"Ibuse!"
Hanzo barked.
The salamander beneath him opened its massive jaws, and purple fog burst out in a surging cloud.
The lethal poison stored inside Ibuse's body—even a tiny dose—was enough to kill a jōnin in seconds.
The fog spread, staining even the falling rain with a faint violet tint.
"Sage Art: Wind Style—Great Breakthrough!"
Kiyohara drew in a deep breath, his chest swelling, then exhaled.
That wasn't ordinary wind.
Natural energy mixed into it, forming a visible green airflow.
The current spiraled and expanded into a tornado over five meters wide, sucking the poison fog into its core.
Wind and poison twisted together as they rose, then finally dispersed more than a hundred meters up, thinning into the rain.
"Impossible!" a Rain shinobi cried out.
"Hanzō-sama's poison… it got—"
Even Hanzo felt the pressure.
This young man not only used senjutsu—he wielded natural energy with frightening ease.
That wind jutsu's power had already surpassed the range of a normal S-rank technique.
Kiyohara didn't pause.
Before the tornado fully faded, he shot forward again.
This time he drew his blade, its edge wrapped in green wind chakra.
The slash went straight for Hanzo's neck.
Hanzo finally moved.
His left hand flicked—chains clattered.
His right-hand scythe met Kiyohara's blade head-on.
It was the opening stance of the swordsmanship that had made his name for years: Chain-and-Sickle Two-Stage Strike.
Clang!
Ibuse let out a pained roar. The enormous recoil traveled through Hanzo's body and into the salamander, making its hulking mass sway.
Hanzo himself was blasted backward, flipping twice in midair before landing—his feet carving two long furrows into the ground.
He lifted his head. Behind the mask, his eyes were grave.
"Strong."
"Worthy of Tsunade's student."
Yahiko seized the moment.
"Water Style: Water Dragon Bullet!"
Rainwater gathered overhead into a vicious water dragon and lunged at Hanzo just as he'd landed.
The timing was perfect—old force spent, new force not yet formed.
But Hanzo was still Hanzo.
Without even turning around, he formed seals one-handed.
"Fire Style: Fire Dragon Flame Bullet!"
Three fire dragons surged up behind him and smashed into the water dragon.
Water and fire collided, erupting into a huge cloud of steam that swallowed the battlefield.
"Yahiko, watch out!" Nagato shouted.
From within the steam, an almost invisible thread shot toward Yahiko—a senbon coated in lethal poison, launched under cover.
Yahiko jerked aside. The senbon grazed his shoulder, slicing his clothing.
"I'm fine—" he started.
Then his face changed.
A faint numbness crawled across the scratched skin.
"Poison…" Yahiko gritted out. "When did—"
"From the first breath of my fog," Hanzo's voice came from the steam as he stepped out.
"My poison seeps through the skin. It's subtle, but it accumulates. By now, every one of you is poisoned."
He paused, then continued.
"Even if you have Tsunade's antidote, you don't have enough."
If this were the old days, they'd already be collapsing.
Realizing Tsunade was present, Hanzo guessed she'd given them something—but it still wouldn't be enough.
In the Land of Rain, salamander summons weren't rare.
Besides the one he contracted, Hanzo had encountered a venomous black salamander as a child; its poison sac was implanted into his body, giving him resistance.
Every time he breathed, others inhaled poison—hence the mask, and why he breathed through his mouth.
He was a walking poison source. And every five minutes, Ibuse could flood the area with another massive wave of poisonous fog.
Hanzo wasn't worried in the slightest that they wouldn't be poisoned.
Akatsuki members blanched and checked themselves.
Many felt it now—itching skin, faintly numb muscles, slightly sluggish chakra flow.
"But don't worry," Hanzo went on.
"If you surrender now, I'll give you antidote. I only want Akatsuki disbanded—not everyone dead."
He was driving a wedge into their morale.
Kiyohara saw it clearly.
Hanzo's move was sharp: display overwhelming force, reveal a dirty hidden method, then offer a "merciful" choice.
Anyone with shaky resolve could crack.
But Yahiko's answer didn't waver.
Peace was his greatest dream.
"Akatsuki won't disband. This is our ideal."
"Oh?" Hanzo's voice turned cold.
