"Why do you say that?"
Hyakume Sōsuke looked at Yagura in surprise.
Outside the city just moments ago, Yagura had acted as though he were facing a formidable enemy, cautiously verifying everything again and again. Yet the moment they entered the city, he suddenly carried himself as though everything was already under control.
"You may not know this, senpai."
Standing with his hands clasped behind his back, Yagura swept his gaze across the deserted city before speaking.
"Our army vastly outnumbers theirs. Konohagakure doesn't dare face us head-on, so they abandoned the city and fled. That only exposes their lack of manpower and proves they have no strength for a direct confrontation. That's why I say Konoha lacks courage!"
"So Higashino Shinichi has no choice but to avoid our strengths and exploit our weaknesses. He's trying to trade space for time, surrendering this city to slow our advance and drag us into a prolonged war of attrition. It sounds clever on the surface, but in reality, it's exactly what I wanted."
"We've taken this place without losing a single soldier. With it as our foothold, we can establish ourselves here and steadily push farther inland. From this point on, control of this battlefield belongs to us."
"So that's why I say Konoha lacks courage, and Higashino is lacking in wisdom! In this battle, the advantage is cle—"
BOOOOOOM!!!
Before he could finish, the sky suddenly flashed white.
A colossal bolt of lightning tore across the night sky, followed an instant later by an earth-shaking clap of thunder.
Because the city lay along the coast, the open sea offered almost nothing to block the sound, allowing the thunder to roll straight into the city with overwhelming force. The shock was so powerful that even the window frames throughout the city seemed to tremble.
Yagura's words were cut off mid-sentence.
Instinctively, he looked up toward the turbulent night sky overhead.
Lightning flashed again and again between the clouds, illuminating Rinkai City in alternating bursts of light and darkness, while the thunder echoed without end, each peal drowning out the last.
Before the thunder had even faded, torrential rain came crashing down.
Raindrops as large as beans hammered against the ground in a relentless barrage. The downpour arrived with astonishing speed and ferocity. Within only a few breaths, the entire city had disappeared behind a curtain of rain.
Summer storms were common along the southeastern coast.
But as Yagura stared at the sky above—where serpentine bolts of lightning danced endlessly through the clouds and thunder roared without pause—a strange, indescribable unease welled up inside him.
It felt as though something lurked deep within those storm clouds, silently watching the city... and everyone foolish enough to enter it.
"The wind's about to pick up, Yagura."
Sōsuke, standing beside him, hadn't given it much thought. After glancing at the darkening sky and then toward the distant sea, he frowned slightly.
The Land of Water was an island nation. Its people spent their entire lives living alongside the sea. Experienced fishermen, veteran sailors, and shinobi who regularly carried out missions offshore all possessed an instinct for approaching typhoons that had been etched into their bones.
"Judging by the signs, this one's going to be a big one."
With that, Sōsuke turned to Yagura and reminded him, "We need to start preparing as soon as possible."
Hearing that, Yagura tore his gaze away from the sky and forcibly suppressed the inexplicable unease in his heart.
"I'll make the necessary arrangements, senpai."
With that, he turned and strode toward the city lord's mansion, which had been requisitioned as the temporary headquarters, and a stream of orders was quickly issued.
First came the deployment of the army outside the city.
Rather than bringing every soldier into the city, Yagura ordered only three thousand elite shinobi inside. Their task was to transform the abandoned city into Kirigakure's largest forward operating base along the southeastern coast.
The remaining seven thousand or so troops spread out around Rinkai City, establishing positions at key locations to form a network of mutually supporting outer strongholds.
At the same time, Yagura once again ordered every reconnaissance squad to expand their search radius and locate the Konohagakure forces at all costs.
For all the confidence he had displayed before Sōsuke, Yagura had never let down his guard against Konoha—especially not against Shinichi, the man who had already humiliated him twice.
Until he discovered where Konoha's troops were hiding and figured out exactly what Shinichi was planning, he would rather advance slowly than recklessly overextend his own battle lines.
Finally came orders related to storm preparations.
Shinobi possessed extraordinary abilities, and chakra granted them destructive power and survivability far beyond ordinary people.
