The Shinobi were going to war.
Only the Mitsugo had cheated and ruined everything.
The bastards.
Figuratively, they were legitimate… maybe.
Who the hell knew when you could have 3 wives/husbands.
Lucky bastards.
He was UCHIHA! The best damned ninja there ever was. He was the most awesome ninja, he was the sexiest ninja. He was Uchiha and he knew it.
He was the sexiest damn awesome ninja in the world.
"Fucking hell. He's out of it again. I told you the Uchiha get a little fucking weird if you leave them alone." Came the voice that he didn't hear.
Nope.
The naysayers could not impinge upon his Uchiha greatness.
He Shinshou Uchiha would show the world just how great he was.
With his Sharingan!
Yes.
His eyes that allowed for him to see into the truth of reality, to see into the world, to know the truth.
His eyes of greatness.
They were the eyes of destiny, able to see the very truth of the world around him.
These were his eyes and he looked about, his head spinning to see the world around him.
His domain.
All of it was his.
For he was Uchiha, the greatest of them all.
Yes. The greatest.
That was what he was. Yes.
"Fucking hell, he's spacing off again, isn't he. Looks like a fucking bird he does."
The haters were speaking again.
They were hating on his greatness because they themselves were unable to ever match him.
"Just… just ignore him for now. We've got orders we need to carry out." Came the words.
He heard them.
He knew.
He just didn't want to listen.
For he was UCHIHA.
The greatest of them all.
"Ok. Orders from above. We're going to be sneaking our way across the little trench. Get what intel that we can. Get back. Be safe. Don't do anything stupid boys and girls. I don't want to come back here with one less ninja than we left with. That includes Shinshou. We separate along the trench, make sure that there's not more than 2 ninja per 50 meters. We need to do this one quietly." Said the non-Uchiha Platoon leader.
He would deign to listen.
For he was Uchiha and no task was beyond his abilities to complete. For he was Uchiha, the greatest of the them all.
"Someone smack Shinshou for me. Let's get going." Came the voice from the most evil of voices.
How dare she. She… she… the… the Senju.
How dare she.
He was going to crush her beneath his sandal, grind his badly smelling feet into her head so she would know just how glorious he was.
Yes.
Spinning around to meet her, he raised his forehead to slam and ouch.
Seriously? She had her fingers there? What was this?
The bitch.
His eyes.
Ow ow ow ow
He would have vengeance for this!
He ignored her laughter.
The bitch.
He would have his revenge. There could be no other option for he was the greatest of them all.
Shinshou Uchiha felt that this was too easy.
Seriously rock wall? Was this all you can do?
He was just using his Sharingan to pinpoint the little spikes and the littler little spikes and he was jumping up and jumping down and swinging all around.
It was so easy that he wondered just why that nobody else had managed to do something like it. It wasn't as if it was that hard.
Seriously.
If everyone was as awesome as he was, they would totally be able to like... copy him and stuff. Because he was a seeeexy beast mmmmmmmm… not a tailed beast though.
That was icky.
The sexiest of ninja. See how he swooped his legs up in a perfect C shape? And how his arms swung at the perfect angle for a star?
Get it?
Because he was a star?
Shinshou Uchiha considered that perhaps he should have done this in the daytime so that everyone would be able to see him because he was just that sexy.
Mmmm.
Not like that Senju bitch.
HE WOULD HAVE HIS VENGEANCE!
It would not be today.
No. He was a merciful god.
But it would be tomorrow.
Or perhaps the day after.
He was a god that did not have a set timetable.
Still, there was a little pebble here and it was annoying, someone could have tripped on that.
Foolish.
Who left little rocks around the place that could fall down and tell everyone that someone was in the area?
That seemed unnecessarily cruel and harsh.
Even the Senju weren't that evil.
Or were they?
He, the great Shinshou Uchiha vowed to uncover the evilness of the Senju. Including dirty on that evil bitch.
He was the great Uchiha and he was not going to allow her to get one over him. Not when he was able to get something… oh wow.
That was dangerous. A little blade thing that came out of the rock spike but it was so thin that it wasn't hard to dodge.