"Then die with your ideals."
Nagato couldn't hold back anymore.
He formed seals, his face paling even further.
The Demonic Statue of the Outer Path gave a low roar. Black chakra rods extended from it and stabbed into Nagato, draining chakra and life force.
Nagato let out a muffled groan.
Then the protrusions on the statue's back began to glow.
Lightning.
Crackle!
Borrowing the statue's power, ten thick lightning pillars slammed down from the sky, blanketing the Rain shinobi line.
It was a wide-area strike—Hanzo could dodge, but his troops couldn't.
"Defense!" Hanzo roared, forming seals.
"Earth Style: Earth-Style Rampart!"
A colossal earthen wall rose, blocking part of the lightning.
But the pillars were too thick—over a dozen Rain shinobi were hit anyway, screaming as they turned to charcoal.
At the same time, the statue opened its mouth and spat out a dragon made of chakra.
The dragon was translucent purple, writhing in the air.
It didn't attack flesh—it went straight for chakra. Anyone it touched had their chakra ripped away instantly, collapsing into a dried husk.
"Chakra-draining…" Hanzo's face darkened.
He couldn't wait anymore.
He had to end this fast.
Hanzo leapt back onto Ibuse's head and patted it.
Five minutes had passed since the last poisonous fog.
Thick purple fog poured out again like a living thing, mixing with rain.
Rain shinobi had already put on gas masks and could move freely within it, but Akatsuki's line began to falter under the poison's erosion.
Yahiko bit his tongue hard to stay conscious. He saw a young member beside him stumble, drop their kunai, fingers twitching out of control.
"Everyone… fall back…" Yahiko shouted.
Tsunade's antidote supply was simply too small.
No one had expected Hanzo to strike so suddenly.
If this dragged on, they'd be the ones who paid the price.
At that moment, Kiyohara injected the senjutsu chakra that Toad Kiyohara had helped him refine into his technique.
"Sage Art: Magnet Release—Gold Dust Imperial Burial!"
Kiyohara slammed both palms to the ground.
The earth shuddered.
Rain-soaked mud churned like boiling water as dark-golden particles surged up from underground—more and more, denser and denser.
"What is that?!" a Rain chūnin screamed.
The ground beneath them was melting into a flowing golden tide.
Ibuse sensed danger, trying to retreat, but the sand gold had already coiled around its limbs.
The golden surge climbed its rough hide, wrapped its stubby legs, and crept upward.
"Rrraagh…!"
Ibuse roared in pain, thrashing as its poison glands spasmed and it expelled even thicker poisonous fog—
but there was too much sand gold. The fog couldn't penetrate the layered golden barrier.
The tide swallowed its belly, chest, neck—then finally sealed over its entire head.
Hanzo's expression shifted.
The ground under Ibuse had turned into a sinking, swamp-like basin.
With no choice, Hanzo launched himself away, tapping a foot against the sand gold's surface and landing outside the flooded zone.
The instant he left, the final wave closed, burying Ibuse completely—leaving only a slight hump that still sank slowly.
Before Hanzo could try anything to free his summon, he saw Nagato pushing the Demonic Statue forward.
Every sweep of that gaunt hand killed several Rain shinobi at once.
Then the statue opened its mouth again.
The translucent purple chakra dragon slithered out, and wherever it passed, shinobi were drained of chakra and life, collapsing like puppets with their strings cut.
Hanzo snapped his chain forward, trying to snare the dragon's neck.
But it had no physical body. The chain passed straight through, useless.
"Troublesome…" Hanzo cursed under his breath, retreating fast.
He formed seals one-handed.
"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!"
A huge fireball slammed into the chakra dragon. The flames also passed through, but the heat made the dragon's movement stall for a fraction of a moment.
Hanzo seized the gap, dragging his scythe along the ground and sliding ten meters sideways.
The chakra dragon turned and kept pursuing.
While Hanzo's attention was pulled by the statue, and after he'd even managed to cut off a small fragment from it—
Kiyohara's blade arrived.
The slash tore the rain with a shriek.
This wasn't a normal strike. Wind chakra wrapped along the blade had been reinforced by natural energy, forming a visible green crescent edge.
Hanzo had to turn and block.
Clang!
