough to register surprise. Renga was still, watching carefully. Killer B started to chuckle.
The 3rd Raikage threw his head back and laughed. "Hah! Out of the mouths of children." His booming voice filled the room. "He's right."
Ay frowned slightly. "You're saying—"
"I'm saying," the Raikage cut in, "that maybe I've been too eager to throw the whole battalion at them. Too predictable. Too visible. Any decent scout will see us moving long before we arrive."
He tapped the map, tracing a line with his thick finger. "But if we send only a handful elite shinobi, fast enough to reach them before word spreads they can hit hard, break the enemy's spine before their reinforcements can respond."
"And once they've struck," Renga added, "the larger force can move in to seize the base without a drawn-out battle."
"Exactly," the Raikage said, nodding. "Two blows. One to cripple, one to claim."