Chapter 420: Unexpected Arrivals
A low, dark chuckle broke the suffocating silence of the war room.
Uchiha Akira leaned back in his chair, his dark eyes tracing the tactical map spread across the heavy oak desk. "An iron wall?" he mused, the amusement in his voice sharp and cold. "Do they truly believe that just by huddling together in the dirt, they have forged an impenetrable fortress?"
He shook his head slowly, dismissing the clustered enemy markers with a wave of his hand. "A flock of sheep, even when herded together, remains nothing more than a feast for a predator. The current Konoha has absolutely no reason to fear this so-called Ninja Allied Forces. On the contrary, the fact that they have concentrated their military might in a single location is exactly the opportunity we need."
Akira paused, his gaze shifting across the table. "How is the deployment on the front lines?"
Nara Shikaku exhaled, his posture straightening as his analytical mind caught up with Akira's ruthless logic. He reached out and tapped a specific coordinate on the map. "Jiraiya-sama reacted with exceptional speed. The moment his reconnaissance teams confirmed that the main force of Iwagakure had abandoned the Land of Grass and pivoted toward the Land of Rice Fields, he adjusted his strategy."
Shikaku dragged his finger across the parchment, tracing a path through the drawn topography. "He left only a skeleton crew of scouts at the border of the Land of Grass. Immediately after, he led our main forces on a brutal forced march through the night."
His finger stopped at the intersection between the Land of Fire and the Land of Rice Fields. He placed a wooden token down. It bore the crest of the red and white fan.
"As of this morning, Jiraiya-sama's troops have secured this position," Shikaku reported, his voice steady. "They have successfully rendezvoused with the Uchiha elite forces commanded by Clan Head Fugaku. The two armies have interlocked their formations. They are now perfectly positioned to choke off the vital southern passage, completely blocking the Allied forces from advancing."
Akira nodded, a faint hum of approval leaving his throat. "That old toad. He usually plays the fool, but his predatory instincts remain razor-sharp when the blood starts flowing."
If Jiraiya had been blinded by the prospect of an easy victory and pushed into the Land of Grass, Konoha's forces would have been stretched dangerously thin. Had the Allied forces launched a sudden flanking assault from the Land of Rice Fields at that exact moment, Fugaku's Uchiha elites would have been crushed under immense pressure. Now, with both armies merged into a single vanguard, Konoha's fist was clenched tight, ready to shatter whatever it struck.
"Akira, what is your next move?" Tsunade asked, her arms crossed beneath her chest as she watched him intently.
Meeting her gaze, Akira's expression remained entirely unbothered. "We have fully integrated the military assets of Sunagakure and Kirigakure. While our raw numbers might not match the combined bulk of the Allied forces, contending with them in open warfare is not an issue."
He reached over the map, plucking several small flags representing the minor hidden villages. He tossed them aside. They clattered uselessly against the edge of the desk.
"These minor villages are irrelevant. They are nothing more than cannon fodder," Akira stated, his tone dripping with absolute disdain. "A disorganized rabble, no matter how vast their numbers, will only break against the blades of Konoha's elites."
A cold, mocking smile touched the corners of his mouth. ", do not forget the most crucial detail. Kumogakure and Iwagakure have been stripped of the Four-Tails, the Five-Tails, and the Eight-Tails. Their absolute combat power has been crippled. Having lost their strategic deterrents, what exactly do they plan to fight us with?"
A sharp light ignited in Shikaku's eyes. The heavy dread that had previously weighed down the room began to evaporate. Until this moment, the sheer psychological weight of the title 'Ninja Allied Forces' had clouded their judgment, forcing them to focus entirely on the terrifying numerical disparity.
But war was never a simple equation of addition and subtraction. Konoha now commanded the resources of three Great Shinobi Nations. And with Uchiha Akira's monstrous, world-breaking strength anchoring their side, their high-end combat power eclipsed the enemy entirely.
"You are entirely correct, Hokage-sama," Shikaku said, his pen moving furiously across his notepad as tactical formations rapidly assembled in his mind. "In a conventional clash, we hold the absolute high ground in both geography and morale. With the Uchiha elites acting as the lead and Jiraiya-sama directing the flow of battle, our probability of total victory exceeds eighty percent."
Akira nodded, but the faint smirk vanished from his face, replaced by a chilling solemnity. "The conventional battlefield is not our primary concern. The true threat lies with the Edo Tensei."
The temperature in the Hokage's office seemed to plummet. Tsunade's jaw tightened, and Shikaku's pen froze. The Impure World Reincarnation. The forbidden jutsu wielded by Orochimaru and Obito was the single greatest variable in this entire war.
"We must operate under the assumption that the most monstrous figures in shinobi history will be dragged back from the pure land," Akira warned, his voice dropping to a dangerous register. "Men and women whose very names once commanded absolute terror. These enemies do not breathe. They do not tire. They possess limitless chakra, and they cannot be slaughtered by conventional means."
