After receiving the information through the whistle, Uchiha Yoru didn't just convey two simple words. He assigned each section its attack target, and based on his own experience, specified what type of ninjutsu they were to use.
Then, after receiving the order, each section leader broke the assigned task down according to the condition of his own unit and passed the specifics on to the four squads.
Finally, the squad leaders assigned the concrete roles to individual shinobi and sent their acknowledgments back up.
The whistles rising and falling through Kubota Village sounded utterly chaotic. The Kirigakure shinobi were baffled by it, but the more sensitive among them all felt a trace of danger and instinctively became more vigilant.
Yet not one of them thought to spread out.
Inside the village, Uchiha Yoru received confirmation that everyone was ready. Relying on the sheer size of his chakra reserves, he directly issued the command to all of them:
"Attack timing. Three-second countdown!"
The moment they heard the order, the Uchiha began forming hand seals.
There were only two techniques they were going to use: C-rank Fire Release: Fire Bullet, and B-rank Fire Release: Great Fire Bullet.
Unlike Great Fireball, these two techniques were not the most destructive, but they were among the fastest, and their popularity within the Uchiha clan was extremely high.
As for who used which technique, that was decided by the squad leaders. In simple terms, the stronger shinobi used the more powerful Great Fire Bullet, while the weaker ones used the smaller Fire Bullet.
At the very moment Kaguya Gaiji was still unable to decide how to launch his assault, the whistles of the Tiger Unit suddenly stopped.
He felt a terrifying killing intent.
A chill shot up his spine like ice water, and this cold, merciless Shikotsumyaku user actually shivered from head to toe.
But when he carefully sensed his surroundings, he found not even the slightest trace of killing intent anywhere.
So where was this terrifying danger warning coming from?
Of course he couldn't sense any killing intent, because the Uchiha were simply following orders and firing Fire Release: Fire Bullet simultaneously at predetermined directions and angles.
They couldn't even see their targets. Every ounce of their focus was devoted to controlling the fine details of their techniques, making sure the firing angle and timing were exact. None of them had the spare attention to think about killing at all.
Under Uchiha Yoru's training, whenever the Tiger Unit carried out this kind of long-range attack mission, they operated like workers conscientiously tightening bolts. All their mental energy was spent fighting monotony. How could there be even a trace of killing intent leaking out?
The only one who could actually see the enemy and truly understood that he was using the Tiger Unit to carry out a slaughter was Uchiha Yoru. But after all his tempering alongside the heart-forms, his mind had long since become still as water.
Even though he was about to personally cause enormous casualties, his heart remained completely calm, and there was not the slightest killing intent coming from him either.
For Kaguya Gaiji to sense danger in that vague, formless way already marked him as extraordinarily sharp.
But no matter how sharp he was, he couldn't sense killing intent that simply didn't exist.
Kaguya Gaiji looked left and right, unable to make sense of it. Just as he was about to give the order to attack, over a hundred large and small fire bullets suddenly shot into the sky. After slightly curving in midair, they came crashing down toward the Kaguya shinobi.
"Enemy attack—!"
But it was too late.
Among Fire Release techniques, the speed of fire bullets was among the very fastest. Only two jonin and a few dozen veteran chunin managed to react in time.
The remaining four hundred-plus shinobi only had time to raise an arm to shield their faces and half-crouch, bending at the waist, before the fire bullets hit.
Not a single one of the Tiger Unit's fire bullets had been aimed directly at a person.
But there was a dense crowd of shinobi standing on the ground below, so naturally some unlucky fools were struck head-on. The moment those fire bullets collided and detonated, the bodies they hit were blown to pieces.
A moment later, the great majority of the fire bullets struck the ground and exploded, sending blazing flames across everything within a five-meter radius. Any shinobi standing too close suffered immediately—some were turned into living torches on the spot, while others were ripped open by the blast wave, skin and flesh torn apart.
Only after that first wave of fire bullets had landed did streams of water begin rising among the Kaguya force, and some shinobi instinctively started casting Hidden Mist Technique.
Seeing this, Uchiha Yoru's satisfaction showed plainly.
"A mob of elite rabble."
Then he blew his copper whistle again, making fine adjustments to the firing coordinates, and directed the Tiger Unit into a second round of attack.
Then a third.
Then a fourth.
The successive bombardments drove the Kaguya shinobi into a frenzy of rage. No one could stand there and be pummeled without retaliating.
