Just as Uchiha Shigenobu was shrinking into himself and looking for an escape route, Uchiha Yoru pointed with the shovel in his hand and ordered, "Shigenobu, go bring that bucket over."
"Yes!"
Uchiha Shigenobu hurried over at once and lugged it back with all his strength.
Uchiha Yoru picked up the large bamboo skimmer, scooped out the soaked chunks of meat from the bucket, and dropped them into the iron pot. With a few quick turns of the shovel, a strange and marvelous fragrance immediately rose into the air.
Uchiha Shigenobu instantly felt a hollow open up in both body and soul, as if a huge hole had appeared in his stomach and was crying out to be filled with something fresh and delicious. Saliva began to flow from his mouth on its own.
Miwa Masayo sniffed at it, then shook her head regretfully.
"The smell is decent enough, but compared to when it was fresh, it's still much worse, nya."
Uchiha Yoru smiled and said, "Nothing to be done. Octopus legs aren't shellfish. Once you dry them, all you do is lose freshness. You don't gain any extra flavor."
This was meat left over from all those times they had found the giant octopus's lair, hacked off one leg after another, and eaten what they could.
Although both immortals were gluttons, after Uchiha Yoru's breakthrough his body state had become unstable, and so had his appetite. Sometimes his appetite would be poor and he would only manage a little over a hundred jin. Other times his hunger would flare up and he would swallow five hundred jin of meat in one sitting.
Once there was leftover meat, and not wanting to waste it, Uchiha Yoru had cut it into palm-sized chunks and spread them out to dry, turning them into octopus jerky roughly the size of mahjong tiles.
Jerky kept extremely well. Whenever they wanted to eat it, like today, all they had to do was soak it in clean water and they could once again enjoy that delicious taste tinged with tailed beast chakra.
Although Miwa Masayo and Uchiha Yoru always complained that some flavor had been lost, that was only the kind of subtle difference that a cat sage and an old gourmand could notice. In truth, Uchiha Yoru's processing method was extraordinarily refined. Once dried, the octopus meat lost almost nothing in either taste or nutrition.
The reason he was making such a meal now was because the Uchiha genin had gone through two straight days of recovery training, and the drain on their stamina had been enormous. They urgently needed more nourishment.
Unfortunately, the war had driven prices in the Land of Hot Water sky-high, and supplies had become pitifully scarce. Vegetables could still be bought if one was willing to pay several times the normal price, but meat was simply unavailable, even at ten times the usual cost.
And because the Kirigakure fleet was still prowling about at sea, the Kumo and Konoha shinobi had enforced a blockade. No ship not under their control was allowed to leave shore. So despite being a coastal country, the Land of Hot Water couldn't even get fish.
Uchiha Yoru had no choice but to take out his treasured stockpile of octopus jerky and make a big stew to replenish his subordinates' bodies.
He had to intensify the training.
The atmosphere was growing more tense by the day, and a major battle was clearly just around the corner. Right now, the Tiger Unit could still remain inside the camp and train only because there weren't that many missions yet. Every mission that appeared was still being claimed quickly, which meant there were still many Konoha shinobi gathered in camp. A cluster of Uchiha standing around wasn't all that conspicuous.
But once the Kirigakure shinobi landed, combat missions would absolutely pour out like floodwater. By then, there would be almost no one left in the Konoha camp.
If the Tiger Unit stayed behind in an empty camp at that point, it would stand out terribly.
Konoha's structure was loose. Its supervisory system was practically nonexistent. Uchiha Yoru was very good at finding room to cut corners inside the rules, but the key to doing that kind of thing was knowing how to read the situation. He absolutely could not be caught slacking in the middle of a storm.
If he didn't want Orochimaru to start targeting him, then he had to take the Tiger Unit to the front.
And once they were on the front, anything could happen. Any little increase in strength beforehand might mean one fewer death later.
Uchiha Yoru didn't expect the Tiger Unit to suffer zero losses. That was exactly why, while drawing these children to his side, he had also deliberately maintained a certain distance, so he wouldn't form excessive emotional attachments and make himself miserable later.
He, Uchiha Yoru, had no intention of awakening the Mangekyo Sharingan by experiencing soul-rending grief.
The delicious octopus leg left the Uchiha genin unable to stop eating. Although each of them only ate a modest amount, the tailed beast chakra-filled meat contained astonishing energy. Just this one meal completely replenished the losses from two straight days of ultra-high-intensity training.
