Naruto: Chronicles of a Fire Ninja-Chapter 398 - 393: Preparation Complete

Each of those memories hammered Shisui's resolve more and more. Now with all of the facts in front of him, he had to make a decision: a simple route with guaranteed completion of mission easily, or a slightly more complex one. With a sigh, he made his decision.

Five medical ninja, clearly having experience in fighting, were now under his genjutsu, believing themselves as innocent victims whom Iwa ninja had tortured too much. To end their suffering, they had asked Konoha for help, which was agreed upon.

Now they were going to get their payback. All five of them had resolute expressions on their faces. Shisui had to work extra hard with these medical ninja as their chakra was more attuned to healing, so the chance of them coming out of genjutsu before the attack was complete was not low.

As an extra precaution, he had added a failsafe: if they came out of genjutsu on their own or by someone externally, they would fall unconscious then and there. Their consciousness was held with a string of chakra—Shisui's chakra.

With genjutsu gone, the string would dissolve too, leaving the ninja unconscious. After dealing with the five medical ninja, he turned toward the other two in the room. After sighing once again, he gave them a simple order.

"Go and hide in a corner. If a Konoha ninja finds you, just tell him—'fire is cold enough to freeze sea,'" a simple mental command, etching itself deep in their mind. Both of them nodded, held each other's hands, and ran to the back of the room where a small storage room was present, hiding inside a cupboard, while the other five went back to their work like nothing happened at all.

'I am going soft,' Shisui thought. It was not daily that he saved innocent people. When his father died and all of the responsibility of the family came on his shoulders, he had to become a ninja ruthless enough to not be looked down upon, suppressing his usual caring nature.

But now that he had a substantial amount of power and influence, it was coming back up. Living with his ever-growing family was also a reason for the change.

Though now it was fine, as the saying goes: 'Only the strong have the right to be benevolent.'

Shaking off any excess thoughts from his mind, Shisui now moved toward the next location. After making sure no ninja was following him, he made his way toward the ninja who were going to be on guard duty next.

With one of them already under Shisui's genjutsu, he already had the list in his mind about the next batch of ninja who needed to be on his side for smooth conduct of the attack.

Once again, using the name of the commander did wonders, and all of the guards gathered in a jiffy, now being Konoha spies. They were ready to let their allies enter the base easily during their shift.

With all of the major goals done, Shisui now only had one more job: to bring as many Iwa ninja toward their side as possible. With the number of 123 ninja against 31, the odds didn't look nice at all.

however now, with some of them having changed sides, the ratio had turned to 102 to 52, with an element of surprise and confusion, with the betrayal from their allies as cherry on top.

The chances of any casualty on the Konoha side were already very slim, and they could start the attack, but with enough time on his hand before the shift of new guards would take place, Shisui decided to increase the chances as much as possible.

So he went full force on turning any chunin he found toward their side. The only reason he didn't do it to jonin or elite jonin was because their better mental defense made it so that it needed much more chakra to make them fall under a specific genjutsu for an extended period of time.

If Shisui actually tried to do it that way, there was a high chance he would not have enough chakra when the mission actually started. So he went with the cost-effective way—since the chunin were supposed to be helping them, the jonin would not be on guard against them, making the backstab a much more effective choice.

In a sense, Shisui alone could now solo this mission without his team at all, just he would not have enough chakra to run back to Konoha.

With new goal in his mind, Shisui was moving all around the base, every place which would not arouse any suspicion at all. While he

While the rest of the team was about to cause mayhem inside the base, with all of the preparation complete, the team was now just waiting for Shisui's signal.

...

(After 2 hours)

It was almost dawn, the time to change the shift for guard, and the time when the preparation for the attack was over. Shisui had effectively cast genjutsu on 9 more people, making the odds 93 to 61, a highly promising one from the initial count. With all of the preparation done, Shisui moved toward the commander's office, the place he had avoided like a plague for the last 2 hours.

The same place in the outpost which had the maximum concentration of elite jonin in the area, and the key point of the array was also present there as well. Destroying it from outside would take considerable amount of effort and time, but from inside it was a completely different matter. Renjiro had given clear instructions to Shisui about his role in the destruction of the seal.

But there was just a slight problem with that - the place he had to destroy happened to be the office of the commander of the outpost.

'I am not getting nearly enough pay for so much hard work,' after grumbling in his mind, he knocked at the door of the commander's office.

"Come in," came a deep gruff voice from inside.

Shisui released a final sigh before entering the office, holding his belly like it was aching really bad at the moment.

"Juro? I didn't expect to see you so soon... are you all right?" he asked, seeing the condition of the ninja in front of him.

"Commander, I am not feeling well from the morning, like something is affecting my stomach, and when I went to the common washroom, I found out that many of our ninja are having similar problems," Shisui said, still maintaining the image of a concerned middle-aged man.

The implication of Shisui's complaint was clear - someone had done something to the food, an almost impossible task considering that the kitchen had more security than even the storage area, where the weapons and storage seals were located, since poisoned food is a bigger problem than an enemy at the door.

With a concerned expression, Onishi Iwakura, an elite jonin of Iwa, looked toward Juro.

"Are you sure you are not imagining things?" Onishi asked, hoping it was just paranoia.

"No commander, I have discussed it with quite a few ninja, all of us having the same problem at the same time can barely be attributed to imagination," Shisui said.