Hanzo stared at Kiyohara. This kid was the biggest variable.
Nagato's control over the summoned monster was clearly strong—but also visibly strained.
Tsunade wasn't fighting. And Yahiko's strongest tool was still just water style.
If Hanzo could hold out—wait for Nagato to collapse first, then grind Kiyohara down—there was still a path to victory.
"Let me show you what real swordsmanship is."
Chain and scythe rattled in his grip.
Sword Art: Chain-and-Sickle Two-Stage Strike.
His signature technique.
First bind the enemy's weapon with the chain to limit movement; then bring the scythe down in a decisive cut.
The scythe was coated in lethal poison. A single scratch decided the match.
The chain shot toward Kiyohara's blade like a venomous snake.
Kiyohara tightened his grip, every sword technique he'd learned flashing through his mind—
Uchiha style, Konoha style, and scraps he'd copied from enemies.
With senjutsu chakra boosting him, his thoughts and reflexes hit an unprecedented speed.
The moment the chain wrapped the blade, Kiyohara flicked his wrist—
and rotated the blade along the chain's pull.
A "borrow force to redirect force" trick that required terrifying control.
The chain was dragged off line. The scythe's follow-up cut missed.
Hanzo's eyes flickered with surprise.
Kiyohara wasn't just strong—his fundamentals were absurdly solid.
That kind of neutralization without opening yourself up wasn't possible without over a decade of brutal training.
And then Hanzo started to feel real fear.
With every exchange, Kiyohara's swordplay sharpened by another fraction—reading deeper into Hanzo's technique, adapting to it.
That was the Sharingan at work.
Hanzo's caution deepened.
Kiyohara didn't just have the Sharingan—he used it frighteningly well.
Blades flashed like rain. Every strike was lightning-fast.
Kiyohara stopped clinging to any one school and instead fused everything he'd seen into his own style.
"Then how about this?"
Hanzo abruptly switched.
He reeled the chain back and reset his grip, both hands on the scythe handle, stance sinking low—
a quick-draw opener.
But unlike a normal iaijutsu, Hanzo's draw carried killing intent like a guillotine.
Sword Art: Iaijutsu Slash!
He'd once used this to defeat the samurai Mifune in an instant.
Kiyohara's Sharingan caught Hanzo's chakra flow—his wrist flared with chakra.
The slash crossed the distance faster than sound.
Kiyohara dodged—but not all of it.
He poured more chakra in.
Steel Release!
Earth Style: Earth Spear!
A black metallic sheen spread over his skin.
Shhk!
The scythe scraped across Kiyohara's arm.
Cloth shredded. A pale line appeared on his skin.
Hanzo frowned. He'd heard intelligence about Kiyohara's hardening techniques, but he hadn't expected even his iaijutsu to fail to break through.
That cut could slice special chakra metal.
Yet Kiyohara tanked it with his body—leaving only a mark.
What kind of defense was that?
Even Earth Spear should've cracked—unless Kiyohara was stacking more than one hardening technique.
In the instant Hanzo's movement stalled from shock, Kiyohara counterattacked.
Toad Kata.
His fist didn't touch Hanzo—but at thirty centimeters out, natural energy rode the punch's air pressure.
An invisible blow smashed into Hanzo's chest and hurled him away.
Hanzo spat blood midair, his mask cracking.
He slammed down hard, rolling several times before stopping.
His chest armor was shattered; at least three ribs were broken.
"Hanzō-sama!" Rain shinobi shouted.
But no one dared approach. The statue's chakra dragon was still roaming—turning comrades into husks one after another.
Hanzo struggled to rise.
He looked at Kiyohara, at the statue massacring his troops, at Akatsuki members still fighting despite poison—
and the conclusion became undeniable.
It was over.
If it were only Akatsuki, Hanzo believed he could win.
If it were only Kiyohara, he had ways to deal with him.
If it were only the statue, he could drag things out until Nagato burned out.
But with all three together, the scales had tipped.
"Retreat," Hanzo rasped.
"What?" A Rain jōnin couldn't believe it.
"I said, retreat!" Hanzo barked.
"All units, disperse and fall back—regroup at Rain Village!"
The order went out. Rain shinobi fled in all directions, relieved to escape.
Hanzo took one last look at the battlefield.