But that didn't mean they could simply ignore nature's wrath.
Aside from a handful of the strongest shinobi, who could confront natural disasters head-on or easily evade them, most shinobi were fundamentally no different from ordinary people when faced with the forces of nature.
If they could avoid it, they would. If they could prepare for it, they would.
After issuing the long chain of commands, Yagura finally paused his work and walked to the window.
Outside, the dark clouds overhead were visibly sinking lower and lower.
"Higashino Shinichi... what exactly are you planning?"
Yagura muttered quietly to himself.
...
Beneath the very same storm clouds, deep within an unnamed forest—
"What magnificent thunder! Even better than the lightning the Third Raikage used to blast off my arm!"
Standing atop a massive boulder with his hands clasped behind his back, Shinichi gazed up at the countless silver bolts streaking across the sky and suddenly let out that inexplicable remark.
Just then, a messenger ninja emerged through the rain and happened to hear him.
His footsteps faltered.
A puzzled expression crossed his face.
The lightning that blasted Captain Shinichi's arm off...?
So... is this thunder supposed to be good or bad?
He stood there with his mouth slightly open, turning the question over in his head several times without reaching an answer.
In the end, he wisely decided not to dwell on such a profound mystery.
Stepping forward, he respectfully bowed.
"Captain Shinichi, the two elders have asked you to report to headquarters."
Shinichi withdrew his gaze from the sky, his expression returning to normal.
"Understood. I'll head over immediately."
After arriving at the hastily constructed command headquarters, the Konohagakure leadership first held their routine discussion, reviewing the current situation and Kirigakure's latest movements.
Koharu then placed an official document from the village on the table and announced an important piece of news.
Konoha had officially launched its second round of wartime mobilization.
With the front lines under ever-increasing pressure, Konoha had finally adjusted its deployment strategy. Adult genin and a portion of underage chūnin would now be assigned to second-line support duties behind the front.
Under the leadership of experienced chūnin captains, they would take over responsibilities such as transporting supplies, conducting rear-area patrols, and guarding military camps.
This, in turn, would free up the large number of veteran shinobi previously assigned to those duties, allowing them to reinforce the front lines.
It was a decision Konoha had made out of necessity.
Facing the relentless offensives of both Sunagakure and Kirigakure at the same time, the manpower shortage at the front had become impossible to ignore.
Besides, even Iwagakure had already begun deploying genin.
Among the Five Great Shinobi Villages, Konoha had actually been the last to take this step.
At the same time, new directives arrived from the Land of Fire itself.
The Daimyō's court officially declared the nation to be entering a higher level of wartime readiness. The government began gradually taking control of key industries, while food, steel, medicinal supplies, clothing, paper, and other essential materials would now be centrally allocated by the state. Resource distribution was shifting decisively toward supporting the war effort.
Using terminology from one of Shinichi's favorite games from his previous life—Hearts of Iron IV... or, as he jokingly called it, War Criminal Simulator IV—
The Land of Fire's economic policy had begun transitioning from the early-war phase of Partial Mobilization toward a War Economy, with the machinery of the state becoming increasingly involved in managing the nation's economy.
Of course, no amount of mobilization would ever reach the level of the Total Mobilization he remembered from his previous world.
That meant squeezing every last ounce of manpower and resources from an entire nation, reducing civilian living standards to little more than bare survival, while forcibly conscripting massive numbers of civilians into the military or war industries.
In this world, where chakra existed, such measures were neither necessary nor meaningful.
After all, the true military force of this world was the shinobi.
The scale and intensity of war did not depend on the size of the civilian population, but on the quantity and quality of its ninja.
Forcibly drafting civilians into the army would accomplish nothing on the battlefield. Even in military production, ordinary people could do little more than forge and assemble conventional weapons.
Ninja tools—explosive tags being the prime example—required actual shinobi at every stage of production, from crafting the paper itself to infusing it with chakra and sealing that chakra inside.
As a result, although the Land of Fire was likewise shifting toward a wartime economy and prioritizing military resources, the impact on the daily lives of ordinary civilians was still far less severe than the wartime economies Shinichi remembered from his previous life.
These directives and logistical adjustments would be implemented over the coming days.
