c3 – Initial Homitz
Forty miles is dangerously close for a ninja strike force.
Even though Konoha's shinobi worked tirelessly to set up traps, chakra barriers, and layered defenses through the dense forests and ridgelines, the Kumogakure Sunagakure allied army still arrived only half an hour later blitzing through natural and artificial defenses.
Konohagakure, hidden deep within a bowl of mountainous terrain and ancient forests, was naturally fortified. These wild, steep terrains had always served as Konoha's outermost shield shaped by centuries of war and weather.
And in such forests, no village's shinobi could match Konoha's. The Senju legacy, the Inuzuka tracking formations, the Aburame's hive-based surveillance, the Hyūga's Byakugan, and Uchiha patrol routes all made forest warfare Konoha's specialty.
But the enemy came prepared.
As soon as the joint forces from Kumogakure and Sunagakure made visual contact with Konoha's outer defenses, they launched a forward wave of elite shinobi.
These front-line specialists didn't hesitate they unleashed chakra-consuming elemental ninjutsu to rupture and blast apart Konoha's traps and barriers, including earth release barriers, hidden explosive tags, and chakra-sealed wire arrays.
This was not a siege.
This was a surprise pincer assault, perfectly timed with distractions along both the northern and western fronts. Kumogakure and Sunagakure coordinated their main forces to converge while engaging Konoha's reinforcements elsewhere. They knew that if the battle stretched too long, they would lose the initiative.
Hiruzen Sarutobi had already mobilized several reserve units and border platoons, but they wouldn't arrive for another two to three hours at minimum.
If the coalition couldn't break through before reinforcements arrived, their window of tactical superiority would slam shut.
Once Konoha's reinforcements flanked them or worse, surrounded them they'd be overrun, with no fallback strategy.
After detonating the barriers, the enemy formations dispersed into skirmishing squads, following standard military doctrine: individual teams formed units of three to four ninja, combining to make detachments of 12–15 shinobi. These detachments merged into assault platoons of 40–50 ninja, moving in a wedge formation as they advanced on Mount Kikyo.
Mount Kikyo was the first of two natural ridgelines protecting the village's eastern perimeter. Behind it stood Kikyo Castle, a historical fortification once used during the Warring States Period by the Senju clan before the founding of Konoha.
If the mountain fell, the enemy could deploy long-range fire-style jutsu and high-level wind techniques from the ridgeline causing severe internal damage to Konoha proper.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh…
Bang, bang, bang…
As the coalition charged, the forest exploded into life or rather, death. Concealed kunai launchers and chakra-wire snares snapped from hidden grooves in the trees. Dozens of explosive tags set on delayed triggers erupted underfoot and above.
Some traps were purely mechanical. Others were laid by genin or specialized trap squads from the Nara, Yamanaka, and Akimichi clans. The Nara clan in particular deployed shadow tripwires to restrain key targets, only for explosive scrolls to ignite seconds later.
In seconds, the emerald-green woods were bathed in fire and smoke. Birds scattered in panic, animals howled, and cries of pain echoed through the forest.
The ambush claimed many lives but not enough.
After suffering moderate casualties and exhausting their chakra to defuse what traps remained, the enemy resumed formation. With Mount Kikyo now just a short sprint away, the defenders of Konoha having taken time to dig in and organize began launching their counteroffensive.
The battle officially ignited.
Despite the damage inflicted by the traps, the invading force still numbered around 1,200 combatants, which was 200 more than the Konoha defenders at the front.
Konoha's quality, however, was higher. Veteran jonin, elite ANBU captains, and even Sarutobi Hiruzen himself had entered the field. Chakra suppression fields were disabled every ninja fought at full power.
For Konoha's defenders, this wasn't just a skirmish.
It was war for their home.
The forest turned brutal. Steel clashed with chakra, jutsu with jutsu. Screams were met with silence. Wounded ninja detonated final-resort tags, taking enemies down with them. Genin learned what it meant to bleed for the Will of Fire.
In the Uchiha clan's defense area, further south near a cluster of sacred groves, Uchiha Gen crouched on a thick branch, using the Camouflage Concealment Technique to blend into the bark and shadows. His chakra was masked, his presence like mist.
Several waves of enemy scouts passed beneath him he remained silent.
Not yet.
"I'm still not strong enough. I need to hunt the weak."
Camouflage Concealment was a rarely taught technique that originated in Iwagakure, used by their infiltration specialists. But during the Third Shinobi World War, Uchiha operatives had captured and reverse-engineered the jutsu, adding it to their archive for reconnaissance shinobi.
Gen had learned it in secret, without Yashiro's knowledge.
Now, the time had come.
With each soul harvested, I grow.
His crimson Sharingan glowed faintly beneath the layered chakra screen, waiting.
And watching.
A few minutes later, a three-man Kumogakure cell moved cautiously through the forest. Hidden above them in the dense canopy, Uchiha Gen, already a battle-worn genin with a jonin's mind, made his move. The moment the trio leapt into a clearing, three shuriken whistled through the air, flying with uncanny precision.
"Careful!"
The squad leader a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old Cloud shinobi with dusky skin, short dreadlocks, and a blade strapped to his back spotted the threat. He spun mid-air, katana flashing as he deflected one of the shuriken with a metallic clang.
But the others weren't so fortunate.
Their teamwork failed under the sudden strike. The second and third ninja, less experienced and slower to react, each took a shuriken to the lower back. Blood sprayed through the foliage as they collapsed, groaning and immobilized.
