The State of the War

The war reports that passed through my hands were nearly endless and the casualty numbers only got higher and higher. The major battlefields may be few but the amount of skirmishes and battles were massive. To the point the God of Shinobi himself had to make a move. In other words Hiruzen himself took to the battlefield and more or less single handedly held down Kumo from attacking in full force. Things didn't exactly go swimmingly overall however.

In particular the battle between Kiri and Iwa resulted in a loss I had long expected and made peace with. Gengetsu Hozuki and Mu of Iwa had mutually killed one another at their major battle field. The third Tsuchikage, Onoki, was appointed as successor to Iwa and was on a war path. In a strange twist for the third Mizukage position I was actually being considered and was even a candidate. Ultimately the third Mizukage chosen was, Byakudan. As the adopted son and former bodyguard of the first Mizukage his lineage was more than sufficient, not to mention he was a strong ninja, most important of all he was a native and from the highest caste in Kiri.

I personally did not envy the mans position as while the war effort was going well overall, Kiri now had to deal with an Iwa set on destruction regardless of the cost. Onoki in particular seemed to be set on destroying Kiri for the loss of his teacher and pseudo relative. Onoki took his grudge so far as to disregard targets or battles if he received news of Kiri or saw the headband anywhere on the battlefield. The shrimp literally would disregard his current fight and fly straight at any Kiri ninja in sight. This would be an exploitable weakness in most cases but considering the man was a cunning Kage level ninja it was really more of a death sentence to wear the Kiri band on his battlefields.

The insane hate Iwa had for Kiri now put a strain on the Kiri/ Konoha alliance. On the one hand Iwa focused on the Konoha battlefront to find the allied Kiri ninja placing a target on Konoha by association. On the other hand the loss of primarily Kiri ninja even with a lot more Konoha ninja present left a sour taste in any Kiri ninja being deployed alongside a Konoha troop. For one group however this change in Iwa's target was more than welcomed. Iwa's almost religious fervor in the destruction of Kiri allowed Suna to retreat and figure out the situation with their own Kage.

Konoha was not at all happy with that trend and I was heavily chastised for killing the third Kazekage. With the death of their Kage technically attributed to a Kiri ninja with a Konoha troop behind him things could get worse and a Suna/ Iwa alliance could be catastrophic. Eventually Rasa was appointed but the man decided to pull back and form a defensive effort. Luckily Suna was nothing more than a turtle desperately defending itself. The fact three Kages met death seemed to have fazed no one in the grand scheme of things however and the war continued with increasing intensity.

The demand for logistic support was also quite high so my next immediate order was to return to the main alliance fort to distribute all the necessary war resources. In truth this was my original assignment thanks to the logistical prowess that came along with the flying thunder god technique. Had it not been for my new status as the three tails jinchuriki and Suna being the only ones shameless enough to actively use the one tails, I should have not appeared on any battlefield at all. In the end I would not see any action again for the oncoming months, which was fine by me.

Returning to headquarters I immediately began a very weird lifestyle. Supplies would be prepped and I became an automated teleportation system just making whatever supplies appeared in front of me disappear. Naturally this was something ideally my shadow clones could handle for me but thunder god didn't work that way unfortunately. So I was undoubtedly required to stay as a one man shipping system until further notice. This isn't to say my war merits decreased, in actuality they exceeded the ones gained from killing the Kazekage. Imagine being in a shit situation on the verge of death and suddenly the pill that can save your life appears or being on the verge of starvation when a pile of food appears in front of you. To be honest the flying thunder god technique was bullshit even if not applied in a direct combat situation. As long as the ninjas on the battlefield could request aid, their plea for help would almost instantly be answered. Most importantly I could teleport troops to provide aid when needed and when a group of ninja appeared in front of me I didn't flinch as I teleported them like any of the other supply packages before them.

In the very little downtime acquired during this almost robotic lifestyle, I was experimenting with my ultimate war weapon, magnet release. Now flying and manipulating my thunder god Kunai mid air was cool and all but I didn't exactly have a Rasengan to throw around and my water release moves were more of large area attacks then focused kill moves. The fact I lacked a unique super move, so to speak, irked me. So apart from flight the next idea when I acquired magnet release was the obvious idea of a rail gun. Naturally with that idea in mind I became dead set on producing electromagnetic force instead of the basic magnetic force magnet release provided. If Rasa and the Kazekages could alter their magnet release to even work on gold it wasn't a stretch for me to alter the magnetic force itself to electromagnetism. To that end my studies on lightning release began.

This was both a good and bad thing. You could say lightning release was the bane of my existence. I had a natural water affinity and practiced the hydrification technique. Demerit one. I had an earth affinity due magnet release and the heart of the Shikotsumyaku user, Shuichi. Earth was weak to lightning so demerit two. Last but not least I didn't have an affinity for lightning release and as it was in opposition to the affinities I did have, learning lightning release was pretty much the worst experience for the current me. The only saving grace was my wind affinity via Kushina and the magnet release was lightnings natural weakness so it didn't make things even worse for me.

The main annoying part to me was having to use hand seals again and having to perform low level lightning jutsu repeatedly. Training was necessary though as applying lightning release in conjunction with magnet release would lead me to launching hypervelocity kunai when ever I want. Combining that with my thunder god kunai I would be the fastest ninja to ever live or if my body can take it I can launch myself and not even rely on the kunai. The possible destruction of my body aside this could become my crowning achievement in this world. In theory it would be possible to murder everything and everyone at a speed so fast they wouldn't even noticed they died!

Overall the end goal would make all the work in mastering lightning release worth it. Once again though it wasn't all bad as my lightning release would also have applications outside of just the rail gun. Stealing the lightning release chakra mode from Kumo being one of the top applications. Also in this down time I became more familiar with Isobus compatibility with spatial ninjutsu. It couldn't really be called an affinity since a space affinity didn't exist but Isobu did have a natural disposition to apply spatial ninjutsu in his own unique ways. The fourth Mizukage exploited Isobus spatial disposition to create his water mirror technique so I was interested in developing something similar but obviously better.

My training and life as a one man Amazon shipping system continued until I got news of the battle I was waiting for. The one battle that would save me a lot of training time and provide a whole new world of possibilities. It was time for the birth of the three Sannin. The only caveat being Tsunade was a walking tailed beast now so this may not play out exactly the way it did originally. I hoped it did but it may not be likely.