And more than that, these young boys all felt their bodies heating up, and some vague, indescribable impulse began stirring restlessly inside them.
Of course, the squad leaders were different.
The five older boys—Uchiha Shigenobu, Uchiha Ayumi, Uchiha Hiroto, Uchiha Kazushi, and Uchiha Tadamichi—were all around seventeen or eighteen, so naturally they knew exactly what that impulse was.
Uchiha Yoru naturally knew as well.
And in order to avoid having 101 adolescent boys gather together with nowhere to vent their energy and start developing strange tendencies, he immediately ordered another round of extreme training that very night.
"Training! Every variation of the four-four tactical system will be drilled three more times. Squad leaders, take your own sections and begin."
His command drew out a long chorus of wailing.
There were simply too many variations in the four-four tactical system. Running through the complete set even once took at least an hour and a half.
And Uchiha Yoru's requirement was that after every full drill, all mistakes had to be summarized, the reasons for them discussed, and countermeasures considered.
With that added, a single complete cycle took at least two and a half hours.
Three times over, and they'd be going straight through until dawn.
The five squad leaders said nothing.
Because Uchiha Yoru had already explained it to them in advance—he hadn't anticipated the octopus meat's effects would be this strong. With that fire burning in their stomachs, none of them were going to sleep tonight anyway.
The whole point was to wring every bit of energy out of them. Only once they were exhausted to the limit would they even have a chance of falling asleep.
Facing the wailing of his subordinates, Uchiha Yoru only laughed, then took the squad directly under his command and led the way out of their living area toward the edge of the camp.
Once they reached their respective training grounds, the squad leaders would naturally explain the reason for the nighttime drill to their own members in accordance with his orders. Uchiha Yoru would never explain anything to a hundred people at once. Once the audience increased by two orders of magnitude, the transmission of information became purely one-way. That was suitable only for announcements, not for explanation.
To explain a problem properly, one needed feedback from the listener. Only by knowing exactly which part the other side failed to understand, and then addressing that part specifically, could the issue be truly explained clearly.
The boys all heard the explanation, but many of them still couldn't accept it.
It was just one meal.
How could eating a meal make it impossible to sleep?
"Fine," the squad leaders told them. "You can all lie down and rest right now. Anyone at all—as long as you can actually fall asleep—won't have to join tonight's training."
"Captain, are you serious?"
"Of course. That's Yoru-brother's order."
"Haha, Yoru-brother really knows how to scare people. It's just sleeping. You lie down, you sleep."
In truth, the squad leaders themselves only half believed it.
But after more than two months of training and upheaval, Uchiha Yoru's authority had already risen to a considerable level. Even if they didn't fully believe him, they would still carry out his orders faithfully.
Half an hour later, all five captains were convinced from the bottom of their hearts.
Not one of their boys had fallen asleep.
And once they lay down, not a single one of them felt any peace at all. Every last one felt agitated and restless.
Their bodies felt as if someone had switched on a hidden cheat.
Their hearts pounded like hammers.
Their blood surged like jets.
Heat radiated from their entire bodies, yet not a single drop of sweat emerged. They were so dry and feverish they couldn't even keep their eyes shut.
Then the youngest among them started having problems. Covering their noses, they sat up and called out in alarm:
"Captain, I—I've got a nosebleed."
"Me too. A lot."
"Captain, what do I do? I can't stop it—I can't stop it!"
Only then did the squad leaders grin wickedly and say, "Get up, all of you. Your faces are red from holding it in. If you keep lying there, every one of you will end up with a nosebleed."
"Now do you believe Yoru-brother? What you ate tonight was one of the rarest good things in the shinobi world. Even the clan head has never had giant octopus meat like this."
"Yoru-brother caught it himself out on the sea, and he processed it personally, preserving the tailed beast chakra in it. You think that's something your body can just digest casually?"
"Get up, wipe off the blood, and start training."
"Yes!!"
"Every variation of the four-four tactical system must be drilled into your bones. No one can promise this will let all of you survive to the end of the war, but every one of you will have a better chance of staying alive. This is life-saving knowledge. Train it like your lives depend on it."
"Understood, Captain!"
And so, under the leadership of the five squad leaders, the Tiger Unit began drilling in accordance with Uchiha Yoru's teaching.
After the Tiger Unit was established, Uchiha Yoru granted the squad leaders a special privilege.
They were allowed to change the leadership of each four-man team based on performance during training.
