Ten in the morning, the sunlight had already climbed over the rooftops of Ryūgetsu Outpost, spilling pale gold across the rebuilt streets and the scarred walls left behind by the previous battle. The air carried the dry scent of dust, leaves, and old smoke, while the Konoha shinobi stationed at the gate stood in quiet rows, watching the small squad prepare to leave.
Ren, Kakashi, Obito, and Rin gathered at the entrance of the stronghold, their equipment checked and their pouches secured. Minato stood at the front with his usual calm expression, the sunlight catching the edge of his blond hair. Inuzuka Tsume had come personally to see them off, arms folded across her chest, her sharp eyes sweeping over them one by one as if silently reminding them not to let their guard down.
"Don't get careless out there," Tsume said, her voice rough but filled with concern. "The Sand won't stay quiet forever."
Minato smiled gently. "We'll be careful."
Obito gave her a confident thumbs-up. "Don't worry! With Minato-sensei here, we'll be back before lunch!"
Kakashi glanced at him. "That's the kind of line people say right before trouble happens."
"Hey!"
Rin gave a small helpless smile, while Ren quietly adjusted the strap of his sword across his back. The moment felt almost peaceful, but after everything they had experienced on the front line, none of them truly believed in peace anymore. Peace was only the silence before something moved in the dark.
Under the watchful eyes of the Konoha shinobi, Team Minato left Ryūgetsu Outpost and sped toward the outskirts of the town.
After they passed through the outer checkpoint and entered the mountain path, Rin looked toward Minato.
"Minato-sensei, where exactly are we meeting the replacement force?"
"Right over there."
Minato raised his hand and pointed toward a lush mountain ridge not far away. Dense trees covered the slope, their branches layered so thickly that much of the path ahead was swallowed in green shadow.
"This road is the only route they can take to reach Ryūgetsu Outpost," Minato explained softly. "We'll head to that high ground first, secure a good observation point, and check the surroundings just in case."
No one questioned him.
Their formation shifted naturally.
Minato moved at the front, fast but not rushed. Kakashi and Ren took the left and right sides, protecting the flanks, while Obito and Rin stayed in the center. It was a simple formation, but it reflected the trust built through countless missions. Everyone knew where they had to stand. Everyone knew who would cover whom if danger appeared.
The rugged path beneath their feet was uneven, twisting between rocks, roots, and patches of dry soil. Leaves rustled overhead. Birds called somewhere deeper in the woods. From the outside, everything seemed ordinary.
But shinobi did not survive by trusting ordinary things.
This kind of scouting was exactly what Ren's squad had been trained to do since arriving at the front line. Before Ryūgetsu Outpost, before the battles, before the temporary comfort of hot meals and baths, they had spent their days moving through forests just like this one, searching for traps, enemy traces, broken branches, footprints, disturbed soil, and the unnatural silence that often came before bloodshed.
They searched for a while.
Nothing.
No fresh footprints.
No broken branches.
No scent of explosives.
No hidden wires.
No traces of recent movement.
Eventually, they reached a higher section of the ridge and settled into position, waiting while observing the winding dirt road below.
Time passed slowly.
The sun climbed higher.
The shadows beneath the trees shortened.
But the road remained empty.
No footsteps.
No dust clouds.
No movement from the expected sixty-man Konoha relief force.
The promised noon hour drew closer, and the silence began to feel wrong.
Obito craned his neck, staring down the road with increasing impatience. "What's going on? Didn't they say they'd arrive before noon?"
No one answered immediately.
His expression tightened. "Could they have run into trouble on the way?"
Kakashi, who had been silently watching the forest beyond the road, suddenly narrowed his eye. He leaned slightly toward Minato and pointed in a certain direction.
"Minato-sensei," he said in a low voice, "something seems strange over there. A flock of birds was startled just now."
Ren's hand quietly moved closer to his sword.
Kakashi continued, "There may be enemies lying in ambush."
"Is that so?"
Minato's expression did not change, but the warmth in his eyes faded slightly. He looked in the direction Kakashi indicated, his gaze calm and sharp.
After a brief pause, he smiled faintly.
"Then let's go take a look."
His tone remained gentle, but the air around him shifted.
"If there really is an ambush, then we have a duty to clear the path for our comrades."
His eyes flicked toward the others.
"Ren. Kakashi. Stay alert."
"Understood."
Ren and Kakashi answered at the same time.
The group moved again, this time faster and quieter. The atmosphere had changed completely. No one joked. No one wasted movement. Even Obito, usually the first to complain, kept silent as they passed beneath the tree line and advanced toward the suspicious area.
Ten minutes later, Minato suddenly stopped.
It was not a gradual halt.
One moment he was moving.
The next, he was completely still.
His back tensed like a predator sensing another predator nearby.
He raised one hand sharply.
Everyone stopped at once.
Obito nearly bumped into Rin but caught himself just in time. "Minato-sensei?"
Kakashi and Ren moved instinctively to either side of the formation. Kakashi's fingers brushed his ninja tool pouch. Ren's hand settled on his sword hilt. Their eyes swept across the forest shade, searching for anything that did not belong.
The trees stood motionless.
The grass swayed gently.
The forest looked empty.
That made it worse.
Minato narrowed his blue eyes. His sensory ability spread outward like an invisible net, passing through leaves, roots, stone, and soil. Every faint sound entered his awareness. Wind. Insects. Branches. Breathing.
Then his voice lowered.
"Someone is coming."
A brief pause.
"No... many people."
His expression hardened.
"Sunagakure shinobi."
The warning had barely left his mouth when the forest exploded.
