Avoiding the Sand shinobi patrols, Yoru and Purple Cat quickly slipped out of the town and regrouped with their ANBU squad outside.
White Ram released his parasite bugs, while the others used binoculars to observe the distance.
Rain poured from above, thick mist clouding their sight.
"Captain! It's Mache, an elite jōnin from the Hidden Sand!"
ANBU carried intel on key figures from every village, and Mache was a Sand shinobi well-known for his mastery of Wind Release.
His head was wrapped with sand-proof bandages, an unmistakable trait.
They hadn't expected to encounter a Sand elite jōnin here.
In the distance, Mache led over a hundred Sand ninja, charging toward the town.
Yoru immediately ordered, "White Ram! Take your squad and find Captain Yellow Dog. Report everything. I'll continue reconnaissance!"
"Yes!"
White Ram took his squad and retreated.
The Fox Squad's mission was reconnaissance. Engaging an elite jōnin commanding over a hundred Sand ninja was impossible.
Yoru expected Mache to storm into Teigu Town, but Mache suddenly veered off toward the river levee.
Once there, the more than one hundred Sand shinobi, two entire squads, began planting explosive tags.
They didn't simply stick tags on the surface. Instead, they used Earth Release to drill holes deep underground and buried the tags inside.
This levee was over fifty meters thick and more than ten meters tall, very solid.
The Sand ninja formed hand signs simultaneously.
Endless explosions rumbled, some on the surface, others deep in the levee.
After the blasts, the soil swelled and loosened.
The Sand shinobi rushed in with Earth Release and tore the levee completely apart.
Beside the levee, the old river patrolman was tied up like a dumpling, trampled under a Sand ninja's foot. He screamed in pain but could do nothing.
The wide Gisui River, nearly a hundred meters across, burst through the broken levee, roaring toward Teigu Town.
The destructive power of ninja was overwhelming. A levee that took the town's ancestors years to build was destroyed by shinobi in less than half an hour.
Outside the hidden villages, all civilians feared and hated ninja.
The flood poured into Teigu Town, instantly submerging the first floors of the buildings.
Screams rose through the rain, then were swallowed by the raging water.
"Captain! The Sand ninja spotted us!"
"Retreat!"
The two squads of Fox Unit were no match for them.
Yoru withdrew with his team. The Sand shinobi didn't pursue; they focused on widening the breach.
Some Sand ninja followed the flood downstream.
Yoru said, "Let's see what they're trying to achieve with this levee breach."
The Gisui River was a major river in southern Rain Country, but because it ran too close to the Jikō Mountains, there was little room for settlements, few valuable targets existed.
Why destroy a levee just to flood a small town and a dozen villages?
If they wanted casualties, kunai would've been faster.
Following the flood for two to three kilometers, Yoru spotted more Sand ninja.
They stood in two long rows, each forming hand signs.
The ground between the two rows sank, forming an intentional channel.
The floodwaters no longer surged aimlessly,
They flowed neatly into the Sand ninja's constructed trench.
Following the direction of the trench, Fox Squad arrived at the base of the Jikō Mountains.
The mountains were solid stone, stripped bare of soil long ago by rain.
The cliffs rose abruptly, hundreds of meters high.
And beneath them, Yoru saw the Sand ninja's true objective,
A massive cavern opening.
Floodwater poured endlessly into the cavern.
What were the Sand shinobi trying to do?
Did they intend to erode the Jikō Mountains with floodwater?
Yoru ordered, "Everyone else fall back and wait for Captain Yellow Dog. Purple Cat, come with me, we'll capture someone."
The closer they got to the trench, the louder the roaring flood became.
The Sand ninja stood proudly around the trench, as if they had accomplished some great feat.
Yoru and Purple Cat hid in the shadows, closing in on an outer guard.
Purple Cat used Mind Transfer Jutsu, taking control of the Sand ninja.
The controlled shinobi quietly stepped backward.
Once close enough, Purple Cat released the technique, Yoru instantly moved via Body Flicker, killed him, and dragged him away.
Three minutes later, Purple Cat finished extracting intel.
Yoru listened, astonished.
Mache truly lived up to his reputation as an elite jōnin of the Hidden Sand, he was a genius.
The Jikō Mountains separated the deserts of the Land of Wind from the rainy basins of Rain Country.
Mache had spent months scouting the mountains with Sand teams and discovered several underground limestone caverns.
The Land of Wind lacked water.
Mache devised a plan:
He selected several caverns and used Earth Release and Wind Release to connect them through the mountains.
By diverting the Gisui River into the cavern system, the water would eventually emerge on the northern edge of the Land of Wind, creating fertile land where there used to be desert.
Purple Cat suddenly warned, "Captain! The flood washed the townspeople down here! Captain, it's Blue!"
On the raging flood floated pieces of wood.
On one plank sat a small girl curled up tight, clutching a broken umbrella.
More importantly, there were hands beneath the plank.
Several adults were in the water, desperately holding the plank up.
Yoru recognized one of the hands,
It belonged to the cobbler uncle he saw days ago, with his unique thimble.
Many such planks floated by, each carrying one or two children, town children and orphans alike.
Yet none of them knew the truth:
Their efforts were useless.
The flood would pull them straight into the bottomless cavern below, and the caverns would take days to fill.
They had no chance of emerging on the the Land of Wind side alive.
"Captain…"
Purple Cat whispered.
Even an ANBU operative struggled to watch Blue, fighting so hard to live, about to vanish into the darkness.
Yoru assessed the Sand guards at the cavern mouth.
He couldn't save many, but he could at least save Blue.
"I'm going to the cavern entrance. Wait for me."
Yoru Body-Flickered toward the cavern.
He killed two Sand ninja, then leapt over the opening.
The cavern yawned like a giant black maw, swallowing endless floodwater.
Yoru swung a wire with an iron weight.
The iron ball looped around Blue's waist and yanked her upward.
She shouted, "Uncle! Auntie! It's a giant hole ahead!"
The cavern swallowed the plank, and the people beneath it,
They tumbled like rag dolls into the dark abyss and vanished.
At that moment, elite jōnin Mache appeared.
"Wind Release: Wind Slicer!"
Countless wind blades flashed toward Yoru, cutting the wire.
"Blue!"
She fell back into the cavern's darkness.
Her broken umbrella slipped from her hands as water smashed her downward.
Yoru was struck by wind blades and thrown into the cliff above the cavern.
He stabbed a kunai into the rock to anchor himself.
Below, the screams of those falling into the cavern echoed through the hollow depths.
"Blue!"
Yoru threw his wire again, trying to catch her.
She reached out,
But missed by a meter before a collapsing wave slammed her into the abyss.
Yoru hung frozen on the cliff.
A thought rose in him:
For the first time,
He wanted to die.
He wanted to change Blue's fate.
Yoru raised his head and glared at Mache.
Sand shinobi… even if you want to bring water to the Land of Wind…