After Bessa and his group left, the Hidden Rain Village was managed by Bessa's trusted aides.
They essentially held all the important positions within the village, effectively suppressing those loyal to Hanzo.
Without Bessa's direct orders, they would not act against dissidents in the village, only monitor their every move.
If the dissidents were smart, they would be cautious.
Hanzo's confidants naturally understood this, but through secret intelligence, they learned that Hanzo was planning to take action today, intending to eliminate Bessa upon leaving the village.
As for the others in the village, they had additional reinforcements, though who these reinforcements were, they did not know.
The only thing they knew was that the reinforcements would send a signal at the appropriate time, and then everyone would understand.
Therefore, they were all calmly waiting for the signal Hanzo had mentioned.
The Hidden Rain Village, shrouded in heavy rain, appeared desolate.
Every ninja was bundled up, their faces concealed by masks, a stark contrast to the Five Great Ninja Villages where ninjas openly displayed their true faces to the villagers.
This was a unique characteristic of the Hidden Rain Village.
Aside from the incessant sound of rain, almost no other sounds could be heard.
Except in their own rooms, Hidden Rain ninjas generally did not chat, only silently carrying out their missions.
In a hidden spot near the village entrance, Hidden Rain Anbu ninjas quietly observed, checking for any suspicious individuals outside or monitoring the village.
These ninjas wouldn't utter a single word, only staring out through cracks with cold eyes.
Periodically, the Hidden Rain Anbu would deliver intelligence to their captain, a trusted aide of Bessa named Uss.
As the captain of the Hidden Rain Anbu, he was also carrying out a surveillance mission, primarily observing Hanzo's confidants.
Should they make any move, Uss was to immediately gather the village's elite to suppress them.
However, at this moment, Uss was not at his surveillance post.
The Hidden Rain ninjas, focused on their own missions, hadn't noticed that their captain had disappeared.
Where had Uss gone? The Hidden Rain ninjas likely wouldn't have imagined that he had secretly gone to the surveillance points of those confidants, appearing behind the Anbu responsible for monitoring.
Without a sound, the Anbu at that location silently collapsed.
Uss quickly retreated back into the shadows, and when he reappeared, it was at another surveillance point, where the Anbu there also couldn't escape the fate of death.
As the saying goes, a thief in the family is hard to guard against, especially a high-ranking one, who often brings about even more severe consequences.
For example, Itachi Uchiha easily eliminated the dangerous Uchiha clan from within, and Yura, a high-ranking official in the Hidden Sand Village, secretly eliminated the peripheral Hidden Sand ninjas, allowing Sasori and Deidara to easily enter the Hidden Sand Village.
Yes, Uss was the trusted aide who had been swayed by Hanzo.
Hanzo knew who to turn to deliver a stab in the back to Bessa.
He had repeatedly investigated Uss's background and past, eventually using his past shadows and the promise of a bright future to entice him, causing Uss to betray Bessa.
After Uss killed another person, he finally let out a soft sigh.
He knew which individuals were loyal to Bessa, and these people had to be eliminated, but he still felt uncomfortable, as they had been his subordinates for many years.
Fortunately, he didn't have to eliminate everyone.
Uss turned around and looked at the Anbu members who had defected.
They had all accumulated dissatisfaction with Bessa due to various reasons, big and small, and held hope for cooperation with the Hidden Leaf ninjas.
Therefore, they abandoned their loyalty to their leader and joined Hanzo's ranks.
After all the wavering Anbu ninjas were dead, Uss brazenly entered a house—the home of Masashige, Hanzo's right-hand man.
The moment he appeared, Masashige, who was inside the house, stood up in surprise, looking at Uss with both vigilance and confusion, and asked, "Is something wrong?"
"A major event is imminent, why are you still idling here?" Uss said bluntly.
Upon hearing this, Masashige suddenly realized that the other party was the reinforcement Hanzo had mentioned.
He was greatly surprised; turning the Anbu captain, who was responsible for collecting village intelligence, meant that Bessa's faction would become handicapped, unable to hear or see, while their own side would have a huge advantage.
"As expected of Lord Hanzo, to be able to accomplish such a thing."
"Are we acting now?" Masashige asked.
"Otherwise, when should we wait? If we wait until they notice, our preemptive advantage will be gone, and our advantage will diminish over time," Uss said.
"Alright!" Masashige nodded decisively, agreeing.
"I'll go contact the others right away.
