With the Great Elder slain, the Otsutsuki clan descended into a state of blind, frantic rage. Their remaining puppets launched a suicidal, disorganized offensive, but their chaotic charges were little more than fodder for the Thunder Giant Insects. The Swarm maintained an orderly defense—methodically funneling the puppets into pre-arranged kill zones before a single plasma lightning orb from a Thunder Giant Insect vaporized hundreds of them at a time.
"My, my... who would have thought that World War I tactics would be so effective in interstellar combat?"
"Indeed. As long as there isn't a top-tier elite unit disrupting the flow, the tactical applicability of that era remains quite impressive."
The lopsided slaughter lasted a mere forty minutes before the Otsutsuki regained their senses. Finally listening to reason, they organized a tactical retreat.
The movement speed of the Otsutsuki puppets was far superior to that of the Swarm. Usually, if the Swarm lost a battle, they were wiped out; if they won, they lacked the speed to pursue. This mobility gap was the primary reason a few tens of thousands of puppets could suppress a swarm of over a hundred thousand.
The Tetsumaru collective, of course, had no intention of chasing them. They directed the swarm to spend the next day clearing the battlefield and rotating in fresh reinforcements before resuming a slow, deliberate advance.
The Otsutsuki didn't retreat all the way back to the Moon. Instead, led by the remaining Elders, they initiated a layered, fighting retreat. However, just as the Tetsumarus had predicted, the clan truly lacked any puppets of a higher caliber.
Without a colossal machine on the level of the Great Elder's to break the lines, the Swarm—now experienced in dealing with the Tenseigan's tricks—could handle the pressure with ease. One by one, the regular Elder puppets fell into the "Sticky Mouse Traps" hidden within the bellies of specialized Thunder Giant Insects.
A month later, the Swarm's numbers had swelled to five hundred thousand, and the count of Thunder Giant Insects reached the originally planned three thousand. They moved as a vast, unstoppable tide of chitin and plasma.
Though the Otsutsuki had bolstered their forces to over a hundred thousand puppets, they had lost their "spearhead." Without the crushing breakthrough power of the Elders, they could no longer face the numerically superior Swarm head-on.
The war devolved into a grueling, irritating guerrilla conflict. The Otsutsuki split their puppets into small harassment squads of about a thousand each, launching endless hit-and-run attacks. To minimize losses, the Swarm was forced to huddle into massive, spherical formations, inching forward like a slow-moving fortress.
The war had reached its climax when the first Elder fell. The operation to eliminate the Great Elder was an unparalleled peak, a tactical masterstroke that could likely never be replicated. Capturing four more Elders afterward was a solid follow-up, but since then, the tempo of the war had inevitably slowed to a crawl. It had finally entered the tedious, "sage-like" phase of mop-up operations.
With the crisis averted, nearly all the Tetsumarus shifted their focus back to other projects, returning to a relatively normal schedule.
In April of Year 42, the Tactical Group set up a massive satellite dish at the space station and stabilized the signal. After extensive preparations, they finally convened the first general conference call in two months.
"Review time, brothers."
"First, let's give ourselves a hand. Our grand strategy was sound. From start to finish, we held the strategic initiative. Even when we were pushed back to the twenty-thousand-kilometer mark, we didn't buckle. Our collective resilience is something to be proud of."
"Hahaha! Holding the line against that monster was pretty badass, if I do say so myself."
"Exactly. The biggest credit goes to the brother who executed the kinetic strike. That hit was legendary—heaven-shaking, earth-shattering stuff."
"Did you actually see it?"
"Of course not. At that speed? It was invisible."
"Tch..."
The moderator cut in before the banter could derail the meeting. "This is a general assembly. That brother is currently in our group chat. He can hear us, though there's a latency of about twenty-four minutes."
"What? We've re-established contact?"
"That's amazing! Seriously, that guy has the best luck out of all of us. We should probably give him a name."
"Quiet, quiet. Wait for his reply."
A long time passed before a distant voice filtered through the amplifier, accompanied by a heavy layer of buzzing static and white noise. The voice sounded profoundly indignant.
"Luck?! You call this luck?! If I had luck, would I be stuck in the void for two years before I can get home?"
