"Kazekage. What exactly is the meaning of this?"
It was Hanzo who spoke first, his voice carrying the edge of a formal challenge.
"Is it not clear enough?" Yuji said with an easy smile. "Your Hidden Rain Village conspired with Konoha. Akatsuki asked for our help. That is the whole of it."
"In other words, the Sand Village is siding with rebels and interfering in our Land of Rain's internal affairs," Hanzo said, drawing a slow breath.
His head had begun to ache. Not simply because the Fourth Kazekage and two others had suddenly appeared on the field. But because of something far more specific.
His poison.
The ability that had earned him the title of a ninja world demigod was his poison. On any battlefield, its lethality was overwhelming. It had almost never failed him. But the one enemy type Hanzo had least wanted to encounter throughout his entire life was the Sand Village.
Against Sand Village ninja, his poison's effectiveness was cut in half at minimum. They carried antidotes. And both the Fourth Kazekage and Sasori were, without question, masters of poison in their own right.
Without that single trump card, relying on personal strength alone, sustaining the title of demigod became considerably harder to justify. Furthermore, his age was no longer what it had been. Since the Second Great Ninja War he had been living comfortably within the Land of Rain, and compared to himself at his peak, he had declined more than just slightly.
So Hanzo turned to the most available pressure point available to him, framing the Sand Village's involvement as interference in the Land of Rain's internal governance, a provocation capable of triggering war between nations, something that would burden the Sand Village with consequences at home regardless of how this confrontation ended.
A war quagmire, once entered, carried consequences no village could call insignificant. And even if the Fourth Kazekage had been the one to start trouble, if the Sand Village handled it poorly it would face accountability from its own people and criticism from every other nation and village in the ninja world.
"Land of Rain's internal affairs?"
Before Yuji could respond, Sasori had already stepped forward to stand beside him, locking eyes with Hanzo.
Hanzo's expression tightened. He was the ninja world's demigod. When had anyone ever looked at him like that?
"Was the Land of Rain not built through your own use of force to seize territory that did not belong to you?" Yuji continued before Hanzo could respond to Sasori. "And furthermore, the Land of Rain has never established a complete political system. You built a ninja village, but by any serious measure, you have never received official recognition from the great nations' Daimyo offices."
Every Hidden Rain ninja present felt a surge of fury ignite in their chest upon hearing this.
"If we are being honest, all we are doing is responding in kind, using the same methods you used," Yuji said with a light smile.
On the other side of the field, Nagato had already wrapped his arms around Konan and was pulling back rapidly, the frantic emotion in him finally finding a sliver of clarity as the immediate threat had receded. Yahiko, displaced by the Ope Ope no Mi's ability, had returned to stand beside them.
"Yahiko," Konan said, looking at him with eyes that carried a mixture of guilt and exhausted relief.
The situation in the clearing made further words unnecessary. Even Yahiko, idealistic as he was, understood immediately that Konan and Nagato had gone behind his back and made some kind of arrangement with the Sand Village.
But if the Fourth Kazekage had not arrived when he did, Yahiko would already be dead. And not only him. The rest of Akatsuki would have had no better fate waiting for them.
From the simple perspective of what had actually happened, the Fourth Kazekage had just saved Akatsuki's life.
"What did you promise him?" Yahiko asked, rain running down his face as he looked at Konan.
"The Land of Rain," Konan said quietly, forcing the three words out.
Then immediately she added more.
"The Sand Village wants to help us take control of the Land of Rain and overthrow Hanzo's dominance. As long as Akatsuki accepts governance of the country, even if we have to give up some portion of the benefits, the Land of Rain can finally recover its stability and begin developing."
She held his gaze.
"Yoru was right about everything. On our own, we could never stand against both Hanzo and Konoha simultaneously. The Hidden Rain Village has already allied with Konoha. Without asking the Sand Village for help, we had no realistic path to winning this."
Yahiko looked at Nagato after hearing this.
Nagato's expression made it clear he agreed with every word Konan had said.
"But this is not the peace I wanted," Yahiko said, closing his eyes and speaking in a low voice that carried the weight of something deeply considered.
"We must hold the fate of this country tightly in our own hands, without depending on any outside force whatsoever. Only then can absolute sovereignty be guaranteed. It is difficult. I know it is. But it is the only genuine way to liberate this country. The moment we become entangled with any other power, there will come a day when many of the decisions that should be ours to make will no longer be ours."
"But you are alive," Konan said, her voice trembling. "You are alive. And so are our comrades."
Yahiko fell silent.
This was why he could not bring himself to be angry with them. Everything Konan and Nagato had done behind his back had come from the bond the three of them shared, from their care for him and for each other. And it had genuinely preserved the organization's future, its ideals, and its people from being silenced forever.
