Naruto: Rebuilding the Hidden Sand- [233/234] (Patreon)

[CH-233: Returning the Favour]

"Move quickly!"

On the other side of the battlefield, the moment Yuji and Hanzo had engaged, Yahiko led the three of them in pulling Akatsuki's members back from the killing ground.

Akatsuki had originally considered coordinating with Yuji's group of three to deal with the Hidden Rain and Konoha forces together. But the moment those three had acted, what they unleashed was on a completely different scale from anything Akatsuki could safely operate alongside.

Whether it was the salamander's toxic cloud, the blood mist Yuji had deployed, or Rasa's gold dust sweeping entire formations off the earth, every technique being used covered enormous areas without distinction. A single misstep and Akatsuki members would be buried or poisoned alongside the enemy.

Not to mention Sasori's two Kage puppets currently tearing through the Hidden Rain formations with absolute freedom.

This battlefield was no longer one they could safely involve themselves in.

"Take everyone and go first," Yahiko said, glancing up at the surging blood tide crashing across the high ground as he spoke to Konan.

He could not leave yet.

Because as Akatsuki's leader, he needed to negotiate with the Fourth Kazekage about the Land of Rain's future. And now Hanzo was dead. He had a strong feeling that without any unexpected development, the Land of Rain was about to fall into the Sand Village's hands.

The Kazekage had almost certainly orchestrated all of this, using the conflict between Akatsuki, and the Hidden Rain Village as the stage for exactly this outcome. The moment those three had appeared, it had been clear they had come specifically for Hanzo.

"I will stay with you," Nagato said, standing beside Yahiko.

"Yes," Yahiko nodded.

Looking at the situation before them, these three Sand Village figures could not be called anything but extraordinary. To have eliminated Hanzo in such a short span of time spoke for itself. But even so, the Hidden Rain Village had assembled an enormous force here. Even Kage-level fighters, when facing an overwhelming numerical disadvantage, could find themselves in genuine danger.

"Scatter!"

Up on the high ground, the moment Yuji unleashed the blood tide, the more capable Rain ninja immediately broke in every direction. But the Blood Release technique's coverage area and speed were simply too great. Many of the formation's members could not clear it in time and were scattered and overwhelmed by the surging blood water. Their formation collapsed in an instant.

Swoosh.

Yuji extended his hand, from within the blood tide that had not yet receded, a vast number of blood projectiles immediately rose and suspended themselves in the air. Then they scattered outward in every direction simultaneously.

At the same time, a Rain ninja had seized the opening and rushed in close, blade already moving in a slashing arc clearly aimed at a killing blow. The weapon swept through the air in a series of afterimages suggesting some form of sword-based ninjutsu.

Yuji activated his eye technique, his gaze sweeping across the field. Several Rain ninja were frozen in place instantly.

On Sasori's side, he was using the Third Kazekage puppet in coordination with Rasa's magnetic bloodline limit to let the iron sand achieve total battlefield dominance. Meanwhile the Third Raikage had become a streak of lightning cutting left and right through the Hidden Rain formations, harvesting lives with every pass.

Given the Third Raikage's particular combat nature, the puppet Sasori had crafted from his remains had been constructed using materials specifically chosen for the purpose, and the puppet's structural hardness alone far surpassed anything else in Sasori's collection. This was currently his proudest work.

"Too slow," Sasori said coldly, his eyes scanning the field around him.

The Third Kazekage's iron sand and Rasa's gold dust both covered enormous areas and carried significant destructive power. But this was the Land of Rain, the enemy's home ground. And the Hidden Rain Village's numbers were genuinely impressive. Their ranged techniques could mark targets consistently, but the kill rate was not absolute. Many Hidden Rain fighters of genuine ability were successfully using taijutsu and ninjutsu to evade the magnetic attacks.

Without another word, Sasori opened the mechanism in his abdomen and expelled a massive network of chakra threads, simultaneously unsealing several scrolls.

Red Secret Technique: Performance of a Hundred Puppets.

In an instant, over a hundred red-robed puppet figures connected to him through chakra threads and launched themselves through the air toward the Hidden Rain formations.

