Chapter 55 – All Quiet on the Western Front (Part I)
The short-term truce stated: Konoha and the Hidden Rain shall send no more reinforcements to the frontlines.
But a treaty? That's just paper—paper meant to be torn.
Hanzō would never pull his troops from Konoha's borders; without seizing enough resources, his position would crumble.
Konoha, for its part, would never feed the Rain with the mountains of grain they demanded—why fatten the tiger that wants to eat you?
When contradiction is unavoidable, how do shinobi resolve it?
If not with kunai and blades… then with nothing at all.
Across the border, two men—Hiruzen Sarutobi and Hanzō—came to the same decision.
Reinforce.
Reinforce the front at any cost.
No more acting. All in.
---
"Another war, huh…" muttered a Konoha shopkeeper.
On the village square, Hiruzen stood at the podium, rallying yet another batch of ninja.
The speech was a remix of the usual: war, the defense of Konoha, peace for the next generation. Minamoto Ren had heard it all before.
Only this time, he stood with Minato Namikaze behind the podium, in the position of "promising juniors favored by the Hokage."
The shift in perspective was almost surreal.
"Konoha will endure—forever endure! Because of our flames, it will stand for a thousand years!"
Hiruzen's voice boomed through a chakra amplifier, carrying for miles.
---
Cut to:
Ren and Minato, each leading their squads, running through dense forest.
Their first mission on the western front was to join Sakumo Hatake and rendezvous with Aburame Saiwei, who was holding the Mokuning Dam—a key waterworks for Konoha. Other territories could be lost; the dam could not.
Saiwei, a prodigy of the Aburame clan and an elite jōnin, was a master of the Destructive Insect Secret Art. Hiruzen entrusted him with the dam's defense for good reason.
Of course, one Saiwei wasn't enough. His flanks were guarded by two other jōnin: Shimura Narukage and Uchiha Jōka, each commanding their clan's troops in Mokuning Village.
A Shimura and an Uchiha—perfect for "balancing" external forces. Hiruzen was happy to hand the post to an Uchiha… as long as it didn't mean surrendering any control of Konoha's standing army.
At this moment, Ren's team was still half a day from Mokuning.
---
"Secret Art—Rain Tiger at Will."
A man wearing a scratched Kirigakure forehead protector formed seals. His sky-blue robe hung loosely on his lean frame, his bare chest stark against the cloth.
Above, black clouds gathered. Rain began to fall.
This man was Utakata, a missing-nin from the Mist and the jinchūriki of the Six-Tails. He'd fled after killing his master—by accident, but the truth no longer mattered. Reconciliation was impossible.
Why the Hidden Rain? Likely because the Six-Tails preferred aquatic environments, and the Land of Rain was the closest thing to Kirigakure outside the Mist's borders.
By channeling the Six-Tails' power, Utakata could expand Rain Tiger at Will to a radius of ten kilometers—far beyond normal sensory techniques.
When he finished casting, Utakata stood lazily and began describing the enemy positions he sensed to the surrounding Rain-nin. His role was detection; the fighting was for others.
He wasn't one of Hanzō's loyal shinobi—just a hired missing-nin. His temperament was mild, almost detached. He'd taken the job only because he'd left the Mist without a coin to his name. Once he saved enough, he'd vanish to some quiet place—just as the history books would one day record.
---
"No need to rush in—Senkiri Ryōsuke has already engaged. If you get caught in his forbidden technique, it'll be your own funeral," Utakata advised.
The raindrops from Rain Tiger at Will were laced with chakra, allowing him to feel movements, chakra signatures, and jutsu activity. When he sensed a blot of black mist enter his "sight," he knew who it was.
At the name Senkiri Ryōsuke, the kneeling Rain-nin shuddered. The man was infamous—Hanzō had once tried to make him both ANBU commander and External Affairs Minister. Ryōsuke refused.
"I've got five years left to live at most," he'd said. "If you give me two jobs, Hanzō-sama, I'll die too slowly for your liking."
Konoha's ANBU knew of him. They'd even checked his file—born the same year as Konoha's Class of Year 18, barely twenty years old, yet with hair already white as snow. They assumed his short life wasn't worth further investigation.
But had they dug deeper, they would have found his name tied to the disappearances of many powerful shinobi.
At that moment, the white-haired "old man" slowly pulled his blood-soaked hands from the ground.
From behind, Yahiko noticed something unsettling—the earth itself seemed to be clinging to his hands, reluctant to let them go.
"It's ready. Move in."
Senkiri Ryōsuke's half-lidded gaze lingered on the black curse-script slithering across the soil. Only when the script reached the outskirts of Mokuning Village did he give the order to strike.
Yahiko felt a flicker of unease. He glanced at his younger brother, Nagato… only to see those ripple-patterned eyes wide with raw fear, staring dead ahead.
What happened? He'd only turned away for a second.
Following Nagato's gaze, Yahiko froze.
Reflected in his black pupils were flowing spikes woven entirely from writhing black script. Like ribbons of living ink, the curse runes first spread out along the village's perimeter, stretching to their limit—then began to slowly contract inward.
"For the time it takes a single stick of incense to burn, no Konoha shinobi will be able to send messages, summon creatures, or call for aid. Drive them toward the center—don't let them escape before the runes close in. As for the rest… you'll understand once it's done."
Having said this, Senkiri Ryōsuke vaulted up into a tree, settling into a meditative pose to restore his chakra—as if his mission from Hanzō was already accomplished. The three hundred Rain-nin he led were not about to face a desperate battle against a larger force. This was a hunt—many against few.
"Carry out the order," Yahiko forced himself to say, then led his squad toward the village's outer edge.
---
Inside Mokuning Village, Aburame Saiwei's eyes snapped open the moment the black runes seeped into the streets.
The kikaichū he'd stationed underground had encountered something—and then vanished from his senses without a trace.
The speed of that disappearance ruled out predators. This wasn't nature. It was ninjutsu.
"…The Rain-nin are here?"
Saiwei sighed, rapidly forming seals. He prepared to summon more insects and alert the village, while also signaling Shimura Narukage and Uchiha Jōka, who were guarding the two flanks of the dam.
The summoning array unfurled at a crawl. A cloud of kikaichū emerged—only for the central runes of the array to twist, a few strokes altered as if by black paint.
The insects exploded mid-air in a spray of blood.
"Counter-summoning!?"
Saiwei's expression darkened. Years of mastery in summoning and secret arts told him one thing: even mastering a single ninjutsu school was rare. But counter-summoning? That was the domain of elite shinobi.
Outsiders might see nothing but a spectacle. Insiders knew this was a bad omen—enemies with that skill were never amateurs.
---
"Aaaghhh!"
Screams erupted from every direction outside.
Saiwei threw open his door. The coppery stench of blood hit him in the face—along with something else, a smell he barely recognized.
He stood still for several seconds, sifting through memories.
The scents of the shinobi world were many: ninjutsu, sealing arts, summoning—each left a distinct trace.
But there was one scent he didn't know well. One with the strangest, most unnatural effects of all.
Curses.