"Report! The Suna–Ame allied forces have begun their advance!"
An intelligence runner rushed inside with the message.
Sitting within the command tent were Jiraiya and Nara Rokujin.
"Notify everyone—prepare for battle."
"Yes, sir!"
The messenger sprinted off to relay the command.
He couldn't help noticing how terrible both men looked.
Two days earlier, Nara Rokujin's childhood friend — Akimichi Torifu — had been beheaded on the battlefield by Hanzō of the Salamander.
Meanwhile, Jiraiya's teammates Tsunade and Orochimaru had been defeated by Hanzō and had vanished without a trace.
Add to that two days of reorganizing border defenses, handling personnel, and nonstop crisis management… both men were mentally and physically exhausted beyond measure.
When the messenger left, Jiraiya slid aside a screen behind him—revealing the Third Hokage.
"Sensei… since you're already here, why didn't you show yourself sooner?
If you'd stepped forward, the two of us wouldn't have had to shoulder all this."
"Are you planning to hide within the troops and ambush them?"
Hiruzen sighed softly.
"That's part of the plan. But the greater reason is this: my body and chakra were nearly drained after traveling at full speed with the Shadow Guard for an entire day."
"If the enemy discovered my arrival early and launched an immediate attack…
Even I wouldn't be able to fight properly in that state."
"Now that we've rested half a day, we've mostly recovered."
"And compared to appearing early, showing up mid-battle is far better for morale—
and it serves to intimidate the enemy."
Rokujin exhaled wearily.
The death of a dear friend and the disastrous defeat on the front had aged him decades in just two days.
His once-black hair was now streaked with white.
"Then we leave the Third Kazekage and Hanzō to you, Lord Hokage."
He was truly worried for Hiruzen.
Since arriving, the Hokage hadn't rested at all—analyzing the battlefield nonstop.
Chakra and stamina recover quickly, but exhaustion of the mind is not so easily cured.
"The one we must be most cautious of is the Third Kazekage's Magnet Style.
Hanzō is strong personally—but he can only kill one person at a time."
"But the Third Kazekage's jutsu can slaughter thousands.
His abilities are born for war. His presence on the battlefield alone can tilt an entire conflict."
"If he appears, I beg the Hokage to make him the top priority."
"Our only winning strategy is to decapitate the enemy command.
Kill the Third Kazekage and Hanzō, and their army loses its head.
With you here, they wouldn't dare advance.
Then we can wait for reinforcements and strike back."
"But we've completely lost all intelligence from the Land of Rain.
All we can do now is fight a frontal battle."
Jiraiya added:
"Hanzō also has large-scale jutsu.
He has a giant salamander the size of Gamabunta—its poison mist can blanket the entire battlefield. The range is enormous."
"When we ambushed the Suna-nin earlier, that monster blocked us."
"Every shinobi in the front row inhaled the poison.
Everyone except me died."
"The antidotes only slowed the poison. I survived only because Tsunade used her Poison Extraction Jutsu to pull the toxin directly out of my body."
The image of the hundreds of corpses wrapped in white cloth twisted something deep inside Jiraiya's chest.
Hiruzen's expression hardened.
"There's no antidote?"
"We tried every antidote we could make. None worked. And Hanzō's weapons are definitely coated in poison as well."
The Hokage sighed again, looking at Jiraiya.
"…And your body?"
"I'll be fine. I can fight."
Rokujin closed his eyes.
He knew all too well how bad Jiraiya truly was.
That day, when Jiraiya returned—covered in blood, armor gone, half his skin charred black—Rokujin couldn't imagine the willpower it took for him to stand and make his report.
Later, the medics told him:
Jiraiya's internal organs were severely damaged.
Half his body had third-degree burns.
The surface wounds were mostly healed…
But the internal injuries would take at least a month.
"Jiraiya-sama, perhaps you should—"
Before he could finish, Jiraiya turned toward him—just one cold glare, and Rokujin felt a spike of killing intent pierce his spine.
He said no more.
Hiruzen spoke:
"Jiraiya… the intel says Tsunade and Orochimaru are alive. Don't push yourself too hard."
"Alive, yes—but what condition are they in?!"
"Will they be tortured?
Will the Ame-nin extract everything from their minds?!"
"Enough, Jiraiya."
The Hokage held him back.
"I worry for them more than you do. They are my students too."
"If Hanzō doesn't want a death match with Konoha, they won't be harmed too severely."
Just then, a voice called from outside the tent:
"Report! Jiraiya-sama—everyone is assembled!"
The three exchanged glances.
Hiruzen transformed into an ordinary Konoha chunin and followed Jiraiya and Rokujin out of the tent.
