Chapter 249: Brothers Meet
The battle broke out swiftly, but the war didn't spread as quickly.
The ninja coalition had already taken control of the town, evacuating all civilians to safer locations across the Land of Water. Hidden Mist Village, along with the three surrounding towns, had now become the central battlefield.
"I was once at the heart of a war. During the Second Shinobi World War, I lived in the Land of Rain with my family and friends. But one day, my family was attacked by Konoha ninjas," Nagato said calmly, his tone devoid of emotion.
"They saw my parents as enemies... and killed them."
A heavy silence followed. All eyes slowly turned toward Jiraiya.
So Konoha really was the cause…
Jiraiya's expression darkened with discomfort. At that time, the Land of Rain had declared war on the Land of Fire. Konoha had no choice but to retaliate.
"You don't need to look at Jiraiya-sensei like that. I don't blame him—nor do I blame Konoha."
Nagato's voice softened with sincerity. "In fact, Jiraiya-sensei already knew all of this. He chose to stay in the Land of Rain, putting aside past grudges, just to guide us orphans—giving us the chance to become ninja, to protect ourselves."
"I respect him deeply. I never wanted to be his enemy."
"The existence of war itself is a mistake. Nations go to war out of self-interest, viewing everything from different perspectives. But the result is always the same."
"You kill me, I kill you. Hatred fuels the flames of war. People drenched in sin don't realize they're already in hell—and those who do, still indulge in it because of greed."
"Maybe… the world needs someone to break that cycle. I am that person, chosen by the world. That's why I have these eyes."
He slowly spread his arms, gazing solemnly at everyone present.
"To stand against me is to stand against God and against true peace."
"Do you want your children to inherit a world of hatred? Do you want to live your entire life trapped in endless conflict?"
"Let go of your sins. I will forgive you. Work with me to create a beautiful, peaceful world."
His voice rang with conviction. Clear. Powerful. Echoing across the battlefield.
But then—mocking laughter rose from the ranks.
Anyone who said such things had to be either insane or delusional. Forgive and forget? Follow the man who's become the enemy of the entire ninja world?
Yet... something was wrong.
The laughter stopped.
Some ninja... had stopped fighting.
Some were standing still, seemingly lost in thought. Some even lowered their weapons, looking at Nagato as if his words made sense.
"Wake up!" shouted Kakashi, his voice sharp with urgency.
Throughout the allied army, commanders and squad leaders called out, trying to snap their comrades out of it.
But in a world that revered strength, the words of the strong carried dangerous weight. And Nagato—standing above all, even challenging the Five Kage—was a living god in their eyes.
Quietly, a few disillusioned shinobi who'd lived hard lives in their own villages... turned around.
And struck their own allies.
"Damn it! We should've never let him speak!"
Ōnoki glared at Nagato, furious.
With just a speech, he'd made twisted ideals sound righteous—and even managed to sway allied ninja to his side.
Maybe this talk therapy crap was a bad idea.
"Let's move."
Jiraiya took a deep breath.
He had already gathered enough natural energy and entered Sage Mode.
"According to the plan. Capture him before anyone else gets involved."
Beside Rasa, a red gourd began spewing dense magnetic sand.
It was created using the life of his wife—a memento of his youngest son.
Nagato, sensing the shift in energy around him, sighed with disappointment. "So, there will be no peaceful end to this."
"The world remains blind. I'm sorry, Jiraiya-sensei."
"There's no more point in talking."
Jiraiya leapt high into the sky.
With a cloud of smoke, an enormous toad appeared beneath him.
Covered in arcs of lightning, Darui followed, sprinting up the toad's back and launching into the air.
"Hmph. Overconfident fools," Nagato sneered.
He raised his arm, preparing to unleash Shinra Tensei to repel them.
But suddenly, he paused.
His arms dropped. Instead, he formed hand seals and slapped his palm forward.
"Summoning."
From the smoke emerged strange, moth-like beasts with grotesque bodies. They flapped their wings at high speed and shot toward Jiraiya and Darui.
"Tch!"
