The Third Mizukage was staring at his new, opened Bingo Book with his mouth opened in disbelief as cold sweat ran down his temple at the chilling realization of what exactly seeing the new and only SS-rank Iwa entry into the Bingo Book meant.

"That fucker made Mei into SS-rank ninja..." He breathlessly muttered under his breath, still unable to comprehend how a thirteen years old girl can be given a rank only those like Hashirama or Madara deserved. The only reason these two titans of the Shinobi World weren't ranked as such was that the Bingo Book was not a thing in their era. And yet... Mei Terumi, a genin from his village, was the first-ever SS-rank in Bingo Book. Oh, he knew he should probably be happy but... 'Fuck! If Rei and Konan managed to train Mei to destroy an army of ten thousand people then how strong must he be? I might have been severely underestimating them!' The Mizukage shivered as plans were discarded and new ones were being created in his mind. ​​

"What is it, dear?" He suddenly heard Himeno's voice as she entered their shared cabin on the boat in which they currently sailed to the Land of Fire. The Mizukage found himself momentarily speechless so he opted to simply hand her the Bingo Book without even looking at her so she could find out herself. Himeno just raised her eyebrow in surprise when she read through the page and chuckled. "Well, that makes any political play a moot point and this war suddenly got a helluva lot more dangerous. Now we will probably be targeted just for having SS-ranked ninja..." She said as her eyes narrowed at the Mizukage. "You know the best and most rational thing to do here is to retreat from every front and hole up in our little island, right?

"Yes." The Mizukage stated blankly.

"From your tone, I presume we are not doing the most logical thing..." Himeno rubbed her forehead in exasperation. "The Hidden Villages are too preoccupied with killing each other that they just might do nothing about this despite the war raging on which is giving them free rein to attack us whenever they want without giving a flying fuck about a proper reason. I mean, come on! This brings an enormous target above the entire Land of Water! There is a reason why most nations dispose of their most unruly S-rankers! Mei was given a rank above even that..." Himeno tried to persuade the Mizukage but when she looked at his impassive expression as he stared in front of himself with determination, she could only groan in irritation. "You really sure we are not retreating?"

"Yes..." The Mizukage gave a small, almost unnoticeable nod, still not looking at her in his stubbornness. Himeno knew deep down he felt ashamed for prioritizing his revenge rather than the village but she would not stop him. She loved the man too much to do that.

"Great..." Himeno only sarcastically quipped before releasing an exasperated sigh. "I guess I am going to check the preparations once more. Just wanted to give you heads-up that our fleet will be arriving at the shores of the Land of Fire in a day." She said before storming out of the cabin.

The Mizukage showed a small loving smile at her antics, feeling heartfelt gratitude for her loyalty and never-ending patience she showered him in.

'And so it finally begins.'

...

A day passed and the fleet finally arrived at its final destination. The ships were anchored a kilometer away from the shore and the Kiri forces numbering ten thousand ninjas of all ranks were ready.

The shore looked peaceful and empty, not even the slightest sign of enemy could be spotted anywhere so the Kiri forces jumped from the boats onto the water, dead-set on walking on the water for the last kilometer of their long journey through the sea. The Mizukage himself was leading the forces with Himeno running by his side towards the land.

The Kiri ninjas were not vigilant. After all, none of them thought they would be attacked. The invasion was supposed to be the most guarded secret and at this point, it was too early for a battle. Alas...

The Kiri front-liners of the forces were crossing the last hundred meters of water, about to finally reach the shore when suddenly a big puff of smoke burst out from the woods a bit away from the shore and the Kiri ninjas found stopped in their tracks from sheer bewilderment at the massive toad staring at them in amusement while smoking its pipe.

The Mizukage managed to only curse under his nose before he heard...

"Fire Release: Toad Oil Flame Bullet!"

Mizukage's hands instinctively started weaving seals before he could even comprehend what was going on as the massive toad started spitting toad oil in the direction of the front-liners of the Kiri force while a white-haired man standing on the top of the toad spat fire into the oil, igniting it.

The Mizukage managed to perform a water wall in front of his forces near him and some meager amount of satisfaction coursed through his being as he noted some of his ninjas doing the same as the water from the sea rose, creating a shield for the Kiri ninjas from the fire.

Despite the wall being primarily made by the more experienced and stronger water-oriented ninjas of Kiri forces, when the flamethrower-like stream of fire from the Toad impacted the Water Wall, sizzling noise erupted from the connection and the superheated flames started to boil the water almost instantly while making steam from the most of it. The remaining parts however were blasted onto the Kiri front-liners by the pressure and whichever poor sucker who was hit started screaming bloody murder when it landed on his skin, severely burning it.

Chaos instantly erupted as those people that were hit with the boiling water started thrashing around, running into ninjas around them which started a chain reaction of people bumping into each other. Some lost concentration and stopped using water-walking, falling into the water. Some just got disoriented and panicked. But the worst were those that lost focus on maintaining the Water Wall...

As that happened, the flame stream finally breached through it and the Mizukage could only jump back with wide eyes, out of the range of the fire stream while watching quite a lot of his men being torched as instead of the Wall of Water, an orange flames started influencing the water, making the sea in front of him boil. Only a very few ninjas in the front lines managed to avoid the flames or the fate of being boiled alive as the stream of burning oil swept through them. It was only Mizukage's chakra sensing that made him aware he just lost around a hundred and fifty men and a moment of surprise.

He stood in front of his remaining few thousand men, looking at the shore beyond the wall of flames while slowly starting to regret pressing for the invasion to continue. Luckily, Himeno stood next to him, panting from slight exertion and a small burn on her right forearm but clearly alive. Despite that, the Mizukage instantly knew his plan failed.

He was not about to give up though and would try to press on. Raising his hand about to give an order to use a water-style collaboration Jutsu to put down the Wall of Fire burning on the water, separating them from the land, suddenly a booming voice reverberated through the area.

"You want to invade the Land of Fire!? Then come and face your death!"

The Mizukage instantly recognized the voice of the Third Hokage and paled, realizing that winning just became a hundred times harder. But he had no time to consider it as a hail of sharp metal started raining on his forces.

The battle of the northern shores of the Land of Fire... started.