His two hands continued controlling the Third Kazekage and the Third Raikage simultaneously, while the threads fired from his abdomen did not require separate conscious control. The core within his body could reflect his individual will through the chakra threads to all hundred puppets simultaneously, operating them with the same natural fluency as his own hands.

This particular secret technique carried the destructive potential to dismantle a small nation's military force on its own.

Looking across the entire ninja world, no one else could achieve this level of puppet mastery.

Crash.

Beneath the dark and pressing sky, over a hundred crimson figures wielding an array of weapon mechanisms advanced like an unstoppable wave, crushing and breaking through the Hidden Rain forces.

Rasa pulled a pill from his pouch and swallowed it, restoring his chakra and state. Then he swept his arm outward and a dense wall of gold dust rose instantly, blocking an enormous surging water technique that had been launched by a coordinated cluster of Hidden Rain ninja. The combined force of their Water Release was genuinely terrifying.

He glanced up at the high ground and felt a quiet relief. Hanzo had been eliminated by Lord Kazekage in the shortest possible time. If Hanzo had remained in the fight, the situation would have become significantly more dangerous for all three of them.

Their strength was not ordinary. But the Hidden Rain Village's numbers were not small either. A single fighter of unremarkable individual strength meant nothing, but when dozens coordinated their ninjutsu together the combined force multiplied dramatically, reaching a level that even he could not afford to dismiss.

Defending against these large-scale coordinated techniques was also draining his chakra at an alarming rate.

Fortunately, Lord Kazekage had given him that soldier pill earlier.

In this battle, his role had tilted toward supporting Sasori rather than independent offense. Because in pure terms of destructive output across the battlefield, Sasori with two Kage puppets in hand was clearly operating above him.

"The village's main force has already reached the Hidden Rain Village," Rasa said, exhaling a slow breath as he calculated the situation.

The three of them had come here as the advance strike team.

And the Sand Village's true military force had already broken through the Land of Rain's defensive perimeter and was driving straight toward the Hidden Rain Village itself.

Hanzo had drawn the Hidden Rain Village's main army here for this ambush, which meant the Hidden Rain Village's defenses back home were now at their most depleted.

Bang, bang, bang.

Danzo, who had been retreating from the battlefield at speed, was moving through the forest with a small Root escort unit, driving straight toward the Land of Fire.

His prediction had proven correct.

The rapidly developing Sand Village, riding its economic and military ascendance, had indeed been unable to suppress its ambitions. It had moved against the Land of Rain.

He simply had not anticipated that the Fourth Kazekage would move this quickly. And he had not anticipated that the Kazekage had already established coordination with someone inside Akatsuki, preparing to deal with Hanzo from both directions simultaneously.

This made Danzo unable to stop himself from cursing Hanzo inwardly.

That fool had not detected any of this beforehand. He had faced the Sand Village's advance with absolutely no preparation whatsoever.

"Looking back across this entire Great Ninja War, the Fourth Kazekage is young, but his methods are extraordinarily ruthless. He used the war's circumstances to calculate every village's position and played them all against each other.

Now that the Great Ninja War has ended, every major village including Konoha needs time to recover and rebuild. None of them have the strength to oppose the Sand Village in this condition. He chose precisely this window to move against the Land of Rain. The Kazekage had planned this long in advance."

"Careful. Methodical. Patient."

"This person's ambitions are enormous. Before long, he will become the greatest threat any village faces."

Danzo narrowed his eyes and drew a slow breath.

Something had to be done to restrain the Sand Village's rise. If left unchecked, the balance of the ninja world would shift entirely.

Fortunately, after the long period of preparation that had been quietly underway, Konoha had successfully reverse-engineered the Sand Village's pharmaceutical resources and completed the research into producing their own equivalent medicines. It had simply not been made public yet.

Once Konoha's counterfeit pharmaceuticals entered the market, they would deal a significant blow to the Sand Village's economy and industrial dominance. Furthermore, when the Sand Village faced Konoha directly, they would not hold the same overwhelming advantage they had enjoyed against other villages.

The Sand Village's only current advantage was that their losses throughout the Great Ninja War had been the smallest of any village. In terms of total military manpower, they held a meaningful numerical superiority over the others.

The small group moved at high speed through the forest.