He was awesome after all and he could see the reflection of the moonlight on it.
Maybe if it was any other ninja they might have fallen for it and died horribly, falling to their death in the spikey pits below, but he was Uchiha and therefore he was awesome.
The most awesome of them all.
Flipping and sliding, making sure that he was silent, he didn't want to ruin the surprise after all.
A good surprise was something that needed to be surprising, otherwise, it was just a…
…
A non-surprise.
Great name.
He would call it the great unsurprise.
Yes.
He was Uchiha and there was nothing that he couldn't do because he was the most awesome thing ever.
Totally awesome.
The ultimate ninja.
He was a little annoyed that the Senju bitch was keeping up with him, however. How she was able to keep up with the greatest ninja to ever exist was something that he needed to investigate.
Perhaps she was in some way cheating… yes. That had to explain it.
For he was Uchiha and he was the best ninja ever.
Rin was a Senju, one who had been placed in a squad with the Uchiha with the one that was called Shinshou.
It would not be so bad except for the fact that he had fallen headlong into his family's little curse that often came with madness. It happened to those that left their Sharingan on for too long which caused problems since it heightened the emotions that the user felt. So over time, they became addicted to it and increasingly used it constantly, the mood changing as a direct result. The huge swings in emotion creating some of the most melodramatic and… crazy ninja on the continent.
The way he had been mumbling to himself as his Sharingan occasionally flashed was enough proof regarding that. She had found herself sometimes wishing that he was going to get himself killed because an hour long memorial was so much better than working with him full time.
He was a good ninja, it was merely that trying to get anything out of him while he was zoned out was impossible. That and when they were in combat, he tended to go off and well… do stupid things.
He was one of most deadly Uchiha around which meant his eccentricities were more accepted than most others, but the way he insisted in narrating the battles that he was involved in did not help her opinion of the nin His Sharingan was a cheat that allowed him to see everything in detail and to also make sure that he was reporting on the action properly.
The small problem being that he was what one might consider an… Uchiha.
It was frustratingly annoying and as his teammate she oh so hoped that when this was over and the temporary squads were dispersed, she would be able to get away from him and make a clean escape.
Even no as they hopped their way up the rock spikes that spread themselves point up from various different angles. To fall down was to die extremely quickly if the footage that had been recorded regarding the whole thing was accurate.
Even now as they jumped their way up, he was looking about saying things like "for a flip and a roll, I will be perfect," Creeping her the fuck out.
Why couldn't she have been played on a normal team that did not consider having someone fit all the stereotypes a necessary goal.
That one who was a ninja fan, the one who wanted teddy bears and the like, the one who wanted bigger weapons and various little instruments of death, the crazy one and the one who arbitrated all of it.
Sometimes she thought her team was stupid, something that wasn't true, they were just… different.
Different enough that sometimes she wondered just what it was that they had done to pass their shinobi exams in the first place because that was a level of weird that did not just happen naturally.
Like when they went trawling for food, looking like Tailed Beasts that hadn't been fed in a year. Scaring civilians and shop owners alike who then complained to her as if it were her job to be wrangling some fully functional (maybe) adults.
As for what was happening right now… well, they were nearly at the top, her reminiscing of the past could be halted and she was going to be doing this properly or take a kunai in the back because some idiot couldn't throw.
A little push here, a little dodge there and she was ready.
The top of the trench was just over her head and if she timed this right then they were going to be able to get over without screwing this up, possibly even dodge a patrol if she did this right and then take down the bloody Kumo nin without anyone the wiser. The Uchiha would be going first since he was so damned eager and she might as well throw him this bone so he wasn't going to be doing anything stupid like getting her killed.
He had a little weird thing about getting more kills than she did.
She could indulge him in this one.
His heightened reflexes would let him destroy the Jutsu the enemy was using regardless, the Sharingan allowing him to dodge any attacks that would be greeting them as they left the safety of the trench itself.
A few more seconds… and they were out.
Out into the world.
A world that wanted for them to die horribly.
Joy.
