That night, the training grounds of the encampment pulsed with silent tension. Nearly every stationed ninja had gathered—Renjiro estimated the number to be at least a thousand. The air was thick with unspoken understanding; no words were exchanged, yet everyone knew what was coming.
Among the crowd, Renjiro recognized several high-ranking figures: Uchiha Fugaku stood tall with his trademark stern gaze, and beside him were Hyuga Hiashi and his twin brother Hizashi. Their presence confirmed it—the real war was about to begin.
"So it starts..." Renjiro's expression turned grim, as he thought, his chest tightening with a mix of dread and anticipation.
One face was notably missing—Shisui Uchiha. Renjiro scanned the crowd again but found no sign of him. Although he was a little curious where he was, he didn't care too much.
There was no speech. No rallying cry. This wasn't that kind of army.
As soon as the final unit arrived, the order was wordlessly given. The formation began to move—silent, swift, and deadly. The Shinobi marched into the night like a living shadow.
---
They traveled with coordinated stealth, their movements synchronized to avoid detection. Around midnight, the force reached their destination: a dense forest on the edge of a wide river.
Across that river stood the target.
The Hidden Mist Village had been constructing a massive bridge there, clearly a key strategic project. Their forces had relocated to the area in large numbers to guard it—turning the site into a de facto stronghold. Patrols were constant, and their reinforcements were very close by likely minutes away.
Konoha made no attempt to conceal their presence. The Mist had already seen them coming. By the time the first Konoha shinobi stepped into the field, the Mist were likely already in position.
Still, neither side moved.
For thirty long minutes, they stood across from each other—two armies facing off in the moonlight, the pressure of inevitable conflict was hanging between them.
Then—
"Attack!"
"Kill them!"
The twin roars of command tore through the silence, and war erupted.
---
The suffocating tension vanished in an instant.
Renjiro released the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Finally.
Boom! Boom!
Explosions rocked the forest. Shouts, steel, and jutsu lit the night. The battlefield devolved into a brutal storm of violence and survival.
There was no elaborate strategy here—just chaos. Jonin clashed with Jonin, Chunin with Chunin, and Genin were thrown into the fray against their counterparts.
Of course, the lines blurred. Sometimes a Jonin would target a weaker enemy, only to be intercepted by an opposing elite, and balance was maintained only by sheer instinct and constant movement.
"Stay sharp! Stick together!" Renjiro shouted over the noise as he, Meri, and Maemon moved as a single unit.
In this kind of battlefield, survival wasn't about strength—it was about coordination.
Maemon took the role of the tactician, keeping his eyes on the larger fight and deploying traps with quiet precision. His calm presence and analytical mind made him the real controller of the team.
Meri just like her nature, ignored any subtlety. She threw herself into combat like a battering ram, drawing attention and taking hits without hesitation. Her ferocity made her the team's tank—aggressive, bold.
Renjiro filled in the gaps. He wasn't the strongest or the fastest, but he adapted. He supported, finished off weakened enemies, and gave quick commands. In practice, he was the team's backbone—the commander who made sure they moved as one.
Renjiro didn't turn on his Observation Haki immediately.
He knew better. The ability granted incredible sensory awareness, but the trade-off was steep—its activation window was short, and it drained his mental strength rapidly. It was a trump card, not something to waste in the opening exchange. He would save it for when it truly needed.
The battlefield was exactly what the veterans had warned them about: a meat grinder. Death didn't come with warning—it came like a tide, fast, and brutal.
Within minutes of the first clash, Renjiro had already seen several familiar faces fall—people he had trained beside in the camp, classmates from the Academy. Their bodies hit the ground without ceremony, and their lives extinguished in the mud and blood.
Under any other circumstances, it might have broken him, but this wasn't the place for grief. On the battlefield, emotion was a weakness. Survival demanded clarity, focus, and cold precision.
"Renjiro! Dodge!" Maemon's voice cut through the chaos like lightning.
Renjiro didn't hesitate to follow Maemon's order, his body moved before his mind fully caught up, twisting away from the danger.
Whoosh!
But he wasn't fast enough. A kunai grazed his arm, slicing a hot, stinging line across his bicep. Blood followed instantly, dark and warm, pain flared like fire. Cold sweat broke across his back.
"Damn it… that was close." Renjiro hissed through, his heart was pounding against his ribs like a war drum. A second slower, and that would've been his throat.
This was war. One moment of distraction, and it could all end. He was alive—barely—only because Maemon had caught the threat in time.
The team didn't linger. With Renjiro wounded, they began repositioning, quickly merging into a nearby squad that included a medic-nin. Field protocol was simple: if you wore Konoha's headband, a medic would treat you, regardless of your unit.
The treatment was swift and efficient. The wound was cleaned, wrapped, and partially healed with basic medical ninjutsu. Within moments, Renjiro was back on his feet, the pain disappeared but the lesson was engraved in his mind.
The fighting hadn't stopped. If anything, it had escalated.
Casualties mounted on both sides with each passing second. The Mist held the advantage of terrain—this forested area was their home ground, and their ninja excelled in stealth and ambush tactics, but Konoha's advantage was lying in their overwhelming numbers.
The Mist had deployed heavily around the bridge, digging in like a cornered beast, but they were still struggling against the sheer force Konoha had brought to bear.
Yet, they weren't broken, not even close.
---
Suddenly, more than a dozen Mist shinobi regrouped near the front lines. They raised their hands in unison and began forming joint hand seals.
"Something's wrong!"
Uchiha Fugaku and the Hyuga brothers reacted instantly, their Dojutsu were completely focused on them. In a split second, they could see through the coordinated hand seals being formed by the Mist ninjas.
