Chapter 48- As the dust settles
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Around 0030 in the morning, the first report from made its way into the main Konoha base at the border with the Land of Hotsprings. It was only two words.
Enemy Attack.
No more words were necessary.
Akimichi Doto, the Konoha Commander stationed against Kumogakure, paled involuntarily when he read the message.
He had underestimated the shamelessness of Kumogakure, which was a fatal mistake for a ninja. Their messenger had threatened war at sunrise, and they struck at midnight.
As further reports rolled in, he started to realize the gravity of the situation. He was losing ground at an alarming pace, and Kumo was making fresh assaults on his western flank.
As more and more information came in, he quickly realized just how hopeless the situation was. However, the worst news was no news. The expected and scheduled reports of numerous outposts and fortifications did not come in on time or at all, and Doto could only assume the worst, that he had lost those positions with all hands. The best he could hope for was that a few survivors from each posting were on the run, engaging in SERE tactics.
In the time that Konoha was gearing up for war, many of the ninja were put through the standardized Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape courses. Hopefully one or two shinobi would find their way back to base over the next few days.
Doto quickly realized that he and his troops no longer had any hopes of a successful border defense, but rather they were fighting for their own survival.
He had ordered a complete retreat back to Konoha, but the western flank was still the issue.
With his fragmented and injured troops slowing down the retreat, the assaulting Kumogakure forces would be able surround the entirety of the Konoha forces should the Western flank fall.
The only decision that Akimichi Doto could make was to engage in a fighting retreat towards the southwest. Doto ended up mirroring Kumogakure's movements, creating a rotating shift of shinobi that followed the Kumo efforts to move the battlelines further and further west.
Shijin was at the main base, by himself following his order to disperse the genin out towards the front lines. Being absent from the chuunin and jonin command structures and with the assault of Kumo being fully underway, no one would talk to him, busy with other, much more important tasks.
Hearing fragments of conversation here and there, Shijin started to piece together what had happened to his genin. Shijin had expected Kumo to hold to their words, unknowingly judging their character according to what he had seen in the future from and older and more mature fourth Raikage.
As the weight of what had happened slowly settled onto his shoulders, Shijin was at first frozen. Without conscious thought, his body moved on its own accord.
Shijin walked back to his tent and sat down on his cot. His movements were stiff and jerky, as if he were a puppet in the hands of a child with a new toy.
In each and every joint, shooting pain sprinted along, starting with a hot flame in his core, reaching his extremities as an explosion of sensation. He did not care though. It was intense beyond description, but he paid it no mind. His thoughts were curiously empty.
Up and down his back, along his spine, electricity danced as he tried to control his body's spasming. As he convulsed in place, he fell from his sitting position and found himself on the dirt ground of the tent, staring into the canvas that made up the rainproof ceiling.
For the first time in a very long time, Shijin was at a complete loss. The edges of his vision started to creep in, not black as one would expect, but white.
The circle slowly tightened as the sounds he heard around him faded away.
Within seconds, Shijin was back to a hauntingly familiar location. His eyes were open but he saw nothing. His ears were open, but nothing was heard.
Shijin tried to lick his suddenly parched lips and tried to croak something out, but his breath wasn't there.
No words were able to escape his lips.
Shijin was once more in a land of nothing. Blindingly white expanse in every direction. Perfectly silent, not even hearing the beat of ones own heart. Perfectly Still, even his own body completely disconnected from his senses.
It lasted for but a few moments in the real world, but Shijin, it could have been an eon, or it could have been a flash in the pan.
The white expanse cracked with a thunderous break in the silence as reality started to creep back into Shijin. The shards of his hallucination fell around him, reflecting the world with the true horror and desperation found among the living.
The quiet hustle of Konoha Shinobi outside his tent were cacophonous, and their whisper soft footsteps as they scrambled in response to Kumo pounded in Shijin's head like the horns of Jericho.
While reality had started to creep in slowly, as soon as the first cracks appeared, they raced out and expanded at the speed of thought.
With the calm and reassuring blanket of nothingness crumbling around him, Shijin was forced to confront what laid before him.
He had ordered his genin straight into an invasion force.
Shijin had all but forgotten emotion in his time in Kaguya's dimension, but his time among the Uchiha before the war started had begun to heal the wounds, or more accurately, chip at the yoke that chained his emotions down.
His body, back under his control, listened to him as he forced himself to his hand and knees, staring at the dirt and dust of the earth.
Shijin would never reveal it, even unto his dying day, but the first thing he had done while waking from his reverie was laugh.