Oh, the absolute joy.
She was a ninja but sometimes she considered that she was too old for this. Her prime passing her 5 years ago, maybe she should consider trying to raise a family or something. The Mitsugo were certainly really good at that and probably had a very large amount of tips for her in the baby raising process.
Something to consider them she thought.
As she passed over the lip of the trench, following behind Shinshou, Rin looked at the moon briefly, enjoyed the way it just hung there in the sky without judging or anything of the like, before dropping onto the top of the parapet, her hands ready to cast a seal.
Nothing. Hmmmm.
Suspicious or just fortuitous? She hated having to find out… especially finding out the hard way.
Dropping to the ground following Shinshou's lead, she crawled her way to the treeline before hopping up and moving up, her eyes scanning the leaves, making sure there wasn't going to be anything ambushing them. That would be mighty embarrassing considering that one of their symbols was that of a leaf.
Not catching sight of anything unusual, Rin made her way into the forest, ready and willing to start killing some Kumo.
Not that they would be doing much of that, it was a reconnaissance mission, but maybe there would be a really nice little bunker just waiting for her somewhere and they could go and start tearing their way through it.
It would be cathartic after listening to bloody Shinshou mutter about how he was going to walk through the trees.
He couldn't say it, so he signed it so she had to actually put in some effort to read his hand signals, put in effort to work out the drek that he wanted to say. It was… not the greatest thing she had ever had to work towards and sometimes she considered that this wasn't worth all the effort.
Just let him do his thing and then laugh when he got himself killed or something.
Uuugh.
That would be against the Will of Fire.
Dammit.
Keep him safe it was... and maybe be a little slow when a shuriken was coming from behind... when they were safe and she didn't need him alive to draw fire from her.
Better plan... still morally bad, though.
Ugh.
Damn all that happy go lucky shit that Hashirama pushed onto them.
Rin felt herself moaning as she dodged a Shuriken thrown by a particularly energetic Kumo nin.
She wasn't moaning because she was injured, or because she had failed her mission, or even because Shinshou was dead (although she hoped he would be deep down inside).
No, she was moaning because Shinshou was in battle… and he was enjoying it.
"The Kumo nin realising just how outclassed he was reached into his pouch for an explosive to use as a last resort, his own mind having already given up the fight, he knew that he was outclassed, that he would never be able to defeat the great Shinshou Uchiha. His other hand reached for a Shuriken to try and buy time, tossing it out haphazardly as if he did not care where it was going, a mistake that only rookies made, a weakling. A failure. He could not compare to Shinshou Uchiha, the greatest ninja of all time."
Just… that.
All the time that.
It was a mild Genjutsu that he weaved together with the eye of illusions inside of his Sharingan that made it so effective, able to have the enemy follow what he was saying and exposing themselves to an attack. It wasn't as if they even had anything that they could do in response, them trying to defend themselves against his actual attacks combined with his relentless monologue meant that the slightest gap in their mental armour and they were down for the count.
It was made worse by the fact that he was very good with getting under their skin, his words naturally provoking the opponent and forcing them into a situation where their only hope was to do something wild and hope that it would work against the Konoha nin. Only the attacks, the pain, the insults, the way he described actions that were what they could be doing, meant that in the end they were gone.
Succumbing to his genjutsu and being dispatched with ease. The problem for Rin was that she was sure that he didn't actually know that he was doing it. As in he legitimately thought that this was how things were going to work out, and his monologue was him being a genius at predicting the enemy. It was… disturbing to see him work like this and the way he just tore apart the enemy's mental defences was certainly something that was very very pitiful to watch.
She would have even felt some sympathy for them if they hadn't been trying to kill her.
The reason that she was moaning was not that he was using mental attacks or the like, she understood and even approved.
No. The problem was that he was using mental attacks in such a way that he had to monologue the entire damned time.
"Shinshou Uchiha the greatest Shinobi in the world slipped under his opponent's guard, stabbing his kunai into the soft belly of the Kumo nin, him being unable to resist the greatness that was the Konoha nin, the greatest Nin in the world.
