_________ POV Ken _________
The plan had to be carried out in a hurry.
I did my best to contact both the Dark Brotherhood and the Uzumaki Leader for cooperation. Unfortunately, the Uzumaki Clan didn't respond...
Regardless, with the aid of Tosho and one of the younger recruits, we were able to create a perfect double of me.
It's a good thing that so many of the children idolize me, as they all let their hair grow because of that, wanting to look more like me.
And that's exactly what we needed on this occasion. A public show.
It does help that I've appeared publically plenty of times in the Land of Iron, so my presence wouldn't come into question at all.
While my cover was being prepared, I had already started moving.
The only real point of entry into the Land of Whirlpools is from the Land of Waves, so my destination was rather obvious...
Still, just to make sure, I asked Saburo to check for rumours as to where the army of shinobi might be stationed.
Funnily enough, it was exceedingly easy for him to find them, as the Shinobi had been rather brazen in stealing the boats of the common folk.
The underworld is ruled by various information networks, and almost all of them rely on word of mouth, beggars, bar owners, and ramen stall owners, they all hear interesting rumours and sell them as information for Ryo.
Empires are built on the back of information, and it seems that the Shinobi Army that's attacking the Uzumaki Clan didn't make much of an effort in covering their tracks. Rather brazen.
I was a tad disappointed to hear that the Raikage was also involved in this... One of the main forces participating even.
I guess I shouldn't expect much more out of the leaders of the Shinobi World... They don't care who they involve in their mad power struggles.
Well, it's not like I cared about him all that much. He was just another useful tool, but not one vital to my plans for the future. I don't care if he dies in this war at all, especially since he's starting it.
But at least the information I received gives me the certainty I needed.
I didn't have a lot of time. I sealed off most of the Tenketsu in my body in order to allow an almost full transformation.
My speed far exceeded that of regular shinobi, and I was able to reach the border of the Land of Whirlpools in a matter of hours with little energy spent.
From then on, I would have to swim, and swim I did.
Just like before, after a few minutes of staying in the water, my body morphed to match my environment.
My swimming speed became better and better as time passed and I got used to gills and whatnot.
It still almost took me an entire day to reach the shores of the Land of Waves. And by then, I could feel that the Shinobi were already setting sail.
They need to cross these waters to reach the Land of Whirlpools, and they chose this part because it's peaceful... But how about I make it 'not-so peaceful'?
I started by using my claws and cutting into their ships.
At first, it was small cuts, trying to appear innocuous, but then I started ruining the hulls properly, which managed to sink quite a few ships.
I had to stop at some point though, as I could feel the Raikage noticing me in the waters... He didn't act in any way.
Thankfully, my form doesn't resemble a human all that much, so he must've assumed I'm some fish or shark.
Regardless, this means I'll have to tone it down with the boat tearing... But I already did plenty of damage.
A few hundred Shinobi were left in rowboats thanks to my efforts, and some even had to take turns walking on the sea. Meanwhile, the larger ships were now more packed together.
I can feel the shinobi in them, packed together like sardines.
I waited a bit more before starting the next part of my plan... The Whirlpools.
It's not that hard for me to create them. I simply started using 'Dragon Twister' underwater repeatedly. At some point, the Whirlpools became self-sustaining, and I could go ahead and create more.
It wasn't difficult for me, just made me dizzy at most. But I was quite satisfied when I saw hundreds get swallowed up by the currents I was creating.
They did manage to undo most of them at some point, but I had already collected plenty of bodies at the bottom of the sea, many were caught between the rocks as well, and the pressure of the ocean was keeping them down.
I continued with the whirlpools for a while... Then something interesting happened...
That flying midget did some kind of Jutsu that completely erased my arm. It would have actually killed me if I didn't dodge it in time, so I got off easy.
Regardless, I had to go to the depths and heal up.
I continued with the whirlpools for a while, that stupid midget really got on my nerves...
His technique is outrageously powerful, when I was hit by it, it all happened in a split second. One moment my arm was there, the next I could no longer feel it, the water was gone as well...
He served as a good reminder that the strength of my scales won't be able to block every jutsu out there.
I did learn to dodge his attacks by the end, but I don't even know how many limbs I've lost thanks to him at this point.