Up on the high ground, one of the Hidden Rain's senior commanders moved quietly to Danzo's side and spoke in a low voice, asking for instructions.
The situation had suddenly become something none of them had prepared for.
What were they supposed to do now?
Were they still going to move against Akatsuki alongside the Hidden Rain soldiers?
"Prepare to withdraw," Danzo said without the slightest hesitation, issuing the order directly.
"Understood."
There was nothing amusing about this situation.
His reason for involving himself in the first place had been to prevent the Hidden Rain Village and Akatsuki from joining forces, which would have expanded the Land of Rain's military influence further and created a threat to Konoha. The convenient secondary gain had been securing Hanzo's goodwill and ensuring the Land of Rain would not turn against the Land of Fire.
But at no point had he ever intended to provoke a direct confrontation with the Sand Village.
Furthermore, a schemer of his depth could read the situation at a glance. The Fourth Kazekage had come here specifically for Hanzo. There was no indication whatsoever of any intention to engage Konoha's forces.
Danzo had even begun to suspect that the entire scene unfolding before him had been orchestrated from the shadows by the Kazekage, a trap set for Hanzo with Akatsuki as the bait.
Konoha had been drawn into this without ever being the intended target.
Thinking this, Danzo quietly began pulling back, and the Konoha ninja around him started tightening their formation. The moment things moved further in the wrong direction, they would be gone.
But Hanzo, being the kind of man he was, chose precisely that moment to let out a cold laugh.
"Only three of you? However impressive your abilities, you honestly believe you can fight against the combined forces of the Hidden Rain Village and Konoha? During the Second Great Ninja War, you were nothing but a naive newcomer who had barely found his footing. I never imagined those years would turn you into a Kazekage."
He paused, his voice carrying a dark weight.
"Those who have called themselves powerful and died at my hands are beyond counting. You will simply be one more name on that list."
"Since you have come here to die by your own choice, allow me to show you something. Let me show you why I am called a demigod."
The moment those words reached Danzo, his expression darkened considerably.
Hanzo was deliberately trying to drag Konoha down into this.
"We have no intention of going to war with the Sand Village," Danzo said quickly, attempting to establish Konoha's position before things escalated further. "Our two villages signed a ceasefire agreement long ago. Our involvement today was only..."
But Hanzo did not give him the time to finish the sentence.
In an instant, Hanzo activated his summoning technique.
A giant salamander emerged.
Simultaneously, Hanzo issued the order to attack.
His intent was absolutely transparent. He had clearly anticipated that Danzo would try to extract himself from the situation. So he had moved first to ignite the battle, throwing the entire scene into chaos so that the Konoha forces would be dragged in whether they chose it or not, with no clean path to disengage.
Danzo saw through the ploy immediately. The fury it ignited in him was enough to make him grind his teeth.
This man had just picked up a rock and dropped it on his own foot and taken Konoha with him.
"Protect the commander! Withdraw!"
Watching the enormous Hidden Rain forces begin pouring toward Yuji's group of three and Akatsuki in the low ground below, several Konoha ninja instantly surrounded Danzo and pulled him toward the outer edge of the battlefield. The remaining Konoha forces immediately shifted formation, forming a human barrier to shield Danzo from the surrounding chaos and interference as they retreated.
Up on the high ground, the summoned salamander opened its massive mouth and expelled a thick, churning cloud of deep black toxic smoke directly down toward Yuji and the others below.
Sasori spun two scrolls open in his hands.
And Yuji brought both hands together in a rapid sequence of seals, then drove his palms against the ground beneath him.
At his motion, a tremendous surge of blood rose and boiled upward, lifting Yuji, Sasori, and Rasa swiftly into the air.
The enormous mass of blood spread in an instant across the low ground below them, transforming into a vast, shimmering crimson lake.
The dark pattern markings of the Yin Seal appeared across Yuji's face and forehead.
He released his chakra without the slightest restraint.
"Blood Release: Netherworld Mist."
He fused his bloodline limit with Water Release transformation techniques, formed the final seals, and spoke the technique's name in a cold and measured voice.
The moment the words left his mouth, the enormous blood lake below them began to evaporate.
A deep crimson haze rose from its surface, thick and heavy, spreading outward in every direction.
"You want to play with poison?" Yuji called across the distance toward Hanzo, smiling. "Then let us play."
"This is bad!"
Every person on that battlefield went pale simultaneously at what they were witnessing.
The Fourth Kazekage's Blood Poison. Throughout the entire ninja world, those words alone were enough to make anyone's complexion change.
...
STONES 💎
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