Chapter 4:
Bulwarks
Naruto sat cross-legged on a mossy rock as a toad handed him a steaming cup of bitter tea and a rectangular ration pack. Around him, the survivors stirred — shinobi and civilians alike unwrapping their identical breakfast boxes, silent save for the occasional groan.
Naruto dug in, the dry chalklike food doing nothing to satisfy, though it was better than the insect soup the toads tried to offer them.
He ate with gritted teeth, his thoughts on the battlefield and the excitement welling up in him. With it came anger at his failures in Sunagakure, the lives he could not save, the enemies he left standing because he was focused on evacuation.
These thoughts fled him when a soft voice interrupted his reverie.
"Um... Naruto?" He heard Hinata ask.
He turned around to see the quiet girl holding a steaming bowl in two hands, her body language the picture-perfect definition of hesitant.
"I, um… thought you might want something warm," she said shyly, lifting a container of ramen.
Only as she remove the paper from the top could Naruto smell the unmistakable aroma of pork broth.
"You're amazing," he blurted out as he accepted the bowl.
He placed it into his lap only for Hinata to offer him a soup spoon and a pair of chopsticks, which he also accepted. She was beaming the entire time.
"I have to go now; we're preparing for a last medical examination of everyone." Hinata said.
"Alright. See you there!" Naruto told her.
She made to leave but paused.
"And Naruto?" She told him.
"Hmm?" Naruto said, mouth full of noodles.
"Please don't fight too recklessly." Hinata pleaded. "You only just got back to Konoha and I didn't get the chance to see you. I want you to come back for good when this is over... and that means alive."
He laughed so hard at her concern that he nearly choked. The next words out of his mouth were sheer hubris, but he meant every word.
"You don't need to worry about me. Recklessness is what gets me through the fights, and I always come out on top!" He told her.
His words seemed to only make her look more worried, but she smiled all the same before leaving.
As she left, she passed by Sakura, who looked between the bowl of ramen Naruto was eating and the shy girl before giving the latter a vicious glare. Hinata kept her head down as she passed her.
Naruto didn't even want to know what that was all about.
Once Hinata was gone Sakura turned her anger on him.
"We have to get ready to leave." His bald teammate said.
Later, once the tea was drained and the toads had finished cleaning up, Jiraiya stood near the still-smoldering lake of oil and clapped his hands for attention.
"Alright! We're moving out."
He pointed at the assembled teams — Leaf, Stone, Lightning, and Mist.
"Each group is being taken to a border of Suna. I'll be personally escorting you. Each team will also be accompanied by one of Naruto's shadow clones."
Naruto blinked.
"Why?" he asked dumbly.
Jiraiya glanced at Kakashi. They exchanged a look. A weird one.
"So those clones can make more clones," Jiraiya said, "and cover more ground. Spread wider, faster. And more importantly—share information."
"Share information? Wouldn't hawks be faster?" Naruto asked.
Kakashi gave him that you sweet idiot look.
"Shadow clones return their memories when dispelled," he said. "To you. And to every other clone currently active. You didn't know that?"
Naruto scratched his head.
"You know what, I think I noticed that… but it never clicked. So, what—you're saying if a clone hears something important, it can just… poof, and I know it?"
"Well," Kakashi said, "it should make another clone first to replace itself, then poof. Instant field intel. Every front. Across a continent. Only you can do this."
Naruto stared at his hands, slowly connecting the dots. This wasn't just multi-tasking. This was something bigger.
The teams lined up in front of their toads, fully armed with tanks of antifungal sprays. Armor donned. Hair shaved. Faces hidden.
But before anyone moved, Team Kurenai stepped forward — flanked by the same squad of medical-nin in full hazmat gear.
"No one leaves until you're cleared one more time," Kurenai said. Her voice was kind, but firm. "Visual and chakra-based scans. We wand no spores. No root infections. No surprises."
