Hidden Leaf, Hidden Talents 57

I didn’t plan for the wind to be mean about it. But the wind was mean about it, shoving the smell of wet river mud and pine sap into my nose, flipping my hair into my eyes like it had a grudge.

The river kept hissing like it wanted us to shut up, but nobody listens to rivers.

“Contact west-southwest,” Aya murmured. “They’re moving parallel.”

Nobody else said much. Tsunade’s chakra was already building, subtle as a thunderhead humming behind your teeth. Sakumo tilted his head slightly, testing the wind.

I didn’t ask. Didn’t wait for an order either. Just shrugged, let my chakra split, and four of me blinked out of the dark.

One of me snorted at the others. Another me grinned back. They already knew where to go.

The three jonin, I almost called them “extras,” which is rude but also accurate. I didn’t know their names, so I gave them some. Scarface, obvious reasons. Shoulders, because the guy’s whole body was just trapezius. And Ponytail, self-explanatory, though I could’ve gone with “Horse Girl” if I felt like being meaner.

Anyway, Scarface, Shoulders, Ponytail. Don’t ask me their real names, nobody bothered to introduce me, so the nicknames are sticking.

They looked… comfortable? Not comfortable like they were at home, comfortable like they already knew what to do and didn’t need to talk about it. Or maybe that’s just how jonin always are. I wouldn’t know.

River squad stepped over the sandbar, one behind the other, then spread wide without anyone telling them to. That’s how you can tell they’ve been doing this too long. That alone told me I liked them; not as people, but as opponents. They did the soundless check of angles. One lifted two fingers and I saw the slightest ripple of Suiton chakra on his tongue.

He never got to use it. A blur slipped in behind him, Sakumo’s tanto kissed the base of his neck and kept going. The man dropped without a sound, the water chakra still gleaming useless on his tongue.

Another River-nin jerked back, face twisting—“Ambush!”

Tsunade whispered, “Now.”

I snapped two clones right, two left. The right pair burst from grass with basic kunai-flicks, nothing special, just honest low-skill opening feints. The left pair went low, palms open, aiming for ankles and wrists.

The River-nin didn’t fall for it. He didn’t block; he stepped back half a pace and let the angles die. He threw his kunai not at a person but at the space my clone wanted to occupy next.

The valley cracked with noise, exploding tags snapping sharp, like planks smacked flat. Scarface and Ponytail used the noise to slide in. On the right, my clone took a Suiton: Teppōdama head-on. Instead of just popping, he flared and blew, steam and shrapnel ripping through the air. The River jonin twisted away, fast enough to avoid being shredded, but not fast enough to stop the blast from rattling his chest and gut. He staggered.

Tsunade was already there. She drove off her back leg, shoulder behind the punch, and when her fist landed the man’s chest folded in with a wet crunch. His body cratered the dirt, ribs driven in like splintered wood.

“Remind me never to piss her off,” I muttered, then jumped onto a low stone outcropping to see everything.

I stayed out of the brawl, keeping my eyes on everyone instead of swinging.

Sakumo was across the stream before I even processed the splashes. White chakra along his tanto like frost. He didn’t swing; he placed. The first River blade met his and screamed. Sparks. The second River blade met nothing because Sakumo wasn’t there anymore; he’d stepped to the side in that small, mean way that swordmen do when they’re being rude. The third River shinobi tried to use a Doton wall as a shield. The wall rose. Sakumo’s tanto slipped between stones to the soft part under the jaw.

I saw it then, the shinobi on the far bank molding hand seals for Suiton: Suiryūdan no Jutsu, the Water Dragon surging up, coils of liquid muscle ready to crash across our front. Aya slammed both palms down, raising a Doton wall. It wasn’t strong enough to hold back the torrent, but it split the dragon’s body, broke its momentum, and left only a flood of water scattering around us.

Another River-nin lunged in with a kick that felt more like a battering ram. The clone caught it on his forearms and still got shoved back three steps, heels carving ruts in the dirt. His guard buckled under the pressure, arms screaming with the impact, and the enemy twisted, driving a follow-up straight through the gap. The clone ducked by a breath, shoulder grazing the shin as it passed, and only then did he roll with the force, clinging on like a tick.

