Chapter 218: Assault on the Hidden Rain Village
"Kitsuchi."
The Rock ninja at the front of the group introduced himself with that single word. He was built like a boulder given human form — broad-shouldered, thick-necked, a round chin buried under a dense beard, and a nose that commanded attention on its own. His face carried no expression at all. His voice matched. "By order of the Tsuchikage, I will be leading our squad alongside you for this operation."
He turned slightly and gestured to the three ninja standing behind him. "These are Kari, Futo, and Kokuhan."
Then he went quiet and stared at Ritsu's group.
Ritsu raised an eyebrow. "That's it? You're not going to tell us what you're each capable of? If we don't know each other's strengths, coordination in the field is going to be difficult."
"Earth Style."
Kitsuchi's answer landed like a stone dropped into a pond. "We all use Earth Style."
Ritsu's mouth twitched.
That was roughly as useful as saying they all breathed air. A Rock ninja who didn't specialize in Earth Style was the rare exception, not the rule. But then again, expecting Iwagakure to openly share tactical information in a joint operation with four other villages was about as realistic as expecting the rain here to stop. They were all here for the same prize and everyone in the field knew it. Genuine cooperation was never on the table. The best possible outcome was that nobody actively sabotaged anybody else.
The two groups stood in silence on opposite sides of an invisible line.
Over the next several minutes, Minato brought in the remaining contingents one by one. He was moving across the entire ninja world at speed, leaping from coordinate to coordinate, and by the time all four outside squads had been assembled, his face had gone noticeably pale. Half his chakra reserves, at minimum. Anyone else attempting this would have collapsed long before finishing. It was only because Minato had spent years refining the Flying Thunder God Technique — compressing and reducing its cost to a degree most practitioners couldn't imagine — that this was even possible.
He took a breath, steadied himself, and looked at the assembled groups. Five distinct clusters standing apart from each other in the rain.
"I'll skip the pleasantries," he said. "None of us came here to listen to a speech. Let me get straight to the point."
"Konoha has received new intelligence. Barring any unexpected complications, the Rinnegan's holder is somewhere in the Land of Rain. That means this operation may lead us directly to our target. I don't need to explain what that means in terms of danger — you all know. Stay focused and stay ready."
He paused. "I won't waste anyone's time with talk about unity and cooperation, because in the field we're all going to be acting independently regardless. What I will say is this: be aware of what lines you shouldn't cross. Not helping each other is one thing. Actively undermining this operation is another. If anyone tries to sabotage the mission and costs us this opportunity, the consequences will fall entirely on them."
He let that sit a moment, then added, "Of course, if you believe your movements can escape the Hyuga Clan Head's Byakugan, then feel free to disregard everything I just said."
Nobody spoke. Not even the Fifth Kazekage.
Nobody asked where Konoha had gotten the new intelligence either. That kind of question was pointless. Konoha had no obligation to share its sources, and everyone present understood that. The egg was in front of them. Whether it was good or not was the relevant question. Who laid it was nobody else's business.
The white-haired young Mist ninja spoke up from across the gap. He had a sword strapped to his back shaped like a flounder and eyes that were alert despite his youth. "Hokage-sama. Knowing the Rinnegan is somewhere in the Land of Rain is helpful, but the country isn't exactly small. How do we narrow down the location?"
Under the summit agreement, operational command resided with Konoha. The other four villages had accepted that arrangement. So the question Mist ninja Hoshigaki Mangetsu was asking was the question every non-Konoha shinobi in the field wanted answered.
"We go to the Hidden Rain Village first," Minato said.
Pakura's eyebrow went up. "You think the target is inside the village itself?"
"I don't know. Possibly. But even if the target isn't physically inside Amegakure, nothing that happens in the Land of Rain escapes the village's notice. There will be a trail. Someone will know something."
"That makes sense." Dodai, the Cloud representative, spoke with the measured cadence of a man who thought carefully before opening his mouth. "If a figure with the Rinnegan has been operating in this country for any significant length of time without detection by the great villages, the Hidden Rain Village almost certainly knows. There's no way they're ignorant of it."
Kitsuchi's deep voice followed. "So we just walk straight into the Hidden Rain Village?"
"Exactly." Minato looked around the assembled group. "This is also precisely why the Five Kage Summit was necessary — and why I needed all of you here. With five great villages acting together, no sane Amegakure commander is going to start a confrontation. The Hidden Rain Village won't throw themselves against this."
He was right, and everyone there knew it. When Hanzo the Salamander was at his peak, he had managed to drive both Konoha and Suna out of the Land of Rain, but that was only possible because Konoha and Suna were already in conflict with each other at the time. Hanzo had played both sides against each other and exploited the gap. The current situation was nothing like that. Five unified villages left no gap to exploit and no rational path toward resistance.
Dodai raised another point. "Hokage-sama, can you tell us anything about the village's current state? Our intelligence on Amegakure is limited."
"So is ours," Minato admitted. "Konoha withdrew from the Land of Rain after the Second War. Amegakure, along with the Land of Grass and the Land of Taki, falls into a category where our information is genuinely thin. Small nations with strong independent identities that don't show up clearly in intelligence networks because nobody was watching them closely."
