_________ POV Narration _________

The 'Shinobi Alliance' was quick to gather up.

All of the Kage held a meeting in order to decide on the best course of action.

Kage from all of the small hidden villages was present, but most of their voices were small.

Even with their forces gathered together, they couldn't really compete with the two behemoths that also joined in.

The Tsuchikage and the Raikage were the only ones that held any actual influence in that meeting.

They were to dictate the way that the operation was going to go.

Now, one could ask why the smaller villages even agreed to mobilize under such conditions... But it just goes to show just how important Fuinjutsu was in the Shinobi World.

The smaller forces could only hope to somehow suck up to the larger forces in order to get their hands on some techniques.

But together they did form a significant enough force to grab something after the Uzumaki Clan was destroyed...

Even among the smaller villages, there were still notable powers... For one, there was the Kage of the Takigakure, from the Land of Waterfalls.

He was the Jinchuriki of the 7-Tailed Beast, Chōmei. His power was at least on par with the Kage from the large villages... Though their shinobi didn't have the same power and skill as the ones from the larger villages.

Still, the Takigakure was certainly a contender for a spot in the 5 Great Villages, as the First Hokage had seen it worthy enough to receive a Tailed Beast.

There were other groups among the smaller villages, ones formed specifically to grab as many benefits as possible from the Uzumaki Clan.

The meeting went without any issues, though the atmosphere was certainly tense. Everyone was well aware that they weren't going to be allies for long. As soon as the fight with the Uzumaki ended, the struggle for resources would start instantly...

But in their hubris, no one even stopped to consider whether they would be able to even take down the Uzumaki Clan.

They never even stopped to think how many of them would even make it to Uzushiogakure...

But who could blame them? Together they were a force great enough to take down any Hidden Village. What exactly could even stand in their way anyway?

Well... The Tsuchikage's premonition did end up manifesting...

Despite going against his gut, Ōnoki still suggested the ships start sailing at night. For them to reach the shores of the Land of Whirlpools while it was still dark.

The journey was going to take two days regardless, but the time of departure was somewhat equivalent to the time of arrival.

But it was not going to be a pleasant trip. It all started with the 'accidents'...

As soon as they set sail, as soon as the shores of the Land of Waves were out of sight, their ships were slowly starting to sink.

The Shinobi worked tirelessly to repair the holes that kept popping up here and there. They chalked up the situation to them taking faulty boats from the local populace.

But the Raikage was a bit more suspicious. Especially since he also noticed a strange shadow stalking through the waters around their ships...

But then again, it could've also just been a shark or something. I mean, none of their sensors had said detected anyone trying to sabotage them.

And some of the ships did look as if some monster took a large swipe at them... But there was nothing they could really do about it, jumping into the waters was dangerous.

Regardless, after a few ships sank, the accidents stopped happening.

Some Water Styles Shinobi were put on guard though, just in case something happened. That helped to further tire the Shinobi Alliance out.

Because of their slow response, some Shinobi were now stuck in row boats, and many of them were bunched up together in the remaining Ships.

Of course, the Kage all had their own heavily guarded ships, so they didn't have to worry about cramming in with the other regular folk...

But the accidents were far from the worst of it.

Just as the regular shinobi thought they could finally relax, the 'natural disasters' started occurring...

Whirlpools constantly formed in front of them, forcing them to take detours. Or even ruining some of their Row Boats.

But the worst one was the Whirlpool that started right in the middle of their fleet...

Many Shinobi got dragged to the bottom of the ocean, and the Kage were forced to watch as hundreds died in the harsh waters in the middle of the ocean...

"What the hell is happening?..." The Raikage was beyond confused.

They were taking the SAFE route... So why the hell were there Whirlpools there as well?!

Had the Uzumaki Clan created some sort of formation to control the waters around their Land? Highly unlikely, the very concept was ludicrous.

It would take an exorbitant amount of chakra, even for an Uzumaki Fuinjutsu Master it sounded too wasteful... It was also near impossible to set up such an array on the floor of the ocean...

"Bad luck it seems..." The Tsuchikage scowled as he floated above the waters.

