Akatsuki and the Hidden Rain Village officially began their negotiations.
The proposal Hanzo put forward this time was one Yahiko could not easily refuse. The Hidden Rain Village claimed it needed Akatsuki's strength to conduct negotiations with the three great nations, the Land of Wind, the Land of Fire, and the Land of Earth, on the Land of Rain's behalf.
The goal was to formally break free from the Land of Rain's status in the eyes of other nations as nothing more than a strategic buffer zone, and to be recognized as a genuine sovereign nation with absolute authority over its own affairs.
Furthermore, the Hidden Rain Village offered to support Akatsuki in spreading their ideals of peace throughout the ninja world, bringing a fresh new face to the entire ninja order.
The Hidden Rain Village needing to borrow Akatsuki's strength as justification was not something Yahiko's group could find fault with on the surface. If the negotiation succeeded, Akatsuki would genuinely be helping their country, changing the Land of Rain's position against the various pressures it faced from the surrounding great nations.
It also implied that Akatsuki and the Hidden Rain Village would no longer be enemies, nor would Akatsuki be absorbed into the village's structure. Instead, they would be partners, building the country's future together through cooperation.
Of course, Konan and Nagato did not believe any of it.
But neither of them could change Yahiko's decision. After all, Yahiko was the organization's leader.
And so, when Yahiko led Akatsuki to meet with Salamander Hanzo in what would turn out to be their final such encounter, he had no idea whatsoever that the Hidden Rain Village had dug such a vast and deep trap waiting for him.
Because according to Hanzo's stated reasoning, achieving the Land of Rain's goal absolutely required borrowing Akatsuki's strength. Yahiko believed that a warrior and powerful figure of Hanzo's caliber would not possibly fail to want a better and stronger Land of Rain, one that could welcome the dawn of peace rather than remain mired in its current chaos.
He genuinely did not know that Hanzo had already fallen completely.
The understanding he had formed about Hanzo in his heart was wrong.
To ambush Akatsuki and eliminate them in a single stroke, the Hidden Rain Village had deployed a truly enormous military force. Yet the group Yahiko had led to the meeting consisted only of the core frontline members, creating an overwhelming numerical disparity between the two sides.
And beyond that, during the meeting with Hanzo, something changed without warning.
The Hidden Rain Village exploited the environment and psychological tactics to the fullest. The moment all the Akatsuki members genuinely believed the Hidden Rain Village was there to negotiate in good faith and had lowered their guard, a sudden sneak attack erupted and Konan was seized and taken captive.
The Hidden Rain soldiers facing Yahiko's group had appeared few in number. Hanzo had kept the conversation centered on negotiation throughout, his tone unmistakably sincere. All of this framing had been deliberately constructed to ensure Yahiko was completely unprepared for what suddenly happened.
The moment Yahiko realized Konan was in danger, Akatsuki immediately moved to pursue.
But Hanzo simply continued pulling back with his subordinates, retreating just far enough, leading the pursuing Akatsuki members step by step into the waiting ambush they had prepared.
The Akatsuki force led by Yahiko was completely surrounded by the Hidden Rain's main army.
The situation had become critical.
Or perhaps more accurately, the outcome had already been decided.
Though on the way in, Yahiko had sensed something was wrong and had already sent someone back to call for reinforcements. But there was almost certainly not enough time left.
"So young," Hanzo murmured from a high vantage point, having effortlessly led Yahiko's group into the trap. He looked down at the collection of young faces below him and could not suppress a cold laugh.
He had not even expected the plan to succeed this smoothly.
Of course, the ambush's success was largely due to Danzo's contributions as well. The preliminary strategy of presenting deliberate battlefield weakness had successfully convinced Akatsuki that the Hidden Rain Village did not have access to the level of force it was now revealing. Combined with the carefully chosen words during the conversation with Yahiko, the deception had held completely.
But the most critical factor had always been Yahiko's particular brand of idealism as a leader. This young man had fundamentally never grasped that the ninja world was a brutal and unforgiving chain of survival. Larger predators consumed smaller ones. That was its only real law.
"Peace? In the Land of Rain, I am peace," Hanzo said, his eyes narrowing as he looked down at Konan kneeling beside him. His voice was cold. "Your fate was decided before you arrived here."
"Stop wasting words on them. Move quickly."
A voice rang out. Danzo stepped forward from a position at the rear of the high ground, his figure emerging into view. Walking out alongside him was a group of Konoha ninja, every one of them wearing masks.
"Konoha!"
The moment Konan and Nagato saw Danzo himself, both felt something shake inside them simultaneously.
Yoru had been right about everything.
It really had been Konoha pulling strings from behind the scenes.
Konoha's forces appearing here eliminated any remaining possibility that Akatsuki could fight their way to survival. The odds had collapsed to nothing.
Konan had been captured, her life hanging by a thread, but she still managed to hold onto a fragile clarity of mind.
Because she had already made contact with the reinforcements beforehand.
The Fourth Kazekage had promised her he would act when the moment of need arrived.
But where was he?
Konan's eyes swept frantically across the surrounding area. Beyond the mass of Hidden Rain and Konoha ninja, she could see no trace whatsoever of any Sand Village presence.
Then suddenly Konan's expression twisted in pain as Hanzo grabbed her roughly and hauled her entire body upward, holding her as he stared directly at Yahiko.
He paid no particular attention to Danzo's urging and instead spoke with a faint quality of appreciation beneath the cold authority in his voice.
"I will give credit where it is due. For you to have come this far is genuinely admirable. I acknowledged your abilities before, when I first proposed bringing you into the Hidden Rain Village as soldiers. You should have accepted then."
He paused.
"I will give you one more opportunity now."
