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Official Declaration of War from Konohagakure
["The renegade clans led by Senju Butsuma have committed an unforgivable crime."]
["They conspired to assassinate Uchiha Tajima, a founding elder of Konoha, in the hope of dragging the Land of Fire into war and tearing down everything this village has built. They threw away the lives of their own people and gambled with the safety of the entire country to preserve their fading power."]
["Konoha sought peace. We opened our gates, offered stable work, and invited every clan to build a safer future beside us. Our goodwill was answered with murder."]
["Now those same clans have gathered their armies and begun an open rebellion. Konoha will tolerate them no longer."]
The declaration went on:
["In accordance with the Will of the Sage of Six Paths, Konoha will protect the people of this land and bring the architects of this rebellion to justice."]
["From this day forward, Konohagakure declares total war upon every shinobi clan involved in the conspiracy."]
["This campaign will suppress the rebellion—unify the Land of Fire—and end the clan wars that have tormented its people for generations. Any faction that continues to resist will be treated as an enemy of the peace and dealt with accordingly."]
First Elder of Konohagakure, Manji
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The declaration stunned the shinobi world. Copies spread among the clans like falling snow, reaching every stronghold, council hall, and battlefield in the Land of Fire.
The independent clans were surprised, and then delighted. Konoha had finally overturned the table.
After years of shrinking incomes, failed negotiations, and swelling resentment, they believed the decisive battle they had been waiting for had finally arrived. Weapons were sharpened, troops gathered, and commanders began boasting that the alliance would tear Konoha apart.
Not one of them considered that Konoha might break them instead. They understood only after the fighting started.
When Susanoo rose over the battlefield, most clan shinobi had nothing to throw at it but kunai.
Cavemen laying siege to a fortress.
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Madara led Konoha's Second Division west, crushing the Fūma, Kurama, and Shiranui along with several smaller clans on the way.
"Lord Madara, this is Foxfall Cliff." Uchiha Hikaku stopped at the edge and looked down into the misty ravine. "A lot of the old clan stories are tied to this place. Some of them are history. Most are probably just tales that outlived the people who made them up."
"Mm."
Madara looked into the ravine. His Mangekyō Sharingan activated, the pattern turning slowly in his red eyes.
Then his expression changed.
"There's chakra down there..."
The presence was faint, and unlike anything he recognized. His first thought was a trap, something one of the beaten clans had left under the cliff.
"I'll investigate."
Chakra rushed to his feet, and he was over the edge before Hikaku could answer.
Madara dropped through the ravine, weaving between the cliff walls until he reached the source of the signal. Nothing waited for him there. He found only an old rock face furred with moss, and a weathered scroll sealed inside a narrow crack in the stone.
Dust and hardened earth had built up over its surface until it matched the cliff. Without the Sharingan, he would have walked past it.
Hikaku landed beside him. "What is that?"
"An Uchiha left it here." Madara's eyes narrowed. The tomoe in his eyes shifted as he began a complex sequence of hand seals.
"There are two locks on it. You need the Sharingan and the correct seals together. Miss either one and it stays shut."
He kept his hands moving as he studied the casing. "I don't know which member of the clan made it."
The final seal fell into place.
Thin layers of dust peeled away. The hardened casing cracked apart—and the parchment unrolled on its own.
Madara focused his Sharingan on the hidden script, and his composure slipped.
"A forbidden Uchiha technique. One that was never passed down through the clan."
The scroll described a jutsu called Izanagi.
Its price was an entire Sharingan... In exchange, the user could rewrite reality. Injury and death became illusion, and illusion became truth.
Madara read the technique again to be certain he had it right.
"A jutsu that changes reality at the cost of an eye..."
Even by Uchiha standards, that was dangerous.
He rolled the scroll shut and stored it inside his robes.
"I'll give this to Great-Grandfather when we return to Konoha."
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On the southern front, Hashirama's First Division met the Ino-Shika-Chō alliance, the last of the Senju forces, and the Sarutobi and Shimura clans.
Waves of Wood Release chakra rolled over the battlefield.
Trees erupted from the ground in walls. Wood Dragons coiled through the sky, and a Wood Golem walked over the fortifications and broke them apart without slowing down.
Nothing the clans had could hold the advance. One group after another laid down its weapons.
The Sarutobi, the Shimura, and the Ino-Shika-Chō lost the last of their nerve when the Golem came over the ridge with a Wood Dragon wound around its shoulders. They surrendered almost before the order to fight had gone out.
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Inside the Senju council hall, the elders had stopped pretending they could win.
"Clan Head, we need to gather the treasury and leave at once!"
"We should retreat to the eastern islands. My scouts found an island called Wave Island off the coast. The Uzumaki can hold their own territory while we settle there, and the two clans can support one another."
"That's too risky. We should go straight to the Uzumaki. The Senju and the Uzumaki share blood—they'll have to take us in!"
Every one of them was working out how to escape. No one raised the idea of defending the compound.
Butsuma sat at the head of the chamber behind a stack of defeat reports, his face grim, his fingers white around the latest message.
"WHY?"
He slammed the report onto the table. "You all stood in this hall and swore the allied clans were unstoppable!"
Butsuma's voice climbed with every word. "Wasn't this alliance supposed to be the greatest army in the Land of Fire?"
He struck the table again.
"ONE DAY! THE ENTIRE FRONT COLLAPSED IN ONE DAY!"
"Clan Head, this isn't the time to argue about what went wrong!" An elder stepped forward with sweat running down his face. "Hashirama has already taken Kikyō Pass. His army will reach the compound soon. If we don't leave now, we won't get another chance."
Butsuma turned to the portraits on the wall, where generations of Senju clan heads looked down at him from their frames.
"If I had even half of Lord Tsuru's ability, the Senju would never have fallen this far." He tipped his head back.
"I DON'T WANT TO LIVE ANYMORE!"
Butsuma drew the sword at his waist and set the blade against his neck. He stared up at his ancestors and wrestled with the urge to finish it.
The elders watched him. Not one of them stepped forward.
"..." Butsuma waited.
Still no one moved.
His grip loosened. After a long and painful struggle with himself, he lowered the sword.
"Forget it..." Butsuma sank back onto the mat, all the fight leaving him at once. "I have no choice but to leave the Land of Fire. The compound I spent my life defending, the graves of our ancestors... everything."
Butsuma stared at nothing.
The war to destroy Konoha had lasted a single day.
Now the Senju were preparing to run.
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