They had Naruto and Jiraiya go first.
Hinata activated her Byakugan, her eyes glowing faintly as she moved swiftly between groups. Shino stood off to the side with fresh jars. Kiba and Akamaru sniffed them from head to toe.
Nobody dared complain. They'd seen what the fungus could do, so none dared accuse anybody of an overabundance of caution.
"Clear," Hinata called.
"They're all clean." said Kiba
Only then did Jiraiya clap his hands together.
He gestured for Naruto to follow, stepping off to the side while the rest of the four teams got checked over.
A few moments later, Kakashi joined them.
"Listen, kid," Jiraiya said. "You're not going with them."
"What?"
"You're staying here. Escort the civilians once we're ready. Your clones go with the other teams." he explained.
Jiraiya rolled out a crude scroll map. It showed the Land of Wind and its borders with Mist, Leaf, Stone, and the western edges. Four red arrows pointed outward, drawing a ring around the territory.
"I'll go with the Mist team to the southern border," he explained. "You send a clone with us. Once there, the clone makes two more and sends them east and west."
"Then the Leaf team to the eastern border," Kakashi continued. "Same deal — clone goes with, splits into three and two go north and south."
"Stone border after that, north, same thing. Then finally the western edge with the Lightning shinobi."
Naruto blinked.
"That covers the whole desert."
"Exactly," Jiraiya said. "You won't be moving. They will."
"But… why aren't you just summoning them around like before?"
Jiraiya exhaled and rubbed his neck.
"Because I'm wiped out," he said. "Kid, I haven't recovered from pulling several thousand people out of a war zone in under a minute."
Naruto looked closer and finally saw it — the sagging posture, the dryness around Jiraiya's eyes, the slight tremble in his chakra. The old man had been hiding it. But not well.
Naruto scratched his head, looking over the map.
"So… after I send clones with every team, I just hang out here? And then what—escort the refugees back to civilization on foot?"
Jiraiya barked a short laugh.
"Not a chance, kid. You realize how far out we are?"
Naruto blinked.
"It's a one-month trip for shinobi," Jiraiya said. "We're over 2,500 kilometers from anything resembling human infrastructure. You're not walking anyone anywhere."
That explained why it had been morning here, but early evening in Suna when they first arrived.
"So… then how do they get back?"
"You wait," Jiraiya said. "You rest. Recharge. Once we've established and confirmed safe refugee camps, you reverse summon yourself to them."
Naruto's eyes widened.
"…and then I summon the others there."
"Exactly. One toad-sized evacuation route at a time. You're the bridge, kid." Jiraiya said.
"We'll also be staying behind with you." Kakashi said. "Sakura and I."
That would make the wait significantly more bearable.
The ocean waves beat softly against the southern edge of the Sunagakure desert, their gentle rhythm a mocking contrast to the chaos farther north. On a rocky bluff overlooking the coastline, Mizukage Mei Terumī stood behind her forward division.
She watched as the Genin and Chunin dug trenches a few hundred meters inland, to avoid
She surveyed the dunes in silence. There was no sign of the enemy here yet — no spores, no movement — but they all knew it was only a matter of time.
A sudden BOOM of displaced air cracked the silence, followed by a brief swirl of chakra-laced smoke.
A bald man appeared atop the bluff, a little winded, but upright. It was only his clothes that clued her into his identity.
"Jiraiya?" She called out.
"Whew… alright. Hey Mei. You made good time." he told her.
"Sea travel is faster than land travel." She told him. "Are you by yourself?"
He shook his head.
"I brought the vanguard." He told her.
Jiraiya bit his thumb, formed the seals, and slammed his palm down.
A massive toad erupted from the summoning circle — round-bellied, scroll-banded, and already gagging.
Moments later, it spat three shinobi onto the sand like water from a burst dam. All fo them were as bald ad Joraiya. A boy in orange, and two people who she also only recognized by their clothes.