It was laugh of resignation, bitterness, and above all others, hatred.
As his eyes started to burn with an all too familiar sting, Shijin felt the tears of blood flow down his cheeks and watched them as they fell onto the ground, staining it the all too familiar rusty brown of days long past.
Shijin cursed and laughed in the face of an uncaring God.
As the tears of blood slowly dripped down from his face, Shijin continued to laugh and cry at the same time, a wracking cough soon overtaking his cracked throat.
Shijin sat back on his haunches and glared towards the Heavens.
Is this my destiny?
Is this my fate?
To lose those who are near me?
To hold onto only to let slip?
How Ironic!
The dice are cast, and they never fall in my favor.
Are you entertained? Do you enjoy toying with me?
Is this what you want?
Am I cursed to always be an Avenger?
I spit in your face even though I am but a piece in you machinations!
You break me once more.
I am but the instrument of Vengeance.
The world will see me and know that you have forsaken them.
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After an eternity of suffering, to taste the love once more, to have the locks around one's heart to be stripped bare and cast aside, how cruel for one to anguish once more at the hands of their creator?
What just god would bring unto existence the eyes that witness suffering?
The damned bloodline flowing through the veins of each and every Uchiha.
Curse Fate as her skeleton hands narrow and tighten about your neck!
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Seven days following the attack at the border, Yama and his team of 60 genin finally rendezvoused with the main fighting force of the Land of Fire, 50 thousand soldiers under the command of the Fire Daimyo and his generals.
Shina had already been completely consolidated by the Lightning forces, and the Great River, the main artery of the Fire Nation was pinched and held under Lightning Control. the Land of Lightning had continued reinforcing the city, and though they seemed like they were at rest, hiding within the city of Shina, they were simply coiling and preparing to strike. Their next target was obviously Tianchi, a fortified city about halfway between Shina and the Capitol of Fire. It would be the best base of operations to wage war against the Capitol, and once Lightning began to siege the Capitol of Fire, the war was all but over.
The groups of Yama and the Fire Daimyo met up about halfway between Tianchi and Shina. The Daimyo was sallying forth to meet the Lightning Forces in open combat, which seemed counterintuitive with their numerically inferior numbers. However, if he were to have any chance of holding Tianchi, he would have to inflict massive casualties on the Lightning forces before they commenced sieging. If Lightning were to approach Tianchi with fully intact forces, the city would be doomed to fall.
Coincidentally, the Fire Daimyo's actions were mirroring those of Commander Doto in the North with his shinobi. The Daimyo and his troops would also wage a fighting retreat, taking defensive positions which they would sequentially give up from after extracting the most value from each position with the least casualties.
What that would look like in practice for the Fire Army would be a series of hastily constructed fortifications on local highgrounds between Shina and Tianchi. His commanders had identified 5 chokepoints on the road connecting Shina and Tianchi.
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The Daimyo counted his blessings that he was not facing shinobi, for if he were, their actions and movements would be unpredictable. However, up against the Army of Lightning, the Daimyo was able to predict with a semblance of accuracy enemy movements.
At each of the chokepoints, he would man the defenses with his full army, rotating troops from front to back until they started to tire and fall in greater numbers. As soon as that happened, he would order the retreat, leaving a rearguard of 2000 troops to hold the defenses for as long as possible while the bulk of the army retreated to the next chokepoint. The 2000 troops would surely die, but the Daimyo was more than willing their lives for extra time.
Furthermore, the Fire Daimyo had one advantage over the Land of Lightning Army. He was fighting a defensive war on home soil. His men had much higher morale, high enough to the point that they would willingly die as a rearguard to help win the war. He had to take advantage of that emotion if he wishes for his nation to survive.
By the time he and his troops made it back to Tianchi to prepare for the incoming siege, the Daimyo predicted he would have lost 10 thousand as reargaurds and another 10 thousand to casualties during the successive defenses. He would have 30 thousand professional troops left at Tianchi.
While he was waging a fighting retreat though, the militia was organizing all across the country and marching either towards Tianchi or the Capitol. His most recent census suggested that if 80 percent of the men answered conscription, a generous estimate admittedly, he would have an extra 250 thousand fighters at Tianchi and another one million at the capitol within a week. The rest would take much longer to trickle in.
The militia was formed of all able bodied men between 18 and 40 and the conscription process had been ordered the day after the assault at the northern border. Conscription was a long forgotten ordeal, lastly implemented in the Era of Warring Clans. The populace was somewhat hesitant, but the Fire Daimyo once again relied on the morale advantage from fighting a defensive war.