Danzo stood to one side and did not interject. He understood Hanzo's intent perfectly.
Akatsuki's roots came from a single source: Yahiko. As long as this leader was eliminated, Akatsuki would splinter into fragments overnight and cease to pose any threat. And the Hidden Rain Village would then have the opportunity to absorb a wave of talented fighters who had nowhere else to go.
Submit to the Hidden Rain Village, or die.
The choice was theirs to make.
Danzo had absolutely no desire to see the Hidden Rain Village and Akatsuki form any kind of alliance. But he also saw Akatsuki's situation with complete clarity. The organization's strength had always flowed from a single source: Yahiko.
The moment Yahiko died, whatever portion of Akatsuki's forces chose to remain would simply become Hidden Rain Village soldiers. And given Hanzo's current temperament, he would be incapable of properly cultivating those people. If anything, absorbing them would plant the seeds of future trouble.
Beyond that, Akatsuki's members had been shaped so deeply by Yahiko's influence that even facing the threat of death, most of them would likely refuse to submit to the Hidden Rain Village.
A handful of new additions would not be enough to give Konoha any reason for concern.
So the only thing that truly needed to happen was Yahiko's death.
Danzo did not particularly care about Hanzo's small theatrical ambitions.
Then, without warning, Hanzo used Konan's life as leverage and demanded that Nagato kill Yahiko with his own hand.
The sky above the Land of Rain was heavy with dark clouds pressing low. The atmosphere in the clearing had reached a suffocating intensity.
For Nagato, even though he and Konan had anticipated this outcome from the beginning and had prepared for it, now that it was truly unfolding before him, clarity refused to come. Panic was all he could find.
Because Yahiko had already turned to face him across the open ground, without a moment's hesitation, telling him directly to act. To kill him.
Nagato's hand tightened around his kunai, his mind dissolving into frantic desperation. His eyes darted involuntarily up toward Konan on the high ground as he cried out.
"Where are they? Where are the Sand Village ninja? Did you not contact them? You said you did!"
His voice carried a raw urgency that had broken past composure entirely.
Why? Why had the Sand Village not arrived yet?
With the Sand Village's military strength, breaking through the current situation in the Land of Rain would be as simple as turning a hand. They did not even need a large force. A single elite unit reaching this location in time would have been enough to shift the entire situation.
"Leader!"
"Nagato!"
But at the very moment Nagato's eyes moved toward Konan on the high ground, Konan's expression suddenly changed and she let out a sharp cry.
On Akatsuki's side, another voice shouted out at the same moment.
Yahiko, understanding that Nagato could never truly raise his hand against him, moved in an instant, driving the kunai in Nagato's hand toward himself.
He intended to end his own life.
In that moment of chaos, with Nagato's mind scattered beyond recovery, there was simply no way to react in time.
"The Sand Village?!"
But above them, watching this scene unfold, both Hanzo and Danzo suddenly went pale.
They had not cared in the least about Yahiko's death.
What had struck them like a thunderbolt was the word that had burst from Nagato's mouth.
What did it mean?
The Sand Village. Akatsuki had allied with the Sand Village?
Since when?
In the space of a single breath, both men's minds were racing at full speed.
Swoosh.
And then, at the precise moment Yahiko was about to be struck by the kunai in Nagato's hand, something happened that had no warning whatsoever.
Yahiko, still mid-motion, vanished into empty air without a trace, his body displaced dozens of meters outside the clearing in an instant.
Hanzo and Danzo both seemed to sense something simultaneously and snapped their heads upward.
In the sky above them, a cloud of golden dust was spreading and drifting.
"That is... Gold Dust Release!"
Both men's pupils contracted sharply.
A second later, a dark figure dropped from above and landed on the ground with a heavy impact. The extraordinary height of the fall should have been devastating, but the figure's body sustained no injury whatsoever. Only a layer of crystallized blood armor shattered and fell away on impact. The ground beneath where they landed split and cracked outward in a wide web pattern like a broken mirror.
"Good. Made it just in time."
The man who had suddenly appeared rose slowly from the ground, his tone carrying an unmistakable note of casual amusement.
"Quite the lively gathering here. Two respected elders traveling all this way to bully the young. Is that not a little unkind?"
When the man raised his face and it became visible, Hanzo's breathing slowed involuntarily.
Danzo could not stop himself from stepping back.
Because the person who had arrived was the Sand Village's Fourth Kazekage.
The man whose battle record and sheer audacity had dominated the entire Third Great Ninja War.
"Room!"
Without waiting for the Hidden Rain or Konoha forces to react, Yuji expanded the domain in an instant.
Then, without any physical contact across the distance between them, he snapped his fingers once in Konan's direction.
In that same instant, Konan, who had been held in Hanzo's grip, reappeared beside Yuji as though she had simply ceased to exist in Hanzo's hands.
Above them, the cloud of gold dust that had been drifting in the sky slowly descended.
Standing atop it was a figure with arms crossed over his chest, expression cold, red hair catching the rain, eyes burning with killing intent.
Akasuna no Sasori of the Sand Village.
And beside him, executing the Gold Dust technique with an expression equally grave.
Rasa.
Including Yuji, three people in total had arrived.
Only three.
And yet the moment they appeared, the entire atmosphere of the battlefield changed completely.
Something was very wrong about this. The feeling that settled over the assembled forces was impossible to name but impossible to ignore.
"Let us change opponents. Allow me to play with the two of you for a while."
The moment those words left his mouth, both Hanzo, who had not yet found a counter to any of this, and Danzo, who had spent a lifetime engineering other people's downfalls, went utterly silent.
Neither of them dared to respond.
...
STONES 💎
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