"Ao? Chojuro?" She called out.
They both stood up at attention.
"Ma'am. Ready for debriefing." They said as one.
She motioned for them to wait.
The boy in orange formed a hand seal and created two shadow clones. They were running the second they poofed into existence in opposite directions. Charging east and west along the coastline.
Mei raised an eyebrow at the sight and turned to Jiraiya.
Jiraiya wiped his brow before explaining.
"That is my protege. He is to make shadow clones and spread them out, so they can share information instantly when they pop. One dies, and every other clone — and the original — knows what it saw."
She nodded.
"So, we just update the clone, and it spreads to every front?" she surmised.
"Exactly. And vice versa. If something new happens on the eastern, western, or northern lines — you'll hear about it before the hour is out." Jiraiya assured her.
She looked the young boy over. He was sizing her up too. It wasn't until his eyes drifted to the hat on her head that recognition dawned on him
"And does the protege have a name?" She asked in her sultryest voice.
The boy seemed oblivious to her attempt at teasing because he stood at attention and actually saluted her.
"Naruto Uzumaki, future Hokage, at your service ma'am. I look forward to working with you when I eventually claim the title." He said without a hint of humor. "And during the fights to come."
Jiraiya grinned, then turned serious.
"I need to know your plan."
Mei gestured toward the desert, where her teams were already forming ranks.
"We're digging a swale — trench and embankment — all the way across the southern border. Once it's finished, we'll fill it with saltwater and bleach."
Jiraiya raised an eyebrow.
"And then we'll cast wide-field Mist Jutsu, spreading a toxic cloud northward. If any spores drift this way, they'll choke before they hit sand."
Jiraiya let out a low whistle.
"Good plan. Defensive, chemical, sensory — covers most bases."
"I know," Mei said dryly. "That's why it's mine."
He chuckled, then pointed to the Naruto clone.
"Feed him everything. Reports, sightings, theories — all of it." He clarified his earlier instructions.
She rolled her eyes but nodded.
"Agreed. If even a single spore hits the ocean…"
"The world dies in weeks," Jiraiya finished.
They stood in silence a moment, watching the waves. Then he clapped his hands together.
"Alright. Three more drops to make. Don't let the tide turn green."
With that, Jiraiya vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving the clone behind, where he waited patiently.
She turned on her subordinates.
"Now. About that debriefing."
The forest was nothing but flame, a towering inferno licking at the sky like the breath of a dying god. Charred trees crackled and collapsed; the underbrush was reduced to black sludge beneath a carpet of ash.
Asuma stood at the tree line, hands clasped in a sign before releasing another gust of Smoke Style: Contaminant Push. The dark haze billowed outward in a roiling surge. Every eddy of soot he directed swept southward, into the desert's embrace, where the burning sands consumed it like a furnace starved of fuel.
Beside him, Ibiki was crouched low, two fingers pressed to the damp soil. His jutsu was a subtler one—Mist Binding Technique—a cooling vapor that kissed the ash midair and condensed it just enough to weight the spores down. They sank sluggishly to the ground, dense and clumping, no longer free to drift on the wind like silent death.
"We need this to work," Ibiki growled, sweat rolling down the side of his temple, mixing with the ash on his skin. "Or this whole forest becomes a corridor for the invasion."
"We've bought time," Asuma said, biting down on the last cigarette he would burn today. "Now we trap the bastards in it."
They moved quickly. The chūnin and jōnin behind them had already begun carving trenches into the soil with chakra-enhanced tools and earth release techniques. Tripwires were strung between charred trunks. Paper bombs were buried in clusters. Clones moved without orders now, digging, laying traps, shaping the terrain to bleed green.
Asuma exhaled a long plume of smoke, watching it rise and drift. Somewhere beyond the smoke curtain, the desert raged. Shukaku howled. And still the spores came.