These beasts were massive, fast, and numerous. While they couldn't seriously injure Jiraiya or Darui, they were enough to halt their mid-air advance.
After all, unlike Nagato, they couldn't fly.
"I've heard of Ōnoki's Dust Release."
Nagato folded his arms and looked down at the old Tsuchikage, who was slowly gathering chakra.
He floated higher into the sky.
"Trying to trap me with distractions, then erase me with Dust Release? A pity."
"No matter how strong the jutsu, if it can't land, it's meaningless."
Though Shinra Tensei was powerful, it required precise chakra control. To unleash it at full strength and avoid backlash, he needed time to build energy.
So instead, he opted for summoning.
But just as he finished his words—
Boom!
A blob of acidic clay shot toward the spot he'd hovered just a second earlier.
Immediately after, dozens of magnetic sand spears chased him through the air.
Below, Mei Terumi and Rasa had launched a coordinated assault.
Above him, Jiraiya and Darui were ready to strike once the summoned beasts were cleared.
And behind him, Ōnoki glared up, like a coiled serpent preparing a lethal strike.
Dust Release—charged and ready.
"It seems you're in quite a bind," came a smug voice.
Black Zetsu emerged from the shadows, smirking.
Nagato simply gave a cold chuckle and halted mid-flight.
"I'm just toying with them. The more desperate they become, the easier it'll be for them to surrender."
He raised both hands.
As Mei and Rasa's attacks closed in, Nagato extended his palms and made contact with the dissolving mist and the magnetic sand.
And absorbed them.
Their techniques vanished before their eyes.
"I don't need a puppet's vitality to use the Asura Path to absorb chakra."
He panted. The White Zetsu clone fused with his body had begun to wither.
After all, the Asusa Technique didn't return chakra to the user—it simply absorbed and destroyed it. The cost was steep.
"By the way… have they still not located the Jinchūriki?"
Nagato didn't even glance at the frustrated Mei and Rasa below. Instead, he turned his gaze toward the distant battlefield—where the ninja alliance clashed in brutal melee.
In front of the Hidden Mist Village, a thousand-meter-wide area had been reduced to barren yellow earth by Nagato's Shinra Tensei.
Now, only the Five Kage and Nagato remained in the devastated battlefield.
Thousands of kilometers away, chaos reigned as the Allied Ninja Forces clashed in a brutal melee against their rebel counterparts—Hidden Mist defectors and Hidden Rain shinobi. Explosions, roars, and desperate cries echoed across the battlefield.
According to the war strategy, the situation should have been swiftly brought under control. But Nagato's declaration had thrown everything into disarray.
It wasn't the number of defectors that broke the plan—it was the breakdown of the simple but crucial rule: using forehead protectors to distinguish friend from foe. The fog, dust, and smoke rendered all visual cues meaningless. Now, the coalition couldn't even tell allies from enemies.
This confusion crippled their ability to use large-scale ninjutsu. Afraid of accidentally harming their own, the Allied Forces had to rely on taijutsu, kenjutsu, smaller ninjutsu, and genjutsu to engage enemies from the Mist, Rain, and their own ranks. The pace of the battlefield slowed drastically.
Worse yet... there were unknown powerhouses blending into the fray, faking weakness while seizing the chance to strike.
---
"Hey, hey, hey. Isn't it kinda cheap for us to pretend to be rebel Mist ninjas and just dive in like this?"
Swinging his sickle nonchalantly, Hidan weaved through the fighting shinobi. "Deidara's having way too much fun blowing stuff up. I still don't get the thrill of picking on weaklings."
To him, it didn't matter whether the target was a Mist traitor or a coalition ninja. As long as they weren't from Amegakure and wearing Mist uniforms, he killed without hesitation.
After all, Nagato never considered anyone outside Amegakure his true allies.
Explosions boomed in the distance—distinct and rhythmic.
Hidan smirked. "Yup, that's Deidara."
The direction of the blasts matched the coordinates where Deidara and Sasori had been assigned to infiltrate the battle.
"Would've been nice if this ended quickly," Kakuzu muttered. "Do you think you're invincible just because you can't die?"