But the Kaguya shinobi's spontaneous attempts to answer back with Water Release were too chaotic and too sparse without centralized command. Under the concentrated fire of the incoming fire bullets, their resistance quickly collapsed into disorder.
The Kaguya shinobi were also adept with Water Release, but their elite members were actually not especially good at it, because they were bloodline shinobi who had awakened Shikotsumyaku. Nearly all of their time and effort went into studying their bloodline limit and related clan secrets.
Shikotsumyaku affected temperament even more violently than the Sharingan. Once awakened, Kaguya shinobi became abnormally impulsive and irritable. Up until now, only Kaguya Gaiji's direct order had kept them standing in place and waiting.
But after the sixth full volley landed, the Kaguya clan's elites finally exploded.
Ignoring the standing order against advancing, they unleashed their Shikotsumyaku one after another, covering themselves in bone armor and surging toward Kubota Village in a mass.
The other Kaguya shinobi saw their elite rushing forward and followed immediately.
There wasn't a truly calm shinobi among them.
Kaguya Gaiji's furious shouts were swallowed by the explosions of the fire bullets and the mad howls of the Kaguya shinobi around him.
In the end, his own rage boiled over as well. Taking the remaining Kaguya jonin and a dozen or so fast-reacting, lucky chunin, he rushed to the very front and became the first to charge into Kubota Village.
However, once they entered the village, they couldn't find a single hair on a Konoha shinobi.
Uchiha Yoru thoroughly understood the essence of guerrilla warfare. There was no way he would let the Tiger Unit engage the enemy in dangerous close combat while they were still at the peak of their momentum—bordering on pure madness.
The instant he saw the Kaguya shinobi launch their charge, Uchiha Yoru took the Tiger Unit and withdrew directly, slipping out of Kubota Village in one clean motion.
During the retreat, they removed the safeties from every trap they had left behind, gifting the Kaguya shinobi with explosive devices, pitfalls, and spring-loaded mechanisms so they wouldn't be left with nothing to do.
After leaving the village, the Tiger Unit did not withdraw far. They stopped at a distance of less than a thousand meters and, while listening to the explosions going off one after another inside the village and the faint furious roars drifting out, calmly waited for the enemy to come to their senses.
Uchiha Yoru even took the opportunity to educate his men. Pointing toward the village, he said, "This is the kind of end you get when you act without planning and without organization."
"When I talked to you about this before, it was all dry theory. It didn't leave a very deep impression. But now that the enemy has kindly demonstrated it for us with a real-life example, you should be able to understand exactly what I meant."
"We understand, Yoru-brother."
"That left a deep impression. I definitely won't make the same mistake in the future."
Uchiha Yoru laughed.
"Haha, this isn't the kind of thing you can avoid just by not wanting to make the mistake. The real key is whether the shinobi under you can understand, and whether they can obey orders instantly and completely."
"That's why, even though parade formations are meaningless in shinobi warfare, they're absolutely crucial for developing obedience. That's why I spent twenty days pressing your heads down and forcing that training through."
"I'm very satisfied with how you all performed today."
"A great military strategist once summarized the ideal performance of an army like this: swift as the wind, steady as the forest, fierce as fire, immovable as a mountain."
"Today, I already saw the beginnings of immovable as a mountain. I saw swift as the wind in your withdrawal. What I want to see next is fierce as fire in your attacks."
Uchiha Kazushi asked, "Yoru-brother, then what about steady as the forest?"
Uchiha Yoru smiled and answered, "That's the hardest of all. It means that during normal movement, the whole army advances in layered order, neither rushed nor sluggish, quiet and smooth, full of dynamic beauty."
"The standard is incredibly high. It means every single member of the unit knows exactly what he's supposed to do, carries it out with absolute conviction, and when the unexpected happens, everyone adapts instantly without the slightest hesitation."
"In other words, it means everyone simultaneously possesses both a full grasp of the larger picture and perfect obedience. Everyone has the qualifications to act as a squad leader—or even a section leader."
"…That's too hard. You can't be expected to reach that in a short time."
The section leaders all stared wide-eyed.
Since being chosen by Uchiha Yoru, they had suffered who knew how much extra hardship.
When the ordinary members trained, the section leaders trained twice as much.
When the members rested, the section leaders were memorizing tactical signals and orders.
When the members slept, the section leaders were patrolling and standing watch.
Even when it was time to eat, the members got twice as long as the section leaders.
Everyone being capable of acting as a section leader?
All of them shook their heads. They couldn't even imagine what kind of army that would be.
