The new order made Uchiha Yoru's eyelids twitch.
They had actually pushed him and the Tiger Unit straight onto the first line, and not just anywhere, but onto the most critical central salient.
It was a large hillock with only a gentle slope. For shinobi, it was no different from flat ground and could not be counted as an obstacle at all.
But for an army, the existence of that hill blocked a huge section of the battlefield from view. If they failed to hold it, then there was no way to know what was hidden behind it.
Maybe there was nothing there.
Maybe there was a full Konoha force waiting.
Shinobi battles were contests of intelligence, and clashes between shinobi armies were the same. Orochimaru had judged that so long as this hill remained in Konoha's hands, Kirigakure would absolutely not dare continue advancing recklessly. In the end, this place would become a salient, the central support point of Konoha's line.
So even with manpower stretched to the limit, Orochimaru had still deployed three hundred shinobi here, along with three jonin to reinforce them.
Even that wasn't enough to put his mind at ease, but he truly had no more troops to spare.
And it was precisely in this kind of desperate situation that Orochimaru remembered Uchiha Yoru, remembered the Ninjutsu and Tactics Study Group, and remembered the Tiger Unit.
Like a drowning man grabbing at the last bit of driftwood, he clutched at that sliver of hope and shoved Uchiha Yoru into the most fatal, most difficult, yet also most likely-to-win-fame position on the battlefield.
Uchiha Yoru had plenty he wanted to say to Orochimaru.
But he couldn't disobey battlefield orders.
If the order had been issued to him alone, then faced with this kind of death warrant, Uchiha Yoru—who had no one to worry about but himself—would have turned around and walked away on the spot, directly becoming a rogue shinobi.
When comparing two harms, one took the lesser.
Compared to the risk of being surrounded by Kirigakure troops and dying on the battlefield, the inconvenience and poverty that came with being a rogue shinobi were absolutely acceptable.
But now the order had been issued to the Tiger Unit.
All 101 Uchiha genin were included within its scope.
If he ran now, it would mean putting the label of rogue shinobi on every one of those children. None of them would escape the outcome of their families being destroyed.
Uchiha Yoru couldn't be that cruel.
So he silently accepted the order and swiftly led the Tiger Unit to the Kubota salient.
It was just battle.
Uchiha Yoru did not think of himself as weak, and victory or defeat had not yet been decided.
Besides, even if they were attacked by a Kage-level shinobi, he was confident he could hold out long enough for reinforcements to arrive.
And even if they were defeated, he could still imitate that tragic scene from the Second Hokage's past—stay behind to cover the Tiger Unit's retreat, then "die" gloriously on the battlefield.
Of course, he had no intention of actually dying.
He would simply have Miwa Masayo return to Konoha through Flame Leap, go to his home, and use reverse summoning on him. With a bit of illusion mixed in, it would be easy enough to stage the most miserable kind of heroic death—one where not even bones remained.
Then he would pack up everything he owned at home, disappear under a false name, and wander the world in obscurity. Once this generation of shinobi had all died off, he could emerge again at leisure and continue moving about.
If Uchiha Obito could fake his death and vanish with White Zetsu's help, there was no reason Uchiha Yoru couldn't do the same with Miwa Masayo's help.
War was the tribulation Uchiha Yoru had to face on the road toward obtaining the best possible conditions for cultivation.
If he crossed it, then a broad road lay ahead—plenty of resources, countless subordinates, and a happy cultivation life.
If he failed, then he would hide away in some uninhabited mountain wilderness, living a quiet but impoverished immortal life, lacking clothing and food, and walking a cultivation path of pure detachment.
After carefully inspecting the Kubota hill and accounting for both the terrain and the characteristics of Kirigakure shinobi, Uchiha Yoru began formulating the defense plan.
"Before we discuss anything else, everyone follow my sketch and send your men to dig drainage ditches. The deeper the better, and the denser the better."
Uchiha Yoru said, "When fighting Kirigakure shinobi, the first thing you have to take seriously is drainage. You can't let the enemy gradually turn the whole battlefield into their own terrain while the fight is going on."
"Understood!"
Once the digging work had been assigned, the five squad leaders and their deputies gathered again around Uchiha Yoru to begin discussing the Tiger Unit's battle plan.
