"We've lost contact."
The words rang out like a detonated explosive tag in the confined space of the command tent. Silence followed—cold and immediate. All movement ceased. Scrolls paused mid-unroll. Pens stopped scratching on parchment. The only sound was the low hum of a lantern flickering in the corner, its flame dancing in the rising tension.
The speaker was a Yamanaka kunoichi seated cross-legged in the centre of a complex sealing array etched into the tent floor. Faint pulses of chakra shimmered in the inked lines around her. She was pale, her lips slightly parted as though she'd just surfaced from underwater. Sweat beaded across her forehead, trailing down past her temple, and her fingers twitched over her lap as if still seeking the tether that had just vanished.
"What do you mean?" barked a voice near the edge of the array.
The speaker was a large man, broad-shouldered, wearing the traditional red and green armour of the Akimichi clan. His fists were clenched at his sides, thick knuckles cracking with stress. He loomed over the array, eyes narrowed. "Are you saying they've cut communications?"
The Yamanaka kunoichi, still regaining her breath from the mental link severing, opened her eyes. Her voice was steadier this time, though her words carried a deeper chill. "We lost contact with our link escorting the Kirigakure shinobi. They're no longer responding through the Mind Transmission Relay."
A low murmur swept the room like a gust of wind through brittle leaves.
"Tch." Another commander scoffed and crossed his arms. "Or maybe those blood-mist bastards turned on us. Wouldn't be the first time."
The air in the tent thickened with unsaid thoughts and rekindled grudges. Several of the shinobi present—battle-hardened veterans from prominent clans—shifted uncomfortably. Many bore the scars of past wars, both visible and not.
One Nara elder limped slightly even while standing, the consequence of a poisoned mist blade that had cut him down during a night raid years ago. A Sarutobi commander beside him had long since lost his left eye—slashed out by a Kiri hunter-nin when he was still a chūnin.
It wasn't just old wounds. It was grief. The kind that never healed. Sons, brothers, lovers lost in ambushes. Bodies dragged from mist-covered fields.
It was a miracle Kiri and Konoha were even allies now. That alliance had been born not of trust, but of strategy—and it showed in every bitter glance and clenched jaw in the room.
"Commander."
The voice was low, but its tone was like steel drawn across stone—measured, unyielding.
Instantly, the room fell into deeper silence.
All heads turned toward the source. At the far end of the tent sat Uchiha Daichi, the commanding officer of the division and current head of the Uchiha clan.
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to.
The commander stiffened, his face hardening in quiet deference. "My apologies, Lord Daichi."
Daichi gave a brief nod before returning his gaze to the Yamanaka.
"What about our shinobi?" he asked.
The kunoichi bowed her head slightly, then closed her eyes once more. A hush fell again as she drew her chakra inward, reaching out in one final attempt to salvage any flicker of contact. The chakra array flickered faintly, the black ink glowing with a subtle blue hue, but it was dimmer than before.
A full ten seconds passed. Then her eyes opened slowly.
"They're… barely getting by," she said at last, her voice hollow.
Her words landed like stones. One of the younger Nara officers swore under his breath. Another shinobi—an Aburame—paced to the large map pinned across the tent's eastern wall, his insects fluttering anxiously beneath his collar. The tension in the room deepened, not in panic, but in a grim anticipation of something worse.
Daichi didn't speak for a moment. His brows drew together, the faint crease between them deepening as he leaned back in his chair.
'Why isn't he making a move?'
The thought throbbed in his mind like a bruise touched too hard.
'With the chaos unfolding… With Kiri's shinobi suddenly vanishing from our communication grid… he should have acted already. That's his nature. He calculates, he moves.'
Daichi's eyes drifted toward the canvas wall of the tent. Wind moaned faintly outside, brushing across the structure and causing the reinforced cloth to ripple and bulge. The cold of the front line crept through the seams, biting at the edges of the warmth inside.
'Unless something's delaying him.'
He considered it. The possibilities twisted through his mind like vines—ambush, sabotage, injury, betrayal. Each scenario felt increasingly implausible. Not for him. Not for Renjiro.
Information was already scarce, sabotaged at every turn. Misinformation campaigns plagued all villages like a second war beneath the surface. Shinobi were intercepted. Messengers killed. Sensory relays hijacked or tampered with. The lines between truth and deception were razor-thin. Even the presence of "powerful enemies" at the Kumo base had been shrouded in conjecture. They knew someone dangerous had been deployed. But no one knew the exact nature of the threat.
