Kurogiri Tetsu, commander of Iwa's Explosion Corps, trudged through the thick forest on the border between the Land of Stone and the Land of Fangs.
Behind him, fifteen of his best men followed in two neat lines.
They were tired. The last mission against Konoha had left four men wounded, two with cracked ribs and two with deep cuts from wind blades.
They needed bandages, medicine, and a real iryõ nin. More than that, they needed sleep. The hidden Iwa supply base was only two kilometers ahead, buried under an old wooden hut, stocked with food, beds, and an iryo-nin who could stitch flesh and stop bleeding with chakra.
Kurogiri's black cloak fluttered as he walked. His instincts were screaming at him. He scanned his surroundings and immediately found out, something felt wrong.
It was too quiet.
There was no insects buzzing. No birds chirping. No squirrels skittering up trees. Just the soft crunch of their own footsteps.
Kurogiri's gut twisted. He had walked a hundred battlefields. Silence like this never meant peace. It meant death was close.
He opened his mouth to shout a warning—
"ARRGH!"
Three screams ripped through the air at once.
Kurogiri spun. Three of his men were on the ground, clutching their legs. Blood poured from deep bite marks. But the attackers weren't shinobi, they were wooden snakes, thick as a man's arm but small as a finger. The snakes had burst up from the soil like spears, bitten down hard, then slithered back into the earth before anyone could react.
"Ambush! Formation 21!" Kurogiri roared.
His men moved like lightning. They formed a tight circle, kunai out. In the centre were the four injured ones as well as the 3 poisoned shinobi.
Two earth-style users slammed their hands to the ground, massive stone domes rose around the group, thick and gray, sealing them inside a protective shell.
Kurogiri's eyes burned with rage. 'Puppets. Poison. It is Suna.'
He knelt beside one of the bitten men. The shinobi's skin was already turning blue, veins black under the surface. His breath came in wet gasps.
"Poison's fast," the man wheezed. "Won't… last long…"
Kurogiri's mind raced. 'Wooden puppets that move underground. Poison strong enough to kill in minutes. Chakra threads so thin even our sensor didn't feel them.'
Only one man in Suna could do this.
'Sōshi Kuromori. Vice-commander of the Puppet Corps.'
Kurogiri stood, fists clenched. "Sōshi, you desert rat. You finally came for us."
Their sensor ninja, a thin woman with pale eyes, pressed her fingers to the stone floor. "Twelve shinobi," she said. "Closing in fast. Two hundred meters and closing."
Kurogiri laughed, a low, ugly sound that echoed inside the dome. "Only twelve? Sōshi, you arrogant sand-flea. You think a dozen puppet jerks can eliminate the Explosion Corps?"
He bared his teeth in a wolf's grin. "We outnumber you. We outclass you. You want to play with fire? I'll turn your bones to ash and paint the trees with your blood."
While that was true, Sõshi had made sure to even out the numbers with their initial attack, poisoning 3 of them and with 3 more injured, the number advantage was with Suna. And as for outclassing them, Shota was with them for a reason to even out the odds.
Kurogiri turned to his men. "Blow the forest. Clear the field. No trees, no hiding spots for those string-pulling cowards. Those sand cowards would use these trees as cover while attacking us with their puppets."
His corps grinned back.
Fifteen clay birds, spiders, and snakes flew from their hands, small, palm-sized bombs shaped with perfect detail. They threw them in every direction: up into the branches, deep into the bushes, even under roots.
"Katsu!" they shouted as one.
*BOOM!*
The world turned white.
Trees exploded into splinters. Fireballs rolled across the ground like angry suns. The air screamed. Leaves burned to nothing before they hit the dirt. The stone domes shook but held with more than four Iwa shinobi reinforcing it.
When the light faded, the forest was gone.
A circle of blackened earth stretched fifty meters wide. Charred stumps smoked. The sky was orange with flame. The fire spread fast, leaping from tree to tree, eating everything that was green.
Kurogiri stepped out as the earth domes crumbled. His men followed, faces smeared with soot, eyes wild with joy. They didn't care that they'd started a forest fire.
'Let it burn. Let the animals flee. Let the smoke choke the sky. This was war. ' It was what they thought.
The three poisoned men knelt in the center. Their skin was purple now, lips blue, eyes bloodshot. They knew they had minutes left.
Kurogiri looked at them. "You'll be remembered," he said, voice low. "Even in death, you'll take the enemy with you."
The three nodded. They ripped off their vests. Underneath, clay packs were strapped to their chests—flat, red, pulsing with chakra. Suicide bombers.
They stood.
"FOR IWA!" they screamed.
And they ran.
Straight toward the place where the Suna shinobi were now visible. Their bodies glowed red as they poured every drop of chakra into the clay. The bombs grew brighter, hotter, ready to—
*Pop.*
The first man stopped. The red light on his chest flickered… then died.
*Pop.*
The second froze mid-step. His clay turned dull gray.
The third stumbled, arms falling limp.
All three stood in the open, confused but then continued to run.
Kurogiri was puzzled. He thought,'Why did they stop putting chakra into the clay? The chakra that they have put would not be enough to blow suna nin apart?'
He murmured, "What the hell—?!"
The clay still had some chakra in it, just enough from before the cutoff. Not full power, but enough to blow.
*BOOM!*
*BOOM!*
*BOOM!*
Three explosions—small, messy, weak.
The first man's bomb went off at his feet. His legs vanished in a puff of blood and fire. His body flipped backward, chest caved in, arms gone. He hit the ground like a broken doll, smoke rising from the hole where his stomach used to be.
The second bomb blew sideways. It took his left arm and half his face. His jaw hung loose, teeth scattered like rice. He screamed once, a wet, gurgling sound then collapsed, blood bubbling from his throat.
The third explosion was equally weak.
The blasts didn't even reach the Suna team. Just three small craters, three broken bodies, and a spray of blood that painted the dirt red.
Kurogiri stared, mouth open. His men froze around him.
"Why did they stop?!" one shouted. "They should have kept feeding chakra to the bombs!"
Kurogiri's mind raced to figure what just happened. Why did his men stop putting chakra into the clay? Three of his men were dead just like that.
--------Author Notes---------
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