The valley matched the map exactly. Steep walls rose on both sides, thick with vegetation that swallowed any light that touched it. The road below wound through the narrow floor in a slow curve that forced travelers to slow down. It was a perfect place to die if you were on the wrong side of an ambush.
Muzan crouched behind a cluster of rocks on the western ridge with his body pressed low. Below him, the road cut through the darkness like a pale line. His eyes picked out details no normal shinobi could see at this distance. Individual stones in the road surface. Boot impressions from previous travelers. The faint shimmer of moisture in the air.
Amanai held position ten feet to his left. Naroi and Masai had spread further down the ridge at intervals that would let them close on the road from multiple angles at once. None of them made a sound.
Across the valley, Miyako's squad was somewhere on the eastern ridge. Muzan's senses reached out in that direction and found nothing. They were maintaining perfect concealment.
An hour passed. Then another. The clouds drifted across the moon and the light on the valley floor shifted between darkness and pale silver. Small animals moved through the undergrowth below. Muzan identified and dismissed each sound as it came.
"Where are they?" Masai breathed, so quietly it barely registered.
"Patience," Amanai replied at the same volume.
Thirty minutes later, Muzan felt it before he heard it. A low vibration in the earth, steady and rhythmic. Wagon wheels on packed dirt, still distant but getting closer.
His hand moved to his kunai pouch.
Three wagons came around the bend and entered the valley. Each one was pulled by a pair of horses moving at a walk. One driver per wagon. No visible guards walking alongside. No outriders ahead or behind.
Too simple. Intelligence had put the guard count at ten minimum.
Muzan studied the wagons. The canvas covering each one hung in natural folds, heavy and still despite the movement of the cart beneath it. The kind of stillness that came from weight pressing down from inside.
The guards were in the wagons.
The convoy moved deeper into the valley. The first wagon passed below Muzan's position. Then the second. Amanai's hand stayed raised.
The third wagon rolled into position.
Amanai's hand dropped.
Ichiro materialized on the road behind the convoy and his hands blurred through seals. "Earth Style: Earth Wall!"
BOOM!
The ground split open and a wall of earth and stone exploded upward behind the last wagon, climbing fifteen feet and sealing the valley exit completely. Rocks and dirt rained down across the road.
The wagon drivers moved instantly, their hands going to weapons before the wall had even finished forming. The canvas on all three wagons burst outward as shinobi poured out in a coordinated surge.
Muzan counted fast. Six. Eight. Eleven. More than expected.
"Now!" Miyako's voice rang out from the eastern ridge.
Both squads dropped from the ridgeline at the same time.
Muzan hit the ground in a crouch and came up running. A Sarutobi shinobi spun toward him with his hand going for his weapon pouch. Muzan closed the distance before the man's fingers found the pouch and drove his kunai into his throat.
He yanked it free and moved.
Around him the ambush erupted. Amanai blurred between two Sarutobi and opened both their throats before either could form a seal. Naroi's blade flashed in short arcs, each one landing. Masai hit a third enemy at full speed and drove him through the side of a wagon.
CRACK!
The wooden frame split and the whole structure tilted sideways.
On the far side of the convoy, Miyako moved through three opponents in seconds. Her Sharingan tracked each of them ahead of their own movements and her tanto was already where they were going to be.
A Sarutobi woman came at Muzan from the left. She threw three shuriken in a spread pattern and followed them in close. Muzan rolled under the volley and came up inside her reach. He caught her wrist as her tanto came forward, twisted hard, and heard the joint go.
She screamed. He put her down with two fast thrusts to the ribs and stepped over her.
A massive shadow swept across the ground as an Akimichi team member swelled to eight feet tall, arms expanding, chakra glowing beneath stretched skin.
"Partial Expansion Jutsu!"
His fist came down like a falling boulder.
Muzan threw himself sideways.
CRACK!
The ground exploded where he had been standing, sending a wave of dirt and rock across the road. Muzan rolled through the debris and came up on his feet.
Naroi was already behind the Akimichi. His tanto opened the back of the giant's knee in one deep cut and the leg buckled immediately under his own weight. The Akimichi toppled forward and Naroi drove his blade through the eye socket on the way down.
The body hit the ground and stayed there.
"Keep moving!" Naroi sprinted toward the next fight before the echo faded.
Muzan grabbed a Sarutobi who was climbing out of the damaged wagon by the back of his collar and slammed his face into the broken wood frame. The man dropped. Muzan turned.
A kunai grazed his cheek. The cut sealed in under a second, hidden beneath the chaos.
The thrower was already reaching for another. Muzan closed the gap in three strides and drove his knee into the man's gut hard enough to lift him off the ground. He grabbed the back of his head and brought his knee up again.
The man hit the dirt and didn't get up.
"Muzan! Left!" Masai's shout came a half second before a fireball screamed across the battlefield.
Masai hit him from the side at a full sprint. They both went down and rolled in opposite directions as the fireball hit the nearest wagon.
BOOM!
The wagon went up in a column of fire, burning debris scattering across the road in every direction.
"Eyes open!" Masai shoved to his feet and ran.
Muzan came up and located the source. Across the battlefield, Miyako was locked with a shinobi in heavier armor than the others, their blades trading fast exchanges. The other Sarutobi had been spread around him in a protective formation before the ambush collapsed it. Their commander.
"Amanai!" Miyako called out, sharp and clear. "Priority target!"
Amanai cut through his current opponent and blurred toward the commander. The Sarutobi saw him coming and formed seals with both hands moving faster than normal eyes could follow.
"Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!"
A dozen fist-sized fireballs burst from his mouth and scattered in every direction.
Amanai wove between them without stopping. One caught his sleeve and burned through to skin but he didn't slow down. He reached the commander at the same moment Miyako feinted high, drawing the man's guard upward.
Amanai went low and buried his kunai between the man's ribs.
The commander staggered. Miyako's tanto came across in a clean horizontal slash.
His body hit the ground in two pieces.
The remaining Sarutobi looked at each other. They looked at the earth wall behind them. They looked at their dead commander.
Then they charged.
"Surrender!" Miyako called out, her voice cutting across the noise. "We will let you live!"
None of them stopped.
The last ten seconds were fast and ugly. Muzan moved through it without thinking. A blade came at him overhead and he ducked under it and drove his kunai upward through the soft tissue under the man's jaw. Another Sarutobi threw a shuriken volley and Muzan deflected with his kunai and closed the distance before the man could reload, opening his throat with a single slash.
Then it was quiet.
The valley settled into stillness except for the crackle of the burning wagon and the sound of blood dripping onto packed earth. Muzan stood among the bodies with his clothes soaked through and his breathing steady.
His hands were not shaking.
He looked at them for a moment. Then he looked away.
"Status!" Amanai called out, scanning the road.
"Operational," Naroi said, wiping his blade on a dead man's sleeve.
"Same," Masai confirmed.
Ichiro checked his squad quickly. "Kenji took a kunai to the shoulder. Everyone else is up."
Miyako walked the edge of the battlefield with her Sharingan still active, cataloguing everything those red eyes touched. "Search the wagons," she said evenly. "Intelligence and supplies. Ten minutes, then we move."
Muzan turned toward the nearest wagon and reached for the canvas.
He was already thinking about the next task.