My grin spread across his face, not because he was winning, but because he’d stolen half a second that shouldn’t have existed. Chakra Scalpel lit thin and blue, and he carved a fast line across the shin. Not deep, just enough to make the muscle spasm for three seconds.

“Finish,” the clone said, and Shoulders finished, his kunai punched clean through the River-nin’s throat, dropping the man in a wet collapse that didn’t rise again.

Around us, the fight didn’t pause, it only spread wider.

Steel and chakra crossed the clearing in ugly arcs, kunai curtains, water and fireballs, each side trying to force the other back. Our squad shoved through it, blades flashing when the distance broke. Three of the River-nin went down in the mess, one choking on his own breath, another cut off mid-seal, and a third dragged under when a clone’s exploding body turned his own water jutsu back in his face. The rest held their ground and answered with more jutsu.

The exchange dragged on, their formation starting to fray under the pressure.

Someone shouted, “Pull back!” in River dialect. Good call. If I were them, I’d pull back too.

They went for the riprap slope, thinner cover. One of my clones burst from the grass, grinning wide like he was about to blow himself apart. A River shinobi faltered, the memory flashing of his comrade writhing after a clone’s nasty explosion. That second of hesitation was all Sakumo needed. He pounced, tanto low. The man tried to vault away, sandals scraping stone, but the blade slid into his thigh mid-leap, shredding muscle. He hit the slope screaming, and Sakumo ended it with one merciless thrust under the jaw.

Of the few still running, one hugged the base of a concrete run-off where the river met an old reservoir wall, patched a dozen times and still standing. He slammed out a Doton: Ganban Kyū, rock snapping shut to catch Scarface, who was right on his heels.

Scarface barked back with his own Doton, a hard wall slamming up in front of him. Stone met stone, wrong against wrong, and the clash hit harder than either of them had meant. The berm cracked along a fault I hadn’t seen. The sound it made wasn’t a fight sound. More like the ground clearing its throat.

Aya’s head snapped up. “What was—”

The dam wall cracked, spiderwebs, then more spiderwebs, ugly fractures spreading because that’s what cracks do.

I told myself it wasn’t about to break. Then I told myself I was lying. Both things were true for a second.

And water, water doesn’t care.

“Move!” Sakumo barked, and even River-nin moved, bodies answering before minds caught up. The reservoir didn’t erupt, it slouched then gave way like an ox dropping under too much weight. A wall of floodwater rushed downstream, chewing through everything in its path. The noise followed after the sight, a blunt roar that smothered every other sound.

They barely had a second to take it in.

“Downstream, what’s there?” Ponytail asked, panting.

“Farm terraces,” Aya said. “Ame border villages.”

“So what? That’s their problem,” Shoulders said, because someone always says it.

“Stay sharp,” Sakumo said, and the conversation shuttered.

All eyes went to the fight.

Some River-nin still fought. I respected that. Not because they thought they’d win, they didn’t, but because they kept swinging even after the math was already written.

One of them got halfway through the seals for Suiton: Suiryūdan. He almost finished. My clone lunged, but the jonin snapped his wrist aside with a snarl and the signs kept going. A second clone slammed in low, forcing him to twist, and the slip was just enough to throw the jutsu off. He recovered instantly, blade whistling—smoke and flesh torn apart in a blink. But not before a scalpel’s kiss scored his thigh, shallow but enough to make the muscle hitch for a breath.

Tsunade was there a moment later. Her fist took him in the chest. There was no second step. Just ground. Just silence.

The last one tried harder. Smoke bomb. Kunai reverse-grip. He came out of the haze furious. Three of my clones met him, one already bleeding from the waist because he’d been too slow. He cut another down with a single stroke, shadow puffing out before it could cry. But numbers are numbers. The third clone hooked his ankle, pulled him half-down, and that was enough.

Tsunade’s heel found him before he found balance again. The sound wasn’t steel. It was meat and stone arguing.

She stood over what was left, shoulders rising once, then still.

