"Kakashi, Rin!"
Obito laughed exuberantly.
"How awesome is my three-tomoe Sharingan? Some of those Iwa shinobi even tried sneaking into our lines with invisibility techniques, and I saw right through them at a glance!"
"Yeah, yeah, very impressive..."
Kakashi shrugged. "The Uchiha Clan really is powerful!"
"You're no slouch either. You've inherited White Fang-sama's swordsmanship, and with chakra of all five natures, you're strong whether it's close-quarters combat or fighting across different kinds of terrain..."
Hearing Kakashi praise him, Obito practically had his nose in the air.
"If you hadn't cut down that Iwa shinobi who attacked me the other day, I probably would've been in trouble."
Rin listened with a smile as the two alternated between taking jabs at each other and praising each other.
Aside from serving as the team's medical-nin, her role in the squad also involved acting as something of a "glue" and "therapist."
"Don't say that. Without your Sharingan, even if I hadn't died, I would've ended up crippled..."
Kakashi sighed. "War is even more brutal than I imagined. Good thing we're Konoha shinobi..."
Obito and Rin grew solemn and silently nodded.
Compared with the bounty hunters, wandering shinobi, bandits, and the like they normally encountered on missions, the shinobi they faced from enemy nations during a war were not only stronger individually, but also fought as part of an organized system.
They could employ large-scale coordinated war ninjutsu, had a steady stream of reinforcements behind them, and there were no such things as mission ranks on the battlefield. Even a chūnin could end up running into an enemy jinchūriki.
That was the uncertainty of the battlefield.
"The 'Nawaki' medical scroll developed under the Hokage's direction has saved so many lives..."
Rin said softly, "And there's also all the first-aid knowledge that's been taught to everyone. But even with all that, there are still casualties."
"How could there possibly be a war without sacrifices?"
Kakashi shook his head.
"Nawaki-sama was the First Hokage's grandson, and even he was among the first to go to the battlefield. This time, the Hokage himself is in charge of the Kirigakure front. And remember, Kiri committed its entire army—the Mizukage and the Tailed Beasts were deployed too..."
"I knew the Hokage was the strongest!" Obito exclaimed, his face lighting up.
"Oh, right. I wonder if Grandma's been wiping down my photo properly. I specifically reminded her..."
Kakashi's face went blank.
It had already been an entire day since he'd last heard Obito tell the story of how the Hokage had used Ice Release and taken a photo with him...
So the cooldown was finally over, and he was about to start rambling about it again?
Rin chuckled as well.
When the battle reports about the Nine-Tails and the Kirigakure front arrived, all the Konoha shinobi had been greatly encouraged, but Obito had undoubtedly been the most obvious about it.
Whenever they had time to rest, Obito would often drag Kakashi and Rin into imagining just how heroic the Hokage must have looked as he crushed the invading forces of Kirigakure...
Especially after the Konoha shinobi returning from the Kirigakure front as reinforcements started telling everyone that the Hokage had gone into battle wearing the dark-black heavy armor "Madara" had worn during the Warring States Period, fighting in a manner that could only be described as "unrivaled under heaven"!
That news left Obito, Fugaku, Isshin, and the rest of the Uchiha practically glowing with pride. Every last one of them looked as though they'd been injected with Hashirama cells, throwing themselves into battle with incredible zeal!
They had even become somewhat aggressive, straying slightly from the established strategy of "defend and counterattack."
Still, on the whole, the Uchiha shinobi were charging at the forefront and producing remarkable results.
So much so that Jiraiya couldn't even bring himself to tell the Uchiha to take it easier and that there was no need to fight quite so ferociously...
Because even the normally steady Isshin was getting carried away...
"Of course she is. Grandma's a very thoughtful person. Not only will she take good care of that photo of you and the Hokage, she'll also be praying for all of us—for Minato-sensei, and for every Konoha shinobi..."
Kakashi spoke softly.
After the war began, Team Minato had been assigned to the Iwagakure front rather than accompanying Minato to the Kumogakure front.
Compared with the other fronts, Iwa had greater numbers but lower average individual quality, making this a more suitable place for young shinobi who had only recently begun their careers to gain battlefield experience.
Although they were Minato's students, once war broke out, the Flying Thunder God Technique was usually employed in connection with strategic-level objectives. There was no way Minato could spare the attention to look after them.
Neither Obito nor Kakashi had any objections to this. In fact, they strongly agreed with the decision.