Perhaps only a force made entirely of jonin could do something like that.
In truth, Uchiha Yoru himself had never seen such a force with his own eyes.
He had only seen it in film.
When he first saw it as a youth, he hadn't understood its value at all. At the time, he had thought it was just a huge crowd of people walking in an ordinary way—what was there to look at?
Only after becoming a soldier, then a patrol officer, after reaching middle age and being worn down by all sorts of experiences, after dealing with people until it had sunk into his bones, did he finally understand what the state of "steady as the forest" really meant.
That kind of plain, ordinary-looking movement meant only one thing:
Invincible.
Because of Uchiha Yoru's words, the younger Uchiha lowered their heads, feeling as though they had disappointed him.
But Uchiha Yoru smiled and said, "Don't lower your heads. You're already strong now. Really strong."
"When I gave the order, a force of 101 men left the village without the slightest hesitation. Not one of you dragged your feet. On the retreat, you were still able to disengage all the trap safeties according to plan. I'm genuinely very satisfied with that level of execution."
"If you don't believe me, just wait and watch what the Kirigakure shinobi look like when they finally come out of the village."
"Sometimes you need to look at how poor shinobi perform before you can understand just how good you really are."
A few minutes later, several Kaguya shinobi emerged from the village. The moment they saw the Uchiha standing in formation, they hurriedly shrank back inside.
But it took more than ten additional minutes before over a hundred shinobi came pouring out in a chaotic mess. By then, their anger had already burned down into dead ash. Their fury had declined into dejection, and their desire to fight was nearly gone.
First surge, then decline, then collapse.
The Kirigakure shinobi hadn't even managed that much.
Just one failed charge and a bout of trap harassment had already brought their morale to the point of complete collapse. That was something even Uchiha Yoru hadn't expected.
His original plan had been to keep flying the kite, harass them two or more additional times, lure the Kirigakure shinobi into dividing their force even further, and only then turn around for a lethal strike once the enemy facing them had been cut down to under a hundred.
Uchiha Yoru had wanted to create a sweeping momentum and crush this five-hundred-man Kirigakure force in one go.
But now it seemed there was no need to go that far.
Uchiha Yoru blew his copper whistle and sent the Tiger Unit charging.
After issuing the order, he stood in the command position of his own section and deliberately controlled the speed of the advance, making sure the sense of pressure they gave off was as great as possible.
...
Kaguya Gaiji stood at the very front of his clan's shinobi, but his heart felt ice-cold.
Before today, he had never imagined that there could be such a huge gap in obedience between shinobi forces.
The assault had not been launched by his command. It had happened because his own subordinates dragged the whole force along into it.
Once they entered the village, more than four hundred shinobi seemed to vanish like water absorbed into a sponge.
The moment he learned the enemy had already escaped the village, the orders he gave received no response at all. No matter what he did, he couldn't gather the force back together.
After enormous effort and more than ten minutes of work, Kaguya Gaiji had only managed to rally a little over a hundred shinobi—and even that was in a ruined state of broken organization. The one hundred-plus Kaguya shinobi standing here belonged to more than eighty different squads, most of them incomplete.
The remaining two hundred—closer to three hundred—had never responded.
No one knew where they had gone.
In truth, Kaguya Gaiji knew perfectly well that they were all still somewhere inside the village. The repeated explosions and traps had simply wrecked the Kaguya force's organization so badly that they could not be collected in the middle of the chaos.
If he had another half hour, he was certain he could gather all his men back into place.
If given two full hours, he wouldn't even need to do anything at all. The Kaguya shinobi would come trickling back on their own.
But there was no time for that now.
The scout who had come back reported that the enemy remained fully gathered together, meaning they could launch a counterattack at any moment.
Kaguya Gaiji knew that he and his men were in danger.
He had to pull together enough force immediately and stop the enemy outside the village.
With the Konoha shinobi massed together, they held an absolute local superiority against scattered Kirigakure shinobi. The gap was so great it was practically impossible to resist. In the end, the Konoha shinobi would simply sweep through them again and again until Kirigakure's casualties became unbearable.
Leading these hundred-plus disordered shinobi, Kaguya Gaiji's heart was filled only with anger and disappointment toward himself.
He was already thinking ahead: after defeating the Konoha force, they absolutely could not all be killed. Enough prisoners had to be taken alive.
He wanted those captives used to train the Kaguya shinobi.
He wanted his own force to become the kind of unit that could be directed as easily as one's own arms and hands.