The basis for those changes was not individual combat strength, but rather the degree to which each person understood the tactics, along with how well they synchronized with their squad leader.
A rule that did not determine leadership based on personal strength was something that had likely never before appeared anywhere in the shinobi world.
It ran completely contrary to the basic assumptions of the entire shinobi world.
If the Tiger Unit's members had not all been fresh battlefield novices, and if they had not already come to admire Uchiha Yoru from the bottom of their hearts, this change would have caused an uproar immediately. It would have become a major scandal, and before it ever produced results—or major flaws—it would already have been shut down halfway through.
Uchiha Yoru understood this deeply.
That was why, in his earlier teaching of the four-four system, he had never once mentioned replacing small-team leaders. He had strictly followed the shinobi world's rules—whoever could fight best became the small-team captain.
Only after he believed he had gained enough prestige did he finally push this rule through inside the fully controlled Tiger Unit.
Only by elevating the shinobi best able to judge battlefield conditions into the position of small-team leader, and having them cooperate in full tacit understanding with the section leader above them, could the four-four tactical system truly be complete.
Naturally, the so-called four-four tactical system was derived from the famously effective three-three system.
When Uchiha Yoru had still been a soldier, he had probably belonged to one of the last infantry generations still drilling that light infantry tactical model.
In truth, very few people knew that the original design logic behind the three-three system had come from sheer helplessness—because the rabbit soldiers of that era had poor quality and poor equipment.
Back then, if the rabbits fought from long range, they had no artillery.
At a hundred meters, ammunition was insufficient.
Even in close combat, the soldiers were too thin and undernourished, so they still suffered badly.
Only at roughly thirty meters—the range where both sides could exchange grenades—was the disadvantage minimized.
That was why the rabbits' tactical ideal became this: rush to thirty meters, throw the enemy into confusion with grenades, then charge up and fight with bayonets.
And the problem became: how do you reach thirty meters?
The only answer was a new tactical system.
But the soldiers' low quality did not just mean their bodies were thin from hunger. Their literacy was practically zero as well. So the tactical design also could not be too complicated, otherwise it could never be spread widely.
Under so many harsh conditions, the three-three system was forced into existence.
Its two core ideas were simple:
First, reduce casualties as much as possible.
Second, ensure that each person only needed to focus on one thing at a time.
Uchiha Yoru believed the three-three system was also highly suited to shinobi warfare.
It just needed modification.
And thus the four-four system was born.
A seventeen-man section was structurally divided into one section leader and four four-man teams.
Each four-man team had a team leader.
The section leader did not directly participate in the fighting. He served as a dedicated battlefield observer and commander, analyzing the enemy, deciding which tactical variation to use, and then transmitting that to the four team leaders.
The four team leaders concentrated solely on receiving the section leader's orders, and then directed their own team members according to the specified tactical variation.
The three ordinary members of each team simply obeyed the team leader and focused entirely on carrying out their own designated tactical action.
Each person concentrated on only one task, undistracted by anything else, and that naturally led to the best possible performance.
A commander only needed to coordinate with three or four subordinates beneath him, so command difficulty was minimal, and the execution of tactics could be secured to the greatest possible degree.
Considering the special conditions of the shinobi world, the section leader—being the sole core and initiator of the entire tactic—would naturally become the first target any enemy would try to kill.
That meant the section leader not only had to be good at command, but also personally strong enough to ensure his own survival.
Since the requirements for that position were already so harsh, Uchiha Yoru simply assigned the section leader another duty as well—he would be responsible for absorbing surprise attacks. In other words, the section leader acted as the tank for the whole team, pinning down elite enemies and creating openings for the rest of the section to surround and kill.
The tactical drills were all brand new, and still being constantly improved.
After all, the original template came from a world without spiritual power. Once transplanted into the shinobi world, countless details had to be reconsidered from scratch.
That was why the difficulty of the training was so high.
The only way to make up for it was with even greater training intensity.
As for the final results, no one in the Tiger Unit truly knew what to expect.
Only a real battle, and the blood of themselves and their enemies, would be able to prove the answer.
That chance came quickly.
On the fourth day after the Tiger Unit was established, the Kirigakure fleet successfully landed.
The Kumo and Konoha shinobi were thrown into instant upheaval.
The entire Konoha army began moving at once. Every Konoha shinobi listed in the battle roster received orders. Muster commands were sent out, directing them to different rally points, from which they would move to block the wildly advancing Kirigakure shinobi.
