[Land of Rain, Amegakure Border]
The rain hissed over scorched earth.
Konoha's retreating forces had left craters smoking with residual fire jutsu, their banners trampled into mud. Hanzo of the Salamander knelt beside his dying partner, Hodoro, a kenjutsu specialist who had once been his teammate.
Soon, he stopped breathing.
His gaze went straight to his summon, a massive Salamander, its gargantuan body riddled with kunai and burns. The battle had cost him. His breath rattled behind his cracked mask, lungs seared by Uchiha flames. Even legends bled.
"Lord Hanzo!" A chūnin stumbled forward, clutching a scroll. "The perimeter is secure. Konoha's remnants are fleeing south—"
Hanzo's hand shot out, crushing the man's windpipe. "Silence." The corpse slumped. Weakness disgusted him. Amegakure's defenses were fraying, his body a tapestry of old wounds. But pride kept him upright—until the air shivered.
Fūton: Red Wind Scythe [S-Rank]
A blade of crimson-tinted wind split the rain, shearing through Hanzo's remaining salamander in a geyser of viscera. He leapt back, his legendary poison scythe raised, but the follow-up strike came faster—a hurricane of blood-colored gusts that carved a canyon through the battlefield. Hanzo could not believe his eyes.
'Another kage-level figure attacking me?', he mused, 'It's not possible...Kumogakure should have Hiruzen's hands full...and the Uchihas just retreated...If not Konoha, then who?'
Danzo landed atop the injured summon, his right arm glowing with swirling black seals. The Reverse Four Symbols Seal pulsed hungrily, its tendrils crawling up his neck. The Uzumaki seal had absorbed more than five thousand souls at this point, their spiritual force hummed in its matrix, their collective will strangling the Four-Tails' protests into silence. It was not a forbidden jutsu for no reason. The more he killed, and the stronger the shinobi souls he harnessed, the more control he yielded over the four-tails.
"Hanzo," Danzo said, voice layered with the growl of the suppressed bijuu. "You look… diminished."
Hanzo's laugh was a wet rasp. "Your headband...Do you belong to Otogakure? No...judging by your strength, you must be the Otokage. Why are you attacking me?"
Danzo's blade flickered. Red Wind Release: Vacuum Cascade [S-Rank]. The attack wasn't aimed at Hanzo—it atomized the chūnin squad regrouping behind him, their screams drowned by the storm.
"I think," Danzo said, stepping forward, "you're too tired to dodge."
Hanzo moved like a specter, poison scythe whirling, but his reflexes were dulled—hours of combat, chakra drained. The battle against Konohagakure had lasted for weeks. As its commander, Hanzo had done everything in his power to push them back, and he had succeeded, albeit at the cost of his stamina and some wounds.
As always, Danzo had chosen his targets when they were at their weakest, a philosophy that earned him tremendous gains over time and saved him the tragedy of losing allies. This time, he had waited for four consecutive days and assassinated the Uchiha commander for Konoha to fall faster, and Hanzo to let his guard down.
Danzo's red wind choked Hanzo from a distance, each slash tearing at Hanzo's armor. The Four-Tails' chakra, refined and filtered by a seal of five thousands souls, burned purer and denser than any jinchūriki Hanzo had faced.
"You're not… human," Hanzo spat, parrying a crimson gust that cratered the earth, "But let's see how you fare in close combat"
"Humanity is a weakness," Danzo said. His seal flared, Four-Tails Chakra Mode erupting around him—a mantle of molten crimson, tails of condensed wind lashing like whips, "Is it not what you say to your men?"
Hanzo's salamander lunged from the mud, jaws dripping venom. Danzo didn't flinch. The salamander's fate was sealed already, and he meant it literally.
"Byakuro, take care of the beast", he ordered, "Yukiko, Harumi, please defend me"
"Hanzo-sama, we are coming to help you!", a group of jonins arrived, their swords drawn at the formidable foe that appeared on the battlefield.
Four-Tails Art: Crimson Eruption [S-Rank]
A geyser of red-hot wind erupted from Danzo's palm, vaporizing the Amegakure jonins rushing to the scene.
Hanzo roared, driving his scythe into Danzo's chest—but the blade was blocked by Yukiko, who expertly parried the strike.
