Chapter 132: The Heavy Rain of the Damned
In the Land of Rain, the sky didn't weep; it suffocated. The downpour was a constant, iron-gray curtain that turned the world into a muddy purgatory where the line between the living and the dead was as thin as a kunai's edge.
Hanzo of the Salamander stood atop the highest ventilation pipe of Amegakure, his respirator hissing with every rhythmic breath. Below him, his village was a labyrinth of rusted steel and flickering neon, drowning in the overflow of three Great Nations using his home as a chessboard.
"Lord Hanzo," a masked subordinate knelt in the puddles. "The casualty reports from the southern marshes. A Stone battalion was wiped out, but not by our men. They were found... overgrown. Bound by wood that turned to iron. And the Leaf units in the area have vanished without a trace."
Hanzo narrowed his eyes behind his glass visor. "The Senju are supposed to be a dying breed. Hiruzen is hoarding them in the capital like antique vases. If the Mokuton has returned to the battlefield, the 'Will of Fire' isn't as cold as the spies claimed."
"That's the strange part, sir," the scout hesitated. "There are no bodies. Just... silence."
Hanzo looked toward the horizon, where the thunder of distant explosions rolled. "Silence is the most dangerous weapon in a war of noise. Watch the borders. I will not have a ghost claiming my territory."
Ten miles away, tucked into a cavern that smelled of wet dogs and cheap tobacco, two men who would one day be legends sat across from a flickering campfire.
Jiraiya was uncharacteristically silent, his thumb tracing the rim of a chipped sake cup. Beside him, Orochimaru was cleaning a blade, his pale skin looking almost translucent in the dim light. They weren't Sannin yet—they were just commanders of a failing front, exhausted by the endless attrition of the Rain.
"Twenty-one men, Orochimaru," Jiraiya muttered, his voice cracking. "Hizashi's unit in the North, now a Senju platoon in the marshes. They just... stop existing. No blood, no clothes, no headbands. It's like the earth is opening up and swallowing the best of us."
Orochimaru didn't look up. "Perhaps the earth is simply more merciful than the Hokage. Hiruzen Sensei is playing a defensive game, Jiraiya. He sends the clans to the front to prove their loyalty, but he doesn't give them the resources to win. He's burning the foundation to keep the roof from leaking."
"Don't talk like that," Jiraiya snapped. "Tsunade is already a ghost. If she hears that even the Senju vanguards are being 'swallowed,' she'll never come back to the front."
Orochimaru paused, his yellow eyes glinting. "You know Sensei is also in fault for my disciple Nawaki's death and as for Tsunade, she is already gone, Jiraiya. She stays in the hospital in Konoha because she cannot bear to see the 'Will' she was raised to believe in crumble into the mud. She mourns Nawaki, she mourns a dream that died the moment Konoha din't help their ally. A ally saved by pirates while konoha the so-called strongest village was doing nothing but waiting for chance."
Jiraiya became silent."Now Jiraiya if you don't have anything to say then leave me alone. I have some experiment to do." Oruchimaru said and walk away.
While the Rain was a theater of mud, Konoha was a theater of gold and lies.
In the high-stakes ward of the Konoha General Hospital, Tsunade Senju sat in a darkened office. A bottle of high-grade sake sat unopened on her desk, right next to a framed photograph of a smiling, bright-eyed Nawaki.
She didn't cry. She had run out of tears months ago when the official report came in: Nawaki Senju - Killed in Action. Body unrecoverable due to explosive tag chain reaction.
"A hero's death," she whispered, her voice dripping with venom. "That's what they called it."
A knock at the door signaled the arrival of a messenger. "Tsunade-sama... the Council. Danzo-sama is requesting a status report on the medical seals for the front. He says the supply level of the Uchiha units is 'unacceptably high' and wants to know if the supplies can be redirected to the Root squads."
Tsunade stood up, the chair screeching against the floor. Her medical chakra flickered violently around her hands, cracking the surface of her desk.
"Tell Danzo," she said, her eyes cold enough to freeze the room, "that if he wants to play god with the lives of my people, he can come down here and say it to my face. Otherwise, tell him to stay in his hole before I turn his 'Root' into mulch. And I am going to Uzushio to meet our cousin clan Uzumaki."
As the messenger scrambled away, Tsunade looked back at the photo of her brother. Something felt wrong. The grief was there, heavy and suffocating, but there was a strange, nagging sensation in the back of her mind—a pull in her chakra that she couldn't explain.
She felt as though she were mourning a person who wasn't quite gone.
She didn't know that miles away, across the sea, her "dead" brother was currently standing in a high-tech gravity chamber, learning how to be the very thing Konoha feared most: A Sovereign.
Author's Note:
Showing the perspective of the "outside" world makes Rimon's actions feel much more impactful. To Jiraiya and Orochimaru, the "disappearances" are a terrifying mystery. To Tsunade, it's a wound that won't heal. And to Hanzo, it's a threat to his sovereignty.
This sets the stage for the Broken Sword Protocol to escalate. When the "Sannin" eventually encounter the ghost of Uzushio, the emotional fallout is going to be massive.