In order to save time, Uchiha Yoru simply got straight to the point.
"I don't plan to hold Kubota Village to the death. This village is too large. Even three hundred shinobi would struggle to fill it. With only a bit over one hundred men in the Tiger Unit, effective static defense is impossible."
"So I plan to fight a mobile offensive battle here."
"Mobile? Offensive?"
Uchiha Yoru clapped his hands once and said, "This terrain is open, and the area is wide enough. Passive defense cannot possibly fill it. But if we fight offensively here, then we'll have enough room to maneuver."
"The four-four tactical system is an offensive system. We've trained it for this long—are we really going to let ourselves die in a dull defensive battle without even trying it properly?"
"Yoru-brother, just tell us what to do. We'll all follow your lead."
"That's right. You're an experienced senior shinobi, Yoru-brother. We can't even judge whether something is right or wrong yet. Just tell us how to fight."
Uchiha Yoru didn't stand on ceremony and laid out his plan in full.
"We need to split our forces. The six sections will be divided into two parts. One side will be the main offensive force, made up of five sections. The other will be the section under my direct command, which will serve as support, relying on Kubota Village itself to maneuver against the enemy."
"The main attack force will keep moving back and forth across the hill, striking any enemy that enters our counterattack zone. Once they smash an enemy force, the main force must follow up with continued attack and kill as many Kirigakure shinobi as possible."
"But under no circumstances are you to pass beyond the counterattack cutoff line. Otherwise you'll walk right into an ambush."
"When the main force attacks, don't worry about your rear. Leave all of that to me."
Uchiha Kazushi was the smartest and boldest of the squad leaders, and he quickly saw the issue.
Unable to help himself, he spoke up. "Yoru-brother, this tactic will definitely work the first time or even the second time."
"But the enemy has plenty of manpower. Once they suffer a loss, they'll absolutely switch to a three-sided encirclement."
"If the main force counters one side, that's one thing. But if you only have one section with you, how can you possibly hold off attacks from the other two directions?"
Uchiha Yoru said jokingly, "What's this? Looking down on me?"
Kazushi was so full of concern for him that he failed to hear the joke at all, and hurriedly started explaining, "Yoru-brother, that's not what I meant, I just—"
Uchiha Yoru raised a hand to stop him and said, "Relax. I'm not being reckless. I've thought this through carefully."
"Kubota Village is difficult to defend because, for a force of just over a hundred men like the Tiger Unit, it's too big. The circumference of the village walls is over two kilometers. That means every single person would have to defend roughly two hundred meters of line. That's completely impossible."
"But I changed my approach. I'm not going to stop the enemy from entering the village. I'm going to fight them within the complex terrain of the village itself."
"Think about that carefully. Doesn't that reverse the whole situation?"
Kazushi slapped… Uchiha Tadamichi's thigh with all his strength.
Completely ignoring the victim's shocked and furious expression, he shouted excitedly, "Why didn't I think of that? If you look at it this way, the size of Kubota Village becomes a problem for the enemy instead. Yoru-brother, you're incredible."
"Ow, ow! That hurts! That hurts, damn it!"
Uchiha Tadamichi was Kazushi's best friend. He was the strongest-built among all the genin. Though he was a bit slow to react, he definitely wasn't the kind of person who would take a hit without paying it back.
He calmly waited until Kazushi had finished speaking, then tucked his good friend under his arm and used both fists to grind hard against Kazushi's temples in revenge for that slap to the thigh.
He was absolutely certain that Kazushi had done it on purpose.
And had deliberately pretended it was unintentional, hoping to get away with it.
Uchiha Yoru flicked both of them on the forehead and scolded, "This is a military meeting. Be serious. Both of you."
Uchiha Shigenobu then asked, "Yoru-brother, if we're changing our thinking like this, then why not just focus completely on maneuvering against Kirigakure inside the village? It's a defensive battle anyway."
"Absolutely not."
Uchiha Yoru directly rejected Shigenobu's idea and emphasized, "Everyone, remember this firmly—only victory allows the greatest number of us to survive a war. Pure defense can never create victory. Defense is only a tool that assists attack."
