Chapter 76.1- One Thousand Hands

XXXXX- CEE

He could see the walls of Iwagakure now. Just over the horizon. The fact that he could meant that most of their remaining army could and those men were revitalized by the sight. When he had pictured this siege, he had foreseen time spent at the wall, strategizing, planning, and then several meetings between the Raikage and whoever was interim-Tsuchikage as they discussed and negotiated the terms of Iwa’s surrender. Surely they would have known that the battle was unwindable for them, he thought. But he had been wrong.

They had committed to doing this and Iwa had committed to resistance and so they acted as barbarians, civilized beings would and they struggled against the inevitable. Now the presence of land mines did not even bother them. Every explosion was borne. They could strain their senses and hear the click of the landmines being triggered now. Now they knew how to time the varied detonations the Iwa shinobi used. They could avoid the explosions more than half the time and that meant the difference between crushing losses moving forward and bearable ones.

It took a few more minutes until they were only a few feet away from the mountain that housed the village hidden in the stone. They reached it and began to scale. It was a sheer cliff face, one that required them to climb with either wall walking or hands and feet. They could not simply walk up it.

In all things, the Raikage was the first. He reached the mountain, dug his hands into the stones a bit above hs head and then pulled himself up until he could stab his hand into the next handhold. His feet followed. Cee doubted they would have dared plant explosives on their own mountain. He was right. Much of the climb was undisturbed even as it strained their bodies with the effort it required. They followed the Raikage’s lead, putting their bodies to the test to conserve their chakra. They had no doubts that they would be expected to begin the assault the second they crested the mountain and for shinobi, physical exertion was dangerous, but far beneath chakra exhaustion and the dangers that came with it.

He climbed, focused on putting one hand in front of the other as he got in what was a goods workout by his standards, using the barest slivers of chakra to enhance his muscles and allow him push forwards regardless of the winds that began to buffet him as they got close to the beginning of cloud cover. Kumo was without a doubt the highest village. They were so far beyond cloud cover that once could struggle to see the clouds at times. Iwa by contrast had their mountain just top out right at the beginning of the lowest clouds. He pushed himself over, noting that he was the seventh to finish the climb. The gold and silver brothers, fools that they were, were passing a flask of sake between them under the Raikage’s disproving gaze. Yui and Killua sat to the sides, but their eyes were warily fixed on Iwa’s walls. Walls that were so still one could have mistaken them for undefended.