"No TV, no movies, no anime, no seasonal shows... no teachers, no wife! Do you have any idea how I'm supposed to survive this? I finally get a phone connection, and it's a twenty-four-minute delay! Ha! A phone call where a single sentence takes twenty-four minutes? Is any one of you going to spend hours a day chatting with me at this rate?"
The Tetsumarus back in the Shinobi World began talking all at once: Man, that's rough. Truly tragic. Cooped up in such a tiny cockpit—it's like being back in the womb. Hey, maybe we should transmit all our heavy calculation tasks to him? That way he won't be bored.
Another twenty-four minutes passed before the distant Tetsumaru sent back his final word: "Screw you!!"
The avatar hosting the meeting immediately muted the line. "Alright, he's disconnected."
"Now that we've finished the fun part, let's talk about the problems this war exposed."
"First, something we never anticipated: when the Otsutsuki deployed Elder-class puppets, our Swarm lacked any breed capable of matching them. In the end, we had to risk our own lives to step up, and we lost three brothers because of it."
A somber silence fell over the group.
"Who would have thought that in a large-scale interstellar war, 'Hero Units' would play such a decisive role? It completely defies our common sense."
"It's a world of the supernatural, after all. The ceiling for individual power is just too high. One person's might can equal an army of thousands. We can't underestimate that."
"It might not just be the supernatural aspect. Interstellar warfare might naturally be a stage for Hero Units. Our military common sense is stuck in the surface-warfare era; we haven't reached the level of true space combat yet."
"Then the conclusion is clear: we need to seriously consider the creation of our own Hero Units."
The motion—one that would fundamentally shift the development of the Swarm—passed unanimously. Even the distant avatar eventually added his vote of approval.
"The second major issue is reconnaissance. Because the Shinobi World lacks an air force, our Swarm focused primarily on visual acuity—telescopic vision, magnification, and motion tracking. We even tried to develop chakra-based vision."
"But once we fought in space, we realized that at distances of hundreds or thousands of kilometers, sight is useless. It's not that the eyes are bad or the resolution is too low; it's just that visible light is naturally weak in this void. The correct direction for long-range interstellar recon is high-energy electromagnetic waves. We need active Radar."
The collective agreed to establish a Remote Sensing Group to focus on imaging radar research.
"The third issue is mobility. Our Swarm's maneuverability is pathetic, leaving us tactically passive. This isn't a problem we can solve with biology alone, but there's a perfect jutsu for it."
"The study of the Flying Thunder God Technique is now urgent. We must maintain a twenty-four-hour watch on Minato Namikaze and learn it through him as quickly as possible."
"That task has to fall on the main body. Only he can use the Secret Technique: Domain Field Barrier for total holistic observation. Anyone else trying to tail Minato would be seeking death."
"Main body? You there? Give us a word."
Tetsumaru replied grumpily, "Fine, fine. I'll find a reason to head back to Konoha as soon as possible."
Suddenly, another voice chimed in. "You don't need to find a reason. The village sent us a mission over a month ago. I still have the scroll here."
"..."
"Holy crap... we aren't rogue ninjas now, are we?"
"Man, you guys are thick. Check the deadline, quick!"
Although the Tetsumaru collective was no longer afraid of Konoha, they were currently in a stalemate with the Otsutsuki. The massive resource consumption of the war relied entirely on the Land of Tea's supply lines; this was the worst possible time for a friction-filled fallout with the village.
Besides, this war had taught them a lesson: while Konoha's combat power might be lackluster after the departure of its two 'cheats' (Madara and Hashirama), the village was a goldmine of secret techniques and heritage. Making things too tense would make it harder to "acquire" their assets.
Look at Orochimaru—even after he defects, he stays "entangled" with the village, coming back to shear Konoha's sheep whenever he feels like it. That was the gold standard they should aspire to.
"Heh, don't blame me! I reported the mission a month ago, but no one cared. Now you're acting like it's my fault? Where's the logic in that?"
The group went silent. A month ago, they had just killed the Great Elder and were pouring every ounce of their collective brainpower into the "Great Calculation" to find a return trajectory for their lucky brother. They were also terrified that another Otsutsuki powerhouse would emerge. In comparison to those two life-and-death crises, the village's paperwork seemed trivial.
After a bit of scrambling, they confirmed the deadline hadn't passed. Everyone let out a sigh of relief. The debrief continued, while the main body was "politely requested" to pack his things and the Snail Phone network and head out immediately.
