The night was a vast, ink-black canvas pierced only by the slivers of a crescent moon and the countless stars that dusted the heavens. Through the dense, sleeping forests of the Land of Fire, a silent, deadly current flowed. Thirty figures moved not as men, but as ghosts, their passage marked by the softest shush of displaced leaves and the occasional, nearly inaudible fwoosh of a high-speed shunshin. They were a blur of Konoha flak jackets and determined faces, flickering between the ancient, gnarled trees.
At the tip of this spear was Renjiro. His movements were a study in lethal economy, each flicker covering maximum ground with minimal effort, setting a pace that was demanding yet sustainable for the seasoned shinobi under his command. But while his body was a machine of perfect shinobi efficiency, his mind was a storm.
'Seventeen.'
The number echoed in his skull, a grim metronome keeping time with his heartbeat. It was not a random figure. It was the tally. The number of shinobi from the squads originally under Arata, Akira, and Shoda and the rest, who had died in the various battles fought during his absence. Seventeen faces. Seventeen names. Almost half of the vibrant, living units he had personally trained and led were now just cold data on a casualty report, their futures erased by the war's relentless hunger.
A familiar, corrosive guilt whispered in his ear. 'If I were here, would they still be alive?'
The question was a needle in his soul. Could his presence have turned the tide in some forgotten skirmish? Could his Mangekyo have shielded them from a fatal ambush? The weight of command, which he had always carried, now felt like a millstone made of ghosts.
He pushed the thought down, engaging in the brutal calculus of war that was every commander's burden.
'No. I cannot know that. And it doesn't matter.'
His mind flashed to other battles: the brutal clash in the no-man's-land against the devastating combination of Ay and Killer B; the desperate, near-suicidal confrontation with the Third Raikage himself.
In both of those scenarios, his presence had been the critical variable between a tactical withdrawal and a total massacre. People he cared about deeply—his comrades, his village—were alive because he had been there, not here. He was a single shinobi, powerful but not omnipresent, forced to make choices that inevitably left some to die so that others might live.
This line of thought led him down a darker, more philosophical path. He realised, with a jolt, how astronomically lucky he had been. His second life, his transmigration, had granted him a better starting point than ninety-nine per cent of the shinobi in this world.
He had been born with potent bloodlines, into a position of relative privilege. He could very easily have been one of those seventeen statistics, a nameless genin cut down in his first battle, his second chance at life wasted before it even began.
But was being reborn into this cycle of endless, brutal violence a blessing or a beautifully disguised curse? Was his knowledge of the future a gift or a sentence to witness every terrible prediction come true?
'No,' he reaffirmed, his jaw tightening as he landed on a branch before pushing off again into the night.
'I knew the cost. I walked into this with my eyes open.'
He remembered his conversation with Miwa all those years ago, his 'childish' determination to join the academy.
He had chosen this path.
This violence did have an end. He had seen it, in glimpses of a future he was desperately trying to steer toward. His purpose was to work tirelessly, to bear this weight, to ensure that future came to pass. The melancholy he felt was a luxury, a moment of weakness for the dead that could not be allowed to compromise his duty to the living.
"Stay in formation!" Arata's voice, sharp and commanding, cut through the night air and through Renjiro's introspection.
Renjiro glanced back at Arata, whose flicker had drifted a few feet out of alignment. Seeing Renjiro's glance, Arata's stern expression softened into slight embarrassment.
"Sorry, Captain," he said, his voice lower. "Force of habit. Been doing this for a while."
Renjiro offered a small, acknowledging nod. "It's fine. You're a good leader, Arata. Keep them sharp." He turned his gaze back to the dark path ahead, leaving Arata with a mixture of pride and a renewed sense of responsibility.
The unit continued its silent, rapid advance.
The character of the forest began to change. The dense, tangled undergrowth gave way to rocky, sloping ground. The air grew cooler, carrying the distant, thunderous sound of falling water. The trees thinned out until they finally emerged from the woodland onto the edge of a breathtaking and historic vista.
They had arrived.
Before them lay the Valley of the End. The colossal waterfall that gave the valley its name crashed down with a roar that vibrated through the very stone beneath their feet, sending up a perpetual mist that glittered in the starlight. The river below churned, white and furious, carving a deep scar between the two nations.
Shoda moved up beside Renjiro, his voice a low rumble. "Captain. Should we establish a perimeter and set up camp?"
"Not yet," Renjiro said, his eyes scanning the opposite cliff face, his senses stretching out into the night.
Shoda looked confused—this was their designated defensive position—but he trusted his captain implicitly. With a curt nod, he moved back to the others, signalling them to hold position and stay alert.
Renjiro's mind raced through the tactical layout. 'The border between the Land of Fire and the Land of Rice Fields. Soon to be the Land of Sound, if history holds. And just beyond those western mountains… Shimogakure.' His gaze turned westward, as if he could see through the rock and distance to the occupied Village Hidden in the Frost.
'Kumo's forward operating base. The launch point for every attack into the Land of Fire. They'll come through here. This is the most direct route.'*
He looked at the thirty shinobi under his command. They were good, but they were thirty.
"They said other units would come to reinforce us," he muttered to himself, the words lost in the roar of the waterfall. "But I know better than to cling to false hope. My mission isn't to hold this valley. It's to make sure every single one of these people leaves it alive."
His eyes were drawn upward, to the two immense stone statues that stood on either side of the waterfall, locked in their eternal, faceless struggle. The heads of both Hashirama and Madara had been sheared off long ago, a deliberate act of disrespect by some past enemy.
"Bastards," Renjiro cursed under his breath. But almost immediately, he quashed the sentiment.
'No. All is fair in war. Desecrating your enemy's monuments is the least of its horrors.'
Arata approached him again, his expression a mix of concern and confusion. "Captain, forgive me, but why aren't we setting camp? This is the location command specified. We're exposed out here in the open."
Renjiro didn't turn to look at him. His entire focus was outward, his Sharingan still dormant, but his every instinct screaming. He had felt it the moment they arrived—a subtle wrongness in the air, a pressure that had nothing to do with the mist.
He finally glanced at Arata, his expression unreadable. "You haven't realised it yet?" he asked, his voice calm, almost conversational. "We already have guests coming to welcome us."
Arata stared at him for a second, uncomprehending. Then, his own sensory skills, which he had been using on a passive, background level, snapped into sharp, focused intensity. He expanded his chakra field, pushing it beyond their perimeter, probing the surrounding forest and the cliffs across the river.
His blood ran cold.
His eyes widened in dawning horror as his senses returned an impossible, terrifying picture. They weren't just surrounded. They were engulfed. From the tree line behind them, from the opposite cliff face, from the riverbanks below—everywhere. His face paled.
"Captain…" he whispered, his voice trembling. "There are… hundreds of them."