Chapter 51: Ambush on the Return Journey
Nan wanted to test whether his recently improved Flying Thunder God Technique was now strong enough to teleport him directly back to Konoha.
However, when he tried to sense the marker he'd previously left in the Konoha training grounds, he realized—he couldn't feel it at all.
So even with recent progress… I'm still far from reaching Minato's level.
Tanzaku Town was still within the Land of Fire, and not very far from Konoha.
He recalled how, in the original timeline, Namikaze Minato could teleport straight from the battlefield during the Fourth Great Ninja War back to the village.
Yet here he was—still unable to move freely even within the country.
Realizing he still had a long way to go in mastering Flying Thunder God, Nan decided to return to Konoha on foot.
As he traveled, he occasionally tried to sense the marker again, hoping for a breakthrough.
His journey to Tanzaku Town had gone smoothly, so he naively assumed the return trip would be the same.
But as the saying goes:
"Just because the tree wishes to stay still, doesn't mean the wind will stop blowing."
Nan had intended to stay under the radar for as long as possible—avoiding conflict unless absolutely necessary.
But trouble has a way of finding you whether you seek it or not.
He had left at dawn and traveled without pause, eating only some dry rations on the road.
By dusk, as the sky began to darken, he reached a forest and finally stopped, planning to rest for a while.
What he didn't know—at least, what they thought he didn't know—was that several figures had already been lying in wait, hidden in the shadows, preparing for the perfect moment to strike once he let his guard down.
But Nan had sensed them long ago.
Thanks to his sensory abilities, he had felt the presence of eight chakra signatures following him from a distance.
Now, activating his Sharingan, he could see them clearly even in the low light—eight figures perfectly visible in his crimson gaze.
Recognizing their attire, Nan sighed and shook his head.
"So… the Sand Village is after me now.
Looks like my days of living quietly are over."
The ambushers were indeed from Sunagakure, and judging by their formation, it appeared to be a coordinated assault by two full squads.
"Two squads just for me?
You guys sure think highly of a mere medical ninja."
Hearing his words, the Suna shinobi realized they had been discovered and immediately launched their attack.
A barrage of senbon, kunai, and other bladed weapons rained down on Nan from all directions.
A faint purplish gleam along their edges indicated that they had been coated with poison.
There was no mistaking it—only Sunagakure had such a fondness for poison-tipped weapons.
But Nan was unfazed. With his Sharingan active, he tracked every projectile with perfect clarity.
Calmly forming a string of Earth Release hand signs, he shouted:
"Earth Style: Multiple Earth-Flow Walls!"
In an instant, four massive walls of earth erupted from the ground around him, blocking attacks from all sides.
As the walls completed their purpose and crumbled away, Nan stood completely unharmed, his expression calm and unshaken.
Seeing their surprise attack so easily neutralized, the Suna shinobi were visibly taken aback.
According to their intel, this Uchiha Nan was known as Konoha's top prodigy, but no one had ever seen him fight.
He was widely regarded as the village's most promising medical ninja—no one expected him to have this level of combat prowess.
They had struck with overwhelming force and total surprise, yet Nan hadn't even flinched.
His reflexes and instincts didn't match the profile of a mere healer.
But once they spotted the crimson glow of his three-tomoe Sharingan, everything clicked into place.
"No wonder he spotted our ambush so easily...
That brat already awakened the fully matured Sharingan?"
The squad leader of the Sand nin muttered under his breath, clearly misunderstanding the true extent of Nan's powers.
He thought the three-tomoe Sharingan was its ultimate form.
"You're Uchiha Nan of Konoha, right?
You're no match for all of us alone.
If you surrender now, you might suffer a little less."
The one who seemed to be in charge finally spoke.
Nan replied coldly:
"So you were sent by Sunagakure to kill me?
I guess that means you've already found out I have a way to cure your new poison."
"But why wait until now to ambush me?"
Nan was a bit confused. When he first publicized the method of extracting the Sand Village's deadly poison using Delicate Illness Extraction Technique, he had done so quite openly. It wasn't surprising that Sunagakure had found out.
But why didn't they act then?
Why wait until now to make their move?
The Suna squad leader didn't answer his question—because he wasn't too sure either.
When they first learned that Konoha had produced a medical ninja capable of neutralizing their poison, panic had swept through the Sand leadership.
Some had even proposed eliminating Nan immediately.
However, Konoha had heavily guarded all information about him. The Sand shinobi never got the chance to strike.
By the time they realized the seriousness of the situation, Nan's detoxification method had already spread to all of Konoha's field camps. At that point, even if they took him out, it would be too late.
And, to be fair, his treatment didn't completely neutralize the poison. Konoha shinobi who were afflicted would still be rendered non-combatant for an extended period.
Given Sunagakure's already strained manpower, they had decided not to waste additional resources targeting Nan.
That is—until new intel came in.
Recently, they received word that Konoha had completely cracked the composition of the Sand's special poison—and had even developed a true antidote.
This sent the Sand leadership into full panic.
Their entire ability to hold their own against Konoha in this war hinged on that poison. It was their only real trump card.
If Konoha now had a proper antidote, then the poison would no longer be a threat—and the war would be as good as lost.
According to the intel, the one responsible for this antidote was none other than the person who had first developed the extraction method:
Uchiha Nan.
The decision was immediate: deploy elite units and eliminate Nan at all costs—before the antidote could fall into Konoha's hands.
Even after confirming that Nan was traveling alone, unguarded and unescorted, the Sand Village still dispatched two full elite squads to ambush and kill him.
In the squad leader's mind, this was more than enough. With two jōnin and six additional ninja under his command, taking down one medical-nin—no matter how gifted—should be effortless.
But after witnessing Nan's calm defense and the quality of his jutsu, he began to sense that things might not go as smoothly as expected.
Still, he didn't take Nan too seriously.
That just now must've been his limit,
And he still looks like a six-year-old... how dangerous could he be?
Surrounded on all sides by the eight Sand ninja, Nan looked outwardly composed—but inside, his mind was racing.
Can I take them down without using my Mangekyō?
The two squad captains were undoubtedly the jōnin. The remaining six were most likely chūnin or genin.
After a month and a half of intense training under Tsunade's guidance, Nan had grown significantly stronger.
Among elite jōnin, he could now hold his own.
Still, defeating eight opponents wasn't going to be easy. His chakra reserves were only slightly above what adult Kakashi had—not unlimited.
Realistically, defeating all eight simultaneously should have been impossible. But with his Sharingan, fighting against multiple opponents wasn't completely out of the question.
He carefully gauged their chakra signatures. None were particularly powerful.
Those two slightly stronger ones… barely average jōnin level at best.
They must be the squad leaders. The rest are weak—just chūnin or lower.
That settled it. Nan decided to split them up—take out the six weaker shinobi first, then focus all his attention on the remaining two jōnin.
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