The next topic involved everyone's personal interests: weaponizing the Bio-Armor.
When the two brothers were being hunted by the Otsutsuki Elder, they had checked their gear only to realize they had nothing but two puny wrist blades. In a life-and-death struggle, having to charge in like a Protoss Zealot to poke the enemy felt incredibly stupid.
"We need to target Dust Release as our high-energy particle cannon, and the Vaulting Boulder Jutsu for gravity control. We're going to have to dig into the Tsuchikage's pockets."
"Dust Release isn't an ordinary inheritance. It seems there wasn't even a third-generation successor after Ohnoki. We might not be able to 'stalk' our way into learning it like we can with the Flying Thunder God."
"What, are we going to raid the Tsuchikage's office? That's no different from storming the Hokage's office for the Scroll of Seals."
"We'll start by tunneling in. We'll set up a monitoring network and look for an opening with the Domain Field Barrier. There's always a chance."
"Hey, hey... you guys are having a great time talking, but why is this all landing on my plate again?" Tetsumaru interrupted from the road, sounding annoyed. "I can't be everywhere at once. I think it's time we research true Avatars. We need to reach a level where all of us can use the Body Flicker, Shadow Clones, and the Domain Field."
"The main body has a point. Our operation is getting too big; we need to level up."
"The Micro-Particle Group needs a boost, too," the sole member of said group announced. "Dust Release is great for the Shinobi World, but for space warfare, we need long-range High-Energy Particle Cannons. There's a major project coming up; don't leave me out."
The distant brother, after endless paging, finally convinced the moderator to let him speak. He delivered his piece in one continuous breath.
"We have to start on the Biological Computer. We can't wait. My success was eighty percent luck—it's not repeatable."
"Think about it. I started the launch sequence three thousand kilometers out, but I only locked and fired the slug at a hundred kilometers. The projectile took only 0.07 seconds to travel from separation to impact. In that time, it had to cover a lateral drift of four hundred and twenty meters to hit a target six meters tall and four meters wide."
"That kind of precision calculation and control belongs to a computer. We should stick to decision-making."
Hearing that breakdown, the Tetsumaru collective was stunned once again. It was the equivalent of throwing a chopstick out of a car window at 120 km/h and hitting a bullseye on another car driving toward you.
It truly was a miracle. This distant brother was an anomaly among them—the chosen one. The group unanimously decided to give him a name that reflected his status.
After a heated debate, the distant brother's new name was decided: Dice.
"Congratulations to our brother for earning the first name among the avatars. The rest of you better work harder if you want one for yourselves!"
Amidst the rowdy cheering and the 24-minute delayed protests from space, the meeting ended on a high note.
Tetsumaru was laughing so hard he nearly tripped. He looked up at the deep night sky, catching the faint glint of the "river of light"—the Swarm flowing toward the Moon.
Originally, the war was scheduled to start in July of Year 42. Instead, the strategic turning point had been reached in February, and they were already in the "trash time" phase of cleanup. If he wasn't greedy for the Otsutsuki's Giant Tenseigan, their wireless puppetry, the Moon Castle, their thousand-year heritage, and their pure bloodline, Tetsumaru would have simply ended the war with a carpet of Mushroom Bugs.
To claim those treasures, he had to grind them down slowly, forcing the enemy to feel true fear until their pride shattered and they submitted to his rule.
But leaving an active war running in the background was dangerous. Tetsumaru decided to keep a low profile until the Moon was officially his. He couldn't afford any distractions.
First, let's finish this mission.
Through his wiretaps, Tetsumaru knew that Konoha had expanded the "Giant Insect Squad" into a full Giant Insect Corps. Consequently, they needed more bugs—specifically, a new order of four million.
Konoha had raised some themselves and ordered a portion from the Aburame clan. Finally, they had issued a "Top-Tier" mission to Tetsumaru: deliver two million giant insects to the village within two months—one million minimum.
The mission was signed by Nara Shikato, but it clearly had the Hokage's seal of approval. The two old foxes were testing him. If he could produce a million insects and move them from the Land of Tea to Konoha in just two months, his production and command capabilities would be undeniable.
On the other hand, it was an olive branch—a massive payday intended to bridge the gap between them and secure the loyalty of a "strategic-level" shinobi for the next war.