As for the question of victory or defeat, Kaguya Gaiji had never once considered the possibility of losing.
As long as he stood here, victory could only belong to the Kaguya clan.
That was the confidence of a shinobi who had awakened Shikotsumyaku.
Looking at the Konoha shinobi charging toward him in layered, orderly waves, Kaguya Gaiji quietly muttered to himself, "They say Kumogakure's Third Raikage is the strongest shield in the shinobi world. That's only because Kirigakure never had the chance to properly show what it can do."
"After this war, the title of strongest shield will belong only to the Kaguya clan."
"And not just the strongest shield."
"We'll also be the strongest spear."
Kaguya Gaiji tore off the clothing covering his upper body. Sharp bone spines began growing from his back along the line of his spine. They continued branching outward, row after row of sharp bone spikes lining up together, until a pair of fan-shaped bone structures spread across his back.
The strongest shinobi in the Kaguya force had set the example himself, declaring his battle intent to all his subordinates.
The Kaguya shinobi immediately became excited.
Their morale rose rapidly, but more importantly, their madness began to awaken.
They wanted to kill.
Behind Kaguya Gaiji, several other Kaguya shinobi also ripped off their upper garments. Bone spikes burst outward from different parts of their bodies, forming a variety of strange structures.
Most of the other Kaguya shinobi only rolled up their sleeves, allowing bone spikes to grow from their arms—bone weapons sharper and tougher than steel itself.
But beneath the skin of every awakened Shikotsumyaku user, their bones were also growing abnormally under the support of chakra, forming dense membranes of bone to protect their otherwise fragile flesh.
If one stripped away the skin of the Kaguya shinobi at that moment, what remained would have been like a swarm of insect-men clad in exoskeletons.
Since their bone spikes were sharper and tougher than ninja swords, it went without saying that these membranes of bone had a defensive strength comparable to steel armor.
Once the Kaguya shinobi's bone spikes protruded out of their bodies, a wave of madness spread through the force. All the surrounding Kirigakure shinobi were affected. Their faces twisted, their eyes widened, and insane laughter burst from their throats.
The moment Uchiha Yoru saw these Kaguya shinobi reveal themselves like this, he knew the situation had become troublesome.
These were not ordinary Kirigakure shinobi.
They were Kaguya clan members.
And the leading ones were hardened elites who had awakened the Shikotsumyaku bloodline.
It wasn't that Uchiha Yoru didn't know the Kaguya clan dressed in an old-fashioned style, wore retro ornaments, and even painted those ridiculous round Mayu brows.
The problem was that this sort of outfit was extremely fashionable in Kirigakure right now. On the battlefield, seven out of every ten Kirigakure shinobi he met looked more or less like this.
In the beginning, Uchiha Yoru had been badly startled by it.
Every Kirigakure shinobi I meet is from the Kaguya clan? Are there really this many Kaguya?
After enough time passed and he learned the truth, he had simply gone numb to that style, treating it as nothing more than a standard Kirigakure look—just like the head-wrap and cloak combination so common among Sunagakure shinobi.
Only when the leading Kirigakure shinobi tore off their clothing and let bone spikes burst out through their flesh did the true, unmistakable signs of the Kaguya clan appear.
Uchiha Yoru wasted no time at all.
The copper whistle in his mouth released a long, sharp note that lasted for a full three seconds without interruption, growing steadily more piercing as it went.
At the same time, he accelerated and ran to the very front of the entire formation.
Behind him followed the five other section leaders.
The moment they heard that long whistle note, they too left their command positions and moved into the first rank.
Uchiha Yoru spat out the whistle he had been holding between his teeth and said, "The enemy ahead is the Kaguya clan, and not just that—these are elites who have awakened the Shikotsumyaku bloodline limit."
"It's said they're not satisfied with the Uchiha clan being recognized as the number one shinobi clan."
"And they're not satisfied with the Sharingan being known as the strongest bloodline limit in the shinobi world."
"Then let's show them what that means!"
"Yes, Yoru-brother!"
"What nonsense about Shikotsumyaku—how dare they compare themselves to our Sharingan? Today we'll teach them the difference!"
Uchiha Yoru gave the final order.
"The first one is mine. The rest of them—pick one for yourselves."
He drew in a deep breath, opened his three-tomoe Sharingan, and roared:
"Kill!"
The five section leaders likewise opened their one-tomoe Sharingan and shouted in unison:
"Kill!"
Read 50 chapters ahead on P@treon -> [email protected]/SorenSwiftTL (replace @ with a)