Uchiha Kagami looked at the Iwagakure young master before him, who was frozen in the pose of breaking out of the ground, his smile stiff, like a comical statue. There was not a single ripple in his heart.
He walked forward slowly, each step landing on solid ground, a stark contrast to Kitsuchi, who was trapped and unable to move in the mud pit.
The surrounding Konoha ninja had completely relaxed.
Some had even begun to clean up the battlefield—if you could even call it a battlefield.
They used Earth Release to fill in the mud pit, then used ropes to tie up the Iwagakure elites, who had been picked up like chicks by Akimichi Torifu, one by one.
The whole process was quiet, efficient, and even had a strange sense of harmony.
Uchiha Kagami still wore his gentle expression.
He slowly walked up to Kitsuchi and looked down at him.
"How did you know?"
Uchiha Kagami smiled, a smile that, in Kitsuchi's eyes, was full of mockery.
"Because this is Konoha's defense line."
...Yes, this was Konoha's defense line, a battlefield personally laid out by the man known as the Professor.
They thought they had found the enemy's blind spot, but they didn't know that their every move had been on the enemy's chessboard from the very beginning.
"What... what did you do?"
Kitsuchi asked unwillingly. He couldn't understand how his secret technique, at a depth of a hundred meters, could have been detected.
Nara Shikaku, who was standing to the side, walked over lazily, picked his ear, and explained in a "what a hassle" tone: "We didn't do much. We just used Earth Release to mix some of our Nara clan's special super-strong clay from our back mountain into the several areas that Lord Hokage designated as the most likely spots for the groundhogs to pop out. Then we had the Inoichi clan's sensory ninja place a few micro chakra beacons underground."
He spread his hands and said with a helpless look, "You guys were very cooperative. You came out of Pit A, the one we were most prepared for, without any deviation. To be honest, we had several plans ready. If you had come out of Pit B or Pit C, we would have had to switch to a different procedure, which would have been a lot of trouble."
"Pfft—"
Kitsuchi couldn't hold it in any longer and spat out a mouthful of blood.
He wasn't injured; he was literally angered to the point of spitting blood.
What did he mean by Pit A? What did he mean by switching to a different procedure?
Their surprise attack, on which they had gambled the honor of Iwagakure, was just a multiple-choice question in the enemy's eyes? And they had precisely stepped into the option the enemy most wanted them to choose!
"Confiscate all their weapons and ninja tools," Uchiha Kagami said with a wave of his hand, giving the order.
The Konoha ninja immediately stepped forward and swiftly collected all of Kitsuchi and his men's ninja pouches, not even sparing the spare kunai hidden in their boots.
"Are you going to kill us?" a young Iwagakure ninja asked in despair.
"Kill you?"
Akimichi Torifu stuffed another rice ball into his mouth and said in a gruff voice, "Killing you would be a waste of effort. We'd have to dig a pit to bury you."
Nara Shikaku rolled his eyes at him.
Hearing this, Kitsuchi's face turned ashen.
He knew that this time, he had not only been defeated in battle, but he had also become a disgrace to Iwagakure.
"By the way, Shikaku," Uchiha Kagami said, turning to Nara Shikaku, "does Lord Hokage have any other tips?"
Nara Shikaku took out a small notebook from his robes and flipped through it. "Mm... Lord Hokage said that old man Onoki has a bad temper and a strong sense of pride. Sending his son back to him completely unharmed will be more painful for him than killing him directly. He probably won't be in the mood to pull any more tricks for a while. He told us to behave ourselves and just continue to guard the gate well."
"Lord Hokage's wisdom is truly unfathomable," Uchiha Kagami said with sincere admiration.
"Let them go."
Uchiha Kagami walked up to Kitsuchi, looked him straight in the eye, and said, word for word, "Go back and tell Onoki that as long as the Uchiha are here, any of Iwagakure's little tricks are meaningless. Konoha does not want to escalate the war, but if Iwagakure insists on fighting, we will accompany them to the end."
"Now, take your men and get lost."
With that, Nara Shikaku sighed helplessly and released the Shadow Possession Jutsu.
The feeling of being bound disappeared, and Kitsuchi and his men were free. They looked at each other, not knowing what to do for a moment.
They had come to launch a surprise attack, but had been captured alive. They thought they were going to die, but the enemy had let them go.
This feeling was even more unbearable than being killed directly.
Kitsuchi took a deep look at Uchiha Kagami, then at the Konoha ninja with various expressions around him. He said nothing, but simply bowed deeply to Uchiha Kagami.
Kitsuchi and his twenty equally dejected subordinates, like defeated roosters, under the gaze of hundreds of Konoha ninja, shamefully crawled back into the hole they had come from.
Watching their disappearing backs, Akimichi Torifu smacked his lips with regret. "Sigh, my trenches..."
Nara Shikaku, on the other hand, held his forehead and sighed deeply. "Lord Kagami, your move was crueler than killing them. Now, I'm afraid this kid Kitsuchi will have a shadow in his heart for the rest of his life."
Uchiha Kagami did not answer, but simply looked up in the direction of Konoha.
He knew that behind this seemingly merciful decision was Lord Hokage's deeper strategic consideration.
Killing only brings hatred.
But conquering the mind is what brings true peace.
...
Iwagakure, Tsuchikage's Office.
Onoki looked at his son, who had returned in a sorry state and had just finished reporting the whole incident. His small body was jumping up and down with anger.
"Thump!"
This time, he didn't slam the table. Instead, with a single punch, he pulverized a huge decorative rock next to him into dust.
"This is too much!!!"
Onoki's roar was so loud it almost blew the roof off the entire Tsuchikage building.
"Sarutobi Hiruzen! Uchiha Kagami! You are humiliating me! You are humiliating all of Iwagakure!"
He was trembling with anger.
He could accept defeat.
In the wars of the ninja world, victory and defeat are common.
But this kind of humiliation—being stripped naked, rubbed on the ground, and then patted on the butt and told "you can go"—was something he had never experienced in his entire life!
"Father..." Kitsuchi said, his head bowed, his voice hoarse. "It's my fault. I was too careless."
"It's not your fault!" Onoki interrupted him. Although he was furious, he had not lost his reason. "It's that Sarutobi Hiruzen! His scheming is too deep! He's not fighting a war at all; he's playing with us!"
He finally understood now.
Konoha's so-called "Wall of Illusory Eyes" was not just a simple reconnaissance defense line.
It was a huge information black hole that sucked in all of Iwagakure's actions and then transformed them into the most advantageous intelligence for them.
As long as this wall existed, any surprise attack, any tactic, would become a joke.
Their Iwagakure was forced from being the attacker to being the one taking the blows. And even then, the enemy might not even give them the chance to be hit.
"Relay my orders!"
Onoki took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the anger in his heart. "All troops on the Land of Earth border are to cease all offensive actions and switch to a full defensive posture! No one is to attack without my command!"
He knew that until they found a way to break through that Wall of Illusory Eyes, the more they did, the more mistakes they would make, and the more miserably they would lose.
From this day on, on the Land of Earth front, Iwagakure could only choose to wait and see.
And Sarutobi Hiruzen, far away on another front, simply smiled faintly upon receiving the good news from Uchiha Kagami, as if everything was within his expectations.
On the map in his command tent, he gently pushed the chess piece representing Iwagakure back a space.
Then, his gaze slowly moved upward, finally settling on the northernmost part of the map.
"The Earth and Wind have quieted down, and the Rain has been held back."
Sarutobi Hiruzen picked up his teacup, gently blew on the hot steam, and his eyes grew profound.
"Then, all that's left is you, Third Raikage."
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