Conscription was hardly necessary, and most men came willingly to protect their home.
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Yama and his group of genin entered the main camp of the Fire Army and were immediately ushered towards the center of the position where the command structures and the Daimyo himself resided.
Yama entered while his genin waited outside. The young ninja had been running hard, and they were mostly too tired to get into any trouble. Most opted to sit on the ground in small groups and simply rest, while the more energetic and more inquisitive genin ambled around, not straying too far from the mian group, but definitely taking in the new and interesting sights of an army camp.
As Yama entered the tent, proudly wearing the Konoha Hitai-ate on his forehead, one of the aides noticed him and quickly whispered a few quiet words to the Daimyo who had his head bent down, inspecting a large map of the continent with his generals.
The Fire Daimyo looked up and greeted Yama with a tired smile. His shinobi reinforcements had finally arrived, and it was the first hint of good news that he had received all day.
The Daimyo stared and waited for Yama to introduce himself.
Yama, not particularly attuned to court etiquette, took a few seconds to realize what was going on before stepping forward to greet the Daimyo.
"Well met, Daimyo-sama. I am Yama, the Operations Division Commander of the Genin Corps, and I am here with my ninja to act as reinforcements as requested."
The smile fell from the Daimyo's face, and his previously welcoming visage turned scarily neutral.
"Indeed, Yama, it is good that you are present.
Did I hear you correctly when you said Genin Corps?"
"Yessir, all chuunin and jonin forces are busy combating Kumogakure shinobi, and as such, your reinforcements are myself along with 60 of the most combat proficient genin that Konoha has to offer.
I have been instructed to deliver this to you. Strategists from Konoha have devised several plans and missions that best take advantage of the capabilities of genin."
Yama handed over the strategy packet that Doto had given him on the night that he set off, and the Daimyo received it and leafed through it, casually scanning each page.
He took a couple minutes to read through it, and after he finished, he beckoned one of the men over from the edge of the command tent.
As the man walked into view of Yama, Yama noticed that the man wore the traditional sash of the 12 Guardian Ninja. The Daimyo whispered a few words to the ninja, who then disappeared with a shunshin in a cloud of smoke.
The Fire Daimyo then turned back to Yama and began to speak with a stern look on his face.
"Yama, I'm sorry to say this, but I cannot abide these suggestions.
I noticed that in the packet the stipulation that you are under orders to cooperate with me as the tactical situation demands.
Well, this packet is over a week old at this point, and the tactical and strategic situation has changed immeasurably. There will be no sabotage or scouting missions for you and your genin.
Explicitly contrary to the packet, I am assigning you and your genin the task of heavy assault troops. We need fighters, not auxiliaries, and each of your genin are worth a hundred normal men if they are utilized correctly. I do not intend to squander their lives. They will be rotated in and out as necessary. They are a precious resource and you need not worry for their safety. I have more than enough reason to treat them well. They are our nation's lifeline after all.
As the genin recover their chakra and strength after acting as heavy assault, they will be frontline skirmishers, and they will be tasked with targeting officers with their kunai and shuriken while avoiding direct assault. This task will be light enough to allow speedy recovery with minimal useless downtime of our forces.
If you understand your assignment, please coordinate with my subordinate here. Our first defense is in 2 days, and you will need all that time to integrate properly with our army, with such regards to orders, communications, and doctrine."
Yama stood there as the Daimyo turned away and started to speak once more with his generals. It was an implicit dismissal of Yama. The subordinate that the Daimyo had gestured to approached Yama and opened his mouth to speak, but Yama cut him off, and loudly replied to the Daimyo.
"There is no way in hell we're doing that. Genin are exempt from direct combat."
The conversations that had been continuing around the periphery of the tent and between the generals and the Daimyo immediately stopped, and an eerie silence fell upon everyone in attendance.
One of the generals stepped out, pointing his finger at Yama and yelling.
"HOW DARE YOU!
YOU UNGRATEFUL TREASONOUS SHINOBI ARE ALL THE SAME!
I'LL HAVE YOU HUNG BEFORE SUNSET IF YOU DON'T TAKE YOUR WORDS BACK!"
Yama, unimpressed, stood there with an aloof look on his face before replying.
"Yeah, I don't think so."
As the general opened his mouth again, the Daimyo waved a hand and silenced him before speaking himself.
"Yama, need I remind you of your orders?
Your own commanders have told you to subjugate yourself unto my command.
Even if you don't believe I have to authority to command you, your own commanders disagree with you. Fall in line; You're dismissed."
