CHAPTER 134: FORMATIONS IN THE RAIN
"...Every one of you is Konoha's future! You are the shinobi who carry the Will of Fire! This battle is for our nation, for our people, for the very soil of our home…!"
Jiraiya was in his element now, his voice a powerful instrument weaving a tapestry of passion and purpose. He had fully ascended to the peak of motivational oratory, painting vivid pictures of heroism and sacrifice.
The crowd, composed primarily of young men and women brimming with untested ideals, drank it in. Their spirits, taut with dread, were plucked and vibrated like bowstrings. Arms rose into the drizzly air, voices joining in a ragged chorus of oaths and shouts. The collective mood was a volatile mix of fear transmuting into fervor.
This left Hatake Sakumo, waiting to deliver the actual operational briefing, in an awkward position. Watching Jiraiya ride the wave of his own rhetoric, he sighed inwardly. The Toad Sage had stolen the emotional crescendo.
In the ranks toward the back, Orochimaru had materialized silently, a pale specter amidst the vibrant crowd. He stood beside Ragnar, his presence cool and unsettling.
"That man does enjoy the sound of his own voice," Tsunade muttered, crossing her arms. "Now he's finally got the audience he always wanted."
"Heh heh heh…" Orochimaru's low, sibilant laugh was barely audible. "A most… entertaining performance."
"Orochimaru. What are you doing here?" Tsunade asked, not taking her eyes off the stage but clearly addressing the snake-nin.
"I came to see our young friend here," Orochimaru replied, his golden, slitted eyes fixing on Ragnar with unnerving intensity. "I heard he had returned."
"To see me?" Ragnar said, his tone neutral.
"Indeed. I hoped we might find time for a… discussion. Philosophy. The nature of power. The pursuit of one's true potential." Orochimaru's smile was a thin curve. "I find your… progression fascinating."
"..." Ragnar offered no reply. An audience with Orochimaru felt less like a conversation and more like being placed under a microscope, or offered as a specimen to a particularly curious snake.
"Orochimaru, keep your… esoteric ideas to yourself. And don't fill Nawaki's head with any of your peculiar 'theories' either," Tsunade warned sharply. As teammates, she knew the depths of Orochimaru's morbid fascinations—the dissections, the forbidden scrolls, the cold, analytical gaze he turned on all living things. It was a side of him that chilled even her battle-hardened soul.
"Tsunade, your prejudice wounds me," Orochimaru murmured, though his expression suggested he was anything but wounded.
On the platform, Hatake Sakumo had finally had enough. With a subtle gesture, two ANBU in nondescript masks moved forward and gently, firmly, ushered a still-gesticulating Jiraiya off the stage. The White Fang took his place, and the crowd's roar redoubled.
The name 'White Fang' held a different weight. It wasn't just inspiration; it was proven legend, quiet authority, and tangible success. Even Tsunade and Orochimaru straightened slightly, their faces adopting masks of professional respect. This was a shinobi they genuinely admired.
Hatake Sakumo offered the assembly an easy, confident smile that seemed to cut through the post-Jiraiya fervor like a calm breeze.
"Everyone," he began, his voice carrying without strain. "I had prepared some words of encouragement, but it seems Jiraiya has already said everything I intended, and with considerably more… flair."
A ripple of laughter passed through the ranks.
"So, I will leave you with only this: We go into this fight with one primary objective beyond victory. We come back. Our families are waiting for us to return."
The reaction was immediate and volcanic. The shouts weren't just enthusiastic; they were raw, personal, and fierce.
"LORD WHITE FANG!"
"WHITE FANG! WHITE FANG!"
The adulation was palpable. In terms of pure, grassroots popularity among the shinobi ranks, Sakumo likely stood second only to the Hokage himself. To many, he was the inevitable next Hokage.
Sakumo let the cheers wash over him for a moment, a complex emotion flickering behind his eyes, before raising a hand for silence. The crowd quieted with remarkable speed.
"Now," he said, his voice shifting to pure command. "We will organize the formations for the frontal assault."