A sudden splash rang out behind Asuma, and Jiraiya appeared mid-step—only to immediately double over, coughing violently as the acrid haze clawed at his throat.
"Damn it—!" he wheezed, waving the smoke from his face. "What the hell are you burning out here?"
Asuma raised a hand.
"Cease smoke flow!"
The Smoke Style users dispersed their hand signs, and the thick black curtain began to thin as the wind carried it south. Jiraiya straightened slowly, eyes watering, and gave a raspy chuckle.
"Thanks for that."
Asuma came up and did his best to waft the smoke away from his elder. He used a very weak wind jutsu, one providing a mere gust.
Jiraiya stepped forward and dropped into a crouch, pressing one hand to the charred earth.
"Time to make our drop."
A large storage toad exploded into being with a cloud of steam. It blinked once, then spewed out a cascade of bodies onto the ash-strewn soil.
Kurenai, Naruto, Hinata, Shino, and Kiba all tumbled out, soaked and sputtering from the abrupt exit.
"Ugh—it's like breathing a campfire!" Kiba hacked, brushing soot from his arms.
Naruto stood quickly, already forming hand signs through the haze. Two clones puffed into place and darted off — one north, one south — with barely a glance.
"We're in place," the original Naruto muttered, wiping his brow.
Asuma approached, one hand resting on the hilt of his trench knives.
"What's the plan?"
Jiraiya motioned toward the new arrivals.
"Clones at every major border. We're setting up a relay network — intel travels instantly between clones and back to Naruto. He's the only one who can do it."
Asuma gave a slow nod, already processing logistics.
"And what does everybody else need of us?"
"We're distributing them across the region," Jiraiya said. "Hyūga for internal and underground detection, Inuzuka for scent tracking, and Aburame to clear spores off of wounds and gear. We want them embedded with every village's forces, not clumped together."
"Smart," Asuma said. "We've already set up staging zones for the rest of Konoha's forces. We'll sort assignments as soon as we've regrouped."
He looked skyward, watching the smoke trails spiral into the atmosphere.
"The rest of Konoha will be here within hours. Had to leave in waves."
Then, quieter, "Where are Kakashi and Sakura?"
Naruto glanced at him, a faint smile forming under the soot on his cheeks.
"They're hanging back with the real me," he said. "Until it's time for us all to come home."
Asuma just nodded, then turned back to the flames.
The fire still roared at their backs, but the smoke had thinned enough to speak clearly. Asuma stepped up beside Jiraiya and Naruto, arms crossed, his expression unreadable.
"This'll hold the line," he said, voice low. "But only while the fire does. Once the fuel's gone, the spores will come back—carried west on the winds."
Naruto frowned.
"So, we're buying time but not stopping it."
"Exactly," Asuma said. "We need a way to cut them off at the center — stop the infection in Sunagakure itself before it spreads again."
Hinata's voice cut through the grim haze.
"It looks like… someone's already doing that." She said.
She stood rigid, Byakugan active, staring westward past the trees and smoke. Her eyes shimmered faintly, focused far beyond what the others could see.
Kurenai turned sharply.
"What do you see, Hinata?"
"There's a storm coming in from the northeast. Heavy rainfall. But it's not natural—it's full of chakra. A lot of it."
"Artificial weather?" Kiba asked. "Who the hell can pull that off?"
Jiraiya's brows knit tightly.
"That's jutsu on a level we don't see outside of legends. Either the Village Hidden in the Rain just revealed they've got the Three-Tails, or…"
"Or they've pulled together hundreds of shinobi," Shino said flatly. "Enough to cast a collaborative weather spell."
Jiraiya nodded.
"The Mizukage is planning something similar on the southern line. A bleach-laced mist to kill the spores in the air."
Naruto scratched the back of his head.
"Maybe we should send someone over and tell them to seed their rainclouds with chlorine too? Get the same effect?"
"Later," Jiraiya said, already forming hand signs. "First we finish the mission. That rain alone will keep the spores grounded once the wall of fire dies down."
