The rhythmic drumming of the endless rain on the reinforced windowpanes was the only sound in the office.
Hanzo of the Salamander, the man they called a Demigod, stood before that window, not seeing the glistening, dilapidated rooftops of Amegakure, but seeing instead the faces of the dead.
The door slid open, and his most trusted advisor, Kanzo, entered. Kanzo didn't need to see Hanzo's face to feel the storm raging inside him; he could read it in the rigid set of his shoulders, a tension that had little to do with the chronic ache of old wounds.
"Hanzo-sama," Kanzo spoke, his voice low and steady. "The delegation from Suna has arrived. They're here to… discuss the incident."
Hanzo didn't turn.
"'The incident,'" he repeated, the words dripping with a venom so cold it could paralyze a man. "Fifty of our people. Farmers, traders, children… cut down because some Suna jōnin had a hunch that their missing-nin was hiding among them."
He finally turned, his eyes, shadowed by his rebreather, burning with a cold fire. "They didn't even bother to hide the evidence. They butchered them in the open, as if sending a message. As if to say, 'This is what happens in the Land of Rain.'"
He let out a short, harsh laugh that held no humor. "They call me a Demigod. A title I carved from the bones of my enemies on a dozen different battlefields. Yet what does that title buy my people?
"Not respect. Not safety. If that rogue ninja had fled to Konoha or Kumo, those Suna dogs wouldn't have dared to cross the border. They'd be making polite, groveling requests to the Hokage or Raikage. But here? In my land? They operate on a hunch."
The anger was a living thing in the room, thick and suffocating.
Hanzo was a man of immense power, a force of nature in his own right, yet he was trapped—not by a stronger enemy, but by the brutal, unforgiving arithmetic of geopolitics.
He wanted to lead Ame to glory, to stand as an equal to the legendary Five Great Nations, and he couldn't even protect a handful of civilians in a border town.
His shoulders slumped, the Demigod giving way, for just a moment, to a weary leader. "What do you think I should do, Kanzo?"
The question was half-whispered, asked of his friend but really directed at the heavens, at the cruel irony of his own strength.
Kanzo stepped forward, his expression grim but resolute. He knew this crossroads well; it was the path that led to glorious, nation-ending suicide.
"It is not the right time, Hanzo-sama," he said, his voice cutting through the dangerous fog of Hanzo's rage. "If we move now, the fuss will die down in a few weeks, and we will be the aggressors."
"But the Great Nations… they are like scorpions in a bottle. They are already posturing, itching for a fight. Let them. Let them exhaust their resources, bleed their armies, and shatter their alliances."
He moved closer, his voice dropping to an earnest, intense whisper. "While they are busy tearing each other apart, we grow stronger. We arm ourselves. We train. And when they are at their weakest, nursing their wounds and counting their dead… that is when we avenge this humiliation."
"That is when we make Suna, and every other nation, understand that the blood of the Rain is not so easily spilled. Until then, I beg you, bear this burden. Not for pride, but for the future of our people."
Silence descended once more, broken only by the constant, weeping sky. Hanzo closed his eyes, wrestling with the beast of his own pride. When will the time be right? he screamed inside his own mind.
His patience was a frayed rope, and Suna—a village whose Kage he could break with his own two hands—had just sawed through the last strands.
He saw it then, with perfect, chilling clarity. The path forward. Not one of rash action, but of cold, deliberate vengeance.
"I am not rash, Kanzo," Hanzo said, his voice quiet but firm, all trace of weariness gone. He straightened to his full height, and the Demigod was back, his presence filling the room. "I am Hanzo. The man who survived the First War. The man destined to lead Amegakure, and this entire shinobi world, into a new dawn. And that dawn begins with teaching the scorpions the price of stinging a dragon."
A sense of grim purpose settled over him, more comfortable than the rage. He looked at Kanzo, a flicker of their old, unspoken understanding passing between them.
"Now," Hanzo said, turning toward the door, his cloak swirling around him. "Let's go see what pretty lies these Sand ninja have woven to explain away their butchery."
Kanzo nodded, a wave of relief washing over him. The immediate crisis was averted. The meeting couldn't be held here, in Hanzo's sanctum; it was better for the Demigod to make an entrance, to project strength and control.
...
"Shō, you get that we're talking about the Demigod, right? Are we sure he's not just going to kill us because of his anger?"
The Suna-nin who asked couldn't keep the tremor from his voice.
Their leader, Shō, didn't answer immediately. He got it. Hanzo of the Salamander's reputation wasn't just for show; it was a thing of bloody, whispered legend.
This was a man who could easily kill a jōnin just because they breathed the same air. The Five Great Nations didn't hand out a title like "Demigod" out of politeness.
They did it because they'd all tried to kill him, failed spectacularly, and decided it was better to just acknowledge the walking natural disaster.
That was the real heart of their fear. If Hanzo decided to make an example of them today, would Suna even bother avenging them?
Or would the Kazekage just write a terse letter about "regrettable diplomatic incidents" and send a new batch of ninja?
Shō's own expression was grave, but beneath the surface, his mind was working, piecing together the political chessboard the rest of his team couldn't see.
He knew things—the kind of things you only learn when you're being groomed for a council seat. He knew, for instance, the real reason the other villages had banded together almost half a month ago was to plan how to wipe Uzushiogakure off the map.
A man like Hanzo, who ruled a hidden village in all but name, had to have his own web of spies. He had to understand the currents shifting beneath the shinobi world.
And that was Shō's one flicker of hope.
If Hanzo was half as smart as he was deadly, he'd see that Amegakure was starting to look a little too much like Uzushiogakure.
