NNT- Dusk – Land of Waves -- Konohagakure Defense Front
The marsh smelled like death.
Shisui pressed his back against the rough bark of a dead willow, trying not to breathe through his nose. Three days of bodies decaying in the heat, mixed with that salty fog that never seemed to lift—it was enough to make any-dang-one sick. His Sharingan picked up movement through the mist, dark shapes that moved wrong, too fluid to be human.
"Shit," he whispered, watching a patrol of Mist nin glide between the broken reeds like they owned the place. "Inako, you seeing this?"
A soft grunt from somewhere in the fog to his left. "Yeah dude. Don't like it."
Neither did Shisui. The Kirigakure forces had been acting strange all week—too organized, too confident. And those masks they wore... in this light, with the mist swirling around them, they looked like the kind of demons his grandmother used to tell stories about. The ones that came for bad children in the night.
He shifted his grip on his kunai, feeling the familiar weight of it. Three years into this war, and his hands still shook before a fight. Just a little, but enough to remind him he wasn't made of stone.
"Bruh How many you count?" Takeo's voice drifted from the right, trying to sound casual and failing.
"Too dang many," Shisui muttered.
---
The attack came without warning.
One second the marsh was quiet except for the distant croak of frogs, the next it was chaos. Three Mist nin burst from the fog like they'd been shot from a cannon, water dripping from their armor, those horrible masks reflecting what little light filtered through the haze.
Shisui was moving before his brain caught up, muscle memory taking over. His Sharingan spun up to full power, and suddenly everything slowed down just enough for him to see the blade coming for his throat, the way the lead attacker's weight shifted as he prepared to strike.
"Nope," Shisui said, weaving through hand signs faster than most people could blink. "Demonic Illusion: Mirage Hell."
The technique hit the first guy like a freight train. His eyes went wide behind his mask, pupils dilating, and then he was screaming and clawing at his face like something was trying to crawl out of his skin. His buddies weren't doing much better—one was hacking at empty air with his sword, the other had fallen to his knees and was making these awful choking sounds.
Shisui flickered behind the first one, his blade finding the weak spot where the chest plate met the shoulder guard. The man went down hard, his blood mixing with the stagnant marsh water and turning it dark.
"One," he panted, already spinning to face the next threat.
But there were always more. There were always more.
---
"They just keep coming!" Takeo's voice cracked, and Shisui could hear the exhaustion in it. The kid was tough—had to be, to survive this long—but everyone had their breaking point.
"Tell me something I don't know," Shisui grunted, slamming his palm into the muddy ground. His chakra spiked, flowing through the earth like lightning. "Uchiha Style: Ashen Pulse!"
The ground cracked and heaved, sending three Mist nin stumbling into each other. Steam hissed up from the marsh, giving them a few precious seconds of cover. When it cleared, Shisui was the only one left standing in that particular patch of hell.
His hands were shaking again. He clenched them into fists until his knuckles went white.
---
Inako materialized beside him like he'd been there all along, which was his usual trick. The guy moved like smoke when he wanted to—silent and deadly until suddenly someone was bleeding out in the mud and you weren't quite sure how it happened.
"Left flank's getting messy," Inako said, cleaning his blade on a piece of cloth that used to be white. There was blood on his face, but Shisui couldn't tell if it was his or someone else's.
"Can you handle it?"
"Can I handle it," Inako repeated, like the question was insulting. "Watch me."
He melted back into the mist, and a few seconds later Shisui heard screaming from that direction. Short, sharp, and then silence.
Takeo stumbled up from the right, his uniform torn and muddy, but his eyes were still sharp. Still fighting. "Status?"
"Alive," Shisui said. "You?"
"Same. For now." Takeo's hands were steady as he formed the seals for his next technique, but Shisui could see the fear lurking behind his expression. They were all afraid. Only dead men weren't afraid in a place like this.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball!"
The technique lit up the marsh like a miniature sun, and Shisui had to squint against the sudden brightness. Three more enemies went down screaming, their armor no protection against fire that burned hot enough to melt steel.