Seeing the assembled ranks, Rokujin said:
"Konoha's reinforcements are already on their way.
One day.
If we hold for just one more day—we win."
Hearing this, the Konoha shinobi below regained a spark of hope in their eyes.
---
An hour later — the Suna–Ame alliance appeared
A black mass of shinobi stretched across the horizon.
And at the very front—
Hanzō of the Salamander.
The traps laid along the way—explosive tags, pitfalls, wire traps—inflicted heavy losses on the alliance.
But Hanzō led the vanguard personally, washing the terrain with Water Style, clearing a path through force.
Once past the trap zone, Hanzō never slowed—he surged far ahead of his army.
"That's Hanzō… but no sign of the Third Kazekage."
Jiraiya narrowed his eyes.
"Charging alone… is he afraid of traps?"
"It's fine. I'll join the battle first and look for the Third Kazekage.
In this chaos, Hanzō can't use his wide-range poison mist."
The disguised Hokage slipped into the ranks below.
Jiraiya leapt down as well.
He stood at the front line, raised a kunai, and roared:
"For Konoha!"
"For Konoha!!"
The army echoed behind him.
With a roar, Jiraiya led the charge toward Hanzō.
From atop earth walls formed by Earth Style, Konoha shinobi rained kunai and shuriken onto the alliance like a storm.
The enemy blocked what they could while advancing relentlessly.
Hanzō whirled his chain scythe over his head, knocking aside incoming projectiles.
Seeing the mass of Konoha shinobi ahead, he pulled out an explosive tag—and surged forward with full chakra.
"Pseudo Tandem Explosive Tags."
After fighting Ōnoki, Hanzō finally realized the terrifying potential of this "bug-like" jutsu:
With enough tags, the damage could increase without limit.
When he returned, he took forty thousand explosive tags and began modifying them again.
Storage seals were technically simple—but the sheer number made it exhausting.
Day after day, whenever he had free time, Hanzō etched more seals.
Now, he had finally completed it.
"This time I inscribed seals onto two hundred explosive tags.
Inside each seal, I stored another two hundred tags.
Then I stacked those two hundred sealed tags into this single one."
"I even improved the technique—if the first layer breaks, the spatial seals destabilize and every tag detonates at once."
"Twice the number of explosive tags,
and all detonating simultaneously…"
"I wonder what kind of surprise this 'upgrade' will bring."
Hanzō sighed briefly.
Konoha's real power wasn't this pathetic frontline.
Their forbidden techniques alone could overturn wars.
He had to win quickly.
The longer this dragged on, the worse the outcome.
"Body Flicker Technique."
Hanzō's speed—was rivaled only by the future Fourth Hokage.
In this era before Namikaze Minato's birth,
Hanzō was arguably the fastest man alive.
Even the Kage could not compare.
Ignoring chakra depletion, Hanzō flickered through the battlefield, leaving his own army behind in seconds—and appeared directly before Jiraiya.
"What—?!"
Jiraiya raised his arms instinctively to block—
But the expected strike never came.
He turned—
Hanzō ignored him entirely, rushing deeper into Konoha's formation.
The disguised Hokage suddenly froze—
remembering the Iwa intel from before.
His eyes widened.
He had forgotten—forgotten something critical.
He had been too focused on rushing here, too occupied with analyzing the front lines, too consumed by worry for Tsunade and Orochimaru…
To recall the warning.
No time to think.
Hiruzen released his Transformation Jutsu and exploded forward in pursuit.
"Everyone—run!!"
But Hanzō didn't even register his presence.
With a few more flickers, he had already reached the center of the Konoha formation.
He released the explosive tag—letting it sink into the earth.
"Good.
Five seconds.
That should be enough."
"Body Flicker."
1 second.
Hanzō blurred forward.
Hiruzen turned back—too slow by half a second.
2 seconds.
Several Konoha shinobi realized what was happening and leapt to block Hanzō.
He stepped on one man's face and vaulted past them.
Against a true Kage-level opponent,
genin and chunin were nothing but cannon fodder—able only to spend their lives delaying him.
3 seconds.
Hanzō spotted the Hokage behind him.
He burst chakra and formed hand seals—just for show.
4 seconds.
He glanced at the incoming allied troops in the distance.
"…This distance shouldn't affect them too much."
5 seconds.
The Hokage reached him—
Hanzō took the punch head-on and forced his way through.
He completed his final hand seal.
Then turned his head toward the Hokage and said:
"Secret Art: E = mc²."
"(TL/N - So yeah, idk what this technique's name stands for but its kind of related to Einstein's research? Related to things like nuclear bomb. I dont know the whole picture so you guys have to do your own research on this thing.)