"That's not it," Hidan replied with a yawn. "But a massacre without an audience... kinda dull, you know?"
"Where'd that old fossil Onoki land anyway? He got blasted sky-high by Nagato. I want to check if he left behind some blood."
"Don't waste time," Kakuzu snapped. "Zetsu already got intel from a senior official in Iwagakure. The Jinchūriki are stationed with the logistics squad."
"We need to cut through the battlefield and get there. Itachi will obviously go straight to his brother, and Kisame will follow. We don't have many left who can handle capturing the Jinchūriki."
"As for the Five Kage, Nagato will keep them busy. The outcome of the war doesn't matter. What matters is that the Jinchūriki fall into our hands."
"Yeah, yeah, I got it," Hidan said with a wave of his hand.
Despite his reckless nature, even Hidan understood the bigger picture.
---
Elsewhere, Uchiha Itachi made no effort to conceal his true objective—locating his brother.
"Itachi, our mission is to capture the Jinchūriki," Kisame reminded him, carving through enemies with Samehada.
Even while battling, he kept one eye cautiously on Itachi.
"Go ahead. I've got something else to do."
Itachi's voice was cold, dismissive.
Kisame's eyes narrowed. "You seriously planning to betray us?"
"I don't have much time left, Kisame," Itachi replied calmly. "I'm not going to waste what I do have on you. Go do your job."
He didn't lift a finger against the shinobi around him—whether Akatsuki or Allied Forces. His intent was clear.
After a moment's hesitation, Kisame lowered his guard. He didn't try to stop Itachi but silently followed him.
Itachi didn't object.
He truly didn't have time to spare.
The world around him was already starting to blur. In his clouded vision, he finally saw a familiar silhouette.
That figure... had also noticed him.
"Uchiha... Itachi!"
The voice cracked with disbelief and emotion.
Itachi stopped. He stared silently at the figure approaching him—step by step.
The short blade in his hand twitched slightly. The three magatama in his Sharingan spun faster.
No one—Genin, Chūnin, even Jōnin—could halt Sasuke now. Every foe in his path fell in an instant.
He tore through the battlefield like a whirlwind, unstoppable.
"Good," Itachi murmured softly.
There was warmth in his gaze—a rare flicker of emotion.
Compared to the past... Sasuke had grown stronger. So much stronger.
And now...
Let me be your final whetstone.
---
"Do you think... they can win?"
High on an unnamed mountain, the logistics troops passing nearby remained oblivious to the two observers atop the peak.
Ryosuke and Shanks stood watching the chaos unfold below.
"Maybe," Ryosuke answered uncertainly. "There are too many variables in play."
Compared to the distant battlefront, their perch was untouched by war.
Ryosuke wasn't sure who would emerge victorious—Nagato or the Five Kage—but one thing seemed certain.
The Allied Ninja Forces would lose.
This war had come too soon.
Too many of the key pieces hadn't matured yet.
The new generation of Konoha—Yamanaka Ino, Akimichi Choji, and others—were still fresh Genin, unfit for this scale of conflict.
Kakashi hadn't awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan, nor unlocked his critical wartime ability—Kamui.
Meanwhile, Akatsuki was at full strength. None of their core members had been lost in the pursuit of the tailed beasts.
At this stage in the original timeline, Akatsuki should've been fractured.
Instead, they were intact, and deadlier than ever.
Even Nagato had evolved after his earlier defeat—patching up the flaws in his Rinnegan usage.
The Allied Forces, however, had suffered greatly from years of strife.
The death of the Fourth Raikage. The bloodshed in Iwagakure and Kumogakure. The losses Konoha endured through repeated invasions.
All of it compounded the internal pressure weighing on the coalition.
Taking it all in, Ryosuke could only conclude—this wasn't their battle to win.
Still, he had no intention of taking advantage of the chaos.
He didn't want to prey on the weak.
Nor did he want to miss the chance to face Kaguya Ōtsutsuki.
So, he chose to stay out of the fight for now—content to watch alongside Shanks.
But...
Where was Orochimaru?
Even the Hyuga's intelligence division had no recent information on him.
His agents, too, had vanished without a trace.
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