Ibuse was buried under sand gold, still struggling.
His forces had lost more than two-thirds. The statue killed too quickly. Even he was injured.
And the other side—though bloodied—still had its core fighters standing.
"Kiyohara," Hanzo stared at him.
"I'll remember you. Next time, you won't have this kind of luck."
Then his gaze shifted to Yahiko.
Failing to remove Akatsuki's leader meant future trouble.
But this operation had failed, and he'd already lost too many.
Hanzo formed a seal.
Water Body Flicker!
His outline warped in the rain—and vanished.
Kiyohara didn't pursue.
Don't chase a desperate foe. And his current state wasn't suited for pursuit anyway—senjutsu chakra and the curse mark were already fading.
The tail behind him dissipated. His skin began returning to its normal tone, leaving only faint orange markings at the corners of his eyes.
More importantly—Nagato was in trouble.
The Demonic Statue roared once, then poof—it disappeared into white smoke.
As it vanished, the chakra dragon dissolved, and the black chakra rods snapped away.
Nagato dropped to his knees, gasping.
He was gaunt to the bone, bloodless, his red hair plastered to pale skin—so weak he looked like he might die any second.
"Nagato!" Yahiko and Konan rushed to hold him up.
"I… I'm fine," Nagato whispered.
"Just chakra exhaustion… I'll recover if I rest."
Kiyohara approached and took out soldier pills.
"Eat. You drained yourself too hard—you'll need at least a month to recover."
Nagato didn't refuse.
He knew how bad he was.
Akatsuki members began cleaning up the battlefield.
They stared at the corpses—Rain shinobi, their own comrades—
and couldn't quite believe they'd won.
And that Konoha shinobi had helped them. Many of them looked at Kiyohara with new eyes.
His performance in the fight had been… glaring.
At that moment, Kiyohara's Sand Gold Great Burial sank inward slightly—the salamander below dissolved into white smoke.
When a summon is heavily injured, it's automatically released.
If the damage is too fast, it can even die before it can be released.
Kurenai and Shizune walked over.
Both were injured, but not severely.
"Kiyohara… that form you just used…" Kurenai hesitated.
"That was senjutsu," Kiyohara explained simply.
Shizune stared at the pale line on Kiyohara's arm—the mark from Hanzo's iaijutsu.
She couldn't imagine what kind of defense could take that cut without breaking skin.
Kiyohara noticed her gaze and rotated his arm.
"Hanzo's blade is dangerous. If it were deeper, I wouldn't have blocked it."
He was saying it for Kurenai and Shizune's sake.
Then Kiyohara's eyes caught something on the ground—
a brown fragment, about the size of a palm, rough like old bark.
A piece of the Demonic Statue.
During Hanzo's clash with it, he'd cut a corner off one of the statue's protrusions with his scythe.
Kiyohara bent down and picked it up.
Others watched, puzzled—even Nagato didn't understand why Kiyohara would collect it.
Kiyohara just said it was a souvenir.
With the information gap, no one knew it was essentially a piece of the Ten-Tails' flesh—tremendously valuable for research.
"To think they don't know what this is worth," Toad Kiyohara's spirit floated out.
"Pretty much," Kiyohara replied.
"Shinobi history is terrible. Hashirama and Madara from just decades ago are treated like people from centuries ago."
Kiyohara couldn't help shaking his head.
Even Boruto didn't know Jiraiya—despite him raising two generations of Hokage and being one of the legendary Sannin.
If that kind of figure could be forgotten, then secrets from a thousand years ago—like the Ten-Tails—were even less likely to be known.
Only Madara, who'd read the Uchiha Stone Tablet under Black Zetsu's guidance, had pieced some of it together.
Even Hashirama, an Asura reincarnation, didn't know there was a Ten-Tails above the nine tailed beasts.
While Kiyohara and Toad Kiyohara spoke, cheers erupted elsewhere.
Whatever the cost, they had won.
Kiyohara nodded to Kurenai and Shizune and turned toward Akatsuki's base.
Inside, Tsunade was leaning against the wall.
"Sensei," Kiyohara said as he entered.
Tsunade lifted her head.
"It's over?"
"Yeah. Hanzo escaped badly hurt. The Rain forces broke and ran. We won—but the losses were heavy."