Yama stood there with his arms crossed, staring into the hard eyes of the Fire Daimyo.
"Yeah, I don't care what my commanders said. If they knew you would act like this, they would've never given me the orders to cooperate with you.
Shinobi always have autonomy as the mission parameters change. I am exercising that authority now.
So either, we act according to the strategy packet I have brought with me, or I and all of the genin leave for Konoha."
The Daimyo's eyes narrowed, and his face, which only held hints of hardness earlier now took on the stony look of a man used to complete and utter control.
The Daimyo forcibly relaxed himself and sighed before continuing.
"I was afraid of this, so I have the unenviable task of informing you of the current situation.
While we have been speaking, I have already ordered the 12 guardian ninja, all jonin by the way, to surround the area.
What you are committing right now is treason, and the penalty for that is death.
I am however, willing to be lenient due to extenuating circumstances, namely the war.
If you attempt to leave with your forces, that will be desertion, and the guardian ninja will put all of you to death for treason
If you do not follow my orders, the guardian ninja will put you all to the death for treason.
You probably have no illusions about your ability to protect 60 genin from 12 jonin, and even if your were Hashirama himself, you wouldn't be able to.
Furthermore, as you are their commander, in the same way that you are responsible for their actions, I am holding them responsible for yours.
If you kill me, my ninja are under orders to kill all your subordinates.
If you personally commit treason, your subordinates die with you.
So, will you fall in line or do you wish to die with all 60 of the genin you brought?
Yama, gritting his teeth hard enough that people could hear them crack, tightly clenched his fists as his skin shone white and the bones popped in his hands.
Yama, not trusting himself to speak with the lives of his genin on the line, stormed out without another word.
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Back on the northern border, the situation was deteriorating further and further in the past few days. The fighting retreat of the Konoha forces had started several days earlier, but the continuous assaults had prevented any meaningful retreat.
With Konoha forced to continuously reinforce the western wing, the two forces found themselves embroiled in fighting at all times as they shifted west.
With all the chaos going on, Shijin had slipped through the cracks of the Konoha forces and now found himself alone in a deserted forest, far from the front lines.
His eyes had been burning with indescribable pain for days. They were crying out for chakra that he didn't have, and he had become almost delirious after several days of mind rending pain and no sleep.
As Shijin crawled around on the ground, he found himself leaning up against a tree of prodigious size and vitality. It was still the dead of winter, but the tree had all its leaves and stood in defiance of the cold and biting winds of the north of Fire Country.
As he leaned up against the tree, the pain in his eyes abated for the first time in days.
The pain continued to recede, and Shijin flickered in and out of consciousness. While he was conscious, he noticed a warm feeling coming from the tree behind him, and he nestled his body between the giant roots.
For a few more hours, Shijin laid like that and slowly came back to his senses.
He somehow found the strength to stand up, which he did while heavily leaning on the tree for support.
His left palm was flush against the bark of the tree, and he felt a river of warm energy coming from the tree. He slowly realized that the feeling in his hand was not just a hallucination, but instead reflected reality.
His eyes no longer hurt, and if he concentrated, he could feel his visual acuity slowly increasing. The bark on the tree becoming more and more intricate the longer he looked at it.
The seemingly random patterns slowly wove into an esoteric and beautiful tapestry that stood in perfect harmony with the natural world.
Slowly, he began to see the energy that flowed through the tree, and he saw that the tree breathed in the natural energy of the world in order to subsist.
Shijin realized soon enough that this was undoubtedly one of the last surviving Hashirama Trees. The Shodai Hokage had left trees across the continent from his battles, and in the years following his death, it was discovered that these trees had exceptionally great chakra reception.
Soon enough, a continent wide hunt for the trees was underway so that ninjas could arm themselves with weapons made from these trees or people with more money than sense could own furniture grown by the God of Shinobi.
As Shijin stood, rooted to the spot, in commune with the last remnant of the greatest Shinobi to ever live, he felt some of his strength come back to him.
The Spirit of Hashirama lived through the tree, and the will of Ashura was carried along.
It resonated with Shijin, who still bore the markings upon his soul of Indra, and the will of Ashura had felt the connection, and without sentience, using only instinct, the will of Ashura reached out to help his brother. The two siblings, caught in eternal struggle, were still brothers, and the deepest parts of each of them still cried out for the other.
Shijin closed his eyes briefly, felt the energy flow through him, easing his burdens, and when he opened his eyes once more, the eyes of the Sage once more witnessed the world of Shinobi.