Thankfully, I managed to make him kill plenty of his own as well by keeping the current strong until the last second.
That's sure to help with the morale of the Shinobi Alliance...
This is as much a game of dwindling the numbers of this army, as much as it is killing their morale.
Eventually, morning came, and I made sure none of these pissers ever got any sleep.
I went for the weakest Kage I could find first. Don't even know what village he's from, no hard feelings though.
Killing his guards was relatively easy, and planting the fake evidence was just as easy.
The Kage himself ALMOST put up a fight... But I blitzed him with overwhelming speed and broke his fingers before he managed to do anything.
I had to stuff his mouth with my fist before he screamed out in pain. But it wasn't that messy overall.
I didn't torture him needlessly though, I killed him swiftly then made it look like I had tortured him, before throwing him with enough precision to impale him on the mast.
Blaming one of the Larger Hidden Villages came naturally. It wasn't even that difficult to do.
I didn't think it would actually stick through, but the Raikage killed the fake culprit right away... Which greatly affected the morale of the Cloud Village.
That didn't even seem to do anything good for the Cloud either... Well, I guess it stopped the other villages from potentially attacking the cloud, but he could have tried to prevent it in different ways...
I could sense the distrust in all of the other Kage present, they are certainly not going to turn their backs to the Shinobi of the Cloud Village anytime soon.
It seems that this Alliance is a lot more fragile than I had thought...
So I decided to take advantage of that as well! If the Smaller Villages and the Great ones are somewhat split, then why not blame both of the Great Villages?
Make it look pretty, and make them team up against each other.
I swiftly killed off the second Kage, further affecting the morale of the entire Alliance as I impaled yet another one of their leading figures on the mast of his own ship.
I did it in more of a hurry though, as it was impossible to do it unnoticed at this point. There were too many people on the ship to assassinate quietly.
Thankfully the Kage had opened up his window to let in some air! Hope that air was worth dying for...
Planting the evidence was a tad messier this time, couldn't really find a straggler quickly enough, so I just settled with the smallest group I could find.
I assumed that, at that point, tensions were so high that it was impossible for any village to believe witness testimonies.
And right I was! No one believed any of the witnesses.
It's a shame that the midget managed to catch on, and called that meeting.
I listened to it the best I could, but I had other things to do as well... Such as planting as many explosive tags on the hulls of the biggest ships housing the most shinobi.
Normally, this would be much harder, but the strongest shinobi are defending the meeting, or are stationed in the ships around it.
I don't know if the Kage intended their meeting to have such an effect. It might've just been the distrust that drove them to bring as many elites as possible...
Regardless, it gave me an opportunity to REALLY affect their numbers...
It's sad that I only have so many Paper Bombs and Explosive Tags. I could've taken down their entire fleet in this manner, but oh well...
Time for a little explosive interruption.
_________ POV Narration _________
The sound of the explosion wasn't the end of it.
All of the Kage jumped as they felt the seas around them rattling.
The shinobi that had accompanied the smaller Kage all rushed outside to check the situation at the behest of their leaders.
And outside was... Pandemonium.
Fires had broken out all around them, around a dozen ships were sinking, and some had already started drowning...
The screams of the less experienced shinobi rung out, further demoralizing those that were already starting up a makeshift rescue for the drowning.
Water Dragons rose out of the oceans to put out the fires. Shinobi also spit out water streams at the flames in hopes of quelling them finally.
Meanwhile, Shinobi stepped on the uneven and wavy ocean and tried their best to pull out as many of the weaker ninjas as possible.
All of the Kage came out of the meeting room in that instant, and they all looked at the situation in shock.
"SHIT!" Ōnoki immediately took to the skies as his fears had been realized.
He knew that the meeting would put all of the attention of the strongest figures in the alliance in one place, he just hoped that the Villages had been smart enough to not do exactly what they did...
Well, their intelligence wasn't exactly the issue, it was just that most of them didn't care much about the young shinobi they had called to the war.
Most of the Kage only cared about the safety of the village, and a shinobi dying in a mission was considered an honour for them, to be able to die for their village.
Not all of the Kage were that uncaring though... The Raikage had come completely alone, as was customary for someone as strong as him.