The dam wasn’t the same dam anymore, it had changed shape while we were busy. What used to be a steady spill had turned rough, swollen, fast. It dragged branches, nets, the wooden posts from someone’s fishing weir. Chunks of stone too, pieces of the wall itself. Things that didn’t belong in the water but were in it now.

The sound kept growing. Like something big was coming down a corridor you couldn’t see yet.

That sound was the reservoir failing. The flood had started.

“Regroup,” Sakumo said.

We pulled back from the bodies and stood by the breach. The reservoir wall was still there, but not whole anymore.

I came down off the berm. “Is there a settlement below?” I asked.

Aya’s eyes flicked at the water. “Yes. Small ones. Closest is an Ame farming village, ten kilometers at most.”

Scarface shook his head. “Then it’s already too late for them.”

Shoulders didn’t even hesitate. “We’re not Ame’s guardians. We’re Konoha shinobi. Our job is over there”—he jerked his chin toward River territory—“not here.”

Ponytail added. “And if we stumble into a River patrol half-spent, we don’t come back at all. Mission first, everything else second.”

They didn’t even argue. It was already decided between them.

I asked anyway. “So we just leave it? Let the flood roll down into Ame? What if it turns into an international problem?”

The wall groaned, cracked again. More stone peeled off. The river widened itself, carried more than it should have.

Scarface spat. “That settles it. We can’t stop this without bleeding ourselves dry. And if we’re drained later, Konoha pays the price for saving farmers who don’t even belong to us.“

Shoulders and Ponytail both nodded. The others stayed quiet, which was the same as agreeing.

I looked at Sakumo. He looked like a man chewing on words he didn’t plan to swallow or spit. In the end, he said nothing.

Their reasoning was solid. I couldn’t argue that. Didn’t want to.

Then Tsunade said, “Leave one of your clones here.”

Everybody looked at her. Nobody understood. What would a clone do against a river? What would a shadow do against a flood?

I smiled. Didn’t explain. Just left one behind.

The rest of us turned for River territory. The clone stayed. Tsunade shoved a Doton scroll into its hand before we left—“do something useful,” like the river was a wound it could stitch.

So it had work now. Trying to slow a flood with borrowed jutsu.

The sigh it gave wasn’t for the water. It was for the free labor. Again.

…..

Ten kilometers was a long way not to see. But if you asked a river to carry a message, it did. It carried it in noise first, then in smell, then in things that used to belong to people.

Ame Country. Rice paddies stacked like green books. A village where roofs were low and morning chores were higher. A boy and a girl played ken-ken-pa on packed dirt chalked with circles. One foot, two feet, hop, land, arms shook out for balance, almost tipped, almost laughed. The girl’s hair was in two messy loops and the boy’s shirt had been mended at the shoulder with blue thread that didn’t match. Their world was a triangle: the game, the bucket their mother had left by the well, the neighbor’s dog sleeping with its snout on its paws.

The first thing was a sound no one recognized, too big to be a storm, too steady to be a cart. Grown-ups looked up and decided they didn’t know what they were hearing and therefore it was fine. Grown-ups were professionals at deciding things were fine.

The second thing was smell. Cold water had a smell. It was metal and old moss and the memory of winter.

The third thing was the dog standing and raising its hackles.

Then there was the corner turning. The water didn’t come like a cartoon wave. It came like a wall, gray and full of pieces of other places: fence rails, the wrack of somebody’s field, a garden pot, a barrel with somebody’s surname burned into it. It didn’t spread with noise. It just moved downhill. The lowest places went first. And that was where the kids were. Because kids always picked the ground that was kind to them, right until it wasn’t.

The girl’s heel caught on the chalk line, and she went down on her palms, laughing. The boy reached to yank her up by the wrist. He was still on one foot because that was the rule of the game. His mouth opened to say her name.

But he stopped when the water reached his ankles.

He looked down, because of course he did, and confusion was a real expression. He wore it. Then the cold hit, shoving both its hands into his chest, knocking him off his hopscotch balance and making him fall.

Adults shouted names. Names that belonged to sons, daughters, parents. Names that sounded smaller against the water.

Doors slammed. People tried to hold the flood out with wood and iron, but it came through anyway.