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Back with the Konoha forces that were combating Kumo, it was one string of defeats after another. There original forces were almost 750 strong after pulling reinforcements from the other fronts, but they had already incurred massive casualties, and maybe only 350 ninja were still battle ready, while another 150 were injured severely, and the rest were missing or KIA.
Yesterday, Akmichi Doto had been required to go to the battlefield himself to save a team of 30 shinobi from being surrounded by enemy ninja. While he was successful, he was incapacitated, and had still not waken from the coma caused by the third Akimichi Food Pill.
His right hand man was still MIA from the mission he had been sent out on a few days ago, to request reinforcements from Konoha, and the rest of his staff had been decimated in the skirmishes as it became more and more apparent that Konoha forces couldn't afford to keep any manpower in reserve for command only duties.
The chain of command was almost broken, and in a situation that no one had ever expected, command fell to a midling level jonin. That was not the interesting part though.
The interesting part was that for the first time in Konoha's history, command of an entire theatre of war fell to an Uchiha.
Uchiha Izaru was still in the process of reacquainting himself with the shinobi forces after a decade or so in the Uchiha Police Force when he was informed that he had to take command.
While he was still reeling for the sudden battlefield promotion, the final gambit of Kumogakure was revealed.
Initially, Doto had assumed the Kumo was moving the battlefield westwards as a distraction for the Lightning Forces travelling down the Great River, after all, separating the Konoha Ninja from the Fire Army meant that the numerically superior Lightning Army was all but guaranteed victory.
However, the true reason finally came to light. Kumo had shifted the frontlines hundreds of miles, and now the Valley of the End was only about a dozen miles from the bulk of the fighting.
A massive explosion sounded out from the valley, and Konoha sent a few ninja to investigate what happened.
Those shinobi encountered a sight they never could have predicted.
Standing atop the head of the Shodai Hokage's Statue was a defiant Fourth Raikage.
Across the waterfall were the broken and shattered remains of Madara's statue, leaving only a pile of rubble. Kumo forces had destroyed the statue with explosive tags, desecrating the memorial to the final battle between Konoha's founders.
Somehow detecting the Konoha Shinobi, the Fourth Raikage yelled at them, but didn't move to attack them.
"Konoha Shinobi! Uchiha Madara and Senju Hashirama are naught but Tyrants!
I curse them in the name of the Sage!
They have left naught behind them but waste and death, and it is their fault that Konoha exists as the disgusting bully it is!
These two are ultimately responsible for every travesty and genocide that Konoha ever committed!
Tell your commanders that I will destroy Hashirama's Statue tomorrow at noon.
I inform you so that you may try to preserve your nonexistent dignity, but I also give you the chance to prove your rat bastard heritage by forsaking your forbears!"
The Konoha Shinobi sent out on the scouting mission fled immediately after hearing the message. While they were more than upset at the situation, there was little they could do to the Raikage, especially when they didn't have the element of surprise on their side.
After the Konoha Shinobi left, the Fourth Raikage went back to the main base of Kumo and started consulted with his subordinates.
"The Daimyo has planned this move, and he suspects that Konoha has a fifty percent chance of meeting us in battle tomorrow to preserve their Hokage's statue.
I am much less optimistic about the situation/ If their commander has a good head on his shoulders, he will let the statues fall and use them as a sort of martyr to rally his ninja.
Still though, we will prepare for an assault tomorrow. If we can get Konoha to dash themselves upon us, then it will be worth it even if there is only a 5% chance of this working, much less 50%."
The Lightning Daimyo and Fourth Raikage didn't know that an Uchiha was now in command of the Konoha Shinobi forces. Had they known, they would be thanking the Sage. If there was one thing that Uchiha were known for besides the Sharingan and fire jutsu, it was emotional and rash decision making.
It comes at no surprise that when Uchiha Izaru heard of the destruction of his ancestor's statue, he was infuriated. He didn't even need to hear that they threatened the Shodai's statue, he had already made the decision to attack Kumo immediately.
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Far away, somewhere in the Land of Water, a black and shadowy figure rose from the ground and spoke to a hooded and masked figure.
"Kumogakure has destroyed your Ancestor's statue at the Valley of the End."
Obito snorted and replied.
"I care not. My grudge is with Kiri for now, and I'm busy."
"What would Madara think if he were here, though?"
Obito laughed, but it was dry and mirthless.
"You think him vain enough to care for the monument to his greatest defeat?
Besides, aren't you his will? You should know, not me."
"I only exist as his will for the Eye of the Moon plan, all else is immaterial."