The Pawns

"Danzo-sama, the bait has been laid," a man wearing a panda mask said from his position kneeling on the floor.

"Good. Are you in waiting as I have commanded?" Danzo asked, standing tall over his genuflecting minion.

The two conversed at a four-point intersection of bridges in a massive room of pipes and metallic walls. The sprawling open space was dark with nary a single light source to bring it some semblance of life. It was a dreary place where emotion seemed to die, overtaken instead by mindless obedience and calculated scheming.

"Yes, Danzo-sama," the masked man replied respectfully, "Twenty of our number are lying in wait as we speak."

"I want him killed, is that understood? The threat he poses to Konoha is much too great to allow him a chance at continued existence. He's wrecked enough of our forces as is."

"It will be done."

"Should any of the bait become aware of your presence, do not let them escape with their lives. Hiruzen was suspicious enough of my alterations to that squad's deployment-"

Danzo's eyes narrowed even further than what should be possible on his always-displeased looking face. Just saying the name "Hiruzen" seemed to bring out a smidgen of bitterness.

"-and I don't need any survivors spreading problematic rumors," he finished.

"Of course, Danzo-sama. And what of the two promising youths you had assigned to the squad?"

"Should they survive what's to come, bring them back to Root and have them integrated. On paper, they will have unfortunately perished in the attack, their bodies having been lost in the ensuing battle," Danzo explained, "Now go, and do not disappoint me with the execution of my plans."

"The task will be completed, Danzo-sama," the masked man declared before disappearing with a body flicker.

"It is for the greater good of Konoha, so I do sure hope you take the bait, damnable kekkei genkai user," Danzo muttered to himself with a frown.

~~~~~

Katsu's breathing was erratic and his mind swirled with desperate thoughts — reaching for ideas so absurd only an insane man could have thought them up. He'd do anything to survive the present conflict.

However, the only reliable, feasible plan he could imagine was to rally with his allies and fight with everything he had.

'But how am I supposed to fight something I can't see?!' Katsu thought with distress.

And then he heard it again — the whistling.

Taichi was the first to react. Slamming his hands into the ground, he yelled, "Earth Style: Mud Wall!"

A large wall of earth rose from the ground, protecting the three behind it.

The whistling grew louder, and then there was the sound of shattering rock.

Taichi stood with wide eyes at the large hole in the mud wall before him. He sheepishly looked down at the similar hole that had been carved out of his midriff before falling backward and losing himself to the embrace of death.

"Shit! Taichi!" Susumu shouted from the side.

He knew that his comrade was very dead. The hole in Taichi's stomach was proof of that. A large portion of his intestines had been obliterated and many other organs were surely damaged beyond what's repairable. He could only watch the corpse of his deceased friend slowly bleed out on the ground.

'We will all die at this rate,' Katsu thought, eyeing the corpse of Taichi with some trepidation, 'We need a way out…'

"Dammit!" Susumu said with some despair.

Susumu wanted to confront the assailant in combat and tried to step out from behind the earth wall, but a hand on his wrist stopped him in his tracks.

Susumu turned back to Katsu and asked, "What is it?"

"You will only die if you rush out there," Katsu said calmly, trying to avoid losing another comrade.

"Then what do you suggest? That we sit here and wait to be picked off one by one?"

Katsu shook his head. "We will create a diversion."

Katsu hunkered down beside Susumu and proceeded to explain to him the last ditch effort of a plan he could think of.

"Firstly… can you show me how to make shadow clones?"

~~~~~

Under the dying light of the setting sun, frantic battle ensued and chaos took hold.

On every side of the encampment was an Iwa shinobi. There were at least forty of them, spread out and attacking from various points of their encirclement.

It was like an ever growing tide slowly consuming an island from all sides. The Iwa shinobi pushed ever inward, overpowering their lesser numbered foe.

The Konoha shinobi, caught off guard and without proper leadership, struggled to push back against them. They were quickly losing ground and surrendering their lives equally as fast.

However, the Konoha shinobi did not go quietly into the night. They fought hard, and though it small and perhaps meaningless, would ultimately bring many a Iwa to the grave alongside them.

~~~~~

Shingo was not doing too well. He was bleeding profusely, and his muscles ached from overexertion.

When he'd been assigned as the captain of a frontline defense force, he was thrilled to finally have a chance to prove himself to the Konoha elders. However, never would he have guessed himself to have been put in such a position.

He could tell that it was intentional. He was not ignorant of the scheming of those higher on the chain of command, and yet he could not find out why.

Why had his squad been deployed in such a way? To what end? How where they supposed to help Konoha like this? Did he and his men really have to die out here?

Shingo could not dedicate a single iota of mental effort to figuring it out. His attention was instead held by the five Iwa shinobi before him — one jonin and four chunin, he presumed. Should he think about anything else other than the fight before him, he would surely be cut down like his men around him.

He'd already watched one of his soldiers get decapitated by a kenjutsu specialist, and another get crushed under a boulder thrice his size. Suffice to say, he and his squad's chances of escaping this conflict were paltry at best.

Shingo needed assistance — His squad needed assistance, and he would take it in any form in which it may come.

~~~~~

"Once he's been lured into the open, we'll make our move," a man in a fox mask said to the group of shady individuals behind him.

All of them wore masks of different design — most revolving around a central animal theme. They wore dark, hooded cloaks and withheld from making unnecessary comments. Like machines, they acted in unison, awaiting orders from the leader of their group.

"Spread out and wait for the signal," he ordered, disappearing into the foliage.

The group nodded as one before dispersing soon thereafter.