The bucket by the well tipped and floated. It drifted slow for a moment, then the current took it.

The neighbor’s dog swam hard, head barely above the surface, claws scraping for anything solid.

Someone on a roof swung a pole into the water, reaching for a body already gone under.

A woman climbed a ladder with a baby on her back. The water took the ladder. She reached the eave, slipped, and the child’s cry stopped in the water.

The chalk circles on the ground washed away. The boy reached for the girl’s hand and caught nothing. His shirt tore loose in the current, the blue thread on the shoulder still visible as it sank.

The current pulled. The current kept pulling.

The village that had been alive this morning wasn’t alive anymore.

A barrel slammed against a wall and broke apart. A shrine bell was torn free. It rang once, then was carried off, ringing faintly as it drifted toward the next village downstream.

……

Back at the reservoir, I blinked river spray out of my eyes and unrolled the scroll. The edges were still wet, ink smudged in places, and my hands weren’t exactly still when I opened it. I wasn’t built for studying under pressure, but pressure was all there was. Three Doton jutsu written in bad handwriting.

I skimmed the first line, then went back, then skimmed again. Doryūheki. Doryū Taiga. The third one I didn’t have time for. The choice wasn’t complicated. You pick the ones that make walls and the ones that make soil move. That’s what a breach needs.

I read faster than I understood, and then I tried to understand faster than I could read. After two hours my head ached like I’d been pressing seals into my own skull. But I had them. Enough to try, at least.

So I split again. Two more clones stood with me, and none of us spoke when we saw the gap. Bigger than before, louder too, water knifing through the broken mouth of the reservoir. We didn’t say anything because the noise had already said enough.

We moved at once. Hands blurred, seals locked, and the ground rose under our palms. A wall, wide and high, slammed into place across the breach. For a moment it looked like it might hold. For a moment.

Then the river laughed in our faces. A jet like steel cable punched under the wall, ate out the footing, and dragged the whole thing down. The wall cracked, folded, and went. The water didn’t even notice it had killed something.

We frowned together. Same expression on three faces. I opened my mouth, the others already nodding before the words even landed.

“Layer it,” I said.

So we layered. Not one wall but teeth, each a step behind the other. Staggered inside the throat of the breach, one taking the hit, the next stealing what was left. Like defensive lines, like biting back.

Then came shoulders. Short, fat walls braced on either side, holding the edges from tearing wider. Because the breach wasn’t just a hole, it was a hole that wanted to grow.

Still not enough. Water has more patience than stone. So we dropped the river’s own soil against it. Doryū Taiga, chakra pouring into mud. The upstream bank slumped, then collapsed, a landslide shoving itself into the mouth of the breach. The current pressed it down, packed it tight against our walls. An improvised cofferdam. Ugly, but alive.

And we didn’t stop. We couldn’t. As fast as it ate, we built. A rotation. Clones making clones, clones meditating to catch back chakra, then throwing up another wall, another plug, another patch. Normal shinobi would’ve run dry. We weren’t normal shinobi.

We armored what we built. We shoved boulders in, jammed logs, dragged rubble until our arms shook. Anything heavy. Anything that looked like it might hate water as much as we did. The fill thickened. The edges held.

Finally we stopped moving. Not because it was finished. Because it looked like it might last. The water still hissed through cracks, still tested everything, but the breach wasn’t growing anymore.

We stood on the dam, soaked, spattered with mud, and for the first time in hours we breathed without counting.

One of the others glanced at me. "How long you think this'll hold?"

"A few days, maybe more if we're lucky."

"Enough time?"

I nodded, watching the water test our patchwork. "Enough to get people out. That's all we need."

"Yeah." He wiped mud from his hands. "Better than nothing."

"Way better than nothing."

The reservoir level would drop, or Ame-nin would get here, or neither. That wasn’t our concern anymore.

We sat on the mud. Not because it was comfortable, it wasn’t, but because our legs said enough. The water pressed at the cofferdam like it was daring us to blink. We didn’t blink. We just sat and breathed, all of us soaked the same way, breathing the same mud-heavy air.

“Do we keep it up?” one clone finally asked, tilting his head toward the patched wall. “Or do we just—” He snapped his fingers in the air.