"Haha! Once I become a hero of Konoha, Grandma's definitely going to be proud of me!"
Obito's mood suddenly sank a little as he rubbed his aching eyes.
"Kakashi, when you mentioned Nawaki-sama just now... it really is such a shame. He was so young. Man..."
"At least his name will live on together with the village forever..."
Kakashi paused slightly. "Are your eyes okay?"
Activating the Sharingan consumed chakra. It wasn't only excessive use of the Mangekyō that could cause a decline in eyesight.
The same applied even to the comparatively low-consumption Byakugan.
In extreme cases, its user's vision could deteriorate to the point where they could barely distinguish people from animals. In the high-intensity environment of a battlefield, they had to carefully manage how frequently they used their dōjutsu.
Kakashi looked at Obito with concern.
He had noticed something else as well...
The tense atmosphere of the battlefield seemed to have left Obito's nerves in an unnaturally heightened state.
Compared to when he was back in the village, he had become much more sentimental.
"I'm fine. Don't worry about me..."
"I'll be okay after resting my eyes for a bit. Fugaku-sama taught me that eyes are meant to be used—the more you use them, the sharper they get!"
Obito hurriedly blinked a few times, then changed the subject. "Come on, let's scout out some more enemy activity today!"
"Iwa's attacks have been getting fiercer lately. The village calls us the 'Golden Generation,' so we ought to do more than the other shinobi!"
Kakashi's face was full of question marks.
Even he had heard the little story about Isshin refusing to let Fugaku teach his son...
And Obito wanted to listen to that guy?
Kakashi knew perfectly well that this Konoha Council Member had died twice on the operating table without batting an eye, all for the sake of obtaining Magnet Release...
But before Kakashi could say anything, Obito shot forward like an arrow loosed from a bow.
And then...
Flames and smoke filled the sky!
Kakashi and Nohara Rin's eyes flew wide open as they screamed in horror, "Obito!"
He had stepped on an explosive tag!
"My leg..." Obito gritted his teeth, but a beastlike howl still tore from his throat.
It hurt...
It hurt like hell!
His left leg had already become useless, while his left arm and torso were scorched black as well...
A sense of absurdity flashed through Obito's mind.
They had just been talking about Nawaki...
And now the same thing had happened to him?
"How could this happen? We already checked this entire area!"
Kakashi rushed in front of Obito. After quickly sweeping his gaze over their surroundings and judging that there was no ambush, his hands rapidly formed seals.
Earth Release: Earth Wave!
Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!
With the eruption of chakra, the ground before Kakashi heaved violently like waves.
At the same time, a thick earthen wall with an observation slit in the middle rose before him, shielding both Kakashi and Rin as she worked frantically to save Obito.
Under the vibrations from the enhanced Earth Wave, explosions erupted one after another!
Chunks of earth flew in every direction like throwing knives, peppering the Earth-Style Wall!
Kakashi stared intently at the scene, a fine layer of sweat forming across his forehead.
"I get it... Iwa used a special method to bury the explosive tags deeper underground, then used Earth Release to camouflage them and turn the surrounding earth into fragmentation! No wonder we didn't see them..."
"We have to get back and report this to Isshin-sama and Jiraiya-sama as soon as possible!"
Previously, Konoha's Byakugan users and sensory ninjutsu had conducted large-scale sweeps of the battlefield, exposing most of Iwa's ambushes and forcing the enemy to expend enormous amounts of resources.
But Iwa was no pushover either.
As one of the Five Great Shinobi Villages in every sense of the term, they had quickly adapted their detonation methods to the battlefield situation in order to counter Konoha.
Kakashi's gaze sharpened. He opened a small gap in the earthen wall and cautiously cast another jutsu toward the ruined structures in the distance.
Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!
Under the scorching flames, several patches of ground exploded once again, sending fire spraying everywhere!
Kakashi keenly noticed strange clay-like substances appearing amid the upheaval and explosions.
"It's not just explosive tags. This might be some special secret technique used by Iwa's Explosion Corps..."
Kakashi murmured, "The intensity of the war has escalated again. The Iwa shinobi must be getting anxious after failing to break through for so long. They're starting to bring out techniques they've been keeping in reserve..."
"Ha, but we were the ones who found it!" Obito forced down the pain and managed a strained smile.