Tsunade uncrossed her arms, her hands planting firmly on the desk. "If they deploy an army of the dead, our conventional forces will be butchered. Standard kunai and explosive tags are utterly useless against regenerating corpses."
Akira shifted his gaze back to the Nara clan head. "Therefore, effective immediately, every single combat company must be assigned shinobi proficient in Sealing Jutsu. Shikaku."
Shikaku snapped to attention, his spine rigid.
"Draft the mobilization orders for the entire Sealing Squad. Break them down and distribute them across the vanguard," Akira commanded, his words leaving no room for debate. "Simultaneously, pull every Chunin who possesses excellent chakra control from the reserves. Put them through a brutal crash course. I do not expect them to seal Tailed Beasts. They only need to master basic binding seals, specifically the Cloth Binding Technique."
He leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. "The heavy assault units will be responsible for crushing the reincarnated shinobi and immobilizing them. These newly trained sealers will only step in to apply the final binding tags. Make it happen."
"Understood!" Shikaku replied, already reassigning the personnel markers on his tactical board.
"Additionally..." Akira paused. He turned his head, his dark eyes locking onto the window. He stared out at the horizon, as if his gaze could pierce through the miles of forests and mountains to witness the distant battlefield. "Send an emergency transmission to Jiraiya and Fugaku."
The room waited in absolute silence.
"If they encounter an anomaly... a reincarnated monster they absolutely cannot suppress..." Akira's voice was a quiet, lethal promise. "Tell them not to throw their lives away. They are to immediately fire the signal flare. I will personally take the field and erase the problem."
Rolling his shoulders, Akira stood up from the desk. "That concludes today's war council. Have every department execute their assigned directives immediately. Dismissed."
Shikaku offered a deep, respectful bow before gathering his documents and swiftly exiting the office.
Meanwhile.
Several kilometers outside the protective walls of Konoha, high above the dense canopy of the surrounding forest.
The tranquil, cloudless sky violently warped. There was no warning. A sickening, high-pitched hum tore through the air as the very fabric of space twisted into a swirling, jagged vortex.
Two battered figures were violently spat out from the void, plummeting toward the earth.
"Waaaaah—!"
"Sasuke-ojisan! We're going to crash!"
A young boy clad in a black tracksuit, his bright blond hair whipping wildly in the wind, flailed his arms and legs in absolute panic as gravity claimed him.
Right beside him, an adult man wrapped in a tattered black cloak was twisting his body with practiced grace. Despite missing his left arm, his movements were precise and calm.
These two were none other than Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Boruto, violently displaced from a parallel future.
"Quiet down, Boruto," Sasuke barked, his voice low and commanding.
Using his single hand, Sasuke rapidly formed a sequence of hand seals in mid-air. A sudden, powerful surge of wind chakra erupted beneath them, forming a condensed cushion of air that instantly decelerated their terminal velocity.
Thud! Thud!
Their boots slammed into the dirt, kicking up a massive cloud of dust and dead leaves.
"Cough, cough, cough..." Boruto waved his hands frantically, trying to clear the dirt from his lungs. "That was close! Seriously close! I almost turned into a meat pancake right there!"
Sasuke completely ignored the boy's dramatic complaints. His hand rested near the hilt of his sword as his eyes swept the surrounding treeline. A cold, purple light flared in his left eye as his Rinnegan activated, analyzing the ambient chakra signatures of the environment.
"This place is..." Sasuke muttered, his brow furrowing slightly. "The outskirts of Konoha?"
He relaxed his stance just a fraction. "It seems that although Urashiki's time relic severely interfered with our temporal coordinates, the physical location didn't deviate too far from the target."
Boruto finally finished dusting off his tracksuit and looked around, his blue eyes wide with curiosity. "So... is this the Konoha of the past? It doesn't look all that different from our era."
Sasuke shook his head, his expression hardening. "Do not let your guard down. That bastard Urashiki should have been pulled into this time-space along with us. Our absolute priority is to locate and protect the Naruto of this era. We cannot allow Urashiki to extract the Nine-Tails."
Sasuke turned to face his student, his mismatched eyes locking onto the boy with terrifying intensity. "And Boruto. Listen to me very carefully."
Boruto swallowed hard, intimidated by the sudden shift in tone.
"Under no circumstances are we to reveal our true identities," Sasuke warned, enunciating every word. "You will not speak a single word about the future to anyone in this era. If you do, the resulting time paradoxes could erase our entire timeline from existence."
Boruto crossed his arms behind his head, blowing out a long breath. "Yeah, yeah, I know. You've only said it about eight hundred times already, Sasuke-ojisan."
He flashed a cheeky grin, his stomach suddenly letting out a loud rumble. "Come on, let's just head into the village first. We can look for clues while we grab something to eat. I am absolutely starving!"
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