This was completely different from the previous few months, when Kirigakure shinobi had filtered into the Land of Hot Water only in scattered dribs and drabs, creating a three-way chaotic melee between the three great villages.
This time, the Kirigakure forces had chosen the southern coastline under Konoha's defensive watch to land, deliberately avoiding Kumo for the time being.
That meant Orochimaru had no choice but to face this wave alone, all while still keeping watch for a malicious surprise attack from Kumogakure.
On the battlefield, every treaty was worthless paper.
Only force was real.
If Kirigakure's attack succeeded in throwing the Konoha formation into disorder, then the Kumo forces would absolutely, for the time being, ignore the Kirigakure shinobi they had already declared war against and turn their attack instead on Konoha.
And Kumo was shameless enough that even if they attacked Konoha, they still would not formally declare war. They would drag things out and preserve themselves an avenue of retreat.
That was exactly what they had done in the previous war.
Even after fighting for nearly a year, the Third Raikage had still never declared war.
And even when the Third Hokage finally became so desperate he took the initiative and declared war on Kumogakure, that thick-skinned brute of a Third Raikage had the audacity to say that if he didn't accept it, then it didn't count as war.
In Uchiha Yoru's view, the Third Raikage was the strongest of all the Third Kage, especially as a leader.
For the sake of Kumogakure and the Land of Lightning, the Third Raikage never cared about his own face or reputation. But he would go to any lengths to defend the prestige of Kumogakure itself.
Any agreement signed in the name of Kumogakure, he would carry out exactly.
He built Kumogakure's strategic flexibility upon his own shamelessness.
As long as he personally had no face to lose, Kumogakure would always retain room to advance or retreat as needed.
Because he had learned from the last war, Orochimaru knew that while meeting Kirigakure's assault, he still had to leave behind enough troops to guard against Kumo.
That left him badly short of strength to resist Kirigakure.
There was no helping it.
Konoha was large and powerful. It had the most shinobi and the strongest overall strength.
But with fighting spread over three fronts at once, its numbers on any single battlefield no longer held an advantage.
The Konoha force was already smaller than the Kirigakure landing force.
And now two thousand Konoha shinobi had to be pinned in reserve against the malicious "neutrality" of Kumo.
That meant only five thousand remained available to actually fight Kirigakure.
Even the best housewife could not cook without rice.
Orochimaru had no solution for that.
When only Nara Shikaku remained with him in the command tent, even the cold and composed Orochimaru could not help but sigh.
"At this point, there is nothing I can do."
"All I can do is hope that the Konoha shinobi on the front line will erupt with some hidden potential and hold back Kirigakure's attack."
Nara Shikaku nodded almost prayerfully and said, "As long as we can hold. Even if we only stabilize the battle line temporarily, Kumogakure will have to shift its attention toward Kirigakure."
"So long as those two villages start fighting each other, the two thousand reserve troops held back against Kumo can be freed. Once that happens, everything becomes much easier."
Orochimaru fell silent.
Still unwilling to give up, he squeezed his mind dry, desperately searching for any source from which he could still extract even a little more strength.
Then suddenly, a gleam of hope flashed in those cold snake eyes.
He asked, "That Uchiha clan 'Tiger Unit'—where are they now?"
Nara Shikaku froze, but as a Nara he immediately recalled the relevant deployment order and answered, "The Tiger Unit is assembled along the third defensive line, at positions six through forty-one."
Orochimaru immediately ordered, "Send the Tiger Unit forward."
"To… yes. To the first defensive line."
"That's right. Send them to the Kubota Village salient."
Nara Shikaku stared in disbelief, and then his face flushed red with alarm.
He spoke quickly, "Orochimaru-sama, that order is inappropriate. The Tiger Unit is made up of Uchiha genin. Their commander, Uchiha Yoru, is the only chunin among them. If they're sent to the Kubota salient, a force like theirs won't be able to hold for long. Right now we can't afford to internally—"
His slip was cut off by Orochimaru raising one hand.
Orochimaru even smiled at his staff officer as he said, "Shikaku, I am not my teacher. I am not so narrow-minded. I hold no prejudice against the Uchiha."
"I trust Uchiha Yoru, that chunin, and the hundred Uchiha genin under his command. I trust that they possess combat power beyond imagination, enough to shoulder the burden of defending the Kubota salient."
"Shikaku, do you trust my judgment?"
Nara Shikaku lowered his head and said, "Orochimaru-sama, I do."
"Then issue my order."
"The faster, the better."
"Yes!"
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