"So what if Iwa changed tactics? Once we report this to Clan Head Isshin and Jiraiya-sama, they'll definitely figure out a way to counter these little tricks. Then they won't be able to hurt any of our comrades with them!"
A bitter ache welled up inside Kakashi.
Obito was right, of course.
They had been the ones caught in the blast, but with Konoha's ability to adapt and its wealth of ninjutsu resources, the village would undoubtedly find a countermeasure quickly. The enemy wouldn't get to enjoy this advantage for long...
But seeing Obito like this, acting as though his own injuries didn't matter at all, left Kakashi with feelings he couldn't put into words.
He could see the Will of Fire burning within his friend...
"Obito, hang in there!"
Rin drew on all of her chakra. She first cleaned Obito's wounds, then quickly pulled out a medical scroll to stop the bleeding and begin treating his injuries.
At the same time, she used the advanced medical ninjutsu, the Mystical Palm Technique, to treat the damage to Obito's internal organs and prevent severe internal bleeding from causing multiple organ failure.
"If I were from any other hidden village, a blast like that probably would've killed me already..."
Obito endured the agony, yet somehow still had the presence of mind to reflect on it.
"I've been slacking off! I should've listened to Fugaku-sama and seriously studied Izanagi and the Transcription Seal ages ago, but those two techniques are way too difficult!"
Kakashi didn't even know what to say anymore.
On the Kumogakure front, Isshin had broken with "ancestral law" to demonstrate the Uchiha Clan's determination to protect Konoha, bringing back Izanagi, the Kinjutsu that had once triggered civil war within the Uchiha Clan.
He ordered every Uchiha with a three-tomoe Sharingan to study it seriously, alongside the Transcription Seal.
And Fugaku, who had already used Izanagi twice, was put in charge of supervising their training and making sure it was actually carried out.
The proposal received widespread support from the clan's three-tomoe Sharingan users.
This way, every Uchiha effectively had three lives. Every single one of them would become a legendary king of being impossible to kill...
Some people did raise doubts: what if the situation from the Warring States Period repeated itself?
But a few words from Fugaku put those objections to rest. This was what he said:
"Do none of you have any self-awareness? Back then, weren't the clansmen who stabbed their own people in the back only doing it because they thought Izanagi made them invincible?"
"Forget two lives—even if you had ten, which of you could beat the Hokage? And if you can't beat him, then just wait for Konoha to put a bounty on your head! Think it over yourselves. The iron fist of the Will of Fire works a hell of a lot better than Izanami!"
The words were crude, but they made perfect sense.
Back in the Warring States Period, even taking a comrade's eyes didn't necessarily mean you had to defect. That was simply the environment of the time.
But in the Konoha era of today, that was absolutely something the Will of Fire would never forgive.
Besides, in a village advancing simultaneously in cursed seals, bloodlines, Hashirama cells, ninja tools, and countless other areas, throwing away so many resources just for an extra life and becoming a rogue ninja despised by everyone simply wasn't worth it.
Wasn't it better to return to Konoha as a hero admired by everyone?
And although the Hokage was good-natured, while practicing the Evil Sealing Method, he had also left an extremely deep impression on every Uchiha.
Sharingan pressure simply didn't work on this man. Three tomoe or Mangekyō, it made no difference...
"Kakashi, get Obito on your back! We need to retreat!"
Rin let out a long breath, then tightened the tourniquet and the bandages around Obito's wounds.
"Done!"
But at that moment, Kakashi's expression suddenly changed.
Several unfamiliar chakra signatures were erupting along their retreat route!
Two of them were particularly distinctive. Their violent, ominous presence made it almost certain that they came from Tailed Beasts...
"What's going on?!"
Kakashi forced himself to calm down, running through the battlefield situation again and again in his mind before suddenly saying: "I get it! The reason these Iwa shinobi went to such expense and broke from their usual tactics to deploy all these costly explosive tags and Explosion Release constructs on both flanks is because they're launching a surprise all-out offensive today..."
"Iwa planted these minefields to stop our shinobi from flanking them!"
In an instant, Kakashi understood the key to the situation.
Logically speaking, Konoha was the defender while Iwagakure was the attacker. Even if the Uchiha tended to fight aggressively, there was no reason for Iwa to establish such extensive minefields.
That left only one possibility: these were temporary deployments intended to restrict the mobility of Konoha's shinobi.
At that moment, several enormous earth spears came hurtling toward them from behind!
Kakashi's pupils contracted. He formed hand seals once again, using his masterful Earth Release to neutralize the enemy attack.