Wartime organization was brutally pragmatic. The classic three-man cell was dissolved into larger, more flexible fighting groups. Sakumo quickly sorted the hundred-plus genin and chunin before him into three main regiments, each numbering forty to fifty shinobi.
He then appointed temporary regimental captains—three seasoned, reliable chunin on the cusp of special jonin rank. These captains weren't true commanders; the overall strategy would flow from Sakumo and the coordinating jonin. Their role was to maintain cohesion in the thick of melee, to be rallying points when the larger battle plan inevitably shattered into a thousand individual fights.
As the rally broke up and shinobi began to disperse to their assigned units, Jiraiya bounded over to Tsunade and Orochimaru, his grin back in place.
"Fancy meeting you all here!"
"Idiot," Tsunade said, the insult lacking its earlier heat, now just a weary habit.
Orochimaru merely watched him with detached amusement, as one might watch a puppy chasing its tail.
Jiraiya's grin faltered, then he spotted Ragnar. A saving topic! "Ah! Ragnar! There you are. Haven't seen you in a while. Which regiment did you get assigned to?"
"Third Regiment," Ragnar answered flatly.
"What a coincidence! Minato's in the Third as well!" Jiraiya said, puffing up. "Listen, Ragnar, during the fight, stick close to Minato. He'll look out for you. Safety first, you know?"
Tsunade let out a short, derisive snort.
Orochimaru's smile widened, a silent spectator to the comedy.
Jiraiya himself wasn't deeply familiar with Ragnar—their interactions in Konoha had been minimal. But he had never forgotten the boy who, nearly a year ago, had defeated his prized student, Namikaze Minato. Jiraiya knew Minato's genius was once-in-a-generation. For Ragnar to have bested him then spoke of extraordinary potential.
But a year was a long time. Under his tutelage, Minato had soared, his abilities now brushing against the jonin tier. On a battlefield like this, Minato would not only survive but shine. Ragnar, in Jiraiya's estimation, was surely talented, but likely capped at a high chunin level. Given Tsunade's obvious, almost sisterly protectiveness toward the boy, asking Minato to keep an eye on him seemed a natural, generous gesture.
Ragnar said nothing to this. His expression remained an unreadable slate.
Seeing the lack of reaction, Jiraiya deflated slightly. Why isn't the kid more appreciative?
Three days later, the Third Regiment moved out.
The sky was a seamless sheet of bruised gray, the rain falling not in drops but in a relentless, soaking curtain. It plastered hair to foreheads, made cloth heavy, and turned the earth to mud.
The ground beneath their feet was not simply wet. The puddles were tinged a rusty, diluted red—a grim testament to the skirmishes and probing attacks that had already stained this land.
There was no melodramatic atmosphere of doom. Instead, a sharper, more immediate sensation permeated the air: killing intent. It was a tangible pressure, a collective focus so sharp it seemed to slice through the rain itself—a bloody, murderous momentum building toward its release.
Ragnar moved with the Third Regiment. Among the faces were Namikaze Minato, his demeanor calm and observant, and several others who bore the distinctive features of Konoha's founding clans—hints of the future "Konoha 11" in their parents or older siblings.
The column advanced in disciplined silence, broken only by the squelch of boots in mud and the constant drumming of rain on leaves and armor.
Has it finally begun?
The thought surfaced in Ragnar's mind as he walked, a strange detachment settling over him. He felt the immense power coiled within him—the Awakened white fire, the Haki, the fruits, the swords. He was confident, perhaps more confident than any other soul on this field.
Yet, watching the tense shoulders of the chunin ahead of him, seeing the white-knuckled grip of a genin on a kunai, feeling the collective breath held by fifty people marching toward organized slaughter… he felt a distinct, unfamiliar emotion.
It wasn't fear. It was the heavy, sobering weight of witnessing a machine—a vast, brutal, stupid machine—click into its final, inevitable gear. He was a part of it now, not a shadow operating on its edges. He was a cog, albeit a potentially devastating one, in the great, grinding engine of war.
The rain washed down, cold and endless, as they marched toward the place where the red in the puddles would no longer be diluted.
(End of Chapter)
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