The sun sank low behind the hills, casting long shadows over the rugged terrain. The Hidden Cloud convoy slowed as the winding path narrowed into a natural chokepoint. Carts groaned beneath their weight, pulled off the dirt road to form a crude perimeter. Soldiers moved sluggishly, their chakra signatures flickering with fatigue after days of hard travel.
From the tree line, Team Sakumo lay in wait silent, unmoving, eyes sharp as blades.
"They've set up camp," Sakumo said, his voice a breath in the wind.
Below them, tents were raised. Fires kindled. A few shinobi began unwinding water skins, gathering around a stone cistern fed by a mountain stream trickling nearby.
Perfect.
"Mebuki. Shisui. Phase One," Sakumo ordered, his tone clipped and steady.
Mebuki nodded and reached into her pouch, drawing out two vials the color of moonlight one to paralyze, the other to burn. Shisui pulled his mask over the lower half of his face and gave a playful two-fingered salute before flickering into the trees.
Shisui's form blurred into the shadows, moving faster than most eyes could track. His feet didn't disturb a single branch as he closed the distance to the stream. Two guards lingered near the base of the slope, chatting quietly, unaware of the ghost that slipped past them.
A flick of his wrist kunai embedded in one throat. The other turned too late.
Silence.
He crouched by the water source, uncorking a pouch of thick, dark liquid. Developed by Mebuki, it was designed to mix without altering the smell or taste, activating slowly in the bloodstream pain, confusion, and then collapse.
As the poison swirled into the current, Shisui pressed two fingers to his temple and vanished once more.
Back at the ridge, Kayomi's Six Eyes pulsed beneath his bandages. Even wrapped, he could feel the chakra signatures below begin to warp twisting, faltering.
"They're drinking," he muttered. "Five down. Ten... no, fifteen."
Mebuki slid back into place beside them. "Shisui did it. The whole cistern's compromised."
Sakumo gave a single nod. "Good. We wait."
Minutes passed. Then an hour.
And then the camp began to unravel.
Screams pierced the night muffled, confused, and scattered. Shinobi clutched at their throats, some vomiting violently, others staggering with wide, panicked eyes. A few attempted to rouse their comrades, only to collapse mid-step.
"Now," Sakumo commanded.
They descended as a pack.
Kayomi hit the ground first, landing with a crouch that cracked the earth beneath him. He surged forward, body low and wild like a beast on the hunt. His chakra flared, molten and unstable, and with a single hand sign, he slammed his palm into the dirt.
"Lava Style: Cracking Maw!"
The ground beneath a cluster of tents split open with a hiss, glowing magma erupting in sharp, jagged bursts that swallowed carts and screaming shinobi alike. Flames surged behind him as his wolves, Kazu and Raiga, leapt into the fray now in their smaller, sleek forms, fangs bared.
Shisui emerged from the treeline moments later, blades glinting red in the firelight. He moved like a whisper, dancing between shadows, slitting throats and snapping necks with practiced ease.
Mebuki, ever the ghost, darted from one wounded target to another, delivering clean, lethal stabs with her poisoned kunai. She didn't hesitate. She didn't flinch.
Sakumo tore through the battlefield like a storm. His tanto glowed with white-hot chakra, severing steel, flesh, and stone in equal measure. One Cloud jonin lunged at him with a war cry only to be cut down before the first syllable left his mouth
The last torch sputtered and fell. The camp lay in ruins bodies smoldering, poisoned, or cleaved in half.
Breathing heavily, Kayomi stood at the edge of the broken road, his bandages slightly scorched, lava cooling behind him in sharp, obsidian cracks.
Sakumo joined him. "Time to finish it."
Kayomi stepped forward, pressing both palms to the ground.
His chakra surged boiling, wild, volcanic.
"Lava Style: Faultline Collapse!"
The terrain groaned underfoot before a massive crack snaked down the mountain path. With a deep, thunderous roar, the cliffside began to break apart. Boulders tumbled into the abyss below as the road the main artery of the Hidden Cloud supply chain crumbled into dust.
Ash and smoke drifted into the sky like a funeral pyre.
Sakumo exhaled slowly, watching the destruction.
"No one's crossing this path for a while."
Kayomi wiped sweat from his brow, gaze lingering on the broken horizon.