The air at the South Gate tasted like rust and anticipation.
Chiyo’s fingers flexed.
Ten chakra threads shot from her fingertips, a spider’s web of intent, and latched onto the dormant forms of the Chikamatsu Ten Guards.
The puppets shuddered to life, joints clicking, painted eyes fixing on the charging figure of Hanzo.
Sunagakure’s coffers were empty, its people restless.
Hanzo’s war was a convenient diversion.
A debt to Amegakure could be repaid here, with his blood.
Hanzo roared.
He twisted past the first puppet’s lunge, his longsword a silver arc that slammed the second guard into the mud.
He drew back—and the third guard was already there, a spike aimed for his kidney.
The first guard he’d dodged wrapped metal arms around his sword arm, locking the blade.
Hanzo’s eyes widened.
He released the hilt, using the recoil to leap back as the spike tore through his flak jacket.
He landed, spun, decapitated the third puppet with a brutal backhand swing.
A whisper of air.
The first guard flung a cluster of senbon.
Hanzo’s hands flashed.
Substitution Jutsu.
Thud.
Clatter.
A log replaced him, studded with needles.
The wood darkened from brown to a sickly purple-black in three heartbeats.
The poison sizzled.
Hanzo materialized ten feet away, his gaze a glacier.
“You old hag.
You don’t hold back.”
Chiyo’s composure snapped.
Old woman?
Her chakra exploded outward, a visible heat haze that thickened the threads in her hands.
The Ten Guards drew their weapons in a screech of metal—swords, spears, chain-saws, hooks, a hollow barrel that promised fire.
Hanzo’s smirk didn’t reach his eyes.
He tossed his katana aside.
From behind his back, he drew his true weapon: a kusarigama, its chain coiled around his forearm, the curved blade catching the dull light.
“Did no one teach you,” Chiyo’s voice was low, deadly, “that you never comment on a woman’s age?”
The Ten Guards surged forward, twice as fast.
Hanzo retreated, a dance of evasion.
His hands formed a single seal.
His lips curled.
“Fire Release: Exploding Flame Formation!”
Chiyo’s eyebrows shot up.
Her fingers twitched—four guards leapt back to her side.
The remaining six charged the spot Hanzo had indicated.
The earth erupted. New chapters come out on novelping.com first.
Dozens of explosive tags, buried and invisible, flew up and plastered themselves across the six puppets.
Boom.
The concussive wave hit like a physical wall.
Shattered puppet parts rained down—a segmented arm, a cracked mask, a leg spinning into the mud.
Chiyo tugged her threads.
Nothing.
The connection was dust.
She severed the chakra strands, her face tightening.
When had he planted the tags?
Why hadn’t they triggered against Jiraiya?
Hanzo didn’t give her time to think.
The kusarigama whirled, a silver blur aimed at her throat.
Clang!
A bull-headed guard interposed itself, a heavy shield taking the blow.
The puppet didn’t budge.
Puppet Technique: Guard.
Hanzo’s eyes gleamed.
He used the rebound, the chain whipping around his body for momentum, and struck again from the opposite angle.
Kusarigama Double Strike.
The sickle-point punched through the bull-guard’s backplate, through its core, and out its chest.
Hanzo wrenched the chain.
Metal screamed, tearing free in a shower of splinters and gears.
Another puppet lost.
Seven down.
Three remained.
Hanzo licked his lips, the taste of victory coppery.
“Salamander.”
The massive summon appeared in a plume of white smoke, its bulk beside him.
It inhaled, its throat sac bulging, and exhaled a rolling, violet fog.
The poison mist spread, swallowing light, swallowing sound, swallowing Chiyo and her three remaining guards.
Hanzo melted into the mist.
Ninja Art: Scythe Mist Technique.
His footsteps made no sound.
Within the violet cloud, Chiyo snorted.
Her right hand flickered once.
The three final puppets arranged themselves in a triangle around her.
Their jaws unhinged with a series of clicks.
“Three Treasures Absorption.”
The mist churned, then streamed into the open puppet mouths like water down a drain.
The violet haze thinned, revealing Hanzo’s form, caught off-guard, struggling against the pull.
His own technique was being used against him.
Annoyance flashed across his face—a rare crack in the legend. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
The last of the poison vanished into the puppets’ sealed stomachs.
Chiyo smiled.
It didn’t touch her eyes.
“To me.”
Every Sand-ninja broke from their engagements, flowing back to form a wall behind her.
Hanzo’s instincts screamed.
Bad.
He hurled his kusarigama at the three puppets, aiming to shatter them before they could spew his poison back.
A wall of shimmering black grit rose from the earth.
Iron sand.
It caught the kusarigama with a sound like a broken bell and flung it aside.
Hanzo froze.
Magnet Release.
Iron sand.
His blood ran cold.
A man descended from the sky, alighting on the gate’s shattered stonework as if stepping onto a stage.
Spiky blue hair, crossed arms, a gaze that looked down on everything.
The air itself grew heavier.
The Third Kazekage.
He didn’t look at Hanzo.
He simply tilted his head toward the massed Rain-nin forces, his finger pointing.
Chiyo bowed slightly.
“As you command.”
The three puppets opened their mouths again.
This time, they vomited forth the condensed, stolen poison—a concentrated purple torrent that crashed over the Rain-nin like a tidal wave.
“RUN!” Hanzo’s roar was raw.
He was already a blur, shooting toward the distant silhouette of Amegakure.
His men tried to follow.
The ground before them erupted—another wall of iron sand, seamless and thirty feet high.
They scrabbled at it, nails breaking.
The mist touched them.
They choked.
Purple blooms spread across their skin like rotten flowers.
Their strength bled out through their pores.
They collapsed, one by one, a field of twitching, silent forms.
Only when the last Rain-nin had fallen did the Third Kazekage lower his finger.
Chiyo recalled her threads.
The three puppets closed their mouths, the poison once more sealed inside for later study.
She looked at the carnage, then at the Kazekage’s impassive profile.
Hanzo was gone, fleeing for his fortress.
The strongest Kazekage in history had arrived, and with a single gesture, he had turned a battle into a slaughter.
The silence after the screaming was the loudest sound yet.