The sun crested over the sea.
The air fell silent — too silent.
Then thunder cracked across the mountains as the Third Raikage leapt forward, chakra cloaking him in golden lightning. His sprint shattered boulders in his wake.
With him surged Kumo's elite vanguard — a wave of shinobi behind their iron shield walls and electric spears.
From the west, Iwa's forces, led by Onoki, soared into the sky on rock platforms. Their artillery-style jutsu rained down in waves — explosive chakra boulders meant to level fortresses.
The Third Mizukage unleashed a crawling mist from the south, corrosive and cold. His Boil Release drifted forward, melting vegetation, steel, and flesh alike.
From above, the Seven-Tails, Chōmei, roared once — her human host glowing with insectoid chakra wings. Taki shinobi moved with brutal speed under her direction, already bypassing terrain using hollow-flight formations.
Four forces. One strike.
But Uzu was ready.
As the enemy touched the borders—
Flash. Snap. Boom.
Dozens of pre-set seal arrays ignited beneath their feet.
From the cliffs, inked vines of chakra erupted and bound charging Kumo shinobi in place.
The mist advancing from Kiri triggered the Mirror Seal Arrays, reflecting the corrosive fog back onto itself.
Iwa's falling boulders met an invisible gravity redirection seal, causing many to collapse harmlessly into craters outside the village walls.
And in the air, when Taki's strike team descended—
Boom!
—chakra mines made of compacted tag bombs detonated in a chain reaction, tearing through the sky with precision.
Uzu's walls held.
And the counterattack began.
---
The Eastern Pass
Tama dashed between boulders, using explosive seals mid-sprint to vault into the air. She rained shrapnel tags onto incoming Kumo jonin.
Riku stood behind a reinforced barrier, sniping key targets with chakra-imbued kunai that detonated mid-air.
"Two more on the left!" Tama shouted.
"Got them."
Boom. Precision. Discipline.
"We hold this line," Riku muttered. "Or die on it."
---
Fog of the South
Inside the choking mist, Aiko moved like a ghost.
Using her chakra sensory training under Akashi, she maneuvered her squad past the enemy lines, striking surgically with flash-freeze tags that countered boil release temperatures.
Her blades flickered.
Her voice rang through comm-sigils.
"Ignore the grunts. Go for the Mist Hunters. Take their vision — they lose the fog."
And they did. With speed, silence, and rage.
---
West Wall
Despite his previous injuries, Akashi's ANBU mentor led the western defenses, facing wave after wave of Iwa's earth-style barrages.
With his team, he activated reflective dome seals, then flipped earth-style counter-scrolls, turning Iwa's mud into razor-sharp glass barriers.
"For every stone they throw," he growled, "we sharpen it and send it back."
Behind him, hidden underground, Ashina's secret trap matrix began to pulse.
Phase Two Ready.
---
Command Center
Akashi stood inside the command hall, eye closed.
Not activated.
Not yet.
But his mind moved faster than any chakra pulse.
"The Mizukage hasn't moved personally.The Tsuchikage's floating higher — baiting seals.The Raikage... is waiting to breach manually.And Chōmei…"
He looked to the sky. His fingers twitched once.
"They're about to make their move. Time to change the game."
He grabbed a kunai etched in an old symbol — not his, but from the scroll Mito sent: Flying Thunder God: Phase I.
He whispered into the seal channel.
"Squads Alpha and Delta — collapse the center valley. Bait them in."
"Then… we show them the whirlpool bites back."
The earth quaked.
The sky bled orange and red.
The once-quiet cliffs of Uzushiogakure had become a battlefield that echoed across the nations.
Kumo's spear divisions rammed against chakra-reinforced barriers.
Iwa bombarded the outer ranges with Doton artillery and particle-line testing.
Kiri bled poison and mist into the valleys, ambush squads carving from behind.
Taki's insect-style guerilla shinobi darted in aerial formations — striking then vanishing.
But Uzu held.
Not because of numbers.
But because of the mind of a commander named Akashi.
---
A sudden pulse of chakra spread through the battlefield. The ground beneath the invaders shifted.
Phase Two: Active.
Across key points, ancient seals hidden in natural formations glowed red.
Terrain shift glyphs forced enemy formations into bottlenecks.
Inverted gravity fields in cliff zones pulled Mist and Taki squads into pre-set traps.
Silencing seals disrupted enemy communication across three battlefields.
Aiko's voice crackled through Akashi's signal seal:
"Phase Two is beautiful, Commander."
Akashi's voice was calm:
"Don't admire it. Use it. We've got a war to win."
---
Clone Hellfire Protocol
On the northern ridge, a squad of elite Uzumaki Jonin dropped their cloaks, revealing armor lined with kanji and scrolls clipped to their backs.
Each made a seal.
"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
Four clones each.
Each clone pulling detonation tags like ribbons from their arms.
They blitzed into enemy lines, a blur of chakra and silent intent. As the clones clashed into Iwa and Kumo's vanguard—
BOOM.BOOM.BOOM.
The Mutually Multiple Explosive Tags ignited in unison.
Columns of fire rose like chakra volcanoes across the cliffs.
Enemies burned.
Terrain melted.
Even Seven Tails winced in the air.
But it came at a price.
One Jonin was caught in crossfire between an Iwa particle bomb and his own tags. Gone without a scream.
In the southern defense line, two squads were decimated when Kiri activated Water Prison chains with acidic mist barriers.
The wounded poured into the medical zone — children with seared skin, soldiers missing limbs.
Even with the upper hand, pain was real.
"We're winning," Riku said, panting, "but gods… at what cost?"
Akashi didn't respond.
He stood at the map table, watching red marks blink.
And then…
He slowly opened his eyes
Golden.
Piercing.
Alive.
"Enough sacrifice. Time for absolutes."
He vanished in a flicker of teleportation — reappearing in the heart of the northern zone, just as the Third Raikage barreled toward the breach.
Akashi's Emperor Eye gleamed.
He watched.
He calculated.
He moved.
The moment A raised his lightning-covered arm—
Akashi's hand moved with surgical precision.
He twitched his muscles in a rhythm.
The Raikage's balance wavered — the same muscle-twitch disruption command he once used on Ay.
"Kneel."
The Third Raikage slipped — for a split-second. Enough.
Akashi's chakra-coated punch collided with his ribs, the air itself parting under the impact.
Boom.
A crater opened in the ridge.
And from the command lines, Ashina's voice rang:
"Akashi has entered the field. Raise Seal Wall Alpha. Redirect all fallback squads to his sector. The game changes now."
---