"We're Uchiha shinobi, and on top of that we're throwaway pieces cast out by the clan. In a battle where Konoha's total force is already at a disadvantage, we cannot count on someone else launching a counterattack to save us."
"We can only save ourselves."
"Even if, in the larger strategic sense, Konoha is fighting a defensive war, the Tiger Unit still has to attack. Keep attacking, keep attacking, until the final victory."
Among the 102 members of the Tiger Unit, aside from Uchiha Yoru, not a single one was the kind of person who could even appear at a clan council. As lower-rank Uchiha, they did not possess the kind of swollen pride common among the upper-rank shinobi, and they all knew the hardship and bitterness of life at the bottom. Their trust in the clan leadership had never been very high.
Dragged to the battlefield by the combined efforts of the clan leadership and the Third Hokage, and then not broken apart and redistributed into other squads, but instead left intact as their own cluster—
under Uchiha Yoru's teaching, they all knew that was not a good sign.
It was the worst possible sign.
It proved they were being treated as a distinct category.
A pure unit of Uchiha genin was a cannon fodder corps that could be sacrificed at any time. If they were thrown out at a critical moment and all died, the Uchiha upper ranks would not feel heartache. Konoha's upper ranks would feel even less.
They might even be pleased.
If they had not encountered Uchiha Yoru, then dying despairingly on the battlefield would have been the fate waiting for all of them.
So when Uchiha Yoru said Konoha would not organize reinforcements to save them when the situation was bad, every one of them believed it fully.
Uchiha Yoru continued explaining the finer details of the tactical variations—signals, communication methods, and the rest.
The squad leaders quickly grasped the entire arrangement. Even though they had no ability to determine whether the tactic itself was right or wrong, it sounded extremely reasonable, and more importantly, it came from Yoru-brother, the person they trusted most.
So they all accepted it.
In truth, Uchiha Yoru himself did not know whether it was correct.
Because tactics were like that.
To a large extent, tactics were not something that could be labeled simply right or wrong.
Too many factors could affect the outcome—climate, temperature, weather, equipment, one's own strength, the enemy's strength, what the enemy was thinking. Any single one of those could reverse the final result.
A tactic only became "correct" because it led to victory.
Only strategy won because it was correct.
Whether Uchiha Yoru's tactical design was right or wrong could only be known after the battle was over.
Very soon, the Tiger Unit had finished digging the drainage ditches. Six vertical channels and four horizontal ones crossed and interlocked, forming a complicated drainage network.
Each ditch was broad and deep. Even if the entire Hoshigaki clan with all their shark faces came and vomited water into the field, those trenches would still carry it away. Any floodwater would be drained out in short order.
Right after that, Uchiha Yoru arranged for individual foxholes and more earthwork.
He said, "If our tactics work, then after a few successful exchanges, the enemy will begin using large-scale ninjutsu to wash the whole area."
"Given the habits of Kirigakure shinobi, they'll probably gather over a hundred Water Release users and have them all cast Great Exploding Water Colliding Wave together, creating a tsunami from nothing and smashing the entire Kubota hill."
"When that happens, we won't be able to resist it head-on. We'll need deeply buried shelters underground to protect ourselves. But Uchiha aren't skilled in Earth Release, so we can only prepare in advance."
"In short—sweat more before battle, bleed less during it."
"Between blood and sweat, I imagine everyone has their own answer."
Uchiha Yoru sent them all back to keep directing the earthworks, but specifically kept Uchiha Tadamichi behind.
"Tadamichi, I have a task for you."
"Go ask every single member if they're carrying anything made of copper. Collect every bit of copper you can find. Then make copper whistles in the same shape as the bamboo whistles we used in training. I want one for every section leader, team leader, and deputy leader."
"Yes! I'll get right on it."
Tadamichi didn't even ask why. He simply accepted the order and went off to carry it out.
Back in the early stage of the four-four tactical training, Uchiha Yoru had already borrowed from the three-three training outline and added drills for special environments like night fighting, heavy fog, and jungle conditions. Under conditions of poor visibility, communication between section leaders, team leaders, and regular members depended entirely on whistles. With enough training, whistles were faster than speech and also avoided the risk of mistakes that came with verbal transmission.
As for the enemy, they would only hear an incomprehensible mess.
From their position, the whistles would sound chaotic and overlapping, impossible to sort by rhythm or source.
