Shunsui did not know which monsters or how many monsters the Kumo shinobi would be able to summon once they entered the game zone, but he remained confident that the defences would hold.
The metal walls and the different towers had been built with the exact purpose of stopping waves of attackers, and the one hundred Konoha shinobi under his command understood their roles.
He stood inside the central Battery Tower and watched the empty valley beyond the walls while a small smirk crossed his face. 'Honestly where is the fun in playing a game if you are not going to bend the rules just a little bit?'
One of the sensors who kept watch from a high point along the wall suddenly shouted a clear warning. "Kumo's army is coming."
The call travelled through the Yamanaka network so that every tower controller heard it at the same moment.
Shunsui answered at once with calm authority. "Alright snipers move to your positions. Make sure to hit as many of them as you can before they reach the zone of the game."
A group of shinobi nodded and took their places. Most of them belonged to the Uchiha clan and had been chosen exactly for this first stage of the defence.
They climbed into special towers that held long metal tubes shaped like the sniper rifles.
Each rifle was fitted with a clear scope that let the user see far across the valley. The Uchiha activated their Sharingan and the world in front of the scopes slowed down.
The movements of the distant Cloud army became easier to track and the exact point where a bullet needed to strike stood out in sharp detail.
Years of shuriken training had already taught them how to lead a moving target and how to adjust for distance and wind. Now those same skills were applied to the new weapons the game had provided.
Shunsui had already explained to them what the weapons were and what they did.
The Kumo army needed to reach the edge of the game zone before they would gain the ability to summon the monsters that the Tower Defense rules granted to the attacking side.
Until they crossed that invisible line they possessed no special advantage and remained targets walking across open ground.
Shunsui waited until the front ranks of the Cloud force came within the extreme range of the rifles and then gave the single order that started the battle.
"FIRE."
Soft but rapid sounds filled the air around the defensive towers. OSHSHSHhhhh. OSHSHSHhhhh. The noise repeated from many directions as the Uchiha snipers began their work.
----
On the other side of the valley Dodai marched at the head of the Cloud force that Ā, the son had ordered to take the critical path.
He was an experienced jonin who understood both strategy and the value of caution, yet the sight that met his eyes when the army came within clear view made him slow his steps.
Konoha had somehow built a complete fortress that covered a good amount of area. High metal walls rose from the ground and long towers peeked over the top at regular intervals.
Low murmurs of surprise and confusion spread through the ranks of the Kumo army. Their own scouts had reported nothing more than open ground and a few Leaf patrols less than an hour earlier.
Dodai stared at the sudden fortress and spoke under his breath. "A metal fortress how? There is no way that they managed to gather so much metal and build a fortress in only one hour. Do not tell me that they have someone with Magnet Release like my brother Toroi? There is no other way they would have raised such a large metal structure without that kind of power."
The idea that Konoha might possess a user of the rare bloodline troubled him deeply. He could also see the tall towers that stood throughout the enclosed area and rose just high enough to look over the walls. "What is Konoha planning?" he murmured.
After a moment of thought, he ordered his troops to charge forward but to stay careful and remain on guard for traps.
He told himself that a metal fortress might stop ordinary civilian army yet it would not stop trained Kumo shinobi.
Any of his men could walk straight up the vertical walls with ordinary chakra adhesion and the barrier would become meaningless.
The army picked up speed and advanced toward the shining walls in a broad formation.
As they drew closer Dodai suddenly heard a series of strange loud sounds that cut through the normal noise of marching feet. OSHSHSHhhhh. OSHSHSHhhhh. The noises came in short bursts from the direction of the fortress.
He turned his head just in time to see one of his men develop a neat hole in the centre of his forehead and collapse without a cry.
All around the front ranks of the Kumo army the same soft sounds continued and more bodies slumped to the ground with similar holes in their heads or chests.
"Defensive jutsus!" Dodai shouted immediately. Earth walls rose in thick layers along the line of advance as every earth nature user reacted to the command.
The barriers should have stopped ordinary projectiles yet whatever the Konoha shinobi were firing still pierced through the stone in many places and struck Kumo fighters behind the cover. At least the walls prevented clean hits to vital points and caused some of the attacks to miss completely.
Dodai looked down and saw a small metal shell that had hit the ground beside his own foot.
He picked it up and turned it over in his fingers. The object was a little hot. It had clearly been fired with enormous speed. "They are firing metal balls at us at such a high speed. Is it an application of Lightning or Wind Release meant to increase the speed of them? It feels similar to the Wind Bullet technique or perhaps comparable to the Water Gun jutsu that the Second Mizukage once used."
The comparison gave him a framework he could understand yet it did not tell him how to stop the continuous rain of metal.
He could not halt the charge. The army had already suffered heavy casualties the previous day and another retreat so soon would damage the morale of every remaining fighter.
Dodai ordered the ranks to keep advancing even while more men fell with holes punched through their bodies.
The earth release users kept on creating walls in front of them regularly and the medical ninja tried to drag the wounded out of the line of fire. The distance to the metal fortress shrank steadily despite the losses.
When the front line of the Kumo army finally was closer to the metal fotress something new and completely unexpected happened.
Several of Dodai's own men suddenly had summoned large chakra beasts that charged straight at the metal walls.
The beasts smashed into the walls with real force and began to climb or claw at them. To Dodai's knowledge none of the men under his command possessed summoning contracts of any kind. The sight left him openly confused.
He stared at the creatures and spoke the only question that fitted the impossible scene. "What is going on here? Are the gods helping us somehow or are they against us?"
-------Author Notes--------
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