Chapter 292: War Begins
Land of Waterfall — Takigakure
Golden chakra burned like flame across his body, mysterious black markings spreading over his skin, and even his ordinarily blue eyes now shone with a faint golden light beneath the chakra's influence.
Naruto had never known what war actually was.
No — maybe he'd known, in some abstract sense. He'd simply never let himself confront it directly.
Now, he had no choice.
And he finally understood what the word meant.
The Hokage had named him captain of this two-hundred-strong unit, each of them clad in chakra armor.
Two hundred lives, and he was responsible for every one of them.
"Captain. Hostiles cleared."
A man with pineapple-shaped hair stood beside Naruto, pulling out a lighter to quietly light a cigarette.
"Right. Got it."
The golden-lit young man said, calm, his face betraying nothing unusual.
Is this the battlefield Pervy Sage hated so much — and still couldn't stay away from?
Looking out over the devastation before him, something stirred, faintly, in Naruto's chest.
He thought of his teacher, already gone.
He'd learned of Jiraiya's death from Kakashi with barely a moment to grieve before being rushed into command of the strike force against Takigakure.
"Suzaku. Why do you think war exists in the world at all?"
The boy, stepping onto a battlefield for the first time, turned to the man beside him.
Suzaku Nara regarded the war-torn village before them, calm, and turned his dark eyes toward the still-young boy beside him.
"Because none of us want to see this happen to Konoha."
Suzaku didn't answer Naruto's question directly, choosing instead to circle around it.
"The human heart is both the hardest thing in the world to understand, and, in a sense, the simplest."
"Naruto — it's natural to ask a question like that, the first time you set foot on a battlefield."
Suzaku let out a thin stream of pale smoke, his tone calm and certain.
"Since Konoha's founding, we've never once started a war on our own initiative."
"We've always stood on the side of justice."
Suzaku's words left Naruto quiet for a moment.
"Naruto, you're exceptional. You're part of the Hokage's own shadow guard."
"You're a candidate for the next Hokage."
"As I see it — once this war ends, the shinobi world will see decades of peace."
"So do your part. Beat the enemy."
"That's all any of us can really do."
Naruto's eyes flickered slightly at that, and he spoke, a little uncertain.
"Decades..."
"So there'll be another war eventually, even after peace?"
Suzaku heard the naivety in the question but didn't fault him for it, considering it seriously instead.
"Without war, you can't really understand peace."
"Without living through it, you can't learn to treasure peace when it comes."
"A child raised entirely in peacetime can't grasp how brutal, how bloody, war really is — and can't grasp how precious the ordinary, unremarkable rhythms of daily life actually are."
That left Naruto silent.
Suzaku clearly didn't believe in lasting peace. And yet his own teacher, Jiraiya, had spent his whole life chasing exactly that — some intangible, elusive vision of it.
Even Naruto himself couldn't say for certain, right now, which of them was right.
"Come on, Naruto."
"We're done here. Time to pull back."
Suzaku clapped him on the shoulder, quiet.
Their mission had never been to occupy or hold Takigakure. It had been to break the village's fighting strength entirely — to make certain they couldn't reorganize a force again anytime soon.
It was a brutal mission. And, in its own way, a merciful one.
Wiping out Takigakure's shinobi force completely amounted to something close to total annihilation of their military.
But toward the village's civilians, the mission had been almost gentle — barely touching them at all. What little collateral harm occurred was minimal, an unavoidable cost.
"Right."
The golden-lit boy nodded, and vanished, along with Suzaku and the two hundred shinobi, back into the ruined village's darkness.
Under the combined weight of a Nine-Tails jinchūriki and two hundred chakra-armored shinobi, Takigakure's entire military force had been crushed almost instantly. Within a single hour of the operation's start, the village's fighting strength was completely destroyed, and the two-hundred-strong strike force vanished back into the night.
No prisoners taken. No territory claimed. No resources seized.
This force had come for exactly one purpose: to destroy that fighting strength, and nothing more.
By the time word of it reached Amegakure, Iwagakure's forces under Kitsuchi had just arrived in the Land of Rain.
"So this Hokage's grown a little impatient, hasn't she."
Black Zetsu studied the report in his hand, expression calm.
Central Tower
Konan, Black Zetsu, Obito, Hiruko, Kisame, Sasori — every remaining member of Akatsuki had gathered here.