He didn't add the obvious: that the great nations were so focused on spying on each other that the smaller, stranger countries had managed to become exactly the kind of blind spot where someone could hide something as significant as the Rinnegan for years.
Dodai accepted the answer without further comment. He was a patient man.
"What about Hanzo?" he continued. "I heard a few years back that he was dead, but I was never certain the report was accurate."
It was a reasonable question. Hanzo had been active and formidable during the Second War. If he was still alive, he remained a variable worth accounting for.
"Possibly dead," Minato said. "But even if he isn't, it doesn't change much. He would be old now, and the Land of Rain isn't a place that treats people gently as they age. Whatever he was at his height, this is no longer his era."
The confidence in Minato's voice left no room for argument. Dodai went quiet.
Minato ate quickly from his pack — high-calorie field rations — and drank from a thermos of hot tea. Ten minutes. When the color had returned to his face and he seemed satisfied that his chakra had recovered enough to function at full capacity, he looked up.
"Let's move."
They set off through the rain, a column of shadows moving along narrow mountain paths, quiet and swift as ghosts, the grey curtain of rainfall muffling every sound around them.
Inside Amegakure.
Nagato was halfway through constructing his third Pain avatar.
Since parting ways with Tatsuhata, he had worked steadily through the bodies that arrived. The Hell Realm body had been reconstructed first, the Animal Realm shortly after. The previous evening, his Rain ninja had delivered another usable corpse, and he was now in the process of converting it into the Asura Realm — the most purely destructive of the six avatars, an engine of destruction.
Constructing a Rinnegan avatar was exacting work. The chakra receivers — the black rods inserted through the body's face and vital points — were actually a secondary concern. They were forged through the Rinnegan by converting chakra with Yin-Yang properties into solid physical form, and producing them was demanding but manageable. The genuinely difficult part was the second step: anchoring each rod into the prepared corpse with complete precision, remodeling the body from the inside out. It required exceptional chakra control and total concentration. A single mistake could destroy the body entirely and waste all preparation done beforehand.
He had let the body sit overnight rather than rushing it. Slept fully. Ate breakfast at a measured pace. Then he began.
Konan sat nearby, watching him work in silence. The Asura Realm avatar was drawing close to completion, needing only the final refinements. Outside the tower windows, the rain was getting heavier.
Then Nagato stopped.
His expression changed.
"Something's wrong."
Konan blinked. "What is it?"
"Konoha ninja. A large group. And..." He paused, the weight of recognition crossing his face. "Jiraiya-sensei is with them."
Konan's eyes went tight. She didn't speak.
Nagato's voice was careful and low. "There's a barrier here. They shouldn't be able to detect us yet. But they've already entered the village's outer boundary — we can't stay in this tower."
Rain was hammering the windows in steady sheets.
He maintained the Rain Tiger at Will Technique at all times, a sensory method that suffused the entire Hidden Rain Village with his awareness through the falling rain. Any foreign chakra that contacted the rainfall registered instantly. He knew every signature in the village. The new arrivals were not familiar ones.
Most of them.
Jiraiya's chakra was immediately recognizable despite the years. Some things you didn't forget. And alongside it — the Fourth Hokage Namikaze Minato. The White Night Yaksha, Hyuga Ritsu. Body Flicker, Uchiha Shisui.
Beyond those four, more than a dozen additional signatures, all carrying strength worth noting.
A serious force. An unfriendly one.
Konan steadied herself and spoke. "Nagato. Have the Paths buy time. I'll cover your retreat."
"Agreed."
No hesitation from either of them.
The Rinnegan was immensely powerful, but it was not invincible. Nagato himself was the greatest vulnerability. His legs had been destroyed years ago by Hanzo's trap — the explosion seals had taken his mobility permanently, leaving him able to stand only barely, dependent on the mechanical walker that had become part of his daily existence. In open combat at full speed, he would be an exposed and immobile target.
The barrier on the tower concealed him from Byakugan detection for now. But every Rain ninja in the village knew their god lived at the top of the tallest tower. The incoming force would come here. The village's defenders couldn't hold them. He knew it, and he had no illusions about it.
He had four avatars currently functional: the Deva Path, the Hell Realm, the Animal Realm, and the now-completed Asura Realm. The Human Path and the Hungry Ghost Realm were still absent. The Hungry Ghost Realm's absence was the most significant gap — it left his defense against jutsu absorption compromised. But four Paths, with the Deva Path finally free to fight at full strength rather than holding back as it had during the previous engagement, was still a meaningful force.
The last time he had fought Konoha, the Deva Path had been kept out of the battle entirely. Five avatars had been destroyed anyway. The same outcome was not guaranteed here.
He formed hand seals and pressed his palms against the mechanical walker below him.
Summoning Technique.
A massive centipede materialized in the room, filling the space with its armored bulk. Konan gathered her paper and formed it into cables, lifting Nagato and his walker off the floor, binding him securely to the centipede's back so that the journey through the pipes would not shake him loose.
The centipede began to move. It descended into the tower's internal passages, heading toward the deep maintenance shafts below. Nagato guided it steadily downward into the dark. Konan followed close behind, and the blackness of the pipes swallowed them both.