But it all felt too convenient... No one really thought that it was just bad luck... Someone was clearly sabotaging them... But their sensors hadn't managed to pick up on anything...

Maybe it really was just bad weather conditions?

The Kage moved quickly, sending shinobi to use various jutsu in an effort to redirect the flow of the whirlpools.

Water Dragons rose out of the Whirlpools, spinning in the opposite direction as Shinobi jumped in and tried to undo the Whirlpool...

They managed to rescue some of the Shinobi, but many were still swallowed up, not getting the chance to even try to resist the waves by walking on water...

The bodies were nowhere to be found, it was almost as if someone had gotten them stuck to the bottom of the sea...

Those were the very first casualties of the war... A war that had yet to even begin...

The Whirlpools continued to happen throughout the night, their shinobi didn't even get the chance to rest.

By the morning, there were at least 1 thousand shinobi missing... They were obviously dead, swallowed up by the waters of the ocean.

Only the Jonin could really escape the whirlpools, having gotten accustomed to the dangerous waters. But the Chunin that were stuck on rowboats were as good as dead, none of them survived...

At first, Jonin did their best to save the teams they were leading, but slowly, they all lost hope in being able to do so... The violent currents were far too dangerous for them to do anything...

Some still got saved whenever the Kage got involved, but everyone was tired by the end of the night...

Sometimes, the Tsuchikage would unleash a Dust Release Jutsu in the eye of the whirlpool, which always seemed to undo them...

But that wasn't always possible, since there were always shinobi around, getting in the way of Ōnoki's techniques...

It wasn't their fault though, they were all being dragged to the point where the Tsuchikage needed to aim...

The Tsuchikage also didn't have infinite chakra, Dust Release was a very powerful technique, but it was also VERY demanding...

It was a rather large loss, but it was only for the smaller Villages.

The Cloud Village and the Rock Village were still standing strong, and most of their shinobi were never on the row boats to begin with.

Regardless, together they still had somewhere around 7500 Shinobi, so they were not exactly in any danger of being outnumbered by the Shinobi of the Uzushiogakure.

Unfortunately for them, the worst had yet to come.

The morning was mostly uneventful, even the whirlpools stopped happening, which gave the shinobi some time to rest...

Unfortunately, rest was simply not in the books for the poor Shinobi of the 'alliance'.

The first one to go was the Kage of Kemurigakure, from the Land of Tea.

His death was witnessed by a few dozen shinobi from nearby ships.

The guards on his ship were all found dead, with their heads twisted in odd manners, most of them looked like they didn't even get the chance to resist.

No one got to see how the culprit escaped, as everyone's gaze was attracted by the 'spectacle'...

The Kage's body was blasted out of the roof of his private quarters.

It spun around in the air a few times before landing directly on the top of the mast. The Corpse landed with precision right on top of the wooden mast, getting impaled through the abdomen in a gruesome fashion...

The cause of death was later deemed to be 'asphyxiation'... The Kage's fingers were all twisted, while his eyes were gouged out and his tongue was nowhere to be found on the ship...

An investigation was immediately started, as everyone instantly became vigilant...

There could only be one explanation after all... There was a traitor among them... 

The ship of the Kage that had died was strangely spotless, there was only blood in the Kage's room, all of which was presumed to belong to him. Besides that, the guards were killed 'cleanly'...

Well, their heads were twisted to the point where it looked like someone was trying to unscrew their spines from their bodies... But there was little blood involved, just body horror...

But the Shinobi found a break whenever they found the body of one of the Kage's Elite Guards on the lower deck of the ship.

Finally, they had found signs of struggle! Specifically, they realised that one of the kunai of the guard was bloody, while there were no piercing or slashing wounds on any of the bodies on deck...

That could only mean one thing... The assassin/traitor had gotten injured.

The Kage immediately got to work, and their most trusted Shinobi all started checking the wounds of their troops...

There had been some wounded in the previous nights due to whirlpools, but slashing and piercing wounds were completely different from scrapes and bruises...

So, they were able to find the culprit right away!

And that was where things became even more complicated...

The culprit was a Chunin from the Cloud Village... He was the only one among the few thousand Shinobi that had managed to get injured by a kunai before the Shinobi War had even started.

