Chapter 43.
Land of Rain.
Under the gloomy skies of the Land of Rain, amidst a constant downpour, three figures knelt on the mud, looking up at a giant salamander.
Standing atop its head was a man wearing a breathing filter and holding a kusarigama—a sickle attached to a chain.
Tsunade had not expected this battle to turn so decisively. Their platoon had been ambushed during what was supposed to be a secret mission.
At first, they held their own and even overpowered their enemies, but everything turned on its head the moment Hanzō of the Salamander showed up. Single-handedly, he annihilated their entire platoon using his deadly poison and flicker technique.
Now, only she, Jiraiya, and Orochimaru remained, heavily poisoned.
Cough. Cough.
Jiraiya coughed up a mouthful of dark, viscous blood mixed with poison as Tsunade tried desperately to stabilize his deteriorating condition.
Jiraiya had sustained the most damage after relying on his incomplete Sage Mode. He had managed to overpower Hanzō for a brief time, only to be caught off guard when Hanzō released a much more potent poison directly from his mouth.
Beside her, Tsunade saw Orochimaru force himself up onto shaky legs, clutching one of his wounded arms as it turned a faint shade of purple.
***
As Tsunade mulled over their grim predicament, Hanzō looked down at them from atop his mount.
'Finally, the poison is taking effect,' he thought to himself.
This fight had been far from easy for him; he had come close to losing more than once. His battered condition was proof enough—wounds littered his upper body, his armor was ripped to shreds, and a deep diagonal scar stretched from his left shoulder to his right torso, left by the white-haired man's strange toad transformation.
A prominent crack ran through his reinforced iron mask, on the verge of breaking completely and leaking poisonous breath into the rain-soaked air. That had been from a single punch from the Senju princess.
And then there was the slippery snake. Orochimaru was the one Hanzō had to guard against the most due to his ruthless, unpredictable attacks. The other two were manageable—one clearly inexperienced and the other doing her best just to keep them alive this long.
"Truly, Konoha is a cradle of geniuses," Hanzō declared, his voice echoing through the rain. "For your gallant efforts against me, I bestow upon the three of you the title of The Three Legendary Sannin."
He took one last look at their battered forms. "Tell Hiruzen that I am ready for negotiations."
In truth, Hanzō was tempted to finish them off right here. He'd had multiple opportunities. However, killing them would be suicide—both financially and militarily. Not only were they the direct students of the Third Hokage, but one was a Senju princess, the granddaughter of Hashirama Senju, the God of Shinobi. Worse still, she carried Uzushio royalty and Daimyō blood in her veins.
All these factors combined to create a scenario where he couldn't kill them—nor could he leave them unharmed—without any consequences for invading his territory. Leaving them half-dead was his compromise.
They had at most two days to purge the poison from their systems, or at least one of them would die. If that happened, he couldn't be held accountable, as it would occur long after the battle had ended.
With one final glance, Hanzō flickered away, disappearing into the heavy rainfall.
****
A few hours later, Tsunade was hopping from tree to tree with an unconscious Jiraiya on her back and Orochimaru following close behind.
They had covered a few miles since their confrontation with Hanzō, pushing hard toward the nearest outpost in the Land of Fire.
She glanced back at Orochimaru's increasingly pale face and his darkening arm. At this point, they were both running on fumes. They needed rest, and she needed to treat them.
She slowed her pace, and Orochimaru stopped beside her.
"We need to find somewhere to rest," she said, her breath uneven as she glanced at his darkening arm. "Somewhere I can treat both of you, or at least patch you up enough so you don't die on me."
Orochimaru opened his mouth to refuse—they were still deep in enemy territory—but one look at Jiraiya and Tsunade's labored breathing forced him to reconsider.
He and Tsunade had both been relying on soldier pills from the moment the battle ended; he himself was already on his third and wanted to be somewhere secure before the inevitable backlash hit them.
He nodded at Tsunade. "I'll scout for a hiding place. There are some mountain ranges ahead where we might be able to camp."
***
Five minutes later, they were inside a cave secluded from their surroundings by dense forest trees.
With Jiraiya lying unconscious on his back, Orochimaru sat in a corner, leaning against the cave's uneven wall. Outside, the sound of constant rain hitting the ground echoed through the trees.
Tsunade sat beside Jiraiya. She removed his green flak jacket, gripped the mesh armor underneath, and ripped it open with her monstrous strength, exposing his chest.
She could see the spread of the poison below his neck—a purple tint slowly crawling through his veins toward his heart and down into his limbs beneath his clothes.