“Dispel?” another finished. “Maybe that’s better. Less risk of anyone tracing us back.”

Silence stretched for a while. The river sounded calmer now, but we all remembered how it had looked two hours ago when it broke loose.

One clone rubbed at his knee, but his eyes were on the water. “The damage is already done. We didn’t stop it in time.”

Another leaned, watching the current strain against the cofferdam. “Do you think it reached the closest village?”

Nobody answered right away. We all looked downstream as if we could see that far.

Finally, one spoke. “It probably did. Ten kilometers isn’t much for water moving this fast.”

Another exhaled through his nose. “Yeah. They’re probably gone by now. But at least it didn’t spread further. The other villages won’t get swallowed. We stopped it from getting worse.”

They nodded and the talk was over nothing more needed saying nothing more wanted.

……

Lightning Country, Kumogakure

The captain's knuckles hit the heavy wooden door twice before he heard the gruff voice from within grant him entry. He stepped inside the Third Raikage's office and closed the door behind him.

"Raikage-sama." He straightened. "I have the preliminary findings from the investigation."

The massive man behind the desk didn't look up from the reports scattered across its surface. Documents, intelligence summaries, the usual mess of paperwork that came with running a hidden village. "Let me hear it."

"The attack patterns suggest either Konoha or Iwa involvement. Possibly both working together." The captain paused, organizing his thoughts. "The shadow clone usage points heavily toward Konoha, but we also have eyewitness accounts of Iwa traces left behind at the scene."

That got the Raikage's attention. “Could it have been their jinchuriki?"

The captain had been expecting this question, their intelligence on Konoha's Nine-Tails container was extensive, if not always reliable. "That's what I thought initially. Our files show he used the same mass shadow clone tactic in Kitaura. The squad we sent after him then..." He trailed off. No need to spell out what happened to teams that didn't come back.

"But?" The Raikage's tone suggested he already knew there was more to it.

"The timing doesn't work, Raikage-sama. According to our latest intelligence, their jinchuriki is currently deployed at the western front. Has been for days now. Meanwhile, the attack on our sealing site happened three days ago, here in Lightning Country. Even with our fastest shinobi's speed, that's not possible."

The Raikage leaned back in his chair, which creaked under his considerable weight. More than fifty shadow clones at the sealing site, and whoever was controlling them had kept spawning more throughout the engagement. That kind of chakra reserve wasn't common, even among jonin.

"So we're looking at another Konoha shinobi with comparable abilities." It wasn't really a question.

"That's my assessment, yes sir."

"Dismissed."

The captain bowed briefly and left, leaving the Raikage alone with his thoughts for all of thirty seconds before another knock came at the door.

"Enter."

Dodai stepped inside, carrying a scroll case under one arm. His face already told the Raikage this wasn't going to be good news.

"Raikage-sama," Dodai began, setting the scroll case on the desk. "I have updates on those ninja tools Konoha's been using against our forces. The ones that have been causing problems for our squads."

The Raikage gestured for him to continue. "What do we know about them?"

Dodai set the scroll case on the desk and pulled out several detailed reports. "They're products from Uzushio. Recent partnership, from what our intelligence suggests. Uzumaki clan's been supplying them with specialized equipment over the past few weeks."

He spread out the written reports and sketches of Uzu’s ninja tools. "It's not just quantity, it's quality that's concerning."

The Raikage picked up one of the sketches, studying the intricate seal work visible on what looked like a strange kunai. Uzushio had always been known for their fuinjutsu expertise, but actively supplying a major hidden village during wartime changed the equation significantly.

"Begin monitoring Uzushio operations," he decided, setting the sketch down. "Full intelligence gathering. Trade routes, shipping schedules, production capabilities. If they're going to arm our enemies, I want to know exactly what we're dealing with."

"Understood, Raikage-sama. I'll have teams in position within the week."

The Raikage nodded, turning toward the window that overlooked the village. Reddish stains had seeped through the bandages wrapped around his right forearm. "Also, begin preparations for the next container. The current one was sealed in an emergency. The process wasn't stable."

Dodai's expression grew grim. "How long do we have?"