"The Kumo's allies attempted a rescue but they were facing the greatest nin in the world, their blades wavered as Shinshou Uchiha body flickered to their rear, attacking them with his senbon needles. They dodged of course, for as useless and weak as they were, they were still ninja, they were still opponents worthy of the greatest shinobi in the world. But they were slow. Slower than he was, their attacks were always going to strike later than they should, their attempts at Jutsu as if they were moving through water compared to that of the greatness that is Shinshou Uchiha, greatest shinobi in the world.
"It is not their fault that they are being overpowered by Shinshou Uchiha. He was the greatest shinobi in the world, they were just weak, slow, foolish. They should have ran, they kept thinking that running was a good idea, that if they did then they could be safe. But it was too late, if they ran now then they would be chased down… unless they did something like abandoning a teammate to act as bait for Shinshou Uchiha. The one with the dark brown hair is thinking this, ready to abandon his comrades, they can see it on his face. They feel like they can't trust him, he's never been trustworthy, always being the suspicious one, the one that was always trying to steal a little more from the others.
"They decide that they cannot trust him anymore and rush forward, their kunai flashing. He tries to get away but it is too late, he falls, his throat severed by the enemy. For they who had killed their comrade it is too late, they have turned their back on the great Shinshou Uchiha in a bout of foolishness and he will reap their lives in exchange. He dashes forward and stabs his kunai into their necks, they cannot escape and they do not want to, they have killed their comrade and are feeling anguish, sadness, weakness. They do not know what to do and they are waiting for the greatness of Shinshou Uchiha to deliver them mercy."
And so it went, the battle turning out just as he had narrated.
It was foolish to be so afraid of a genjustsu, but they weren't sure that it was even happening likely. They were too busy trying to fend off Rin and Shinshou to actually try and dispel it.
They were both engaging into the nin, forcing them on the backfoot, giving them no chance to breathe, no chance to assess the situation that they were in. Their entire focus being on surviving the engagement with the two Konoha nin.
As for Rin, she was just using her tried and true techniques. Using her short kunai along with her strong legs to push her into close combat, force them to defend and then use the tiny gap to use simple seals to send little fireballs, little balls of water, anything of the kind to distract them, working around in a flank and then killing them. They wouldn't kill, but they would hurt, and in that tiny fraction of a second… it would be enough to see them put down for the long term, their bodies dead.
In a battle that was faster than you could blink an eye, blinking an eye was going to get you killed.
Simple ninja logic.
It was her speciality… even if it was a little morbid. She was damned good at her job that was for sure.
The Senju weren't really that great at any single Jutsu or any single ability, or any single anything, but they did have a very firm grasp on the everything which meant she could send out little balls of water, and fire, and wind, and everything else to slam into their faces which would only cause more confusion, letting Shinshou work his magic.
Even if the two of them really did not like each other, they were certainly more than competent enough to understand that they did work best when they were together. One to smash apart their composure with a constant barrage of attacks, one to burrow down underneath that composure with a constant barrage of mental attacks.
They could have been great together, if not for the fact that the fucking Uchiha was just…
"And then the Senju Bitch stabbed the weak nin in the neck because she was weak and could not compare to the great Shinshou Uchiha."
And yea.
That.
Seriously, every single fucking time he went into one of his trances, he would refer to her as the Bitch.
Which led credence to the idea that he was Uchiha and he had gone off the deep end if he couldn't even filter his thoughts.
She was right here you know?
Or like the times when he mumbled in detail about how she was going to die because of how she fell to her death or something equally as ridiculous. The man was ridiculous and she was getting damned frustrated over having to deal with his mistakes. Of which there were many, he just couldn't help himself.
Still.
The nin were dead.
There weren't any survivors.
And there hadn't been and kind of warning signal that had been let out into the world.
Good.
Time to get cracking and see what it was behind their lines and maybe there could be something she could get to work sabotaging or whatever it was.
She wasn't fussy.
As a Senju, she was rather more… intelligent than her partner. She was just an idiot apparently, or a bitch.
Fuck that Uchiha brat, seriously.