She took a steadying breath and thanked her lucky stars that they had stopped when they did; any further movement and he might not have survived the journey.
Now, she needed to stabilize him. She didn't have any more medication or herbs to slow the poison's spread, nor did she possess enough chakra and mental stamina left to perform hours of manual poison extraction.
There was only one option left: fūinjutsu. She knew a specific seal that could halt the toxin, but she lacked proper supplies—namely high-quality ink.
She rummaged through her pouches, finding only a few kunai, shuriken, and various storage seals containing standard provisions.
'There is another way,' she thought.
She cut the tips of her own hair and tied them to the end of a small stick, creating a makeshift brush. Then, taking a kunai, she sliced her palm open and let her blood collect in a small bowl.
She was going to use an Uzushio Blood Arts. With her own blood as the medium, its sealing properties would multiply several times over. It was a complex technique she had learned during her past visits to Uzushio. It would halt the spread and actively force the poison to consolidate, but drawing it required absolute focus.
A sudden wave of dizziness hit her as the bowl filled halfway. Tsunade quickly bandaged her palm, swallowed a soldier pill, and took a deep breath. Dipping the makeshift hair brush into her blood, she began tracing intricate scripts directly above Jiraiya's heart.
For the next half hour, Tsunade immersed herself completely, tuning out everything around her.
From his corner, Orochimaru watched with golden, slitted eyes, genuine curiosity cutting through his fatigue. It was the first time he had ever seen someone perform a seal using their own blood as ink; he hadn't known such a thing was possible.
He glanced down at his own injured arm, where a dull numbness was creeping outward. He smiled bitterly. It had taken only a single scratch—not even a deep one—for the fight to turn against them. Even now, he was forcing the measliest trickle of chakra he had left to keep the venom from reaching his core.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Tsunade finished. The bowl was nearly empty, and Jiraiya's torso was covered in crimson fūinjutsu scripts, leaving only a single fist-sized gap over the left side of his chest.
Now for the final step: the catalyst.
Tsunade lifted her flak jacket, revealing a bloodstained clothes and a nasty wound on her abdomen that nearly reached her kidney. Purple lines dripped from the tear with barely any blood—she had been using the open wound to slowly expel the venom from her own body.
She squeezed a single drop of the concentrated poison onto her fingertip and let it fall onto the bare spot on Jiraiya's chest.
Instantly, the blood scripts reacted. They glowed faintly and dissolved beneath Jiraiya's skin, condensing into a single red circular seal over his heart.
Tsunade leaned in to examine him, breathing a heavy sigh of relief. The spread had stopped. Instead, the purple discoloration in his veins was reversing, drawn rapidly back toward the central mark.
Taking a kunai, she made a precise, shallow nick in the center of the seal, creating a small exit point for the trapped poison to drain.
She turned to move toward Orochimaru, but just as she was about to check on his injuries, a sound echoed from deeper within the cave.
Instantly, Tsunade and Orochimaru went on full alert. Tsunade stood up and placed a hand on Orochimaru's shoulder, signaling him to stay down before pulling out a kunai and creeping into the dark passage.
As she moved, she was surprised by the depth of the cave. They had assumed it was a shallow shelter, but it clearly possessed a secondary tunnel.
Then she heard voices—faint, small voices. Children?
Peeking around a jagged rock corner, even in the dim light, she could make out two small children trying to drag a third out of a narrow opening in the wall.
"Are you sure about this?" asked the kid being dragged.
"What, you don't believe me?" another replied as he helped the third clear the gap. "I told you this opening connects to the other side of the mountain. It was formed recently by a landslide, so nobody knows about it."
For a fraction of a second, Tsunade's grip on her kunai tightened, her brown eyes turning cold. Then she bit her lip, closing her eyes and shaking her head.
'This war is truly taking a toll on my mind', she thought. After this she would take a long vacation—and for kami's sake, she wasn't the only one who needed it. But first, she had to handle the situation in front of her.
In a blur of motion, she closed the distance. With their backs turned, the children didn't notice her; even if they had been watching, it wouldn't have mattered.
She delivered a precise, light chop to the back of each of their necks, disrupting their nervous systems and rendering them unconscious before they even realized she was there.
Orochimaru watched as Tsunade emerged from the darkness carrying three children—two boys and a girl—bound together by a sturdy rope.
Before he could speak, Tsunade answered his unspoken question. "There was a small opening on the far side of the cave. I've sealed it."
"And those three?" he asked, his voice flat. "What about them?"