Yusuzo was also completely alone, as a Jinchuriki, he was already a powerhouse. He didn't believe himself to be in need of protection of any kind.
One or two of the other Smaller Kage also left behind enough people to protect the weaker Shinobi. At sea, they were most vulnerable after all...
Unfortunately, not all of the Kage seemed to understand the importance of having more numbers... And they were about to take heavy losses.
All of the ships that were sunk belonged to those from the smaller villages.
Ken had tried to stick a few paper tags on one of the Raikage's ships, but they were swiftly noticed by the more experience Shinobi that were more alert.
They still took some damage, but they were able to mitigate most of it with some clever jutsus to contain the damage of the explosions.
Ken thankfully mostly prioritised destroying the ships with the most people but with the weakest shinobi. Basically, he aimed to kill off as much cannon fodder as he could in one fell swoop.
The Kage also realised the intentions of their saboteur/saboteurs, and they immediately sprung into action, a bit too late for many of their shinobi, unfortunately...
As soon as the explosions died down, Whirlpools started appearing once more all around their fleet... But there was a stark difference, this time, they weren't appearing one by one, they were appearing multiple at the same time.
The Raikage grit his teeth as he jumped up and climbed onto the mast of the ship they were on, the Tsuchikage was already floating around there, looking at the situation with rage.
In the distance, the Raikage was able to see a flash of lightning dashing into the waters.
"A is going towards the saboteurs! I'm plunging in as well! You do your best to stop as many whirlpools as possible!"
The Raikage wasted no time as a lightning aura rose around him and he dove towards the waters.
"I know already!" Ōnoki flew as fast as he could to the nearest whirlpool, and brought his hands together, forming a triangle with his fingers as a white light took shape in the middle of his hand sign.
The light then expanded into a pillar that shot down into the middle of the Whirlpool he floated above, Ōnoki sweated a bit as he realised that he may have injured quite a few of their own men.
The struggle continued after that...
Ōnoki moved around, from whirlpool to whirlpool, trying his best to destroy them while minimizing the damage.
Meanwhile, the stronger people around them were doing their best to pull away as many people as possible to make way for Ōnoki's attacks.
They weren't having much success, unfortunately... Not everyone was well versed in Water Style Jutsu, which was rather imperative.
That was when Yusuzo stepped in... Well, flew in more like.
He was covered in a thick dark-yellow chakra cloak, completely covering his body and clothes. On his back were 4 large wings that beat at great speeds.
Near his tailbone was one Chakra tentacle that shot towards the water and coiled around as many shinobi as possible, pulling them out of Ōnoki's way with ease.
But only one tentacle wasn't going to be enough... He morphed his form to match his need, and his one large tentacle separated in several, all acting alongside Ōnoki and allowing him to disperse as many Whirlpools as possible.
Ōnoki greatly appreciated the assistance, the two of them were able to take care of things more smoothly, while the other Kage had all gone to aid their own villages...
Even with all of them working together, the chaos raged on for a good 10 more minutes before things finally calmed down...
Ōnoki panted a bit as he had somewhat exhausted his chakra reserves, he could still go on if needed, but he also knew that he needed to preserve his energy, so he floated down and back onto his ship, letting the others continue with the clean-up.
Yusuzo was completely fine, chakra exhaustion was not a concern for a Jinchuriki. The chakra tentacles he had grown out of his tail were still putting people on broken pieces of wood to keep them afloat.
The Jinchuriki eventually turned back to normal, judging the situation to be under control.
'This is a fucking mess...' Yusuzo scowled underneath his Kage mask as he crossed his arms.
Then, he noticed a bit of blood rising out of the waters nearby... After the blood, came a rather burly arm, one of a darker skin tone... That was when Yusuzo remembered something rather crucial...
'Wait... Didn't the Raikage and his son dive in after the perpetrators?...'
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Hope you liked the chapter!
We're finally getting the mc's perspective in all of this, I hope it was fun enough to read :))
As some of u might've guessed, he doesn't have much sympathy to give to the Shinobi, none whatsoever.
Also, easter's coming soon, had a lot of food to prepare lately :)) Anyway, I'll go sleep now
If u want to support me look up VeganMaster on Patre_on, you'd also get 5 chapters in advance (or 2 depending on tier)