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Twelve Hours Later
The last jōnin fell under Ay's palm, his chest caving in with the force of the blow. Steam rose from B's tails where blood and snow had met.
The mine was silent except for the faint drip of melting frost.
They didn't stop. For the next six hours, they combed the surrounding territory in widening circles. Anyone who had fled earlier was hunted down. No runners, no messengers. If even one shinobi made it to another Konoha post, the entire strike would be for nothing.
By the end, the snow was scattered with dark stains, the air heavy with the metallic tang of blood.
--
Konoha's losses were staggering, eight hundred and fifty dead, most of them caught in a fight they hadn't expected. Around fifty had escaped the initial battle, only to be buried under rockslides, run down in the snow, or cut down before they could cross the Frost border. The mine was theirs intact, fully stocked.
Kumo's losses were none. But that didn't mean the strike was free.
Ay's lightning cloak flickered weakly now, the glow uneven, his body marked with bruises where repeated impacts had finally forced through his guard. B's breathing was heavy, Gyūki silent in his head, resting. They had chakra left, enough to fight a small unit, maybe but not enough to challenge another kage-level shinobi if one appeared.
They both knew it.
The Retreat
"We go," Ay said finally. "Before someone stronger comes."
They left nothing behind. The last crates of chakra ore were sealed, the mining tunnels blocked to prevent collapse, and a coded report was sent by messenger hawk one to the Raikage himself, one to rally the Kumo shinobi stationed elsewhere in Frost to secure the site.
By the time they vanished into the snow, the Land of Hot water base was nothing but a graveyard.
And far away in Kumo, Kaien sat on Aya's lap as the first fragments of that report arrived—eyes wide, already imagining the next move before the ink had even dried.
--
Three days passed
Along the border of the Land of Hot Water, where Konoha and Kumo forces had clashed only a week ago, the air hung heavy. The battlefield lay untouched—dead bodies half-buried in drifting snow, weapons scattered where they had been dropped mid-swing. No messengers had returned to Konoha. No birds had flown south with urgent reports.
In Konoha's forward camp miles away, frustration was boiling. The silence wasn't natural. Even in defeat, some word should have come back. Instead, they had nothing—no warning, no count of survivors, not even a rumor. The commanders knew what that meant.
Someone had erased the entire line.
--
The Kumo reinforcements moved like a dark wave over the snow-covered terrain. Eight hundred shinobi—jōnin, chūnin, and a scattering of genin for logistics—had crossed into Hot water. They had marched for three days straight, pausing only for the briefest rests, rotating point teams so no single unit collapsed from exhaustion, while Ay & Bee were fighting against konoha.
Their faces told the story. The younger shinobi carried wide eyes and stiff shoulders—half excitement, half fear. The veterans were quieter, eyes scanning every rise and hollow for signs of movement. They had all heard about the destruction of the Konoha base, but hearing it and seeing it were two different things.
One hundred more shinobi had arrived the day before, already setting up a camp in two distinct locations—one just ten kilometers from the ruins of the Konoha stronghold, the other twenty-five kilometers back. It wasn't random.
The Raikage's orders were clear:
The first front would be close enough to strike and defend the captured territory.The second front would stay far enough to guard supplies, rest incoming troops, and act as reinforcement if Konoha tried a counterattack. and the second front would also provide support on Iwa front if necessary.
The split was practical and oddly familiar.
--
When Ay had issued those orders, some of the senior captains had exchanged glances. This wasn't standard Kumo field doctrine. It was a layered defense—a staggered positioning meant to keep front-line fighters fresh and prevent supply depots from being overrun.
It was the kind of thinking Ay had dismissed before… until a certain nephew might have suggested the idea.
2 days back in Raikage's office, Kaien had babbled over a map, pointing with tiny fingers—moving carved soldier tokens from the "front" to the "back" and back again. Then he'd pushed a pile of "supplies" (in reality, dried beans from Aya's kitchen) far behind the little wooden fort.
Aya had laughed, calling it just baby play. But Ay had stared at it longer than he admitted.
Now, with real shinobi instead of carved tokens, the system was in place.
Two fronts. Rotating tired fighters. Supplies kept far from immediate danger. Reinforcements within reach of both the Hot water mine and the Iwa border.
The Raikage wouldn't say it aloud, but he knew where the seed of the plan had come from.
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