---
The battle dissolved into chaos after that.
Shisui found himself in the middle of a knot of Mist nin, all of them trying to kill him at once. His Sharingan spun like a pinwheel, tracking attacks from six different directions, finding the split-second openings that meant the difference between living and dying.
A puppet lunged at him—strings nearly invisible in the mist—and he cut them with a backhanded slash that sent sparks flying. A Water Prison technique tried to trap him, but he broke free with a spinning cut that turned the water into a spray of droplets that caught the light like diamonds.
"Push forward!" he yelled, not sure if anyone could hear him over the clash of steel and the screaming. "Don't let them regroup!"
Inako was a shadow with a blade, moving through the enemy ranks like death itself. Takeo was all fire and fury, his techniques burning through formations like they were made of paper. But there were still so many of them, and they kept coming, kept pressing forward with that mechanical determination that made the Mist forces so damn dangerous.
A spear punched through Inako's shoulder, and he went down on one knee with a grunt that sounded more annoyed than hurt.
"Inako!" Takeo was already moving, explosive tags in both hands, turning the air around them into a storm of fire and shrapnel.
Shisui caught one of the Mist officers in his strongest genjutsu—the kind that trapped you in your own worst memories and wouldn't let you wake up. The man dropped like a stone, his body twitching as his mind tried to process horrors that weren't really there.
---
And then, as suddenly as it started, it was over.
The surviving Mist nin were retreating, disappearing back into the fog like they'd never been there at all. The marsh went quiet except for the soft splash of bodies settling into the mud and the ragged breathing of the wounded.
Shisui stood there for a long moment, trying to process the fact that he was still breathing. His clothes were soaked through with marsh water and blood—some his, some not. Everything hurt, but he was alive. That had to count for something.
"Everyone still with me?" he called out, his voice hoarse from shouting.
"Here," Inako said, pressing something that glowed green against his shoulder wound. Medical ninjutsu had never been his strong suit, but he was making it work through sheer stubbornness. "Been better, been worse."
Takeo was sitting against a broken reed that looked like it had been struck by lightning, staring at his hands. They were shaking, and he seemed surprised by it.
"We got them, right?" he asked, and his voice sounded younger than usual. "They're not coming back today?"
"Not today." Shisui walked over and dropped down beside him, his legs suddenly feeling like they were made of water. "But they'll be back tomorrow. And the day after that."
"Yeah." Takeo nodded, still staring at his hands. "That's what they do."
Shisui studied the kid's face, seeing too much knowledge in those eyes. They'd all seen too much for their ages, but that was war for you. It took everything and gave nothing back except scars and nightmares.
"You did good out there," he said.
"Didn't feel good."
"It's not supposed to." Shisui leaned back against the reed, feeling the rough bark through his torn shirt. "The day it starts feeling good is the day you need to worry."
---
They regrouped as the sun started to set, checking wounds and taking inventory of what they had left. Not much. Never enough. In the distance, they could hear the sound of bugles—the Mist forces pulling back to lick their wounds and plan their next move. Tomorrow there'd be another fight. There was always another fight.
"Think this'll ever end?" Takeo asked, wrapping a field dressing around a cut on his forearm that looked deeper than it should.
Shisui looked out over the marsh, at the broken trees and the water that had turned red in the failing light. Somewhere out there, families were waiting for soldiers who weren't coming home. On both sides.
"Has to," he said, because that's what you said. "Everything ends eventually."
But privately, watching the mist roll in with the darkness, he wondered if any of them would live to see it.
The fog was starting to thin as full night settled over the marsh, and for the first time in hours, Shisui could see stars. Just a few, barely visible through the haze, but they were there. Proof that there was still a world beyond this nightmare of blood and mud and death.
Small comfort, but he'd learned to take what he could get.
Tomorrow would bring fresh hell—more fighting, more dying, more friends who wouldn't make it home. But tonight they were alive, and that had to be enough.
It had to be.