Somewhere within Hidden Rain Village.
Outside, war raged fiercely, yet here it was eerily silent.
Yu, is it really necessary to do this? Our ninja are still resisting, and the Konoha ninjas who've breached into the village are only a small number. With our numerical advantage, I believe we can soon drive them out...
Numbers mean nothing at all. Do you truly think we can resist them? These enemies are all elite ninja capable of fighting ten men each. And even if we temporarily manage to hold them off—what then? Konoha's subsequent offensive will follow immediately.
If that happens, Hidden Rain will be wiped out—the first village destroyed since the Hidden Village system began. Do you really want such a name to fall upon us?
Faced with this rebuttal, the first speaker hesitated, unable to reply. Although he still disagreed with Yu's approach, he couldn't think of a single counter.
Yu gave his subordinates a sharp glance with his distinctively black-and-white pupils. He knew they weren't convinced—but it didn't matter. So some things must be done no matter the cost, to protect and save this village. What's coming next is a final battle—eight hundred kills for a thousand losses.
An extremely significant plan decided so casually like this; hence, it could be said that young people were ultimately too radical.
Back then, naturally, Haseo didn't know about these developments. However, much sooner than expected, he sensed a change in the battlefield.
In this world, he wasn't the only one capable of summoning beasts, nor was Katsuyu the only powerful summoned beast available.
"Haseo," Jiraiya's voice came from above, urgent enough to quicken his pace as he spoke. "A pale purple mist has suddenly surged from the central area of Hidden Rain Village. It doesn't look like ordinary smoke used to conceal movement... This substance is spreading outward faster than logic allows."
Mist?
Frowning, Haseo swiftly finished off several nearby enemies. Then he climbed up to join his teammates at an elevated vantage point, spotting exactly what Jiraiya had described—a dense mist sweeping outward at impossible speed.
In the distance, he spotted groups desperately fleeing from the mist.
Haseo slightly narrowed his eyes, faintly realizing a certain possibility. Instantly confirming that his suspicion aligned with what was happening—he recognized it as the doing of Hanzo from Hidden Rain, a young prodigy even more dangerous and worth watching than the village's own leader.
Later known in history as 'the Half-God'—whether that title held exaggeration or not—standing within this battlefield in the Land of Rain, Haseo could not afford to ignore him.
Yet during this current war, the most Haseo had anticipated regarding Hanzo was merely meeting face-to-face in direct confrontation—a contest of pure strength. But now... No word like "ruthless" or "merciless" could capture what had just happened now.
To drive off the Konoha ninja, he actually chose to release poison gas within his own village.
Any poison gas would kill indiscriminately—ally or enemy alike.
"It's poison gas. Mission temporarily aborted—we must retreat," Haseo said to the trio.
But his warning came a moment too late. Although their position was somewhat distant from the epicenter of the gas release, soon a strange sound reached their ears.
It was a faint, rhythmic tapping, along with tremors, coming from... beneath their feet.
Then, with a balloon-popping hiss of escaping gas, purple fumes spewed out from the damaged drainage pipes—Hanzo's toxic smoke was now surging through every corner of the village via its dense network of pipelines.
By the time Haseo and the others realized what was happening, it was already nearly too late.
Haseo went to raise his hand to cover his mouth and nose, only to realize he was still wearing his ninja mask. With no choice left, he simply blurted out:
"Genin—brace yourselves now!
Don't forget how to land on your feet,
and hope none of you end up splattered from the fall...
You're going to accelerate out of this battlefield—once clear of Amegakure, return directly to the side of the Hokage. Understood?"
His words were rushed and fast, yet even so, Jiraiya quickly caught on—he was the only one who fully understood what Haseo meant (having once experienced something eerily similar).
"Haseo, wait—we can still..."
"Understood, Jiraiya.
You go first."
Before Jiraiya could say another word, he suddenly found himself launched outward like a bullet. Then, soaring high into the air, he shot in a straight line, fast and steady, toward the outskirts of Amegakure.
This wasn't the time to argue or hesitate, so without delay, the other two quickly followed behind Jiraiya.
Yet before Haseo could check whether the three had landed safely, he was completely engulfed by the purple smoke.
No doubt about it—his throw was dead-on; he practically sent them flying like skewered dumplings.
Jiraiya focused all his chakra while facing the intense wind resistance from high-speed flight, barely managing to identify the landing point ahead. He then stepped onto a large tree branch, preparing to show off his perfect soft-landing skill—but before he could even complete the standard roll to dissipate the impact force, something like a battering ram slammed into his back, sending him hurtling forcefully against the tree trunk.
And if there was anything worse than being hit hard from behind, it was getting hit a second time just 0.1 seconds later.
The third to return was Tsunade. Thanks to the multiple cushioning impacts beforehand, she basically suffered no harm at all. She lightly stepped onto Orochimaru's back before landing safely on the ground. Without pausing to check if her comrades were alright, she immediately turned around to look back at Amegakure—only to find that in the blink of an eye, the entire village had already been swallowed by rising clouds of poison gas.
The entire Amegakure burned with a tragic intensity, as if undergoing a ritualistic self-immolation.
Orochimaru pulled a dazed and wobbling Jiraiya out of the tree trunk he had crashed into. Then Tsunade's voice cut through the chaos: "Haseo doesn't seem to have made it out."
As Orochimaru steadied the staggering Jiraiya, he glanced toward Amegakure, where squad after squad of ninjas, covering their mouths and noses, burst out into the open.
"Given his abilities, he should've escaped the moment things turned bad. The fact that he didn't suggests he has a specific purpose," Orochimaru stated flatly. This wasn't an attempt at comfort—it was close to the truth. After all, if Haseo had the power to hurl them out, he certainly had the means to save himself. With his unmatched speed, there was no reason he couldn't have done the same. Which meant he must've stayed behind on purpose.
The only mystery was how Haseo intended to survive in a place choked with poison.
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