"Follow me! Don't fall behind!"
"Iwagakure has launched a frontal assault. Their flanks won't just have minefields—they'll have elite shinobi patrolling them too. We wandered into this area by mistake..."
"Damn it, we've pushed them into desperation!"
Kakashi hoisted Obito onto his back, called to Rin, and immediately broke into a desperate retreat.
At that moment, words Sakumo had once told him suddenly surfaced in his mind.
"Kakashi, don't let Konoha's strength make you arrogant or cause you to underestimate the enemy."
"A strategic advantage never means absolute tactical safety."
Even if the Iwa shinobi were at an overall disadvantage, as long as they could concentrate several times the manpower at a specific place and time, they could create a local asymmetric advantage.
The attacking side might lack the advantage of terrain, but it held the initiative.
War made both the strong and the weak bleed. One simply bled more, while the other bled less...
But in the end, both would still be wounded.
"Don't let those little brats get away!"
"I saw the Uchiha clan crest on one of those kids! Tsuchikage-sama has wanted to capture an Uchiha alive for a long time!" the Iwa jōnin Kakkō shouted.
"Got it. Those three aren't getting away..." Another Iwa jōnin, Taiseki, narrowed his eyes.
"They've got nowhere to run. Han-sama and Rōshi-sama have already sealed off that direction. Even leaving the edge of the battlefield and hiding in the mountain caves won't help them. One of them is wounded and another is a medical-nin. How fast could they possibly run?"
"Be careful. Capture them alive if at all possible. It's not often we run into one who can't resurrect and has gotten separated from the others..." The Iwa jōnin Mahiru shook his head, a trace of lingering fear flashing through his eyes.
A few days earlier, one of his closest friends, a veteran Iwagakure jōnin, had worked together with several others to kill an Uchiha with a three-tomoe Sharingan. Before they even had time to celebrate—
The man had reappeared behind him like a ghost, run him through with a blade, then escaped using the Hiding with Camouflage Technique while laughing his head off.
There had always been a saying among jōnin throughout the shinobi world:
'Unless you're strong enough to bear the title of Kage, avoid fighting an Uchiha with a three-tomoe Sharingan one-on-one whenever possible...'
That was universally acknowledged.
Now, that saying had become an ironclad rule.
How the hell was anyone supposed to deal with an opponent who could casually resurrect and even choose where to reappear?
Wasn't that just outright cheating?!
The meticulous tactical logic traditional shinobi relied upon was overturned in an instant by the sheer absurdity of Izanagi.
Following reasoning similar to the Fourth Raikage's mistaken assessment of Konoha's internal situation, once Madara's contributions began receiving recognition again within Konoha, Ōnoki also instinctively assumed that Sarutobi Hiruzen had been brought under someone's control...
You're the successor to the First Hokage. Unless there was something wrong with your head, why would you ever speak up for Madara?
That immediately triggered Ōnoki's "Madara phobia." Anxiety swallowed him in an instant, sending his thoughts spiraling toward all sorts of terrible possibilities.
On top of that, the Uchiha Clan had been throwing themselves into Konoha's war effort with reckless intensity. Even Izanagi, a technique that had been forbidden since the Warring States Period, had been unsealed. That only made Ōnoki more certain of his suspicions.
That was why he was so desperate to capture a sufficiently high-ranking Uchiha alive and interrogate him about what was really going on inside the Uchiha Clan and Konoha.
In Ōnoki's view, for the Uchiha Clan to be acting like this, there was most likely "a boy or young man with the potential to become another Madara" among them. Otherwise, Konoha could never have made such enormous concessions to the Uchiha.
And today...
Was also the day Ōnoki and the Third Raikage had agreed upon to launch a head-on assault against Konoha's defensive lines.
Iwagakure's jinchūriki Han and Rōshi, his son Kitsuchi, elite Explosion Release and Lava Release units, and a force of jōnin formed an exceptionally powerful vanguard.
Ōnoki's thinking was very similar to the Third Raikage's. Both coveted Konoha's medical chakra scrolls and ninja tools.
But Ōnoki's main objective was to dispel his own fear of "Madara."
Anxiety driven by catastrophic thinking had made even the normally levelheaded Ōnoki somewhat aggressive. All he wanted was to capture a high-ranking Uchiha or a Konoha commander alive and find out exactly what was going on with the Uchiha!
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