The Shinobi World, which only moments ago had been a cacophony of bloodshed and strife, seemed to fall silent overnight.
Following the series of brutal battles in the Land of Grass, Iwagakure and Konoha appeared to reach a tacit understanding. Both sides withdrew simultaneously, settling into a long-distance stalemate where neither dared to launch a fresh offensive.
Meanwhile, in the Land of Fire, Sunagakure—whom everyone expected to engage Konoha in an earth-shattering, decisive collision—suddenly executed a rapid retreat. They fell back toward the border of the Land of Wind with such frantic haste it looked as if the literal devils of hell were snapping at their heels, leaving onlookers in utter disbelief.
However, the reason behind this baffling maneuver soon came to light.
Shortly after Suna's withdrawal, both Sunagakure and Konohagakure almost simultaneously organized elite task forces. These formidable units marched out of their respective villages with a singular, grand objective: the capture of the Five-Tails.
Upon receiving this news, Ohnoki—who had initially believed Suna and Konoha would keep each other pinned down, leaving him only the Cloud to worry about—flew into a towering rage. He spent half a day in the Tsuchikage's office hurling curses at Hiruzen Sarutobi and Sugiyama Yasuto. He wished nothing more than to fly to their faces and turn those two shameless bastards into dust with his Particle Style.
Unfortunately, that was nothing more than a fantasy. Aside from ordering his forces on the Grass front to bluff and maintain pressure on Konoha, and commanding his intelligence department to scour the land for news of the Five-Tails, he could only place his hopes on his son, Kitsuchi. He prayed the boy would live up to expectations and bring the Five-Tails back to the village posthaste.
While the five Great Shinobi Villages were locked in a shadow war for the Five-Tails, Hatani chose not to join the fray.
He didn't have the capability to kill a Tailed Beast yet. Moreover, given the nature of a capture mission, no one was going to give him the chance to land a killing blow anyway. Unwilling to watch a mountain of potential Gold Coins slip through his fingers for nothing, Hatani took a different path. When Hiruzen Sarutobi's orders arrived, he chose the alternative: heading to the coast as reinforcements.
Though Kirigakure had also dispatched an elite team for the Five-Tails, they hadn't given up on Konoha entirely. The Hyuga scouts stationed along the coast had been reporting frequent sightings of Mist shinobi. Consequently, while the main army from the Grass front was being redeployed south, Hiruzen ordered Sakumo Hatake to send a small vanguard of elites ahead of the curve.
As a nation isolated by the sea, the Land of Water differed significantly from the other four great powers.
With a small territory and a limited population, Kirigakure followed a philosophy of quality over quantity. Since they could never hope to match the other nations in sheer numbers, they focused entirely on the individual strength of their shinobi.
Thus, from the moment they entered the Academy, Kiri shinobi were subjected to unimaginably cruel internal selection processes, where killing one's opponent was not only permitted but often encouraged.
This was the origin of the "Bloody Mist."
The shinobi who emerged from such a gore-soaked crucible were cold-blooded and ruthless, but undeniably powerful. The weak, after all, had already been physically erased from existence. It wouldn't be until the near future, when a certain "demon" slaughtered every single student in his graduating class, that Kirigakure would finally be forced to reform this policy.
Because the Mist favored small-scale combat with elite units, the other four nations typically responded in kind when facing them. After all, the Mist arrived by sea; for nations with vast coastlines, mobilizing a massive army was like trying to swat a mosquito with a cannon. Excessive concentration of troops only left gaps for Kiri's elite teams to slip through and sow chaos deep within their borders.
Konoha was no exception to this strategy.
Currently, the two great clans responsible for guarding the coast and monitoring the Mist's movements were the Hyuga and the Uchiha. Compared to commoner shinobi, any member of these two clans who had awakened their Dōjutsu could undoubtedly be considered an elite.
This was especially true for the Uchiha, whose Sharingan was notoriously difficult to awaken.
Perhaps because of this very rarity, the Uchiha were infamous for their arrogance. With the exception of a select few, most of them walked around as if their eyes were on the top of their heads, looking down on everyone else with a sense of innate superiority.
Even when faced with Hatani, who had arrived with a hundred elite squads to reinforce them.
"Wait here. I'll go ask the Young Clan Head first."
The Uchiha sentry, a young man with a slight sneer, looked at the transfer orders in Hatani's hand—stamped clearly with the Hokage's seal—yet showed no intention of letting them enter the camp.
Hatani signaled his dissatisfied subordinates to stand down and simply nodded without expression.
He had seen plenty of people like this in his past life. Someone like this Uchiha, who was merely arrogant in speech and manner, was actually considered relatively well-bred by the clan's standards. Furthermore, while his tone was grating, his actions followed protocol. He wasn't technically doing anything wrong.
His subordinates, however, didn't share his patience.
"Hmph. These Uchiha... always looking down their noses at people."
"Tch. Just a bunch of parasites coasting on the glory of their ancestors."
"Heh, these days, the only thing the Uchiha have left to brag about is their last name."
"Exactly. In this war, Lord Sakumo and the Sannin have been the pillars of the village. Even the Namikaze brothers, Minato and Hatani, have contributed more than these 'prestigious' Uchiha. A bunch of snobs who only know how to act tough in front of their own people."
As the snide remarks escalated, the remaining Uchiha guards finally snapped, their eyes narrowing.
"Shut your mouths! Are you bastards looking for a fight?!"
The lead guard, a young man around twenty with mid-length hair tied in a small ponytail, saw his black eyes bleed into a vivid crimson. Two tomoe spun rapidly in his pupils as a cold, murderous aura erupted from him.
"Oh? Did we say something wrong? You Uchiha only seem brave when you're bullying your own villagers."
Since the Konoha Military Police Force was composed entirely of Uchiha, other Konoha shinobi often used that fact to mock them, implying they were nothing more than glorified domestic bullies.
"Hmph. A bunch of cowards who hide behind a brat... you think you're qualified to judge the Uchiha?"
Just as Hatani was about to get a headache and put a stop to this, the two-tomoe Uchiha let out a cold snort. He fired back with a look of pure disdain, finally casting a contemptuous glance at Hatani himself.
Because of Hatani's age, the guard had felt nothing but scorn since the moment he saw this reinforcement unit. He felt the village leadership must be playing a joke, appointing a kid who looked like he'd just graduated as the commander of an elite force.
Consequently, his contempt for the shinobi willing to follow such a "brat" had only deepened.
He had originally intended to ignore them on the Young Clan Head's orders, but he hadn't expected these "bastards" to provoke him first. In his fury, he stopped holding back and spat the insults right back at them.
Hatani, who had intended to be the peacemaker, found himself the primary target of the man's mockery. He felt a wave of helplessness. Then, catching the "we're just here for the show" expressions on his subordinates' faces out of the corner of his eye, he couldn't help but let out a dry, frustrated laugh.
You bunch of jerks... you didn't provoke the Uchiha just to see me put them in their place, did you?