First, we need to control the important positions within the village."
"I will provide you with intelligence," Uss said.
Thus, everyone present sprang into action, just like Kinkaku and Ginkaku nearly a decade ago, beginning to contact their comrades.
With the intelligence provided by Uss, they unknowingly approached those locations, then suddenly launched an attack, capturing all the Hidden Rain ninjas inside.
At first, those people didn't know what was happening.
How did Hanzo's confidants inexplicably appear here? Why hadn't any intelligence been transmitted?
But upon seeing Uss appear, they seemed to understand something, feeling a surge of indignation and a sense of betrayal.
"Uss! The leader treated you well, why would you do such a thing!" one of them shouted.
If it were someone Uss had no relation to, he wouldn't have bothered to reply, but since the other party was his former colleague, he felt he should say a few words.
After thinking for a moment, he replied, "The leader did treat me well, but the leader failed the people."
The other person looked astonished, clearly not expecting such a reply from Uss.
After a while, he seemed to have heard something incredible, shaking his head and saying, "Just for that reason, you—"
"This reason?" Having served in the Anbu for many years, Uss's emotions hadn't fluctuated for a long time.
The last time was when Hanzo came to recruit him, and the same issue struck a painful chord in his heart.
Uss coldly stared at his captured colleague, wanting to say something, but not knowing where to begin.
Finally, he gave up.
The other person was a thorough Warring States period ninja, likely unable to understand his thoughts, just as he couldn't understand Bessa's recent ideas.
"If only you had read the Shinobi Sect classics," Uss murmured to himself.
The other person's ears were sharp, and he heard Uss's muttering.
The Shinobi Sect classics, which had only existed in ancient texts, had recently been unearthed in the Land of Demons by the Third Hokage of the Hidden Leaf Village.
For some unknown reason, they quickly became a trend throughout the ninja world continent.
Even in the impoverished Land of Rain, the Shinobi Sect classics had made their way in, not as authentic books, but as handwritten copies by some individuals.
For the impoverished citizens of the Land of Rain, the principles within the Shinobi Sect classics were truly appealing.
Perhaps the Hidden Leaf Village's advocacy and adherence to the Shinobi Sect classics was another factor why the people of the Land of Rain were willing to accept the Hidden Leaf Village.
In the eyes of Bessa and others, this was a sinister plot by the Hidden Leaf Village to mentally crush the people of the Land of Rain.
Therefore, they exerted strong suppression against it, and precisely because of this, the people of the Land of Rain increasingly identified with the principles in the Shinobi Sect classics, and resented the attitude of the Hidden Rain Village, which in a sense became a vicious cycle.
Uss would never forget the handwritten fragments he found on a mission target during one of his assignments, nor would he forget the experiences of that mission and the eyes of those people before they died.
He had always thought of himself as having a heart of stone, but perhaps he still had some remnants of conscience.
Guilt led him to turn his attention to the Shinobi Sect classics.
He didn't tell anyone, but his thoughts were unknowingly influenced.
If it had been a thousand years ago, he might have tried to join the Shinobi Sect.
Not long ago, this secret was discovered by Hanzo.
After communication, Uss seemed to resolve his inner confusion and truly understood everything Hanzo was doing.
Only then did he unreservedly betray the leader he had originally served.
This inner experience was likely something these people could not understand.
Whether they understood or not was irrelevant; they didn't need to understand.
Before Hanzo returned, these people had already been executed.
With the death of their leaders, the remaining people could not form effective resistance and were quickly suppressed.
Then Masashige announced all the causes and effects, denouncing the adverse effects brought by Bessa's isolationist policy, and explaining how Hanzo's new policies would transform the village.
To be honest, most Hidden Rain ninjas felt that Hanzo's ideology was better, but many had not immediately expressed it due to Bessa's long-standing authority.
Now that Bessa's confidants were dead, and if no accidents occurred, Bessa himself would also be eliminated by Hanzo, who was accompanying him.
So what was the point of hiding anything?
Most people in the village began to support the new leadership centered around Hanzo.
It could be said that the reform of the Hidden Rain Village had succeeded; even if Bessa returned alive, he might not be able to restore things to their original state, let alone the fact that he couldn't return at all.
One day later, Hanzo returned to the Hidden Rain Village.
Bessa's head was sealed in the scroll he carried.
All obstacles had been removed, and he would ascend to the position of the Hidden Rain leader.