The war at Ōsakaguchi ended faster than anyone expected, and not because the fighting calmed down.
No — the moment the Three-Tails appeared, the battlefield flipped from "clan skirmish" to "divine punishment." Even I, Amamiya Raizen, a guy who technically died once already, felt my stomach twist just looking at that turtle monster dragging half the river behind it.
The Fūma Clan never stood a chance. They understood chakra, sure. They even fought like true Warring States veterans. But understanding chakra doesn't help when a tailed beast is ripping through the front line like a bored office worker shredding company documents.
Behind the Three-Tails marched Konoha's assembled units, hardened from the Qishui Gorge campaign. Compared to them, the Fūma resistance broke like wet paper. Explosions echoed across the canyon, screams folding into the mud, and the air was thick enough with smoke to choke a Hyūga.
Mercy? This era didn't invent the word.
Even once the Fūma shinobi dropped their weapons, the orders stayed the same:
Eliminate threats. Secure the region. No loose ends.
By the time the sun fell, the earth around Ōsakaguchi had turned the same color as liver. What remained of the once-proud Fūma fell back in fragments, only for the fragments to be stepped on. Nearly two thousand clan shinobi died in that single engagement.
Word spread fast across the eastern Land of Fire.
April 3rd: Konoha crushes the Fūma at Ōsakaguchi.
April 10th: Konoha marches directly toward the Fūma heartland.
Fūma Moriki, their commander, didn't even wait for the fighting to reach his doorstep. He grabbed the survivors he could and abandoned the clan territory completely, fleeing past Fire Country borders.
By the time we arrived on April 18th, all we saw were empty houses and burned signal towers. Konoha took the land without resistance and opened the gates to the Eastern Expedition.
But the east wasn't exactly a gift basket waiting for us.
The Kurama Clan and Yuezhi Clan were already tearing each other apart.
The Qiancheng and Anlan clans got dragged into the conflict like drowning men clutching each other's ankles. Every clan was too busy fighting for their own walls to spare men to block Konoha's advance.
Honestly? Better for us. A fractured east meant faster occupation.
Sarutobi Sanbei led the first sweep, cutting through villages trembling under years of clan warfare. In May, Konoha crossed into the northeastern reaches. The Iburi Clan tried to resist. That lasted a day and a half before their patriarch fled with whoever still had limbs attached.
By June 13th, the Qiancheng and Anlan clans faced us directly. Their resistance was brutal enough to make even Yamamoto-san swear under his breath, but the result didn't change: both clans crushed, their lineages scattered.
By early July, only the southern territories remained — home to the Kurama and Yuezhi, still locked in a death embrace.
Konoha's arrival forced them to stop killing each other and start killing us instead.
Lucky us.
Baimu Mountain became a slaughter pit. Konoha pressed from the north, the Kurama illusions twisted the center, and the Yuezhi's earth release shook the southern ridge. Reinforcements came, but casualties still piled up. The stalemate dragged on, and for the first time since the Eastern Expedition began, momentum cracked.
Which is exactly when I — Amamiya Raizen, cosmic joke reincarnated into a war I didn't choose — got sent forward again.
If we broke the Kurama, the whole region would fall. If we didn't, Konoha would bleed dry.
So I went.
The Kurama clan's territory felt like a dying beast.
Houses intact but lifeless, courtyards quiet except for the faint tremor of distant jutsu. Inside the main compound, Kurama Nagatsune, their patriarch, sat surrounded by reports that probably made even seasoned commanders want to crawl into a ditch and rethink their choices.
Resources gone. Shinobi exhausted. The Yuezhi pounding at their flank. Konoha pressing from the ridge.
He muttered something about wishing Konoha would retreat.
Honestly, I get it. If I could quit this job too, I would.
But then I stepped out of the distortion in the corner of his room, because subtlety died with my last life.
He spun instantly, and the world shifted.
Fire. Blazing up the walls, pooling at my feet, coiling around me.
The Kurama's illusion inheritance.
Five senses gone. Pain delivered directly into the nerves.
It hurt like hell. Not metaphorical hell. Real, physical, "I hate my life choices" hell.
"Bloodline illusion, huh?" I whispered, feeling the flames lick up my legs. "Nice trick."
My right eye burned scarlet. Reality cracked apart like cheap glass.
The inferno shattered.
And Kurama Nagatsune finally realized I wasn't here to be burned alive.
I was here to decide their future.