'We knew a monster was coming,' Daichi thought, 'He should have torn the battlefield apart by now.'
And then it came. The unspoken fear. The quiet confession Daichi had buried beneath layers of strategy and conviction.
'I regret sending him.'
It was a whisper in his mind, cold and biting. He had given the order with full faith in Renjiro's strength and adaptability, but now… now there was a pit in his stomach. He could feel it—the weight of a decision possibly made in haste.
The person in question—was currently enjoying a beautiful view, at least by his standards. Black clouds boiled above him, lightning crawling across their underbellies like angry serpents. Rain lashed against the earth in staccato bursts—tat tat tat—while the wind howled like a beast mourning its dead.
In the eye of this growing chaos stood a man—cloak tattered, soaked, yet still billowing like a banner against the fury.
"Tempest Cloak: Counter Phase!"
Renmru's voice rang like a bell of judgment across the maelstrom as he defended from the sudden attack.
Then his head tilted.
He sensed it.
No—he felt it, like a wire pulled taut somewhere in his soul. A pressure. Heavy. Measured. Cold as mercury. Chakra condensed into a shape so precise, so unnatural, it defied instinct.
Something approached.
There, above—cutting through the clouds like a spear of divine retribution—descended a summon the size of a temple.
A colossal bird cloaked in lightning.
It screamed as it descended, the shrill cry cutting across the battlefield like a banshee's lament. Its feathers sparked and hissed with condensed chakra, its beak dripping arcs of lightning that flashed whenever it moved. Its wings flared open in majestic fury, casting down blinding light over the ruin below.
Orochimaru's smile widened slightly, though his body tensed beneath his drenched cloak. The storm around him didn't abate—it responded. Wind screamed louder. Lightning flared brighter.
'What a pleasant surprise,' the Sannin mused, licking his lips as the gusts tugged playfully at his black cloak. 'The boy himself… how delightful.'
He watched Renjiro with eyes that never blinked—golden, slit, reptilian. The kind of gaze that made even seasoned Jonins feel like dissected frogs pinned under glass.
But it wasn't fear Orochimaru felt.
It was curiosity.
That delicious, all-consuming hunger for knowledge. For potential.
He glanced down at the massive lightning bird beneath him. Its chakra signature was intense.
'That summon… how elegant. Controlled. Powerful.'
His lips curled in amusement.
'Its chakra… even more concentrated than Manda's. Maybe I should consider switching allegiances.'
For a moment, he considered leaping up—tearing into Renmaru, the Kumo shinobi currently channelling the very storm that flooded the skies. The man was strong, undoubtedly, but Orochimaru had already seen through the rhythm of his techniques. They were power-hungry, chakra-intensive, precise in nature.
Efficient, but not endless.
'He's a scalpel,' Orochimaru thought. 'A sharp one, yes… but even scalpels dull. Let the mist shinobi bleed him. I can claim the corpse once the work is done.'
But now—with Renjiro here?
He could wait. His curiosity demanded it.
He had heard stories. And Orochimaru wanted to see what that weapon could do when unsheathed.
'I've waited long enough,' he thought. 'Let's see if the child lives up to the rumours.'
He could have gone to aid the other Konoha forces. There were Uchiha trapped in the eastern flank, under assault by another Kumo monster. They'd held their ground longer than expected, but even Sharingan had limits.
Still, he did nothing.
He made no move toward his allies.
He did not act out of spite. No—Orochimaru held no hatred for the Uchiha. On the contrary. He admired them. Even envious of them
Their eyes. Their bloodline. The elegance of their hatred and sorrow. They were art made flesh, tragedies with fangs.
But admiration didn't mean loyalty.
Danzo had told him once, "They need culling. For the sake of the village."
Orochimaru had tilted his head at the time, intrigued by the logic.
Not because he believed in Konoha's future. He didn't. The village was a petri dish for his experiments—useful, perhaps, but ultimately irrelevant to his real goals.
But Danzo? Danzo understood the cost of ambition.
Their relationship was… symbiotic.
Orochimaru gave results. Danzo provided leeway.
So, if the Uchiha were to lose a few of their own today? So be it. It wasn't hatred. It was necessity—and opportunity.
Still, Orochimaru did not move.
He only smiled.
'That new jutsu… the one I've been working on…' he mused, eyes narrowing to slits. 'The one that lets me discard my flesh… and wear another like a second skin.'
He licked his lips again.
A tremor of laughter crept into his throat—dark, delighted.
'Perhaps this Renjiro will be my first target.'
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