The Chunin tried to deny his faults, saying that there was no way for someone like him to be capable of such a thing.

He even had a good alibi, which some of his comrades were able to confirm... He had been sleeping at the time the murder took place...

He even claimed that he had felt someone nicking him in the back while sleeping, which was what had caused his wound... But who could even believe that?!

Certainly not the other villages...

The Raikage killed him instantly, claiming that he had absolutely nothing to do with the matter, and denouncing the dead Chuinin as a traitor of the cloud immediately...

At that point, thanks to his swift actions, no one dared to challenge the Raikage... But the seed of doubt was already planted.

No one dared to trust the Cloud Village. And no one dared to sleep anymore either.

The Raikage was MAD.

He clenched his teeth together so tightly that he had almost cracked them! He wanted to call out that his Cloud Village had been accused wrongly, but who in the hell would believe him?!

To him it was clear! Someone from the other villages wanted to make his Cloud Village look like the culprit!

From that point on, the seas were strangely silent... But no one dared to calm down... They were not even in the territory of the Land of Whirlpools, and all of them were restlessly looking around, hoping to not be the next victims...

Suddenly, the Shinobi Alliance was no longer as 'allied'.

Ōnoki found the situation annoying as well... He knew that the Raikage was smart enough to not make such a stupid mistake... It was FAR too suspicious...

But there was nothing he could do either... Siding with the Cloud Village was not something he could do, as the Smaller Villages had all already decided that the Cloud could not be trusted...

Ōnoki wanted to avoid a situation where all of the other small villages ganked up on the big ones... But that possibility was going to be a reality if he made it look like the Cloud and the Rock villages were already colluding together...

The Tsuchikage wracked his brain for hours, trying to find a culprit in his mind, trying to remember who had any grievances with the Kage that had been murdered... But he couldn't think of anyone in particular...

It was only then that it had finally clicked...

'... Someone is breaking our Shinobi Alliance apart... At this rate, we'll be at each other's throats before even stepping into the Land of Whirlpools...'

The very thought made the Tsuchikage anxious...

He wasn't afraid for himself, he was strong enough to survive regardless, but he knew that the possible losses in that situation far outweighed the benefits...

But it was already far too late to return.

'I need to inform the others... Now!'

... But that was when the Second Kage died... The Kage from the Land of Rice... He died in a very similar fashion to the first victim...

His ship had been more defended, but this time the guards on the deck and on any other part of the ship weren't even touched... They were alive and well...

The bloody weapon was found on the ground in the Kage's room, and only the guards that were with him in the room were dead...

The Second Kage's death had been a lot more rushed, he was decapitated, while his men met the same fate...

This time, the Rock Village was blamed for it...

The Shinobi were more vigilant this time around, no one dared to sleep... Despite no one from any other village believing the Cloud Shinobi that had been killed, no one wanted to take any chances...

But it seemed that it didn't even matter how vigilant they were... Their opponent was far more devious than expected...

There had even been other Rock Shinobi who testified that someone had jumped out of the water, stabbed their comrade in the back with a kunai, and then jumped back in...

They were even able to provide a description of the man that had done it! They described a shirtless man wearing a grey fox Anbu mask on his face... Wearing black trousers and sandals...

But which of the Hidden Villages was ever going to believe the words of the Rock Shinobi?

The Tsuchikage didn't act as harshly as the Raikage, instead, he imprisoned the 'suspect' on his ship, while they investigated...

But his fears were already realised... Much like the Raikage, he sat on his chair in frustration.

'What will come of this war...'

But Ōnoki was NOT going to take it lying down... He immediately called a meeting with the remaining Kage.

'This is clearly deliberate... Someone is trying to sow discord between us!

We need to address this as soon as possible... Otherwise, this expedition will be doomed before we even get to see the walls of Uzushiogakure...'

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Hope you liked the chapter!

Hehe, wonder who is doing all of that ;))

Even if the mc can't fight the army directly, he can still pull this kind of shit off, this is actually his speciality at the end of the day.

If u want to support me look up VeganMaster on Patre_on, you'd also get 5 chapters in advance (or 2 depending on tier)