Before long, Konoha's armies across every front would receive their first wave of reinforcements reassigned from rear-area duties, along with fresh shipments of supplies from deep within the Land of Fire.
Among those reinforcements, there would very likely be faces the same age as Shinichi's...
Perhaps even some of his former classmates.
After all, this year's Chūnin Exams had only recently concluded, and a newly promoted batch of chūnin would soon be heading to battlefields across the nation.
The gears of the war machine were beginning to roar with even greater force—and spin even faster.
...
Over the next two days, Kirigakure finally learned where those "missing Konohagakure shinobi" had gone.
No sooner had Yagura's orders been issued than attacks erupted from every direction, even before the network of small outposts radiating outward from Rinkai City had been fully established.
Konoha's scattered detachments descended like sharks that had smelled blood, launching an endless series of raids and harassment attacks.
These small Konoha units almost never engaged Kirigakure head-on.
Instead, they struck wherever the enemy was weakest.
They moved constantly between outposts—harassing construction teams building fortifications, ambushing reconnaissance and communications squads traveling between bases, or slipping under cover of darkness to wipe out one or two forward outposts before they had a chance to establish themselves.
The attacks came fast.
The retreats came even faster.
More often than not, by the time Kirigakure reinforcements arrived, the Konoha raiders had already vanished deep into the surrounding forests.
And whenever an overconfident—or thoroughly enraged—Kirigakure commander couldn't resist leading a pursuit, the outcome was almost always the same.
The chase would continue...
Until they ran headlong into a Konoha ambush prepared well in advance.
Those pursuit forces were usually annihilated to the last man, without even a single survivor left to report what had happened.
Even so, despite the constant harassment, Kirigakure continued to follow Yagura's orders to the letter.
Never advance recklessly.
Never overextend the battle line.
If an outer outpost came under attack, they defended it if they could. If they couldn't, they conducted an orderly withdrawal, always keeping their main force concentrated within a relatively compact defensive perimeter centered on Rinkai City.
As a result, although the harassment was becoming increasingly infuriating, Kirigakure's losses remained relatively light.
The real problem was that the repeated attacks slowed the construction of every outpost to a crawl, making progress agonizingly slow.
...
Rinkai City.
Temporary Headquarters.
After reading through the scattered battle reports one by one, Yagura rose to his feet and walked over to the enormous map.
He studied it silently for a moment before speaking.
"Pass down the order. The logistics transport units are to suspend all movement immediately and remain in place."
After a brief pause, without taking his eyes off the map, he added in a low voice, "Also, notify the troops stationed in the Land of Waves to intensify their reconnaissance. Search thoroughly and find out whether any Konoha rats have already slipped in."
"Yes, sir!"
The messenger ninja accepted the order and departed.
Once he had left, Chūkichi spoke.
"Yagura... do you think Konoha might target our supply lines?"
"We can't afford not to prepare for that."
Yagura nodded.
Hearing that, Chūkichi fell silent and asked no further questions.
Higashino Shinichi's lightning-fast deep strike into the heart of the Land of Lightning—which had utterly devastated Kumogakure's logistics network—had served as a bloody lesson for the entire shinobi world.
Ever since then, every major shinobi village had become increasingly cautious about protecting its supply lines, wishing they could hide them underground... or even in the sky.
Especially since the man they were facing now was the very person who had turned this strategy into a textbook example.
No matter how cautious they were, it wouldn't be excessive.
After a moment of silence, Yagura still didn't feel reassured enough.
"Chūkichi," he said, "I'd like you to go to the Land of Waves and personally oversee the reconnaissance line protecting our rear area."
Chūkichi was currently Kirigakure's finest sensory ninja.
Although, several months earlier, Kirigakure had killed a member of the Hyūga Main Family during an encounter and successfully seized one of their Byakugan, the village was still studying it.
Even after that research was complete, they would still need to find a suitable shinobi for the transplant.
Until the Byakugan could truly be put to use by Kirigakure, Chūkichi remained the village's most dependable pair of eyes.
One could even say that, even after the Byakugan eventually became operational, it might still not surpass him.
"I understand."
Chūkichi nodded before turning and leaving the headquarters.