Rin shook her head as she crawled her way forward. Unlike her partner, who was just showing how ridiculous he was by trying to monologue while he was trying to sneak into enemy territory, Rin was actually doing it properly.
Which meant that he was left behind and ready to move in on her signal while she was going to be breaking into the little depot that the Kumo nin had established and while she was inside, destroy whatever it was of value that they were keeping while also ensuring that she wasn't caught because she was good… she wasn't good enough to take on this many of them. That was what the Uchiha was there for.
He with his genjutsu let him even the odds far better than she ever could.
As for what she was trying to do, she was going to be going through the little creek bed that ran underneath all the foliage that had grown over it. Using her trained wood release skills to move them out of the way without making it obvious to anyone that was standing on top of it all.
It wasn't as good as Hashirama's one, but it was enough for small things like this.
A little sneaking, a little slithering, and a little wood release that allowed for her to propel herself through the undergrowth without needing to make any excess movements and she was out the other side.
The camp was right in front of her and there we go.
Little boxes full of Shuriken, Kunai, one that had "Explosive Tags" written on the side and more.
Perfect.
Not so perfect was the fact that there were enough nin around her to that would make sneaking into it much more difficult than she had otherwise thought it would be.
Which was what the Uchiha was there for Rin thought with a sadistic little smile.
Sending up the flare out with her wood release, the little block dropping on the ignition stick and sending it high into the sky, she grinned at the way everything was dropping into place… metaphorically that is.
Also literally, she did so like her puns.
Were they called puns? Jokes with double meanings… figurative and literal? Dammit, she should have spent more time in the library. Stupid Uchiha with his photographic memory and thesaurus head.
The little flare ignited, it went up and all of the Kumo nin were looking through the camouflage netting at the red light in the sky. All of them were unfamiliar with what it meant since theirs were green in colour, which naturally meant Konoha was here, which meant that they needed to get into action.
Half of them rushed out of the depot heading in the direction of the flare, while the other half stayed inside of the base.
Perfect.
Rin was out as quick as a flash, her kunai flashing and stabbing them in the backs. They were still looking up and had been caught off guard.
Woops.
Too bad.
So sad.
Grinning widely, she pulled out her own Explosive Tags and set them all inside the various boxes and the crates and the other storage things that were rectangular… or square… weren't squares rectangles(?), regardless there wasn't going to be anything left for them.
The explosions, bolstered by the fact that the tags they had stored were also present, meant that any of their kunai and shuriken couldn't be used anymore, the force of it enough to do structural damage which meant that they were not unreliable.
Trying to use them was just asking to die in the middle of combat when they shattered or something similar.
Setting it all on a time release, Rin escaped the same way that she had come in.
Chuckling to herself the entire time, imagining the had time that the Uchiha was going through. The bastard.
Rin sat down inside of their own base, counting the little marks on her sleeve.
That was 8 Shinobi kills, compared to Shinshou's own 7.
She had beaten the Uchiha and this was a good day.
His expression when she had shown off the number of marks on her sleeve… well, she didn't have the Uchiha photographic memory or the like, but she knew this was going to be a memory to be cherished.
Atsuko Hatakenaka was a member of the Iwa shinobi corps.
She was a 'day-time' fighter, or rather she wasn't really a fighter, but instead was an artillery operator.
Her body had been too weak for her to do things like fighting on the front line, she knew that. Her fate it had seemed was one where she would be breeding more shinobi for the future of the clan, if she couldn't serve on her feet, she would serve on her back.
She had prepared herself for it and was absolutely ready to carry out her own mission when it had transpired that she didn't need to do that at all. The advent of the Trench Warfare system had meant that she was now useful, not as a front-line fighter, but more of a chakra battery.
It was a step up from broodmare and she was grateful for that.
Her official position was that of artillery crewman, a task that saw her and many others like her, each with average chakra coils (for shinobi), but lower than average physical abilities serving to work the artillery pieces that Iwa had developed to combat the Trench systems.
Combat as in smash them directly through brutal and accurate force, each of the cannons as they were called ready to demolish whatever it was they were aimed at.