But the next battle would be against Kirigakure shinobi.
It was easy to predict that the Tiger Unit would be fighting constantly inside Hidden Mist Technique, while also being repeatedly battered by water and flood. Their entire bodies would be soaked again and again.
If that happened, bamboo whistles would absorb water, and both pitch and sound would warp enough to create real trouble in identifying them.
So they had to be replaced with a material that would not change tone when wet.
Once Tadamichi left, Uchiha Yoru remained standing on the roof of the tallest building in the center of Kubota Village, silently watching these children working all across the hill through his Sharingan.
He remained quiet for a very long time.
After a while, Miwa Masayo quietly appeared at his feet, climbed lightly onto his shoulder, and asked in a gentle voice, "What are you thinking about?"
"Sigh. Going over every detail again. Seeing if there's anything I missed. Any loophole. Any problem."
"And you still haven't found anything, nya?"
Uchiha Yoru smiled bitterly.
"Right. But I can't stop my mind from running. There has to be something I haven't thought of, doesn't there?"
"Yoru, you weren't like this before, nya. What's wrong with you today, nya?"
"Before? Before, I always made sure I had a 100% complete escape plan ready. Only once I had at least a 95% chance of victory would I start fighting."
"You only fight when victory is certain."
"But now I don't have that kind of control. I lack command experience. I lack experience fighting Kirigakure shinobi. I don't have detailed intelligence on the enemy. After evaluating everything, I only have about a 75% confidence of victory. How can I not worry?"
Miwa Masayo stared at him in disbelief.
"Meow my… what the hell, nya."
No wonder her human had always been so timid before, always unwilling to fight, and especially quick to retreat the instant an unexpected situation appeared. Yet once he did fight, he always managed to settle things cleanly and decisively.
This was caution taken to an absurd degree.
The tabby snorted and mocked him, "Then why don't you wait until you've got a 100% chance of victory before fighting, nya?"
Uchiha Yoru shook his head very seriously.
"That's impossible."
"2% is for respect toward fate. The enemy will also have a strong will to win, and a survival instinct that can't be ignored. Maybe they'll create a miracle."
"3% is tribute to Senior Brother Ninety-Eight. The dignity of the Supreme Lord of Survivalism cannot be challenged. A mere mortal like me—how could I dare compare myself to him?"
"…You're babbling nonsense again, nya."
"Ah!"
Uchiha Yoru suddenly clapped his hands and shouted, "I've got it. There really is a loophole!!"
He leapt off the roof so suddenly that Miwa Masayo nearly lost her footing on his shoulder. Clutching his neck with both paws, she asked in surprise, "What loophole did you think of?"
"Water. And terrain."
"I had the boys dig drainage channels, but I forgot one thing. The Kubota hill is far too low. It covers over thirty square kilometers, but the total height difference is only eight meters. It's too flat."
"For the battlefield, that hill is enough to block sight lines. But for floodwater, it's basically no different from flat land. If the enemy keeps using Water Release for more than four hours, the water accumulating around the hill will start backing up. At that point, even the drainage ditches won't be able to clear it quickly enough."
"I need to find somewhere for all that water to go. Somewhere that'll make Kirigakure lose hope and finally give up on using Water Release."
Miwa Masayo was dumbstruck.
How would Kirigakure shinobi possibly keep using Water Release continuously for four hours?
Just how badly would they need to be beaten, how desperate would they have to become, to cling stubbornly to such a blunt tactic and insist on reshaping the battlefield environment like that?
Uchiha Yoru paid no attention to his dao companion's thoughts.
After all, whether that specific thing was likely or not did not matter to him.
As long as it was possible, then it mattered.
And if the enemy really did set their minds to it, Kirigakure shinobi truly were capable of drowning the entire hill.
If it came to fighting Kirigakure on a sheet of standing floodwater, then every village would suffer.
One-on-one, maybe they wouldn't be afraid.
Some shinobi especially skilled in Water Release might even win easily.
But in a large-scale clash between shinobi armies on open water, no one could withstand Kirigakure's advantage.
If he, Uchiha Yoru, failed to prepare in advance, then once it reached that point, the Tiger Unit would be finished.
That was absolutely unacceptable.
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