Team Downpour was rushing through the narrow path surrounded by tall walls of jagged rocks when Mei suddenly felt Rei's hand on her shoulder, firmly stopping her in her tracks, almost making her fall onto her back due to how abruptly she was stopped mid-run. Mei quizzically turned her head in Rei's direction, her expression clearly asking what was the plan since their current situation was quite obvious. Thankfully, neither the ninja in front of them nor Kitsuha and his ten squads would start their offensive until Rei and his girls reach a certain point in the narrow path. Mei was in Rei's squad for two years and by now she knew he would never let an opportunity to discuss the battle plan slip by, hence their momentary stop for a discussion.

"Well, Mei... you probably already know we will be jumped the second we reach the 'ambush' point. It's time to get some things straight..." Rei said, grinning at her and that was when Mei knew she was in for another world of pain in a pretense of training. ​​

'At least it really helps me to get stronger...' She mentally grumbled while Rei obviously ignored her pouty face as he explained what he had in the store for her.

...

Kitsuha looked through the telescope as the Team Downpour suddenly stopped, seemingly talking among each other. His face was instantly marred with a frown as he changed 'go, go, go' in his mind when he saw them almost reaching the ambush point. He could already almost see his fame in Iwa skyrocketing after he managed to take them down. The riches. The women. Respect... Yeah, not once did he regret taking this mission despite the vehement protests of his father, the Tsuchikage.

"Why are they stopping?" He asked his second in command, a woman whose name he deemed too unimportant. In his mind, he called her Sucker as she had one incredible tongue.

"I have no idea, Lord Kitsuha." The woman evenly said, pleasing his vanity by calling him 'Lord'. It wasn't every day she was straddled with a man-child in the form of Tsuchikage's son. Tsuchikage's inept son at that. The rumors of how different Kitsuha and Kitsuchi are were quite the thing back home, after all. Both capable and very strong S-rank shinobi trained personally by the Tsuchikage. For that, the man deserved respect... and by extension her body whenever he asked. If it wasn't for his apparent ability as a ninja, no matter if he was the commander, she wouldn't bend to his antics. Sadly, while both brothers were strong as heck, Kitsuha was always the less renowned through the Nations, the child even the Tsuchikage rather keeps a secret. In the end, it all boiled to one important fact. No matter how strong Kitsuha was, he was an utter idiot. Without somebody holding his hand, he would drive others to their death. She sighed as a sudden headache ran through her head. 'Why the heck did I take this mission to look out for the big an' dumb again? I swear this is no different than these babysitting D-ranks when I was a genin!'

"Hmmm~," Kitsuha intoned, "Prepare to move. We are going in." He said, making his second in command freeze.

'Damn you, bastard!' She mentally wept. 'Wasn't it enough you fucked up the entire plan by sending them alone into the mountain path? Why the fuck would they stop? Maybe because you made it oh-so-obvious this was a trap, perhaps?' She couldn't help but minutely scowl. 'Now you want to fuck it up even further by engaging with them when they are not even at the designated location!?'

"Captain, I think th-" She tried to be a voice of reason but...

"You are not here to think but to satisfy my urges and listen to my orders. And I said we are engaging. Go and tell the troops to prepare." Kitsuha interrupted her coldly, flexing his powerful and dense chakra in order to remind her of her place. In the end, she could only resignedly do what he wanted of her.

'Hehe, don't you worry, girl. Today I will accomplish this mission and tonight I will show you that being obedient is very enjoyable!' Kitsuha thought, utterly unaware of the depressing thoughts of his second in command.

'I am so fucked...'

...

Rei, Konan, and Mei were done planning and started to again run forward only to stop approximately two hundred meters and turn to the mountain wall on the left side. Rei and Konan put their hands onto the surface of the cliff and both exclaimed.

"Earth Release: Hidden Cave."

Mei instantly saw the rock part but instead of a cave, it created a pathway. A so-called third exit from the narrow mountain pathway. Mei was sure this was possible only due to Rei's nature sensing and his ability to pinpoint which part of the mountain wall was the thinnest, and therefore easiest to get through.

"Damn that took quite a bit." Konan dryly stated, not really sounding happy so Mei kept quiet as they again started running. For a few seconds, they were still surrounded by two walls of parted rock but then a peaceful massive lush green clearing appeared in front of them, encompassed by tall dangerous cliffs. A dead-end.

'Meaning we are certainly not running from this one.' Mei offhandedly noted. Despite hearing Rei's plan, she still hoped he only joked and they would run away. She didn't really feel ready for 'this'.

Team Downpour ran towards the opposite side of the clearing, their backs to the cliff, facing the only opening that led to this future battlefield of theirs. Rei chose this place especially because it would be impossible to sneak up on them and the clearing was large enough for a battle between thousands of people while not having many obstacles. In his opinion, this was the perfect place for Mei to show the full power of her bloodline.

Soon enough the enemies finally understood that Rei and Konan 'created' a way out of their ambush and quickly followed them, amassing their forces in the clearing as they observed calmly-waiting Team Downpour, waiting for them to gather. It was quite a surreal sight. On one side three relaxed figures. On the other, a ten thousand strong army made of mercenaries and slaves trained to be as good as genins with a few high-ranked ninjas mixed and hidden in it.

This was the same tactic that Rei recognized was used in the anime for the Third Raikage. Except, instead of protecting their comrades, the Team Downpour was supposedly trapped since the enemies had no idea about their ability to fly.

Three versus Ten thousand.

Certainly, Rei could see why this would work. No shinobi had unlimited energy or never got tired. There were only so many people one could kill in a day and the longer this dragged out, the worse it would be for the Team Downpour. Or so, Rei surmised, must have been the thinking of the tactician behind this plan. A pity the guy never accounted for large-scale area of effect ninjutsu and most likely didn't believe that Rei and Konan could cast their destructive 'collaboration' Jutsu fast enough to counter the army.

Rei grinned when he saw the smug face of Kitsuha as the Iwa army finished gathering in the clearing. "And so it starts." He said and reached his right hand forward, His palm facing the sky as a ball of chakra threads suddenly appeared above it before it started rapidly fly high into the sky, only one thin thread connecting the ball with Rei's hand. "Since you were so eager to deliver yourself here... I don't think you should be given the opportunity to leave." Rei muttered to himself in a menacing tone as his chakra flared, changing into earth nature while being mixed with nature energy as the Jutsu was performed.

"Earth Release: Natural Cage." Rei stated, interested if it would work exactly as he intended and how strong the Earth Release mix with Nature Energy would be while he pumped more of this mix through the lone chakra thread connecting his hand with the ball in the sky.

The Iwa army could only stare in bewilderment as the small ball of blue threads suddenly burst out in massive amounts of black-ish chakra threads. One of their ends buried deeply into the ground while the other was still connected to the small, now black ball in the sky. Together they created something akin to a black bird-cage made of threads encompassing the entire clearing. That was when Rei started pumping Lightning Chakra through the thread and the gaps between the threads shimmered with blue arcs of lightning, making it impossible for anyone to get in or out as it trapped the Iwa troops inside of the clearing. Obviously, nothing short of killing Rei would get them out of here. Hence, the army prepared for the battle.

"Well then, Mei, yet another test for you." Rei said 'kindly' as he turned towards Mei. "I prepared the stage, the rest is yours." He pointed at the army in front of them while being amused at Mei's baffled expression and trying to ignore Konan's muffled snickering. With an amused tone, he added, "Defeat them."

----

AN:

Yeah, sorry, I was kinda tired when writing this so dunno about the quality...