"Hidden Mist Technique!"
The jutsu exploded into effect—cast by over a dozen elite Mist shinobi working in perfect unison.
In a few seconds, a thick, suffocating fog rolled across the battlefield like a tidal wave, swallowing the terrain and all the ninjas. Visibility dropped to zero, and under the cover of night, Konoha's forces were effectively blind.
Combined with the darkness of night, Konoha ninjas were completely trapped geographically.
With the activation of the Mist Hidden Technique, the Mist Ninjas instantly gained the upper hand. The Mist had turned the battlefield into their hunting ground. Their advantage in the fog was overwhelming.
"Ahh!" "Ahh!"
The assassins of the Hidden Mist slipped into the fog like phantoms, striking with precision and vanishing just as quickly. The number of casualties on the Konoha side spiked in an instant. Screams echoed, blood sprayed into the mist, and the battlefield became even more chaotic.
"Hiashi!" Fugaku shouted, his Sharingan was spinning furiously, as he released a searing Fire Dragon Jutsu, incinerating a Mist ninja mid-charge.
"I'm on it!" Hiashi answered, already directing the Hyuga clan members to scatter and assist the struggling Konoha forces. With their Byakugan, the Hyuga could see through the fog—no assassin could hide from them.
Fugaku did the same, deploying Uchiha forces across the battlefield. While the Sharingan wasn't perfect in these conditions, it was leagues better than ordinary vision. Most of the Konoha shinobi—especially those without a bloodline—were nearly helpless.
But there simply weren't enough Hyuga or Uchiha to cover everyone.
The Konoha lines began to buckle. Civilian-born ninja, in particular, were dying by the dozen—picked off in the dark with no warning before they could even react.
---
The moment the fog descended, Renjiro had activated his Observation Haki.
Time seemed to slow, in a world where sight had failed, sensory awareness became everything. Though he couldn't see through the mist, he could feel it—every shift in pressure, every breath of wind, every tiny sound became data. The world moved in slow motion to his senses, and with that clarity, Renjiro seized control.
"Maemon! Left side!" Renjiro shouted in a steady voice.
Maemon didn't hesitate. He trusted Renjiro without question, immediately flinging a shuriken toward the direction.
Clang!
Sure enough, the sound of metal clashing came from the fog, followed by a faint gasp, and then silence.
"Meri, enemy ahead!"
"On it!"
Upon hearing Renjiro's voice, Meri followed his command without hesitation and thrust out her blade, immediately inflicting heavy damage to the unprepared Mist-nin in the fog.
Whoosh!
Meri's attack came very sudden, and before Mist-nin could react, her blade slashed the enemy's throat.
She pulled back, blinking in disbelief, the Mist-nin's body collapsed at her feet.
"I… I killed a Chunin?" She said, staring at the insignia on the fallen Mist ninja's armor in shock.
Despite the chaos around them, their team was not only surviving—they were winning. Following Renjiro's command, not only they were able to protect themselves in the fog but they also took down a Chunin.
"Yo, Renjiro." Maemon called out, his voice filled with awe and surprise: "Since when were you this good at sensing stuff?"
Renjiro didn't answer directly. He gave a half-smirk and replied simply: "There's a lot you don't know about me."
"Ahhh!"
Just as Seri was about to speak, a scream cut sharply through the mist.
"Someone's been ambushed!"
They exchanged a quick glance. It was unclear whether it was a Konoha or a Mist ninja, but regardless, a scream meant trouble—and potentially an opportunity to save a comrade.
"Let's go!" Renjiro said sharply, and the three surged toward the sound.
A short distance away, the mist parted to reveal a brutal scene. A Konoha team was on the verge of being wiped out: one member was already laying lifeless in the blood-soaked grass, while the remaining two were badly wounded and struggling to stay on their feet.
"Get out of here! It's not safe!" One of the injured Konoha shinobi yelled hoarsely upon spotting Renjiro and the others: "Rookies like you have no place here!"
But it was too late, as a deep, rasping voice slithered out of the mist: "Fools. Now that you've come… you're not leaving."
"Ten o'clock!" Renjiro shouted, reacting instantly to the faint shift in air currents and the almost imperceptible vibration that betrayed an enemy's position.
Meri and Maemon acted in the same breath. Kunai and shuriken whistled through the mist, forcing the unseen assailant to reveal himself. Renjiro surged forward a head-on with his sword.
"Damn it!"
Clangg! Clangg!
"Damn it!" The Mist ninja cursed as steel rang out in rapid succession. He managed to deflect the thrown weapons, but had no chance to recover as Renjiro closed the gap.
Renjiro honed his Taijutsu to an elite Genin level. His burst strength, refined through following Arkain's precise trainings. The Mist shinobi, distracted by the first barrage, was too slow to raise a proper guard.
Whoosh!
Renjiro slashed his blade with all his might, Mist-nim who just blocked Meri and Maemon's shuriken attack didn't have time to defend himself.
"How—?!"
The words died in the mist as Renjiro's attack found its mark. The Mist ninja fell before he could comprehend how a rookie had found him.
Renjiro pulled free, breathing hard but composed, and signaled for the team to regroup.
"Can you move?" Renjiro asked in a serious voice, looking to the injured Konoha shinobi.
"Thank you for saving us." One replied quickly: "We can move."
"Good. Let's get out of here." Renjiro said grimly.
With that, the five of them pressed on, relying on Renjiro's Observation Haki to guide their path, they began to wander in the fog to rescue those Konoha ninjas who were in crisis.