Notably absent: Pain, and Nagato himself.
"So it's safe to assume this land will be a battlefield again before long."
Kisame said, looking toward Konan, standing quietly near the light off in the distance.
Konan said nothing, simply standing there, calm.
Right now, Nagato was undergoing the transplant of White Zetsu's so-called Wood Release cells. Which left Konan, for the moment, as the highest authority in Amegakure.
She'd never once considered herself a capable leader.
She'd always been the one standing quietly behind Yahiko. Then behind Nagato.
Konan had no clear sense of what she should be doing right now — but a growing weight of responsibility kept pushing her, step by step, toward the position she now found herself holding.
"Our objective, as Akatsuki, was never war."
Konan opened her amber eyes and looked at the group before her.
Her words drew visible surprise from the others.
Under ordinary circumstances, Konan had always simply followed silently at Pain's side. Whatever combat skill she possessed, the rest of Akatsuki had always regarded her as little more than an extension of him.
"This war belongs to the nobility — their attempt to purge the Hokage. Akatsuki's real objective has always been the tailed beasts."
Konan quickly steadied herself, her expression cold and composed as she looked at the room full of unruly missing-nin, her words flat and even.
"We shouldn't get pulled too deep into this war. Our targets should remain Konoha's Two-Tails, Seven-Tails, and Nine-Tails."
She said nothing about the Eight-Tails.
Black Zetsu's identity as the Raikage's court minister still hadn't been exposed. If they played it carefully, the Eight-Tails — the strongest tailed beast next to the Nine-Tails — would be the easiest to capture of all, and right now, they still needed it to tie down part of Konoha's forces.
Konan's brow furrowed slightly as she organized her thinking on the current situation, and continued.
"We should strike Konoha directly and seize their tailed beasts by force, while the ten-nation coalition keeps them occupied elsewhere."
Something clicked in Black Zetsu's mind. Konan's thinking lined up exactly with his own.
His attention had always been focused entirely on Nagato — and Konan, with her usual cool, detached demeanor, had never given him much reason to engage with her directly.
He hadn't expected this woman to step so decisively into Nagato's place, at a moment when the whole organization was effectively leaderless.
"According to White Zetsu's intelligence, the Two-Tails jinchūriki has already led Konoha's forces to crush Otogakure in the Land of Rice Paddies."
"And the Nine-Tails jinchūriki just struck Takigakure."
"Which means — aside from the Four-Tails currently in Iwagakure, only the Seven-Tails remains in Konoha now."
Black Zetsu said, testing Konan's reaction.
"Then send Obito alone to Konoha to capture the Seven-Tails."
Obito's mouth twitched slightly at that.
Ever since the tailed-beast hunting campaign began, he genuinely felt like he'd become Akatsuki's designated overworked errand boy. And sending him alone into Konoha, of all places — wasn't that basically a death sentence?
"Naturally, this only happens once we've confirmed the Hokage isn't in Konoha at the time."
Konan added, apparently having anticipated Obito's doubts.
"And what about the front-line battlefield?"
Black Zetsu continued.
"That depends on which front the Hokage decides to take personally."
"Though my guess is — she'll come here."
Konan said, pointing down at the ground beneath them.
"Nagato hasn't finished his transplant yet. Do you really think Iwagakure's forces alone are enough to hold off the Hokage?"
Hiruko spoke up.
"No."
"I'll stop the Hokage myself."
Konan's words left the room stunned. Even Black Zetsu was caught genuinely off guard.
Every gaze in the room shifted, weighing her differently now.
Does this woman actually have some means of holding the Hokage back?
"Of course, I'll need everyone's help for this."
"I'll need time."
"If we play it right, we might not manage to kill the Hokage outright here — but severely wounding her isn't out of reach."
Obito's eyes narrowed slightly, studying the woman before him.
Konan, huh...
Hiding a card like this the whole time.
Of everyone present, Obito had crossed swords with the Hokage the most times. He understood better than anyone here just how terrifying she actually was.
If not for his prepared Izanagi, he'd already be dead somewhere off the Land of Fire's coastline.
And yet Konan was now claiming she had a way to seriously wound the Hokage. That alone was enough to make him reconsider her entirely.
"If this war is being waged by the entire shinobi world combined, then that old fool Ōnoki won't get to sit this one out either."
"And the Four-Tails jinchūriki and Deidara are both stationed at Iwagakure right now."