The entire system was essentially a massive reinforced tube that had iron bars running through it to prevent it from simply falling apart as it experienced the pressure of the shell leaving the barrel.
A long pole and carriage system that allowed for them to adjust the angle at which it would fire at, the carriage itself that allowed for the cannon to be moved if only in a limited manner. The crew needed to use their Jutsu to slowly create little blocks and move them around the place in order to shift the cannons themselves, them being too massive for something like wheels.
The reason for that being that each one was enormous, the size of a house and that was just the rear block. The length of the cannon was roughly 30 meters, any more and the barrel would crack under its own weight.
The entire device was called the "Earthshaker Cannon", something that could be made very quickly but in a much more primitive form in the field was called an Earthshaker Mortar.
The true genius behind it was the seals that it used to actually control and fire the device, as well as the seals on the shells themselves that allowed for them to display their deadly effects on the field to anyone that was unlucky enough to stand underneath the shells when they either landed or burst in mid air.
The seal was a simple one really. The kind of seal that served in a similar manner to mass sealing Jutsu. A massive design that surrounded the cannon and had a place for the 100 man team to all lay their hands down and then inject their chakra into it. It was best to pace yourself since doing too much would result in chakra exhaustion, they had more than 1 shell to fire today after all.
The seal allowed for everyone to inject as much chakra as they wanted since it was able to shift it around so that by the time it reached the center, there was a perfectly measured out chakra amount that served to ensure the cannon was never overpowered or underpowered. The remaining chakra remained in the seal for the next firing sequence.
As for firing the shell itself, they would pour in their chakra and when all of the black ink was turned blue, the center being last, the chakra would drain into the cannon itself, the entire thing shining briefly before it would then activate and send the shell through the air for a distance of over 50 kilometers.
The excess chakra retreating to the center and forming a block, reach to kickstart the next engagement.
The way it did that was a series of 18 massive slightly angled blocks of earth arranged in rows of 3 around the base of the cannon. Each block fit perfectly inside of the holes that they were partially in, the chakra when it was full simply served to activate the seals on the backs of each block, shoving them deeply into the holes until they were fully inside, the air being forced into the breech of the cannon itself.
The angles allowing for them to not overpenetrate and ruin the flow of air.
They would move in sequence, with the ones at the bottom closing in first, with those closest to the top going last, the sequence so short that you would need to focus to notice it at all.
Each block was angled upwards slightly so that all of the air would be pushed in a singular direction, that being outside of the barrel itself.
Regardless of how it did it, the compressed air would send the shell that had been loaded in front of the blocks flying out of the barrel at extreme speeds, all the way over to the enemy lines.
The shells themselves were extremely important as well. They were not merely large rocks, but rather they had been carefully shaped in such a manner that allowed for them to cut through the air with minimal resistance, the Mitsugo had shown them how to do that. It looked like the tip of an arrow more than anything else.
The bottom of each shell had a seal on it that was activated by the cannon's own activation, the gunnery officer, the Jonin in charge of it adjusting the seal as necessary with their own blood in some cases to ensure it detonated properly instead of punching a hole in the ground and nothing else.
It would be the height of embarrassment if they shells just tunnelled straight into the ground and detonated harmlessly.
And so their cannon had a Jonin supervising them all times to ensure that it was fired properly.
When the shell was fired, they would then need to go through the resetting procedures which were a pain in and of themselves.
That was returning the cannon to its original position, cleaning any shell fragments out of the barrel, wiping it down with grease so that the next shell could get through more easily, the shells themselves were made of rock after all and friction would slow them down dramatically. What was more, each one was made to fit the barrel perfectly, any rough edges, any spots of dry could serve to slow down the shell and send it off course.
And so they served to clean it out, it being big enough for some of them to stand upright, the shorter ones that is, the cannon was enormous.
As the cannon lowered itself, they needed to get into the Breech as well, a way to make sure that the force of the blocks lowering into place had not caused any chips on the inside or anything of the like. The more established cannons like the ones that defended their village were made of metal instead of rock, capable of withstanding higher tolerances which obviously let them fire even larger rocks, or the same sized rocks even further.