"And Nagato?"
"Nearly drained dry. He'll need a long recovery, but he's not dying."
Tsunade nodded, lips parting.
"You did well. If Hanzo hadn't gotten away, we might've pinned him here today."
"He's still Hanzo," Kiyohara shook his head.
The databooks said Hanzo excelled at Water Style. With that breathing mask, he could operate freely underwater, and his water control was unrivaled.
Escape tools like Water Body Flicker were basically maxed out for him—he escaped like that even in canon.
"Even old, he still has survival tricks."
"But after this," Tsunade added, "Rain's balance is going to change."
Kiyohara understood immediately.
Hanzo lost too much today; his authority would take a serious hit.
Rain Village would start questioning him. Meanwhile Akatsuki—though battered—had made a name for itself by repelling Hanzo's main force head-on.
Once word spread, anti-Hanzo factions inside Rain would likely drift toward Akatsuki.
"Akatsuki will keep Rain Village tied down for a long time," Kiyohara said.
"That's good for Konoha."
"Yeah." Tsunade sighed.
"Politics is always schemes on top of schemes. But at least Yahiko… they really do want to change this country."
She paused, then looked at Kiyohara.
"Did you copy Hanzo's swordsmanship?"
"I did. It's strong," Kiyohara nodded.
"Especially the iaijutsu. Fast."
"Swordsmanship, senjutsu, multiple elemental natures, Sharingan…" Tsunade said.
"You're collecting more and more. Too scattered isn't good."
"I know," Kiyohara admitted.
"So next I'll spend time organizing and integrating."
Tsunade nodded, satisfied.
This student rarely needed her to worry. High talent, quick understanding—and more importantly, a steady mindset.
Not like certain geniuses who got arrogant the moment they tasted success.
What Tsunade didn't know was: Kiyohara couldn't afford to get arrogant.
Every "will" he received meant a future-self had died. After seeing so many deaths, Kiyohara stayed cautious.
He always stacked hardening layers. He avoided most of Hanzo's attacks. Even the grazing hit was taken only after layered reinforcement.
"Go rest," Tsunade said.
"In the next few days Akatsuki will handle post-battle cleanup, and we'll prepare to return to Konoha. The old man will need a full report."
"Yes," Kiyohara replied and left.
Once back, he could finally find time to go to the Land of Sea and fulfill Toad Kiyohara's wish.
This battle proved senjutsu and the curse mark could stack—Kiyohara was curious how strong it would be after inheriting the complete version.
…
Elsewhere, Hanzo tore off his cracked mask, revealing a grim face. He coughed blood streaked with violet poison.
His organs were damaged—Kiyohara's brute force had kept reverberating through him.
And if his internal poison sac ruptured, even Hanzo wouldn't survive.
"Kiyohara… Kiyohara…"
His expression was dark.
Back then, he'd beaten three celebrated Konoha prodigies alone—earning them the title "Three Sannin."
Today he'd nearly overturned against Tsunade's student.
Even if it was a combined effort, Hanzo knew the truth: Kiyohara was getting stronger by the day, and Hanzo was getting weaker.
Aging came for everyone.
Still… there was a trace of admiration.
"If you'd been born in a hidden village…"
Hanzo murmured, then shook his head.
No "if."
This world made enemies by default.
He started treating his injuries—resetting ribs, calming internal trauma, restoring chakra.
This defeat would shake his position in Rain.
And Akatsuki had already become a force.
"Yahiko. Nagato. Konan… and that Kiyohara."
Hanzo finished bandaging and looked toward the Rain shinobi who followed him.
…
From high ground, Obito watched the battlefield through the single Sharingan eye of his mask.
"The Demonic Statue… Nagato really used it."
"And Kiyohara even learned senjutsu…"
Obito frowned. Where did he learn it?
"Madara-sama's plan has a variable now,"
Swirl-White Zetsu said from Obito's body.
He couldn't help feeling the Uchiha clan was "something else."
Obito awakened a terrifying space-time technique. Kiyohara was another Uchiha out in the wild.
He'd already awakened three-tomoe Sharingan—who knew when he'd awaken Mangekyō, with power skyrocketing again?
This was the Uchiha?
~~~
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