Before the leader could even yell for help, Uchiha Gen appeared, dropping silently from the trees. His sword flashed as he lunged at the surviving Kumo shinobi, who landed nimbly on a branch and met the attack head-on confident, blade raised.
But then
Crimson flooded Gen's eyes.
His Sharingan activated mid-air, revealing two tomoe spinning slowly in each eye. The Kumo ninja's pupils widened. "Sh–Sharingan?!" He snapped his gaze away, knowing the danger too late.
Genjutsu: Sharingan.
Though only a two-tomoe form, it was enough to inject a low-level illusion through direct eye contact. The enemy's body stiffened. His grip faltered. His consciousness blurred.
They crossed paths in a blink. As the Cloud ninja drifted past, the illusion shattered under the pain of Gen's sword tearing through his side.
The enemy screamed and crashed into a trunk, blood streaking his uniform.
Still breathing.
Uchiha Gen narrowed his eyes.
He had intentionally held back. The injuries were severe but not fatal. All three Kumogakure shinobi were genin. Their weak chakra signatures had told him they weren't even chunin-level.
They staggered to their feet, blades drawn, trembling.
Gen exhaled.
His sword slid back into its sheath. He flashed through hand seals, chakra pulsing through his fingertips. As he landed softly on the forest floor, he whispered the words:
"Genjutsu: Narakujō no Jutsu."
A D-rank genjutsu nothing impressive on paper. But its true horror was in the application: it forced the victim to hallucinate their deepest fear or trauma.
To genin without mental discipline, it was devastating.
The three Kumo ninja froze. Their eyes went wide, then twisted with terror. One screamed. Another dropped his weapon. The third sobbed incoherently.
Perfect.
Uchiha Gen raised his hand.
Soul-Soul Fruit: Soul Harvest.
An invisible wave rippled outward undetectable to even sensor-types. From above each victim's head, a translucent blue soul rose, accompanied by a faint white flame of lifespan.
All three essences drifted slowly toward Gen's palm, where they fused into his body like mist drawn into a lantern.
The three Kumo genin collapsed in a heap lifeless, but unmarked.
To cover his tracks, Gen unsheathed his blade again. In one clean motion, he stabbed each of them through the chest or throat—standard kill-zones for a ninja skirmish. It was surgical, clean. Enough to fool even a medical-nin into thinking the cause of death was physical trauma, not soul extraction.
Finished, Gen wiped the blade, turned, and vanished.
Not long after, he slipped into a hollow tree he had marked earlier during scouting. The natural hideout was damp and narrow but perfect for what came next.
Inside, he knelt, placed his shuriken and ninja sword across his lap, and exhaled with restrained excitement.
Now came the ritual.
"Soul infusion."
From his palm emerged three marble-sized spheres of light, glowing white with faint blue hues. Unlike the pale, simple lifespan orbs he had extracted from civilians in earlier hunts, these contained both soul essence and vitality the real fuel for creating Homitz.
He pressed one orb into the hilt of his sword.
Then into the shuriken, one by one.
Suddenly, eyes opened.
Not metaphorical ones. Real, conscious, eerie pupil-like slits one on the flat side of the sword, and one on each shuriken.
"Mom! Mom! Mom!"
Three distinct voices chirped up at him, each one childlike and annoyingly high-pitched.
Gen's face darkened.
"I'm a guy. I'm not your mom. Don't call me that."
The sword twitched. "Dad?"
He twitched harder. "I'm not old enough to be anyone's dad either. I'm thirteen!"
The shuriken chimed together. "Master! Master!"
He nodded, satisfied. "Better. That's what I want to hear. Now, shut up."
The Homitz fell silent, their eyes closing obediently.
Gen grinned.
From now on, his shuriken were semi-autonomous, with tracking and lock-on capabilities based on chakra signatures. Dodging them would be possible only for a while but evasion was temporary. They would always come back.
The sword, meanwhile, had evolved into a primitive flying sword capable of independent pursuit and mid-air redirection.
It didn't matter how fast the enemy was. Unless they severed the soul core or drained the Homitz of its lifespan, the attacks would not stop.
Even jonin could die if caught off guard.
But still he had to be cautious.
Too flashy, too soon, and questions would come.
The Uchiha were known for shurikenjutsu—but not this. A living shuriken? An intelligent weapon?
He couldn't claim it was a summoning. No one would believe that. Not even Kakashi.
He could have used his own soul long ago to create high-tier Homitz but Gen was picky. He refused to waste his own essence on low-tier weapons. A basic kunai or standard sword wasn't worthy of his soul.
If he ever did it, it had to be something legendary—like a Kusanagi-class blade or a relic weapon sealed in the depths of the Fire Temple.
No his true dream was Elemental Homitz.
Sentient fire. Living wind. Storm spirits.
Unlike BIG MOM in One Piece, whose soul was monstrous due to her titanic physical strength and emotional trauma, Gen's soul was still growing. And in the ninja world, where soul, chakra, and willpower intertwine he would need quantity and quality.
Only then could he create a Homitz worthy of being his trump card a hidden weapon to survive the Ninja World War and rise above it.
Satisfied, Gen carefully tucked his sentient weapons into his pouch, cloaked his chakra once more, and slipped into the forest shadows.
There were still many souls left to harvest.
Don't hoard jutsu. Don't hoard souls. Hoarders die early.
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