The barrier of Root chakra around the camp had stirred violently.
Dozens of signatures outside, no, more than dozens, skimming the perimeter. Enemy scouts first, and behind them something heavier.
Ryusei's jaw tightened. There was no mistaking it. They were under attack.
Okabe didn't waste time. "On your feet. The garrison's hit. Reinforcements are moving to the walls—we need to regroup."
Behind the captain, one of the Root operatives flicked his head toward the south side of the camp. "Masked shinobi. Multiple squads. They hit the outer pickets already. We won't hold long if they break the second line."
Ryusei rose, brushing the dust from his flak jacket, his expression calm but inwardly calculating. 'Finally,' he thought, 'they've decided to make their move.'
The first explosions echoed from the southern treeline, sharp cracks of earth and fire that rattled the wooden walls of the garrison. Shouts followed, the clang of steel against steel, the familiar chaos of battle blooming outside.
But this wasn't just another border skirmish. Ryusei could feel it in the air—the sheer number of chakra signatures pressing in on them like a tide.
His sensory field counted and sorted quickly: more than a hundred hostile presences, maybe closer to one hundred. Coordinated, disciplined, moving in squads.
Kusagakure.
Their equivalent of ANBU, if it could even be called that, was at the forefront.
Ryusei felt the difference in quality at once.
The bulk of the force was chūnin-level, low to mid-tier, fast and precise in their movements, but lacking the heavy weight of killing intent that true veterans carried.
Their captains were stronger, high-chūnin to low-jōnin, but still nothing compared to Konoha's elite units.
Yet numbers mattered. Numbers and coordination.
And at the center of it all was a presence that dwarfed the rest, steady and refined, cutting through the chaos like a drawn blade.
An elite jōnin commander. Not just competent, top tier, the kind of shinobi that could stand toe-to-toe with anyone below the S-rank monsters.
So that was their wager.
Kusagakure had thrown their hidden fangs into the open, one hundred and fifty operatives under the lead of a single elite commander, determined to tear this outpost down.
"Not a raid," Ryusei thought grimly as the ground shook again. "An eradication."
Okabe barked orders, sharp and clipped. Root teams split off immediately, five-man squads moving like clockwork to reinforce the walls.
The ANBU detachment scattered to form kill-zones, one masked captain already raising defensive barriers.
The senior reinforcements—Chōza Akimichi, Sumi Yukino, Shinku Yūhi, and Gekkō Hisanori—moved with calm readiness, their chakra flaring like beacons against the sea of enemies.
Just then, Okabe's voice cut through the chaos, sharp and commanding. "Nishida! South sector—move!"
Ryusei's eyes narrowed. Of course.
Once again, he was being sent straight into the most dangerous position, the weakest point in their defenses, where the enemy presence was heaviest.
He could see why: Root operatives clustered close around Okabe, murmuring updates, their whispers no doubt feeding him reports of where the pressure was strongest.
And conveniently, that was exactly where Ryusei was being thrown.
Refusing wasn't an option.
With Root watching from every side, Okabe could force him into it easily, and disobedience here would only mark him for death faster.
'Fine,' Ryusei thought coldly, forcing a smirk onto his face. 'I'll remember this.'
He sprinted toward the assigned sector.
There, the situation was as bad as his senses had warned: roughly thirty enemy operatives pressing in, a mix from low-chūnin up through low-jōnin, moving with ruthless Kusagakure coordination.
Against them were only twelve Konoha shinobi, and the distribution wasn't enough; quality couldn't cover the gap in numbers.
Ryusei knew at a glance they were barely holding.
But this was his battlefield now.
Ryusei plunged into the fray without hesitation, a half-dozen shadow clones springing into existence around him.
He wasn't wasting chakra on flashy jutsu yet.
No, this battle would drag on, and danger would stalk them for hours, perhaps.
He needed every drop of chakra he could spare.
That was why his clones fought with fists, feet, and kunai, pure taijutsu, nothing more.
Even so, the pressure was heavy.
These weren't random mercenaries or green genin—they were Kusagakure's tactical special mission organization akin to Konoha's Anbu.
Kusa was one of the strongest of the smaller shinobi villages.
What truly separated Kusagakure's operatives from wandering mercenaries wasn't just discipline, but technique.
They wielded proper elemental releases, chakra control, weapon flows, and physical enhancements, everything executed on a higher level than hired blades could ever hope for.
But even so, Kusagakure lacked the backbone of powerful hijutsu clans or kekkei genkai bloodlines.
Those kinds of lineages had long been absorbed by the greater villages during the founding era of the Hidden Village system.
Most had gravitated toward Konoha, drawn by its prestige and the promise of security under giants like the Senju and Uchiha.
Most of Kusa shinobi here fought with brutal close-range combat and weapons, but plenty could weave nature transformations, apply chakra flow, or pull out unique jutsu.
Their coordination was tight, amplifying their threat beyond their individual ranks.
The clash became a storm of steel and chakra.
Kunai and shuriken crisscrossed the air, sparks flashed as blades met, clones burst into smoke, blood sprayed in arcs, elemental releases detonated and countered in quick succession.
The melee was chaos, shadows and light overlapping into a deadly rhythm.
With Ryusei's arrival, the line steadied.
For a moment, momentum tilted back to neutral for a while.
He carved through an enemy with a precise strike, his clones keeping the others tangled, and his mind kept working even as his body fought, calculating, analyzing, already shaping a plan to press forward before more reinforcements arrived.
That was when his instincts screamed.
Danger—sharp, overwhelming—approached from the flank, only a few blocks away.
At that exact moment, he was pinned, his real body momentarily locked by two opponents pressing hard.
And from the side came something strange.
Not fire, not lightning, not even genjutsu, it was a floating surge of energy, uncanny, out of place, aimed directly at him.
Ryusei's eyes widened.
Whoever launched it knew exactly which of the figures was his real body.
They hadn't struck at random.
They had been waiting.
And the only ones who could have known his true position were those who had seen him just before he split into clones.
They were the only ones who could've realised this if they paid close attention at that time.
The Root operatives shadowing Okabe.
Or at least someone out of them.
His chest tightened, a cold recognition washing over him.
Betrayal, again.
The setup was too clean, too precise.
And for a fleeting instant, as the attack streaked toward him, he felt a wave of déjà vu, just like that moment five months ago, when a strange jutsu had seized his mind and he had first awakened in this body.