Naruto: Mixed Heritage(Rewrite)

"Move! Now! Your lives depend on it!"

Nara Shikyo's command ripped through the air momentarily drowning the cacophony outside – the relentless, earth-shaking sounds of Kumo ninjutsu impacting the dome.

Arata didn't hesitate. As a chunin, he was somewhat experienced. There were lines of stress etched deep beside his eyes, but his movements were sharp, and precise as he followed orders.

Around him, the members of his squad – a mix of seasoned chuunin and one wide-eyed genin recruit – snapped into action, scrambling towards the designated rally point deeper within the barrier's relative safety, weaving through knots of other Konoha shinobi doing the same.

"Crack!"

One of Arata's squad members, Yuki stumbled slightly as a particularly violent impact against the barrier nearby, sending visible ripples cascading across its surface like a stone dropped in a disturbed pond. He cast frantic glances around the chaotic, dust-choked interior. "Arata-san!" Yuki yelled over the din, his voice tight. "Has anyone seen Captain Renjiro? Did he make it inside?"

Before Arata could respond, Minoru snorted. She shoved a stray lock behind her ear with a grimy hand, her eyes scanning the swirling masses. "If Uzumaki Renjiro was here, Yuki, we'd know. He doesn't exactly exactly stay silent, does he? Plus he is Arata-san's superior so we would have met him if he was here."

Aisoke adjusted the strap of his oversized kunai holster, his face grim. "Minoru's got a point. But more likely? He's somewhere out there," he jerked his head towards the shimmering wall where flashes of lightning and fire illuminated distorted figures of Kumo shinobi.

"Working on this thing. You know how Uzumakis are with fuinjutsu. Barrier's probably got his chakra prints all over it."

Yuki shook his head, unconvinced. "No… I think… I think he's still back at the stronghold."

The mention of the stronghold seemed to pivot their collective anxiety. Aisuke lowered his voice, leaning in conspiratorially, though the ambient noise likely swallowed his words beyond their small group. "Speaking of power… did you hear what they're saying about Fugaku Uchiha?" His eyes held a mixture of awe and primal fear. "They say… they say he took out an entire Kumo battalion single-handedly. He just… looked at them. One glance. Thousands of shinobi, just… dropped. Like puppets with their strings cut."

Minoru nodded vigorously, her earlier bravado replaced by wide-eyed fascination. "It's true! My cousin was on relay duty near there. Said it was like watching reapers move through wheat. Absolute silence, then just… bodies falling. No screams, no clashes. Just down." She shuddered.

Arata's jaw tightened.

'Thousands?'

This was a complete exaggeration.

Battlefield gossip always inflated numbers, especially when fear was the primary currency. Fugaku was terrifyingly powerful, a master of the Sharingan genjutsu, yes. But thousands with one glance? That was the stuff of campfire tales told to scare recruits.

He knew the reality was likely a devastating, coordinated genjutsu strike amplified by panic and confusion, collapsing a key assault point. Effective, brutal, strategically vital… but not supernatural annihilation.

Yet, he held his tongue. Correcting them now felt… cruel. Pointless. He saw the desperate need in their eyes – not for facts, but for a symbol of invincibility, a flicker of hope in the form of Konoha's new 'Wicked Eye'.

Yuki, emboldened by Aisuke and Minoru, leaned even closer, his voice dropping to a hushed, almost reverent whisper. "Yeah… the Wicked Eye. That's what they're calling him now. The Wicked Eye Fugaku. Because just meeting his gaze is–"

"Enough!" Arata's voice cut through the morbid fascination like a kunai. It wasn't loud, but it carried a sharp edge of command. Three pairs of startled eyes snapped at him.

"Focus! Eyes forward, minds on the formation! This isn't the time for pointless stories." He gestured sharply towards where Shikyo and other commanders were rapidly directing shinobi into layered defensive rings, medics setting up triage stations amidst the organized chaos.

"Save the tales for when we're certain we'll live to hear the end of them. Move!"

The rebuke landed. Yuki flushed, Minoru looked abashed, and Aisuke merely gave a curt nod, his professional mask slipping back into place. They fell silent, quickening their pace towards the assembling ranks, the terrifying image of the 'Wicked Eye' momentarily banished by the immediate, visceral terror of the ongoing bombardment.

"Crackle-zzap!"

A bolt of Kumo lightning jutsu struck the barrier overhead, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air like frantic fireflies, casting long, grotesque shadows.

'Was I too hard on them?'

Arata thought, falling into step beside his squad as they merged with the larger formation. The rhythmic explosions of the barrier were a constant, unsettling heartbeat beneath his feet. He watched Yuki's knuckles whiten on his kunai hilt, saw Minoru compulsively check her shuriken pouch, Aisuke's eyes constantly scanning the barrier wall.

No.

They weren't gossiping; they were drowning. Grabbing at any flotsam – rumours, legends, misplaced worries about Renjiro – to keep their heads above the paralyzing fear of annihilation. His reprimand was the lifeline they needed, pulling them back to the immediate task: survival. They were all still those terrified young shinobi, clutching at superstitions on a blood-soaked field.

His thoughts inevitably circled back to the missing captain. Uzumaki Renjiro.

He vanished like morning mist not long after the First Division had fortified the stronghold near the northwestern border. Arata, as the most senior squad leader under Renjiro, had found himself abruptly responsible not just for his own team, but for the nine other squads. The weight of that responsibility thrust upon him in the middle of a warzone, had been staggering. He'd immediately noticed Renjiro's absence.

'Where the hell is he?'

The worry was a cold stone in Arata's gut. He'd initially resented being placed under someone his junior. But Renjiro had earned his respect, swiftly and decisively.

He listened, delegated intelligently, fought like a demon, and possessed an uncanny knack for boosting morale with a well-timed, genuinely terrible pun. Arata found himself hoping, fiercely, that the vibrant Uzumaki was safe, buried deep in fuinjutsu scrolls somewhere secure, not lying broken in the ruins of the stronghold.

=======

Hundreds of miles away, separated by the shimmering, unyielding wall of Konoha's barrier, the air vibrated with a different kind of tension. It wasn't the contained dread of the defenders; it was the frustrated, exhausted rage of the besiegers.

The land outside the barrier was a scarred hellscape. Craters pocked the earth like open wounds, some still smouldering. Shattered trees lay like fallen giants, their splintered trunks blackened by fire. The acrid stench of ozone, burnt wood, and spilt chakra hung thick and heavy. The sky itself seemed bruised, choked by the smoke rising from countless clashes.

The relentless barrage continued. Lines of Kumo shinobis, faces grimed with sweat and dirt, uniforms stained and torn, stood in disciplined ranks. Hands flashed through seals, throats raw from chanting.

"Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!"

"Whoosh-Boom!"

A massive fireball erupted, hurtling towards the barrier only to splash against it in a cascade of harmless sparks.

"Raiton: Gian!"

"Crack-zzzt!" A spear of lightning lanced out, striking the dome with a blinding flash and a deafening crackle, leaving only a momentary flare on the shimmering surface before dissipating. The barrier held. It absorbed, dispersed, and deflected. It was a maddening, impregnable wall.

But underneath all of this, they, just like the Konoha shinobi, were also on the ropes.

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