"Come sit by me. Seniors Tekka and Inabi, make a little room." Before Kageyama Kokugetsu could look for a spot, Uchiha Shisui invited him over.
The three were not thrilled, but for Shisui's sake they shifted aside.
"Thanks, Shisui," Kageyama said sincerely.
"No need. We're comrades from now on," Shisui replied with a bright smile.
"Agreed," Kageyama nodded.
"We begin. Everyone, be seated," Uchiha Fugaku said, lowering his hand as he sat.
"Thank you, Lord Fugaku."
They all kneeled in formal seiza.
As the meeting ran, Kageyama kept his counsel unless asked. He knew his place. His time to shine had not yet come, and growing too dazzling too fast would only invite trouble.
Afterward he rested half a day. At dawn the next morning, after a hearty breakfast, he headed to Fugaku's tent.
When he had the means, he never shorted himself. He had stowed plenty of food and drink in Daikokuten, where time stood still and nothing spoiled.
This operation was no skirmish. While Kirigakure's reinforcements were still at sea, Konoha would take the time gap and teach them a deep lesson.
Over a thousand Konoha shinobi deployed. The basic unit was the platoon, and they struck into the Mist's zone of control.
A platoon held four squads. Ten platoons made a company.
Kirigakure's ranks had cast Hidden Mist en masse, and the border where the Land of Fire met the Land of Whirlpools was drowned in fog.
Companies were too big a target in that cover, easy prey for the Mist lurking within. Squads were too slight. Platoons were just right.
When the fog banks thinned with time, or when sunlight burned them off, fighting usually devolved to the squad level.
Within the Mist zone was a white blur where sea and sky were one, boundaries between heaven and earth smeared. Tall green trees loomed and vanished in rolling veils as if a hundred monsters hid within. At sunrise, gold and crimson light fell across the fog, refracting in colors, beauty edged with dread.
The vanguard fell under Hyuga Hiashi. Each squad there had Byakugan. They probed, cleared traps, and built bridgeheads.
Kirigakure's shinobi would not sit and watch. They attacked by any means.
Steel rang, explosions boomed, curses and screams churned inside the fog, making it all the more fearsome.
But Konoha would not be cowed. By now every Konoha shinobi was no recruit, and their courage was not that of ordinary folk.
By the set order, platoons filed into the fog and in short order held the line.
Of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen, four were dead and three wounded; Biwa Jūzō and Kurosuki Raiga had fled, and only Suikazan Fuguki had returned. Without that spearhead, and with reinforcements still short of land, the Mist were stretched thin.
They fell back in a fighting withdrawal, trading space across the weird, fog-drowned forest, playing guerrilla against Konoha.
They did it to play to their strengths. The Hyuga were limited in number; not every squad could have a Byakugan. They did it to buy time until the follow-on force arrived.
With Kageyama's Byakugan guiding them, the Uchiha unleashed their power to the fullest. Any Mist unit that ran into his platoon was cut down fast; even a jonin-led team could not last long.
Before long they caught up with the platoons under the brothers Hyuga Hiashi and Hyuga Hizashi. Konoha's top fighters became the spearpoint and drove toward the Mist heartland, crushing pressure onto their foes.
By the time the sun stood high, the fog peeled away. The Mist's position worsened by the minute. They held local edges here and there, but overall the balance had turned against them.
As the last of the fog vanished, signs of rout showed. At that critical moment, Mist jonin and tokubetsu jonin who had pushed ahead of the main body reached the field and barely steadied the line.
Konoha would not let go. All three commanders ordered the battle pressed.
Fugaku's platoons were a priority target for the Mist reinforcements. As more of them lashed out, Kageyama could no longer play the bystander.
"So you're the brat who killed Ao and took back the Byakugan?"
A round-faced youth with white hair, blue battle gear under a blue flak jacket, stood high above, looking down with cold, appraising eyes.
Kageyama rolled his eye. "And you are?"
"Hōzuki Nana—"
Before he finished, his body vanished from the branch, a twisting whirl of water left in his place.
Steel clanged. Sparks fountained. Their blades had already met. One face was calm as still water; the other twisted with strain.
"A mere chunin, and this—" Hōzuki Nanaboshi stared.
"To move like that away from water. Decent Water Shunshin," Kageyama said, lightly, as if commenting on the weather.
"Damned brat. What kind of tone is that?"
Grand Water Arm Technique.
Rage flared. Nanaboshi's right arm ballooned. Cloth ripped. The limb swelled thick as a thigh, power surging.
"Now that has some weight. Not bad," Kageyama said with a slight smile, his feet biting into the earth.
If the earlier crack in composure had been partly an act, this time Nanaboshi truly lost it.
Water Gun Jutsu.
"Die, brat!"
He snapped his left hand into a finger-gun and fired a droplet at Kageyama's head.
"It can't be," Nanaboshi gasped, eyes bulging in disbelief.
Only the Hyuga could emit chakra across the entire body. How did this kid do it?
Did implanting a Byakugan grant that as well? The Hyuga had lost eyes in the Warring States era, but no such tales existed.
A dense blue flare rose at Kageyama's temple. The bullet-like droplet could not penetrate and slid off to patter on the ground.
"You've swung your three axes. My turn."
Kageyama smiled strangely, caught Nanaboshi's hand, and triggered the Fūinjutsu Absorption Seal.
"You… impossible."
Feeling chakra pour out of him at a terrifying pace, Nanaboshi stared, bloodshot-eyed, his face a demon's mask. Strength fled so fast he didn't even have spit to spray.
"Nothing's impossible."
Kageyama knocked aside the blade, drove Nanaboshi back, flipped his own edge, and sent the point through Nanaboshi's chest.
Without chakra, there was no dodging, no Hydrification, nothing—only waiting for the end.
Katon. Gōkakyū no Jutsu.
A great fireball erased the body. With no one around, Kageyama slipped into invisibility and went to ground.