Black Zetsu began taking Konan more seriously.
People's true potential really does need to be forced out of them.
If not for today's circumstances, this woman would likely have spent her whole life quietly standing beside Nagato and nothing more.
"Iwagakure's forces have already reached the Land of Rain. We can have Kitsuchi send word to bring the Tsuchikage himself here."
"After all, the nobility at the very top are the ones most desperate to see the Hokage dead."
Kisame said, running his tongue over one sharp tooth.
"Then let's see who wins, and who loses, in this."
Black Zetsu said, quiet.
Every face in the room turned grim.
Even with all this careful maneuvering, none of them could claim certain victory.
And there was a bitter irony in it, too — the entire earlier war effort had been meant to weaken the Five Great Villages.
That effort had, in fact, succeeded.
But in the process, it had also given birth to something truly terrifying.
A ferocious tiger, born within the walls of Konoha itself.
And now, all of them were here to do exactly one thing.
Hunt the tiger.
—
Land of Fire — Konoha
Hokage Building rooftop
Looking out over the village, quiet now, faintly subdued, Sakura's expression stayed calm.
This war, like the one three years ago, was diverging further and further from the story she remembered.
Konoha, standing alone against the entire shinobi world combined with Akatsuki on top of it.
The one piece of good news that let Sakura relax, even slightly, was that Yamato was still safely at Konoha's Research Bureau, working diligently on crop research.
He hadn't been captured by Akatsuki. No one was using Wood Release to replicate White Zetsu.
"Lord Hokage. Word from the front."
An ANBU appeared behind her, reporting the latest intelligence.
"Naruto's unit and Yuki's Two-Tails unit have both successfully annihilated the military forces of Takigakure and Otogakure."
"Good. Tell Naruto not to return to Konoha — have him press on toward the Land of Frost directly."
"Understood."
Yūgao nodded slightly and turned to leave, but Sakura called after her, quiet.
"Yūgao."
"Once this is handled, report to the medical division."
Yūgao looked up, faintly startled, at the young Hokage before her.
"You've wanted to leave ANBU for a while now, haven't you."
"Ever since Hayate died."
Sakura said it calmly, and Yūgao fell quiet at that.
"Don't worry, though. This war's going to settle everything."
"After this — at least for as long as I'm alive—"
"No one else needs to die."
Her pale hand rested gently on the purple-haired ANBU's shoulder for a moment, then she turned and walked away.
Yūgao looked back, but all she saw was the Hokage's robe, receding — its flame-like pattern seeming to burn, bright, even from behind.
At that moment, the Hokage's next command reached her ears, unmistakable, absolute.
"Pass this order. Every shinobi not required for border defense — mobilize toward the Land of Frost, immediately."
"I want word of the Raikage's death within three days."
At the Hokage's words, Yūgao lowered her head once more, a flicker of something quiet and sorrowful crossing her eyes, before she answered, soft.
"Understood."
With the Hokage's order given, all of Konoha mobilized at once — a force numbering in the tens of thousands, converging on the Land of Frost.
And at that same moment, a single figure broke away from that massive column of shinobi, heading in the opposite direction.
The Hokage, alone, bound for another battlefield entirely.
The Land of Rain.
Akatsuki's home base.
She meant to settle this in a single decisive strike.
Her pink-clad figure cut through the sky at tremendous speed, the wind tearing at her Hokage robe, snapping it violently behind her.
Meanwhile, in the Land of Rice Paddies, Yuki — Matatabi's host — led her three hundred chakra-armored shinobi onward, pressing steadily toward the Land of Rain as well.
She, too, had received word from Konoha, ordering her to head there at once.
The entire shinobi world was in motion now, factions large and small surfacing out of the shadows all at once.
And along the Land of Fire's coastline, a fleet of strikingly modern steel warships had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.
Shrouded beneath a dense cover of shadow.
This was—
Sorabune's aircraft carriers!
At this pivotal, turbulent moment, the remnants of Sorabune — the sky village crushed by Konoha back in the Second Great Ninja War — had finally resurfaced.
Their goal was simple, and singular.
Pure, unadulterated revenge against Konoha.
The instant the steel fleet came into view, the shinobi stationed along the coastline — originally on alert against Kirigakure — spotted the massive formation immediately.
A sharp, piercing alarm tore through the air along the coast.
(End of chapter.)
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