A dense storm of rushing wind sounds tore through the ridge.
Figures burst out from behind tree trunks, from holes hidden beneath leaves, from bushes, from rocky crevices, and even from places where there had seemed to be nothing but shadow. In an instant, the quiet mountain forest turned into a battlefield.
Sand shinobi appeared from every direction.
Their flak jackets were dusty and worn. Their faces carried the harsh, weather-beaten look of ninja raised beneath desert suns and battlefield winds. Their eyes were cold, ruthless, and full of killing intent.
More than thirty.
They formed a tight perimeter around Team Minato, cutting off every obvious escape route.
And they had not come alone.
Several wooden puppets creaked forward among them, their grotesque bodies moving with unnatural rhythm. Their joints clicked sharply. Their mouths opened to reveal hidden launchers. Poisoned claws extended from their arms. Saw blades rotated silently beneath their sleeves. Small mechanism ports aimed directly at Ren and the others.
The air turned suffocating.
Obito swallowed and gripped his kunai harder.
Rin's expression was tense, but her stance remained steady.
Kakashi's gaze sharpened, his body angled slightly forward, ready to move at any moment.
Thirty enemies against five.
That meant each of them would have to handle six enemy shinobi, not counting the puppets.
Even Kakashi could not pretend those numbers were easy.
Only Ren remained unusually calm.
His eyes moved across the encirclement, measuring distances, positions, angles, and possible escape routes.
With the Yellow Flash here, ordinary encirclement tactics were meaningless.
Unless Sunagakure had brought multiple Kage-level fighters, a jinchūriki, or some monster like Madara Uchiha hiding behind the scenes, Minato could at least guarantee their retreat.
But then Ren's gaze reached the front of the enemy formation.
And his calm expression changed slightly.
Two figures slowly stepped out from the deepest shadow.
The first was an elderly woman with white hair and a face covered in deep wrinkles. She looked old, but no one would mistake her for weak. Her eyes were terrifyingly sharp, like poisoned needles polished over decades of war. Every step she took seemed to drag the weight of countless battlefields behind her.
Sunagakure's elder.
A master puppeteer.
A poison expert feared across the shinobi world.
Chiyo.
The pressure radiating from her far exceeded every ordinary Sand shinobi around her.
Half a step behind Chiyo stood another figure.
A woman with short orange hair and striking features. Beautiful, cold, and dangerous. She stood silently, but the air around her seemed strangely dry, as though the moisture itself feared getting too close to her.
Her gaze locked onto Ren.
Predatory.
Focused.
Unblinking.
Pakura.
Minato quietly shifted half a step, placing himself more firmly between the enemy and his students.
His voice remained calm.
"So it really is Elder Chiyo of Sunagakure."
He glanced at the surrounding forces.
"What a grand welcome."
Then his eyes returned to Chiyo.
"It seems our village's replacement squad was intercepted by you."
Chiyo's lips curled into a cold smile.
"As expected of the Yellow Flash. Sharp as ever."
Her voice was dry and aged, but it carried a blade-like chill.
"Unfortunately, you realized it too late."
The Sand shinobi around them tightened their formation.
Chiyo continued slowly, "That squad has already been stopped by our forces. Right now, they can barely protect themselves, let alone come here to support you."
Obito's expression changed.
Rin's fingers tightened around her kunai.
Kakashi's visible eye became even colder.
Minato's smile did not vanish, but the air around him grew noticeably heavier.
Chiyo raised her chin slightly.
"So..."
"All of you may rest here on this mountain ridge."
Her gaze shifted past Minato.
The hatred in her eyes suddenly intensified.
"Especially you..."
Her voice dropped.
"Hatake Yuu."
For a moment, the forest went silent.
Ren blinked.
"...Huh?"
Kakashi froze.
Obito turned his head sharply, staring at Ren with absolute disbelief.
"Yuu, you bastard! When did you secretly change your name?"
His voice rose despite the danger around them.
"And why didn't you tell us?!"
Then, somehow, his brain found an even stranger direction.
"Also, why Hatake? Wouldn't Uchiha Yuu sound way cooler? Or maybe Nohara Yuu!"
Rin gave him a look that clearly said this was not the time.
Ren's mouth twitched.
"...Are you an idiot?"
Still, he immediately understood what had happened.
White hair.
The Hatake Sword Style.
His combat records from recent battles.
To the Sand shinobi, who did not know the internal details of Konoha, it was easy to mistake his identity.
They probably believed he was connected to the Hatake clan.
Perhaps even related to the White Fang.
And Chiyo...
Had an old hatred for that name.
A very deep one.
Ren looked back at the elderly woman standing before him, feeling the killing intent pouring from her like a freezing tide.
So that was why she had personally come.
But still...
Wasn't this a little too excessive?
He had expected retaliation eventually.
Maybe assassins.
Maybe a small elite squad.
But Chiyo herself, plus Pakura, plus more than thirty Sand shinobi and puppets?
This was not a warning.
This was not a probe.
This was an execution formation.
Ren slowly drew a breath.
Minato's voice suddenly reached him, calm and quiet.
"Stay behind me."
Ren did not answer immediately.
His fingers curled around the hilt of his sword.
Across from them, Pakura finally moved.
A faint orange light began to gather around her palm.
The air warped.
The leaves nearest her shriveled in an instant.
Chiyo raised one hand.
The puppets around her clicked forward, poisoned blades extending.
The Sand shinobi lowered their stances.
The entire ridge held its breath.
Then Chiyo's eyes narrowed.
"Kill them."
The mountain forest erupted into battle.
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