Then Danzo's eyes narrowed and he stopped.

He raised his hand simultaneously, signaling the escort unit to be on alert.

"Come out," Danzo said, his eyes going cold as he fixed his gaze on the forest ahead.

"Worthy of a senior figure. Your alertness is genuinely impressive."

The words were followed by quiet laughter drifting down from a large tree some dozen or so meters ahead. Then a figure stepped out slowly from behind the trunk.

From the surrounding forest, one shadow after another emerged in sequence.

Every single one of them wore a Sand Village headband.

Twenty people in total.

This Sand Village unit had clearly come here specifically to intercept him.

What alarmed Danzo was that his group's retreat route had been kept extraordinarily secret and their movements had been as careful as possible throughout. How had this Sand Village team found them? And how had they arrived here ahead of them to set up the ambush?

"Leader of Konoha's Root organization, Shimura Danzo," Shimizu said from his position on the branch above, looking down at the Konoha group below with a calm, elevated gaze.

"Shimizu," Danzo said, identifying him immediately.

Konoha had been paying careful and unusual attention to the Sand Village's intelligence for some time now and had been gathering it personally throughout. From the very beginning of the Great Ninja War, Shimizu had been the Sand Village army's field commander and a key figure in everything that followed.

"The Sand Village and Konoha signed a ceasefire agreement. Are you trying to break that balance?"

Danzo said it coldly.

"The first one to break that balance was Konoha, was it not?" Shimizu replied with quiet sarcasm. "Your Root operatives were on the battlefield just now moving against our Kazekage. And does the Third Hokage know about your little private arrangement with the Hidden Rain Village?"

Danzo said nothing.

"If we are going to speak plainly, it was Konoha that violated the spirit of the agreement first."

As Shimizu spoke, one of his eyes suddenly began to shift to red. The familiar tomoe pattern appeared, a shape the Konoha ninja present recognized immediately despite themselves.

A Sharingan.

Danzo's expression changed.

Even the masked Konoha ninja around him could not suppress startled sounds.

And it was not just Shimizu. Every Sand Village ninja surrounding them had their eyes wide open.

All of them.

Every single one bearing a Sharingan.

The Konoha escort unit felt a collective chill move across their skin.

"As expected," Danzo said in a low voice. "The Fourth Kazekage really did go this far."

But the number of eyes present was somewhat beyond what he had calculated. By any reasonable accounting, only a handful of Uchiha had ever been captured by the Sand Village. Even accounting for transplants, the number of recipients should not have been this large.

Damn the Uchiha clan.

The moment that thought crossed his mind, Danzo's eyes grew dark.

"Lord Commander, allow us to deliver our greetings on behalf of Lord Kazekage," Shimizu said, his voice entirely conversational. "Many years ago, you sent an operative to the Sand Village to carry out an assassination attempt against our Kazekage. And there was also that particular visit from Orochimaru."

"Our Kazekage said something once. To receive without returning is improper etiquette. Since you showed us such consideration, it would be rude of us not to respond in kind."

Shimizu said it all with complete composure.

Then he moved his hand into a stance.

Swoosh.

Every Sand Village ninja in the surrounding positions launched themselves simultaneously toward the Konoha escort unit.

"Get Lord Danzo out first!"

The Konoha escort commander shouted the order and immediately stepped forward with several of the unit's most capable fighters to meet the incoming attackers head on.

...

[CH-234: Choice]

Two hours later, the battlefield fell silent.

The Hidden Rain soldiers were either dead or had fled. Salamander Hanzo's death had shattered whatever will remained in the Hidden Rain forces when facing three Kage-level fighters tearing through their ranks. The psychological line had broken first.

As the battle had progressed, they had gradually come to understand that killing these three Sand Village fighters was not a realistic possibility. The enemy was simply too powerful. And the Hidden Rain Village's long-stagnant atmosphere, combined with the quiet rot in its internal power structure, meant these soldiers had never developed the kind of resolve that would make them fight to the last. Their quality was far below that of the other major hidden villages.

The moment Hanzo, who had been the spiritual symbol of the Hidden Rain Village and regarded almost as a god by its people, fell dead, every fighter who could run simply ran. There was no conviction binding them to the village's fate.