He glanced at the group — Kurenai, the specialists, Naruto's clone — and gave a tight smile.
"Good work. Keep the line."
With a flash of smoke, the toad sage vanished once more — leaping to the next edge of the storm.
High above Sunagakure, Obito emerged from a spiral of warping chakra onto unsteady, rain-slicked feathers. Thunder cracked overhead. The sky wept in sheets. Wind howled from every direction, spiraling violently around a massive bird-shaped summon. Its wings spread wide like the storm's conductor.
Atop its back sat Nagato, cradled within his mechanical throne, eyes closed in grim focus. The Six Paths of Pain stood in a ring around him, each facing outward, arms raised, hands clasped in unison as they channeled the storm.
Rain fell upward, sideways, down in whirlpools of chakra-laced pressure.
Obito stepped lightly across the slick hide of the bird, the wind tugging at his cloak.
"How is Shukaku holding up?" he asked without preamble.
"Not well," Nagato replied, his voice distant, strained. "He is directly below us now, but I doubt he will last through the night. He's been raging nonstop and is starting to t ire out."
Obito folded his arms.
"Should he collapse, retrieve Gaara. Take him to safety to recover. Not for extraction."
Nagato nodded slowly.
"Understood. I will cease the storm come morning and allow the sun to evaporate the moisture. The moisture in the air during the day should stop the spores, and Tomorrow night, I will resume the storm."
Tactical. Obito approved. Rain by night, mugginess by day. Minimal chance of spores spreading, and just enough for Pain to recover.
Sunagakure would be a tropical jungle by the end of this war.
"Excellent," Obito said. "I'll inform the others."
He vanished into a spiral of darkness.
Far to the west, the desert stretched into a vast, broken field of dunes and fractured plateaus of verdent grasses and trees. Puppets—hundreds of them—stood motionless in a deadly lattice, spaced hundred-meter intervals apart.
Obito emerged beside Sasori, who waited with arms folded and face half-hidden in shadow. His cloak rippled like a banner in the heated wind.
"Pain will maintain the storm through the night," Obito said. "And retrieve the Kazekage once Shukaku collapses. Spores will only move during daylight hours and even then, not well."
Sasori didn't reply. His gaze shifted slightly.
"What of—" he began, then paused.
Something was behind them.
Obito turned.
There, no more than twenty meters away, stood a broad-shouldered man with a bald head, back turned, completely unaware—or uncaring—of the two watching him.
With a flick of his hand, the man formed seals and slapped the ground. A summoning seal bloomed beneath him.
Obito's eye narrowed at the creature that arrived.
A storage toad. He had not seen one since his old master had used it in the third great war. There were only two people that could do it.
From its gullet, it spat out four bald figures. Two were young women, two were young men. He recognized the one in orange instantly, the three others wore clothes identifying them as belonging to the land of lightning.
Obito recognized the last one instantly.
"Okay," the bald man began. "You four lock down this section and—"
"Uh, Jiraiya?" Naruto said, blinking and pointing directly behind him.
The legendary sage turned.
There stood Obito and Sasori, side by side.
Jiraiya stared at them in silence for a beat, eyes narrowing. Rain and wind lashed the edge of the plateau.
Obito raised a hand casually.
"Good evening, Jiraiya." Obito said.
"Good evening, Madara Uchiha." Jiraiya said back, his voice deadly.
"In the region of space known as the Halo stars, there was once an empire of humans with strange powers not of the warp. They called themselves the Children of Gelel, after the source of their powers.
They crafted with their magic jewelry, weapons, and other objects of crystalized Gelel which was the source of their power. One day, without any warning, the empire and its people disappeared. But their creations were left behind, scattered across the worlds of their empire.
Eons later modern peoples would find their creations and give them a new name.
Halo Devices."
- Lord Orochimaru, 250 AW(After Waagh)
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