"What about them?" she countered softly.
"You should have finished them. They could expose our position."
"That's why I bound them here. And Orochimaru… they're just kids."
"Enemy kids," Orochimaru pointed out.
"Kids nonetheless. Orochimaru, we may have seen and done terrible things in this war, but there are lines we do not cross," she said, her eyes narrowing as she lowered the children onto the cold stone floor.
"Still so naive, after all the bloodshed we've seen?" Orochimaru murmured.
Tsunade didn't reply; she simply met his cold gaze.
"Fine. Do as you please," Orochimaru said quietly. "But remember—the moment they do anything suspicious, they're dead."
Nearby, the three children were shaking quietly, eyes squeezed shut. A tear trickled down the girl's cheek.
They had heard every word, terrified for their lives. Tsunade and Orochimaru both knew it—Tsunade hadn't struck them hard enough to keep them unconscious for long. They were playing bad cop and good cop on them—or at least that's what Tsunade liked to believe.
Orochimaru, however, was entirely serious. He was the pragmatist of their team; both Jiraiya and Tsunade possessed strong moral consciences, though this brutal war was slowly wearing them down. Tsunade had taken it considerably well compared to Jiraiya. But in the end, if push came to shove, he would make the hard decision for them.
"Be thankful to them," Tsunade said, cutting through the silence as she picked up a large, patched pouch she had taken from the girl. "She was carrying something we desperately need right now."
Inside were various wild plants, berries, and other things but most importantly there were a few medicinal herbs.
Ignoring everything else, Tsunade selected the necessary stalks and began crushing them into a fine paste. She spread the mixture directly over the wound on Orochimaru's right arm, then popped her final soldier pill. Her hands glowed with a vibrant green chakra as she pressed her palms over the poultice.
For over ten minutes of intense focus, she forced her chakra through the mixture. Slowly, the green paste turned a dark, bruised purple as it drew the lingering toxins straight out of Orochimaru's flesh.
Once finished, she wiped away the tainted sludge, applied a fresh layer of unmedicated herbs, and bandaged his arm tightly.
"Rest," Tsunade said, wiping a sheen of sweat from her forehead. "I've extracted the bulk of the venom. The ointment will handle the rest."
The continuous hours of high-stakes battle followed by exhaustive medical ninjutsu were visibly taking their toll on her.
Orochimaru gave a faint nod and closed his eyes.
"Are… are you going to kill us?"
One of the boys spoke up, his voice trembling with fear as he tried to stand brave in front of his two friends.
"Should I?" Tsunade asked neutrally. She lit a small fire in the center of the cave as the sky outside darkened, placing a kunai blade directly into the embers while pulling rations from a storage scroll.
"Shouldn't you?" the boy said with resentment as courage surged through his terror. "You're a ninja. It's what you do—killing, burning, looting everything. You killed my family—no, so many families. You destroyed everything… You have all this power, and you use it for war!"
Tears spilled over his cheeks, his eyes burning with raw hatred. "If only I had power… I could have protected them!"
Having lost his parents and watched his small village burn to ash, the guilt and rage that had been simmering inside him finally boiled over, assuming these were his final moments.
Tsunade paused, her hand hovering over her gear. What could she even say to him? They were malnourished, traumatized orphans of a conflict larger than any of them.
She watched the tip of the kunai in the fire glow a dull, dangerous red. Taking the handle, she pulled it from the flames. The bound children gasped, flinching back in fear.
Ignoring their reaction, Tsunade unzipped her green flak jacket, pulling up her blood-stained shirt and mesh armor to expose the raw, jagged wound on her abdomen—an injury that would have proven fatal to almost anyone else.
In the firelight, the deep tear was horrifyingly clear to the children.
"...Kid, the world isn't fair. Not to you, not to your friends, and not to your village," Tsunade said softly, her eyes hardening as she looked at him. "But do you think you're the only one who has suffered? Who has lost people? I lost my parents before I was old enough to understand what death meant. I lost my grandfather, who raised me. I lost my grand-uncle. I've lost more people than I can count… Now, I am only left with my grandmother and my little brother, and I have no intention of losing either of them."
She held the glowing red metal above her skin.
"You said it yourself—if you had power, you'd protect them. I have power, and I am protecting mine. Konoha didn't start this war, kid… but we sure as hell are going to end it."
She pressed the white-hot blade directly against the open wound.
A sharp hiss of sizzling flesh and burnt iron filled the small cave. Tsunade clenched her jaw, her knuckles turning white as agony scorched through her senses, but she didn't scream.