On the outer edge of the battlefield, Akatsuki regrouped after the fighting ended. With Konan at the front, they reunited with Yahiko and Nagato. After being brought back from the edge of death from Hanzo's hands this time, none of them would allow their leader to face that kind of mortal threat alone again.

"So this is the Fourth Kazekage," Yahiko said quietly, his expression shaken as he surveyed the battlefield, which resembled something out of a nightmare.

Most of those who had died here were people of the Land of Rain.

The air was thick with the sharp smell of blood. Rain had pooled in the churned earth at their feet, and thin streams of red flowed through the mud, spreading until they reached the edge of Yahiko's boots.

The Fourth Kazekage was more terrifying than anything the rumors had described.

His purpose had been completely clear from the first moment. Strike at the head first. The moment he had moved, killing Hanzo had been the primary objective. Because as long as Hanzo was alive, the Hidden Rain soldiers could sustain a higher level of combat intensity.

Eliminating Hanzo quickly served two purposes simultaneously. It removed the single greatest threat on the field and shattered the morale of every Hidden Rain soldier in the same stroke, breaking through everyone's psychological defense at once. The numerically superior forces that had been operating with cohesion under Hanzo's authority instantly dissolved into disorder.

"Hanzo had not participated in the ninja world's major battlefields for many years and had not experienced serious combat in a long time. But he was still the Salamander Hanzo who had once made the entire ninja world tremble. Even accounting for the decline in his abilities due to various reasons over the years, he was not someone just anyone could kill so easily."

Yahiko said it in a low voice, almost to himself.

The Fourth Kazekage's space-time ninjutsu was simply extraordinary. There was no way to prepare for it. At the level of absolute top-tier fighters, victory and defeat were always decided in a single instant.

Without that particular ability, even the Kazekage could not have resolved Hanzo so cleanly. But for combatants of this caliber, a decisive encounter always concluded at the fastest possible speed. Neither side would hold anything back. The goal was always to kill the opponent before any variables could emerge.

Bodies lay scattered across the central ground of the battlefield. Sasori and Rasa stood shoulder to shoulder. On the high ground above, countless crystallized blood spears stood tall like lances driven into the earth, piercing through the remains of Hidden Rain and Konoha ninja alike. Viewed from a distance, it looked almost as though blood-colored flowers had bloomed across the elevated terrain.

"We had no chance of winning this," Yahiko said, his expression settling into something quiet and resigned.

Having watched the entire engagement from the outside, he had already assessed it. Even now, after all three of them had clearly been through an exhausting fight with their conditions meaningfully depleted, Akatsuki still could not have matched them.

The main Akatsuki force he had led here numbered barely over a hundred scattered fighters. It bore no comparison to the combined Hidden Rain and Konoha numbers. And the only Akatsuki members who could stand against any of the Sand Village's three individuals in single combat were himself, Nagato, and Konan.

But even with the three of them working together, defeating any one of the Sand Village's group would have been far from easy. The most approachable opponent among them had been Rasa. As for the Fourth Kazekage and Sasori, the probability of success had been close to zero.

On the other side of the battlefield, Yuji opened the system interface and glanced at the auxiliary experience points awarded.

Killing Hanzo had earned five thousand experience points from the system.

Slightly more than the Third Raikage had yielded, but considerably less than he had expected. Still well short of half of what Obito had given him.

But given where his current totals stood, this was an extremely welcome addition.

Going forward, building his reserves seemed increasingly tied to hunting characters of genuine plot significance rather than accumulating through sheer volume of battlefield kills. The era of growing experience points through mass numbers was largely behind him.

Unless he was on a truly large-scale battlefield.

"A little more. Just a little more accumulation and I can configure the final module of the Ope Ope no Mi's skill set," Yuji thought to himself as he closed the system interface.

The next skill module was the Room.

And after that.

The fruit's awakening.

The reason Yuji had brought only Sasori and Rasa was precisely to avoid having experience points diluted across too many participants. Beyond that, the combined force that Hanzo and Danzo had arranged was not large enough to require anything more than three fighters of their level to handle.

If the enemy had fielded ten thousand or more, the calculation would have been different entirely. But given the Hidden Rain Village's current state after years of internal conflict, deploying ten thousand fighters would have been impossible even at the height of its power.