"Your poison is weak if you don't breath it in, or get cut", Yukiko analysed
Seeing himself losing in close combat, he could not believe his eyes: "You...who are you?"
However, his words were just an excuse to breath out poison. Yukiko saw this through, and released a gush of wind.
Infernal Wind Breakthrough [B]
A jonin-level breakthrough caused the mighty Hanzo to lose his footing, an opening Yukiko used to pierce his heart.
*SPLASH*
Unfortunately, Hanzo was not a weakling, his fighting sense kicking in, allowing him to block the dangerous blade with his arm. Still, the steel pierced through his arm, causing him to roar in pain. He immediately kicked Yukiko in the belly, sending her flying, her movements blocked by her own blade.
Harumi, caught Yukiko and hissed: "Seems like you lack training, Yukiko. Treat yourself, you are poisoned"
Giving Yukiko an antidote, Harumi frowned. Hanzo was tougher than expected. In close combat, even she would have trouble facing Yukiko, yet Hanzo not only suffered mild injuries, he would have killed Yukiko if she hadn't given her an antidote.
However, Yukiko's intervention had given Danzo just enough time to prepare a massive jutsu.
Futon: Molten Shimura Dragon Descent [S]
The four-tails chakra burning the wind, Danzo had created a unique jutsu, far surpassing regular S-rank jutsu. A massive dragon descended from the sky, its body hundreds of meters long, ravaging everything in its passage, leaving a trace of burn and sharpness behind.
Seeing the massive threat, Hanzo knew that running was impossible. He took a seal out of his back, which created a massive dome of Earth to protect him. Doton was known to resist wind particularly well, after all.
Despite the natural opposition of elements, the dome was obliterated, Hanzo cut and burnt in the attack. Hanzo staggered, mask shattered, revealing a face ravaged by time and war. He slammed his palm into the earth.
Danzo snapped his finger, a signal conveyed with Harumi.
Harumi rushed in. In the past three years, she had sparred thousands of times with Danzo, her fighting sense perfected for battle and assassination. Her body turned into a shadow. Underground, she found himself transforming into a massive snake.
Unlike Danzo who suppressed the four-tails, she had actually conversed and grown fond of Matatabi, the two-tailed beast who started to converse with her after she gave birth to Juuni. Over the years, the host and hosted became friends, allowing Harumi to wield Matatabi's chakra and its blue flames to an extent never seen in a two-tailed jinchuriki before. Even Marui, who was known as the 'perfect jinchuriki', had not unlocked this power.
Not expecting anything, Harumi, her huge snake body burning in blue flames emerged from the ground, attempting to swallow Hanzo whole. As if a sixth sense overtook him, Hanzo rushed to the side with his battered body, and only his injured arm, which could not keep up with the rest of his body, was swallowed.
"You want power?", Hanzo raged, "Take it, Otokage, and leave this land forever!"
Hanzo exploded in a cloud of necrotic gas, the blast engulfing Harumi. Hanzo had severed his own poisoned left arm to escape the vortex, and extracted his poisonous liver with his own hand, to unleash a cloud and disappear.
The mist cleared. Danzo stood unscathed, a dome of red wind dissolving around him. At his feet lay the man's liver, still pulsing with lethal venom. Harumi emerged from the shadows, returning to her human form, sealing the organ into a scroll.
"A generous gift," Danzo said
Harumi smiled: "Beurk...This poison leaves a bad taste in my mouth..."
Harumi's bloodline release allowed her to secrete poison herself. Regular Hebikaze would find it hard to survive the blow, but to her, the poison was akin to a bad cigarette humed. Holding Hanzo's severed arm, the fingers still clutched the scythe, she smiled:
"His pride will fester from this loss," she mused, "But at least you got the trinket you aimed at"
The Four-Tails growled in his mind, its voice a distant echo.
[You stink of death, Shimura.]
"Death is a tool," Danzo replied silently. "And I have just gathered a hundred more souls or so to suppress you"
[HUMPH]
Far away, in a hidden cave of the land of rain, Hanzo collapsed against damp stone, stump cauterized by his own poison. His remaining hand trembled—not from pain, but rage.
"Otokage…" he seethed. His salamander gone, Amegakure's vengeance would be a slow, silent rot. He swore on it.