"Not long before it goes berserk again." The Raikage flexed his bandaged arm slightly. "We need to be ready. And double the security around the sealing site. Those shadow clone users might try to hit us again, try to release the Eight-Tails during the resealing process."

"I'll see to it immediately, Raikage-sama."

……

Meanwhile, deep in River Country territory...

The River outpost sat in the distance like a stubborn wart on the landscape, all stone walls and watchtowers that should have had guards moving around by now. Should have been sending out squads to intercept us, actually. But the place looked dead quiet, and I wasn't sure if that meant our tags was working or if we were walking into a trap.

I crouched next to the others behind a cluster of rocks, squinting at the fortification. No movement on the walls. No dust clouds from running feet. Nothing.

"This is incredible," Aya whispered, her eyes still glowing faintly from her sensory jutsu. "They should have spotted us by now and sent interceptors. We're well within their detection range, but I'm not picking up any squads moving our way. That dampening tag is working better than I expected."

She sounded genuinely amazed. The Uzumaki chakra-dampening tags were apparently living up to their reputation. We were practically invisible to their sensors, walking right up to their front door without triggering a single alarm.

Which might not seem like a big deal at first, considering Konoha got infiltrated by foreign shinobi all the time. But that was during peacetime, when most of the sensor corps was off duty. Wartime was different. Every sensor worth their rank was pulling shifts around the clock, constantly scanning for hostile chakra signatures, like radar pinging nonstop. The fact that we could get this close without setting off any alarms meant these tags weren’t just good, they were terrifyingly good.

But that got me thinking, and my brain started connecting dots I probably should have left alone. Uzushio kept pumping out these tools, each one more impressive than the last. They were basically the arms dealers of the shinobi world, and everyone knew what happened to arms dealers when the wars got ugly.

Uzushio was going to get wiped off the map eventually. Too many villages would start seeing them as a threat, especially if their tools kept tipping battles in Konoha's favor. Basic geopolitics, you don't let the guy selling guns to your enemies keep making better guns. Just like what happened in the canon timeline, multiple villages would eventually band together to destroy them out of fear and jealousy.

I didn't particularly care about Uzushio itself. Never been there, didn't know anyone from there except—

Except Kushina.

Well, that's a problem. Kushina was from Uzushio. Her family was still there, probably. If the other villages decided to gang up and wipe the place out, she'd be devastated. Completely destroyed. And I'd have to watch her go through that, knowing I'd seen it coming and said nothing.

Maybe I could at least plant the seed, get people thinking about it before it was too late.

"Sensei," I said quietly. "What happens if other villages start seeing Uzushio as too much of a threat? I mean, if these tools keep giving us victories, someone's going to want to cut off the supply line permanently."

Tsunade's eyebrows shot up, and she gave me one of those looks that said she was reevaluating something about me. Again. "That's... surprisingly insightful thinking, Shinji. You're right that it could become a problem."

"What, you sound shocked that I can think."

"I'm shocked you're thinking like a shinobi." She paused, studying my face. "Though it's weird that you're bringing up Uzushio specifically. Why would you care about... wait." Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Mikoto mentioned you've been hanging around that Uzumaki girl. What's her name?"

"Don't read too much into it, sensei."

"Uh-huh. And I'm sure her being Uzumaki has nothing to do with it."

"Not a thing."

She gave me a look that said she wasn't buying it, but decided to let it slide. "Konoha's priority has to be winning this war, but we can't ignore what might happen to our allies..." She didn't finish the thought, but she didn't dismiss the concern either.

Sakumo shifted beside us. "Shinji, your thought process is sound," he said quietly. "But we need to focus on the mission at hand. We can't let personal feelings cloud our judgment as shinobi."

There was something in his tone though, a slight nod of approval that suggested he respected the fact that I was thinking about consequences beyond the immediate situation.

"I know," I said, though part of me wondered if I actually did know. "Just thinking out loud, I guess."

Aya was still monitoring the outpost. "No change in their patrol patterns. Everything looks routine from here. The dampening effect is working perfectly."

Right. Mission first. Kushina's potential heartbreak later. I could deal with that problem when it actually became a problem.