If the Hidden Rain Village had been allied with Akatsuki, the combined fighting force would have been capable of standing against any of the other four great hidden villages. That had been one of the central reasons Danzo had been so determined to prevent that alliance from ever forming.

Yuji turned and looked toward the far side of the battlefield, where Yahiko's group of three stood at the head of the remaining Akatsuki members.

They had not left.

They had been waiting for him.

Yahiko was watching him from across the distance as well.

Yuji dropped down from the high ground. The black pattern markings faded from his face as he landed. His stored chakra had been fully expended.

His current condition was not ideal. But he had no concern whatsoever about Akatsuki attempting anything reckless.

Seeing the Fourth Kazekage approach, all three of Yahiko's group immediately tensed. The Akatsuki members standing behind them were equally serious, their expressions filled with wariness.

Nobody knew what was coming next.

Yuji walked forward until he stood a few meters in front of the three of them.

He looked at Yahiko first, offered a quiet smile, then let his gaze settle on Konan.

"According to our arrangement, the Sand Village has done what we said we would do. We saved your leader and your organization. You also have obligations to fulfill."

Konan remained silent.

"Our Sand Village forces are currently in the process of taking the Hidden Rain Village. With Salamander Hanzo dead, whatever remains of the Hidden Rain's military strength will not be able to mount any serious resistance. This should come as no surprise."

The moment Yuji said this, the expressions across Yahiko's entire group shifted.

They had assumed the Kazekage had simply come to intervene and save them. None of them had considered that the Sand Village had split its forces from the beginning, with one arm moving to seize the Hidden Rain Village simultaneously.

"Our agreement never said you could hand the entire Land of Rain over to yourselves," Konan said, her composure breaking as she pushed back immediately.

"This country has never belonged only to the Hidden Rain Village. Even if the Sand Village takes the village itself, do not think you can simply control the Land of Rain."

Yahiko fixed his gaze on Yuji and spoke in a low, steady voice.

"Hand it to you instead of us? You could barely manage a single Salamander Hanzo." Yuji was entirely unapologetic. "Setting aside Konoha entirely, after Hanzo's death the task of stabilizing the Land of Rain's complicated aftermath would present no particular difficulty for the Sand Village. For Akatsuki, on the other hand, simply holding off the Hidden Rain Village's remnant forces would be more than enough to swallow you whole."

"Danzo's small scheme nearly brought Akatsuki to its complete destruction today. Without the Sand Village's protection, the next time Konoha tried something similar, your leader there would most likely still end up dead."

Yuji looked directly into Yahiko's eyes and spoke without raising his voice.

"Hanzo's assessment of you was not wrong. Your thinking is genuinely naive."

"Peace has never been something perfect and whole. It is a word with two faces. To welcome happiness, one must first learn to accept pain."

He took several steps forward.

"From this day forward, the Land of Rain will be the Land of Wind's territory."

"I am not negotiating this with you. I am informing you of it."

"This is the result of the cooperation we agreed to beforehand. Without the Sand Village, Akatsuki would not have escaped destruction today. When you have received something of value, you should understand the obligation to give something in return."

He spoke each word deliberately, then turned his gaze toward Konan.

"You promised me before, and you said you could speak on Akatsuki's behalf. I was willing to save your lives because I took you at your word."

"Do not forget that there is a mark I planted inside your body. If you dare to resist, it will not only be your life that is the price."

"Everyone here today. Every single one of them will die."

After the last word, Yuji's eyes went cold.

A curse mark.

Upon hearing this, both Yahiko and Nagato turned immediately to look at Konan in shock.

Seeing Konan's expression, something shook in both of them.

The entire scene went completely silent.

Only the sound of rain continued falling.

Yahiko closed his eyes.

A moment passed. When he opened them again, something had settled in them, as though a decision had been made.

He looked at the Fourth Kazekage.

"What exactly do you want from us?"

Yuji heard this and allowed himself a quiet exhale.

"Better. This situation is not beyond salvaging after all."

"Since you are willing to accept this outcome, I am actually genuinely willing to sit down with you, the leader of Akatsuki, and have a real conversation."