Isolated. Valuable. A target. Picking a fight with Suna now would be like painting a bullseye on his own back, and even Konoha might be the first in line to supply the arrows.
Of course, he couldn't just say all that out loud. Not here, in the heart of the enemy's lair, where the very walls were probably eavesdropping.
Spelling out Hanzo's potential weakness would be a one-way ticket to an early, and very messy, grave.
So he let out a weary sigh, the picture of a disappointed commander. "A man doesn't earn a title like 'Demigod' by being sentimental over misunderstandings. No, the real problem here is: what in the world got into Kayo?"
The subject change worked like a charm. Their fear of Hanzo was a vague, monstrous thing, but their confusion over Kayo's actions was immediate and personal.
He was one of their best—an Elite Jōnin, a future Kazekage candidate! And he'd gone completely off-script, causing a major international incident by accusing some random rogue of using a transformation technique so perfect it was... what? Unprecedented? It made no sense.
But before they could spiral into that particular mystery, the atmosphere in the room didn't just shift—it shattered.
It was a physical pressure, a wave of cold, intent-laden chakra that they all felt, making the hair on their arms stand on end.
It was the feeling of a predator quietly settling its gaze upon you from the shadows. There were no footsteps, no dramatic door-slamming.
Hanzo didn't believe in knocking. This was his swamp, his domain. And ninja, above all else, understood the language of power. A little chakra-fueled intimidation was just his way of saying, "I'm here. Start praying."
The moment Hanzō stepped into the room, it was like the physical weight pressing down on the shoulders of every Suna-nin present doubled, but it was the Genin who felt it the worst.
They were the cannon fodder, the background decoration for this diplomatic mission, and the sheer, unadulterated killing intent rolling off the man made them feel like field mice staring down a hawk.
Shō was the first to shake off the paralyzing aura, stepping forward with a bow that was just deep enough to be respectful without seeming desperate.
"Lord Hanzō," he spoke, his voice carefully calibrated to be warm and familiar. "I am Shō. I had the honor of witnessing your prowess from a distance during the skirmishes in the River Country a few years back."
It was a classic shinobi play—establish a connection, no matter how thin, to shift the dynamic from "interloper" to "vague acquaintance."
Unfortunately for Shō, Hanzō had been dealing with snakes far more cunning when Shō was still in diapers.
The legendary ninja's masked face turned slowly, his gaze, sharp enough to flay skin from bone, locking onto Shō's.
"Hmm? I don't recall you," Hanzō stated, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that brooked no argument. "And frankly, I don't care to. All I know is that shinobi bearing your village's insignia crossed my border, desecrated my land, and left my civilians dead. Your Daimyo's displeasure is a whisper compared to my own."
A hot spike of anger and shame shot through Shō's gut. To be dismissed so utterly, like a bug not even worth squashing, in front of his comrades?
It stung his pride, a pride carefully cultivated through years of being recognized as one of Suna's elite.
But the cold, logical part of his brain—the part that kept Jōnin alive—screamed at him to stand down. This was Ame. This was Hanzō's house. And here, the Demigod's word was law.
He forced his lips into a tight, conciliatory smile that felt like a crack in his face.
"Lord Hanzō, there has been a terrible misunderstanding. Sunagakure holds the Land of Rain in the highest respect. Invasion was never our intent." He spread his hands in a placating gesture. "The situation was… volatile. A rogue-nin, carrying intelligence critical to our village's security, was fleeing into your territory. Kayo was forced to take… drastic measures to prevent a catastrophe. The civilian casualties were a tragic, unforeseen consequence."
For a long, tense moment, silence reigned. Then Hanzō did something far more terrifying than shouting. He laughed.
It wasn't a joyful sound; it was a harsh, cynical bark that echoed in the tense room.
"Respect?" he repeated, the laughter dying as quickly as it came. "A rogue-nin? Drastic measures?"
He walked forward slightly, and the atmosphere went from heavy to outright suffocating. "Do you and the fools who sent you truly believe I am so easily mocked? That I would swallow such a transparent, insulting child's tale?"
In that instant, Shō's pride shattered. Every instinct for self-preservation he possessed roared to the forefront.
The carefully crafted story, the attempt to save face and reparations—it was all a crumbling dam against Hanzō's palpable fury. The man wasn't just annoyed; he looked like he was considering whether to mount Shō's head on the gate as a message.
"Sunagakure's respect is genuine!" Shō said, his voice losing its polished edge and gaining a note of raw urgency. "We came here specifically to apologize for our comrade's grave error in judgment! We are prepared to offer compensation—to pay a price to atone for this tragedy."
The shift was immediate. He had stopped playing games. This was no longer about saving Suna's wallet; it was about saving their skins.
And Hanzō, a man who dealt in the brutal currency of power and interest, heard the sincerity in that surrender. The killing intent receded—not entirely, but enough to let the room breathe again.
"Compensation?" Hanzō mused, his tone now one of a merchant considering a new shipment of goods. "What price is Suna willing to pay?"
He paused, letting the question hang. "But let me be clear. Do not think to placate me with trinkets and hollow promises. What I despise most are these little political games. If I feel I am being played, I will not send a missive of complaint. I will come to Suna myself to collect what is owed."
If anyone else had threatened to personally seek reparations from one of the Five Great Shinobi Villages, they'd be laughed out of the room.
But this was the Demigod. And as Shō met that unwavering gaze, he knew, with a sinking certainty, that Suna was about to bleed.
(END OF THE CHAPTER)
This is what I promised, a 2000+ words chapter and the 2nd consecutive, hope there's the 2rd...5th...10...
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