It was a weapon that would allow for their village to do things that otherwise would have been impossible. Striking at invading forces as they moved into position, or more likely, to corral them to strike at the more established defensive position.
The hammer.
The anvil.
As for the cleaning of the cannon itself and running routine maintenance, they were there every time that the cannon fired its massive load. The next shell took a while to get into position as it was, which was why they acted as part of a battery as opposed to a single cannon in the field.
It also allowed for them to defend the position more efficiently than otherwise would have been possible.
Atsuko nodded as she directed her crews to Jutsu a piece of rock back into place, there was no need for them to do so, it was well within tolerances as stated in the manual, but she didn't want there to be a single fault that might diminish the efficiency of the cannon itself.
In Suna, they too had developed artillery to deal with the trenches.
But as the emerging puppet masters of the hidden villages, their own designs naturally followed such a design philosophy. Simple for now, but more elaborate designs were already in the works, as well as more intricate puppets.
It was an enormous Shuriken that was flung out of a contraption at their enemies, the sized coming in that of a person in height, to one that was nearly a dozen meters wide. It was wooden… and filled to the brim with exploding tags on the hollow interior. The huge shuriken would be launched out with small seals on the center of it jetting out wing Jutsu that had been sealed into it, allowing for it to rise up and stay in the air, while those on the edges spun it faster for increased penetration into whatever it was going to hit.
The entire device was one that allowed for the Suna nin to play to their strengths, what with the puppet masters near the frontline sending their own chakra strings into the air in front of the shuriken, then subtly guiding it into the enemy positions, angling it slightly and allowing for physics to take care of the rest. As well as igniting the explosive tags so that they would explode just after they hit the target.
Generally, it would be a Trench, smashing directly into it and detonating with enough force that they were able to gouge a large chunk out of it, allowing for the Suna nin waiting on the other side to push straight on through.
The second type was one that was filled with tags as well as various pieces of shrapnel that would impact behind the trenches, and then detonate while it among the enemy ninja, a way for them to take out large numbers without ever exposing themselves. The shinobi waves that went across beforehand serving admirably in the role of target acquisition and pinning forces. They… escaped, of course, Suna didn't have enough actual shinobi to throw them away like that.
The entire frontline was merely something for the Suna nin to demonstrate just how many different ways they could kill somebody without ever needing to actually come near them or even to be within line of sight.
It was enough to scare off the other nin that was for sure.
The only real flaw being their speed, it being slow enough that if they didn't have them skim the trees, they would naturally be spotted and the Konoha reinforcements able to move themselves up to reinforce, or to evacuate an area that was about to be struck.
A problem that naturally needed to be dealt with.
Perhaps the next iteration would have small nozzles that allowed for it to direct the air much more effectively… something to think about.
Kiri hadn't really developed their own massive weapons. Rather, they had decided that they were going to perhaps try something that would allow for them to even the balance… just a little bit. The fact being that they were predominantly based around the idea of using water as a weapon, something that was certainly not in abundance in the other territories.
In fact, if they were planning to use water as a weapon, then it would be best if they just stuck to their little islands.
But if they stuck to the islands, then the problem of just what they were going to be doing regarding the… everything... was a problem.
How to demolish the great walls? There had to be something that they could do that would allow for them to either destroy the walls… or perhaps for them to bypass them entirely.
It was then that the brainfish struck them all at the same time and the Kiri nin decided that they didn't need something that could demolish structures, they could just go and do something like a massive wave that hurled them over the walls without ever needing to actually break them.
Which would then put them in the middle of hostile territory without support… hmmm.
Perhaps instead… maybe… fill some wooden logs of some kind with explosive tags, then propel them into the walls and blow them up?
Since they are weighed down by ballast, they would get in close enough and boom, walls gone with no way to counter them.
Maybe. How would they control them?
The Kiri were having a creative drought and as they picked away the Kumo who neighbored them, they were thinking of the various ways they could get it done.
Something… something.
Giant water hammers?
Maybe?